Was a separate Jewish state necessary - Essay Example

Anti-Semitism is commonly said to be the cause which forced the Jews to seek out a separate homeland of their own. This idea is supported by Herzl (1896) who gives several accounts of how Jews were persecuted in his own times and those times which are recorded by history. The keenest memory of anti-Semitic behaviour comes in the form of the German Jews who were persecuted, troubled and harassed by the Nazi regime. The holocaust brought upon by the Nazi regime was a horrifying experience for the European Jews but anti-Semitic feelings also ran to a large extent across Europe and America.

Isseroff (2006) says that anti-Zionist propaganda is the main reason why some people suggest that Israel was created out of pity for the Jews of Europe after the Second World War. For him the European influence existed already before the events of the Second World War : ‘Israel was created as a result of the League of Nations Mandate of 1922, which granted a mandate to Great Britain to create a "National Home" for the Jews in Palestine’ (Isseroff, 2006, Pg. 1). Even before the holocaust, and in fact, long before the discovery of the new world, there had been calls for a separate Jewish state.

Arguments for a Jewish country had been put forward by many Jewish and non-Jewish thinkers who suggested that separating the Jews from mainstream Europe might be a possible answer to the Jewish question. Despite these calls for a Jewish state, there have been arguments against a separate country for Jews (Scham, 2002). These arguments are based on economic and social factors and the debate means that there is more to the story than can be discerned from a cursory glance. Even the historical background of the Jewish persecution and the problems between the Jews and other nations would require volumes of information.

The counterpoints to a separate Jewish state come from many sources and although charges of anti-Semitism can be made against those