Existence Of Israel With No Holocaust/A Much Smaller Holocaust

CaliGuy

Banned
1. Would the state of Israel still have been created if the Holocaust had not occurred? For instance, this could realistically occur if Hitler and the Nazis never come to power in Germany.

2. Would the state of Israel still have been created if the Holocaust occurred but was much smaller in scale? For instance, this could occur if the Nazi offensive into France in 1940 fails, after which point the Nazis kill several hundred thousand Jews but are unable to systematically kill all/almost all Jews under their control before they lose power.

Anyway, any thoughts on these two questions?
 
1. Probably. Zionism as a force in and out of Palestine began the second half of the 19th Century. There are over half a million Jews in Palestine in 1939 OTL. Without the need to find somewhere to put the Jewish DPs after the war, then the specific events leading to 1947/8 might not occur exactly as they did, but one way or another the Zionists are going to push for a state in Palestine at some point. Without the DPs, they might lose where they won OTL, but then, maybe without 6 million dead Jews, some large portion of them would go to Israel, say, in the event of a radicalizing Poland or Soviet invasion of Poland.

2. Absolutely.

In general, I think the importance of the Holocaust is vastly overstated for the establishment of the State of Israel; it goes along with the idea that Israel was established by the Great Powers, which is completely untrue. Israel was established by the Zionists, with very little aid from, and actually quite a bit of opposition from, the Great Powers.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
1. Probably. Zionism as a force in and out of Palestine began the second half of the 19th Century. There are over half a million Jews in Palestine in 1939 OTL. Without the need to find somewhere to put the Jewish DPs after the war, then the specific events leading to 1947/8 might not occur exactly as they did, but one way or another the Zionists are going to push for a state in Palestine at some point. Without the DPs, they might lose where they won OTL, but then, maybe without 6 million dead Jews, some large portion of them would go to Israel, say, in the event of a radicalizing Poland or Soviet invasion of Poland.

2. Absolutely.

In general, I think the importance of the Holocaust is vastly overstated for the establishment of the State of Israel; it goes along with the idea that Israel was established by the Great Powers, which is completely untrue. Israel was established by the Zionists, with very little aid from, and actually quite a bit of opposition from, the Great Powers.
In regards to your last point here, I would like to point out that it was the 1947 UN Partition Plan which gave Israel international legitimacy. Indeed, had such a plan not been approved by the LON or UN, Israel might have had much less international legitimacy than it actually had (assuming that it would have still been created, that is).
 
With 1, Almost certainly not. There's a modern push to disconnect the establishment of Israel with the war and the Holocaust, but the link was pretty obvious at the time.
 
1. Probably. Zionism as a force in and out of Palestine began the second half of the 19th Century. There are over half a million Jews in Palestine in 1939 OTL. Without the need to find somewhere to put the Jewish DPs after the war, then the specific events leading to 1947/8 might not occur exactly as they did, but one way or another the Zionists are going to push for a state in Palestine at some point. Without the DPs, they might lose where they won OTL, but then, maybe without 6 million dead Jews, some large portion of them would go to Israel, say, in the event of a radicalizing Poland or Soviet invasion of Poland.
It is worth mentioning that the Peel Plan (for partition) was in place before 1939, the likelihood is that it would have gone ahead (if only through bureaucratic inertia) if WW2 didn't happen (e.g. if the Nazis were overthrown during the Munich Crisis, the scenario I explore in my sigged TL). The result would have been the formation of a significantly smaller State of Israel, probably slightly earlier.
 
It is worth mentioning that the Peel Plan (for partition) was in place before 1939, the likelihood is that it would have gone ahead (if only through bureaucratic inertia) if WW2 didn't happen (e.g. if the Nazis were overthrown during the Munich Crisis, the scenario I explore in my sigged TL). The result would have been the formation of a significantly smaller State of Israel, probably slightly earlier.

