Ilan Pappe: Zionism began as a Christian project

Zionism began as an evangelical Christian concept and later an active project. It appeared as a religious appeal to the faithful both to aid and be prepared for the ‘return of the Jews’ to Palestine and the establishment of a Jewish state there as the fulfilment of God’s will. But soon after, the Christians involved in this campaign politicised this ‘theology of return’, once they realised that a similar notion had begun to emerge among European Jews, who despaired of finding a solution to the never-ending anti-Semitism on the continent. The Christian desire to see a Jewish Palestine coincided with a similar European Jewish vision in the late nineteenth century.

But the Zionist lobby didn’t confine itself to Christian evangelicals. Jews, looking for a solution to seemingly intractable oppression in Europe, started to rally around the idea of a state of their own – with visions ranging from a socialist Utopia on Palestinian soil to a modern state in alliance with the Western imperial powers.