ثورة فلسطين - أسبابها ونتائجها
The Palestine Revolt: Its Causes and Consequencesby Muḥammad Rashīd Riḍā

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Printed page 389

مجيئه سيكون بقوة إلهية فوق قوى البشر، كما يعتقد أكثر المسلمين في المسيح والمهدي المنتظر، فلهذا لم يكونوا يستعدون لاستعادة الملك بسعي الشعب، فلما طال عليهم الأمد، وكثر فيهم أحرار الفكر الذين لا يؤمنون بهذا الوعد كما انتشر واستقر، أسسوا الجمعية الصهيونية للسعي إلى ذلك بقوة الشعب اليهودي المالية والمعنوية، وبجعل الاعتقاد التقليدي حاديًا لهم في هذا السعي وقوة روحية تؤيد سائر القوى الكسبية، وهذا ما نبهنا له المسلمين في أمر المهدي في كتابنا (الحكمة الشرعية) ثم في المنار، وأين المسلمون من علم اليهود وحزمهم وتكافلهم؟

تأسيس الصهيونية ومؤسسها

إن المؤسس للصهيونية كاتب من يهود بلاد المجر كان من علماء القانون (اسمه تيودور هرتزل) أنشأ في سنة 1896 صحيفة باسم (دولة يهودية) للدعوة إلى تأسيس هذه الدولة في فلسطين، فتقبلها الكثيرون من اليهود في أقطار العالم بالبهجة والأمل، وارتاب كثيرون منهم في نجاح هذا العمل، وتأسست الجمعية الرسمية لها في العام التالي لإنشاء الصحيفة، وطفقوا يجمعون لها الأموال ويؤسسون الفروع ويعقدون المؤتمرات، حتى إنهم أسسوا لها مصرفًا ماليًّا خاصًّا وصنفوا لها (دائرة معارف) خاصة، وقد قرر المجمع أو المؤتمر الصهيوني الأول ما وضعه (هرزل) من غرضها وغايتها وعبر عنه بأنه إنشاء وطن شرعي للشعب اليهودي في فلسطين تعترف به الدول، فيكونون فيه كالإنكليز في الجزائر البريطانية، والفرنسيين في فرنسة ... إلخ، فيؤسسون الدولة اليهودية (استعدادًا لمجيء مسيا المنتظر، الذي تخضع له شعوب البشر) وقرر الوسائل لذلك، وهي البدء باستعمار فلسطين (1) بامتلاك الأرض وعمارتها بالزراعة والصناعة وسائر الأعمال الاقتصادية والمهن الحرة، و (2) بجمع كلمة الشعوب اليهودية في الشرق والغرب واتحادهم للتعاون على هذا العمل لتلك الغاية، بإنشاء الجمعيات في كل قطر بما لا يخالف قوانين حكومته، و (3) بإحياء الشعور الإسرائيلي الملي وتقوية آماله في مآله، و (4) بالسعي لدى الدول لنيل عطفها على الصهيونية ومساعدتها على تحقيق أمنيتها.

وقد افترص الصهيونيون انفجار براكين الحرب العامة في العالم، فكان من

English
translation

his coming would be through divine power beyond human power, as most Muslims believe concerning the Messiah and the awaited Mahdi. They therefore made no effort as a people to regain the kingdom. As time passed, freethinkers who did not believe this promise grew numerous among them, and freethought spread and took root. They founded the Zionist association to seek that goal through the Jewish people's financial and moral power. They made the traditional belief an incentive in this effort and a spiritual force supporting their other acquired strengths. This is what we urged Muslims to consider concerning the Mahdi in our book Legal Wisdom and later in al-Manār. But how do Muslims compare with Jews in learning, resolve, and mutual support?

The founding of Zionism and its founder

The founder of Zionism was a Hungarian Jewish writer trained in law named Theodor Herzl. In 1896 he produced a paper called The Jewish State to call for its establishment in Palestine. Many Jews around the world received it with joy and hope, while many doubted that the undertaking could succeed. Its formal association was founded the year after the paper appeared. Its members began raising money, establishing branches, and holding congresses; they even founded a bank and compiled an encyclopedia of their own. The first Zionist congress adopted the aim Herzl had set out: to establish a lawful homeland for the Jewish people in Palestine, recognized by states, so that they would be there as the English are in the British Isles and the French in France. They would establish the Jewish state in preparation for the coming of the awaited Messiah, to whom the peoples of humanity would submit. The congress also adopted the means to this end: first, to begin colonizing Palestine by acquiring land and developing it through agriculture, industry, other economic activity, and the professions; second, to unite Jewish communities in East and West for this work by founding associations in each country within its laws; third, to revive Jewish national feeling and strengthen hopes for its future; and fourth, to seek the favor of states and their help in fulfilling Zionism's aim.

The Zionists seized the eruption of the world war as an opportunity. Among

Analysis

Riḍā describes Zionism as a turn from waiting for a messiah to using Jewish money, organization, and political influence. He names Herzl, gives 1896 and the following year, and lists aims attributed to the first Zionist congress. This page is evidence of how Riḍā represented the movement. A digitized 1896 copy of Herzl's Der Judenstaat shows a printed booklet, despite Riḍā's term "paper". The 1898 German stenographic proceedings of the 1897 congress print the four means and record the final public-law wording as accepted by acclamation. They contain no adopted plan for humanity to submit to a future Messiah. That addition belongs to Riḍā's account, not to the adopted program. The paragraph on the world war continues on p. 390. Source details and URLs are in this page's apparatus.

The World Zionist Organization confirms that the 1897 congress established the organization, so Riḍā's sequence after Herzl's 1896 publication is sound. Zionist institutional records also confirm the Jewish Colonial Trust. The Central Zionist Archives dates its records from 1899, while a later World Zionist Organization report says it had operated since 1898. Riḍā gives no bank date on this page. These institutional checks confirm the organization and bank, not his account of hidden aims.

The twelve-volume Jewish Encyclopedia also confirms the existence of the reference work Riḍā mentions. Its own preface dates organization of the project to editorial meetings in New York in 1899, and the published set appeared from 1901 to 1906 under Isidore Singer and a scholarly board through Funk & Wagnalls. This supports the bare claim that a Jewish encyclopedia was compiled. It does not show that the World Zionist Organization produced it or that a Zionist congress adopted it as part of the Basel program.