All five writers called for a national home for the Jewish people, and the creation of a sovereign state which could exercise power. The inescapable internal problem is the presence of an Arab minority that now comprises one fifth of the population. The Zionist pioneers, aware of this problem, established individual and collective rights for this minority.
Whatever the different formulations of Zionism, all proponents share the view that the area is the birthplace and the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people, linked by historical ties and by religious and cultural traditions. Zionism did not and does not call for expelling the non-Jewish population in the disputed land; and despite the United Nations General Assembly Resolution 3379 of November 10, 1975 – revoked in 1991 – that Zionism was a form of Racism, Zionism a not a racist concept.
Netanhayu serves a valuable role in reminding us of the need to establish a safe and secure state in which Jews can live a healthy and normal life, rather than, as in the 1940s, having boatloads of refugees turned away, leaving them to drown.
Originally published by Gatestone Institute http://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/