User:Dolphin372/sandbox

Revisionist Zionism

Ideology
The Revisionist Zionist movement did not have a clearly defined ideology which was more of a feature of Zionists on the left. Initially, the stance of the movement was to reject the policies of the contemporary Zionist leadership under Chaim Weizmann. The lack of a coherent ideology was something the movement took pride in since it removed them from the brand of traditional party politics and did not emphasize identification with religion or social class. However, despite the lack of a clear ideology, one clear belief of the original Revisionist leadership was the need to create a Jewish majority in Palestine despite the protests of the indigenous Arab population in the land.

Jabotinsky, the founder of Revisionist Zionism, wanted to establish Revisionist Zionism as a separate movement that existed independently of the general Zionist movement. However, Revisionist delegates would not join Jabotinsky in announcing immediate succession from the Zionist movement. The two central points of the Revisionist program were that Trans-Jordan belonged to the Zionists and that the British must reconstitute the Jewish Legion as a permanent part of the military force in Palestine. The British had dissolved the Jewish Legion and separated Trans-Jordan from the territory given to the Jewish state under the Balfour Declaration after World War I.

Jabotinsky believed that voluntary consent from the Arabs to Zionism and peaceful coexistence with the Arabs were not possible. Jabotinsky anticipated that the Arabs would resist against Jewish settlement in Palestine so he believed that the Zionists needed protection. Because of this, Jabotinsky advocated for an "iron wall" to assist the Zionist movement, meaning that he wanted a military force independent of the Arab population that the Arabs would not be able to resist successfully. This military force would protect Jewish immigration to Palestine and would allow the goals of Zionism to be achieved. This was one of the more radical and militant perspectives among Zionist thinkers.

Jabotinsky was unsympathetic towards fascism in his early years. However, he became increasingly aligned with fascism during the 1930s, agreeing with the outlawing of strikes and militarism that fascism entailed. He supported the outlawing of strikes because he was fervently anti-socialist and saw socialism as incompatible with Zionism. He was sympathetic to the ideology of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini during the 1930s. This changed when Mussolini aligned himself with Adolf Hitler, at which point Jabotinsky cut ties with Mussolini. However, Jabotinsky retained his belief that the goals of Zionism could only be achieved by taking over Palestine through a military effort. Jabotinsky was organized the Jewish Legion which was a force of 5,000 soldiers that contributed to the British conquest of Palestine during World War I. In addition, Jabotinsky organized the Haganah in 1920 which became a central part of the Israeli army in the future.

Jabotinsky said that there were three common factors between fascism and Revisionist Zionism which were the denial of a class struggle, "compulsory arbitration" of labor disputes, and prioritizing national interests over the interests of a specific social or economic class.

Jabotinsky believed that it was necessary for people to own private property in order to have liberty which was part of his anti-materialist, anti-communist world view. Despite this belief, he still promised that the bourgeois regime that he wanted to take power in he Jewish state would eliminate poverty. Five figures in particular contributed to the formation of Jabotinsky's ideology: English historian Henry Thomas Buckle, Italian philosopher and historian Benedetto Croce, social reformer Josef Popper-Linkeus, philosopher Antonio Labriola, and Spanish philosopher Miguel de Unamuno.