Maybe the question should've been, would Israel have survived for long without the holocaust? Just like American jews who, no matter how gung ho they are for Israel, they remain here European jews would've preferred safer, more comfortable lives where they were than live a spartan life in the Mideast. With a significantly smaller population, and without the holocaust as a propaganda weapon to drum up aid and support, Israel might not have held out very long against adversaries heavily armed by the Soviets. Even if they still could fight their enemies to a draw on the battlefield, the psychological toll of a precarious existence would've caused too many to leave ultimately leading to collapse. So, ironically enough, no Adolf no Israel. :)
 
The Holocaust destroyed the Yiddishisht movement. Without it, or with a much lesser form of it, said movement could still be allowed to flourish and develop as a counter to Zionism.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
It is worth mentioning that the Peel Plan (for partition) was in place before 1939, the likelihood is that it would have gone ahead (if only through bureaucratic inertia) if WW2 didn't happen (e.g. if the Nazis were overthrown during the Munich Crisis, the scenario I explore in my sigged TL). The result would have been the formation of a significantly smaller State of Israel, probably slightly earlier.
What about if WWII would have happened but would have ended much sooner (perhaps due to no Fall of France), though?
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Maybe the question should've been, would Israel have survived for long without the holocaust? Just like American jews who, no matter how gung ho they are for Israel, they remain here European jews would've preferred safer, more comfortable lives where they were than live a spartan life in the Mideast. With a significantly smaller population, and without the holocaust as a propaganda weapon to drum up aid and support, Israel might not have held out very long against adversaries heavily armed by the Soviets. Even if they still could fight their enemies to a draw on the battlefield, the psychological toll of a precarious existence would've caused too many to leave ultimately leading to collapse. So, ironically enough, no Adolf no Israel. :)
Yeah, this is what I am wondering about as well. Of course, given many Zionist leaders' socialist inclinations, one might wonder if the Soviets would have been the ones who would have been supporting Israel in this TL while the West would have opposed Israel and supported the Arabs (due to the West viewing Israel as a rogue state which was created as the result of a successful insurgency against a legitimate Palestinian government).
 
In the 1930s, not only Germany but many other countries in Europe (Hungary, Romania, Italy as examples) passed various antisemitic laws that limited Jewish participation in the civil service, professions, education (both as teachers and students especially at universities). This was a sharp and painful reversal of the gains made in the last 100 years. Antisemitism and antisemitic parties were on the rise elsewhere in Europe if the legal limitations were not there (think France for example). In Poland, after the war, there were pogroms against Jewish survivors and reclamation of property was resisted, often violently. All of this would add to the basic driver behind Zionism that Jews could only be truly free and secure in their own state, so emigration to Palestine is likely to see a huge bump.

The UK, and the USA, both of which saw no occupation (and therefore no direct effect of the Holocaust) both had significant antisemitism. Quotas for university and professional school attendance, restricted housing including entire subdivision and towns, and much more. Both the UK and the USA, especially the latter, had severe limits on Jewish immigration and the USA, even after the Holocaust, was stingy in accepting Jewish immigrants. If there is no Holocaust, or it is much reduced due to less German success in the war I can't see the USA opening immigration quotas even as much as it did postwar OTL and the efforts to keep Jews out of the western hemisphere that occurred OTL will probably continue. The Holocaust did much to make overt antisemitism less acceptable, although OTL quotas in Ivy League colleges and housing restrictions continued until the early 1960s.

The point of all of this is that in the scenario absent a Holocaust, or one that is much reduced there will be just as much of Zionist drive as OTL. All of the countries that refused to accept many or even any Jews prior to the war in this scenario are unlikely to change policies in any significant way, so where do the Jews who want to leave go to if not Israel. Obviously the borders will be different, timing will be different but since the plan for a Jewish state (and Arab state) is in place... FWIW NONE of the states created during decolonialization, including Syria, Jordan, Lebanon were brought in to being by UN fiat or vote and did not need it for legitimization. No other territories that were mandatory either from the League of Nations or the UN had a "vote" to establish them. The UN got involved because the UK punted the problem, not because it was necessary.
 
Yeah, this is what I am wondering about as well. Of course, given many Zionist leaders' socialist inclinations, one might wonder if the Soviets would have been the ones who would have been supporting Israel in this TL while the West would have opposed Israel and supported the Arabs (due to the West viewing Israel as a rogue state which was created as the result of a successful insurgency against a legitimate Palestinian government).

If Stalin doesn't get removed by butterflies, any Soviet support for Israel is highly unlikely. And I can't really see antisemitism dissipating much, without the collective guilt caused by the Holocaust. So, no Soviet support for sure.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
If Stalin doesn't get removed by butterflies, any Soviet support for Israel is highly unlikely. And I can't really see antisemitism dissipating much, without the collective guilt caused by the Holocaust. So, no Soviet support for sure.
Wouldn't a socialist state in the Middle East hold some appeal for Stalin, though?
 
while many early Israeli leaders were socialist they were not communist by and large, and not "friends" of Stalin... remember before and after WWII the communists almost everywhere, under direction from Moscow, attacked socialists/social democrats as "social fascists" and in the postwar period pushed them out as government as assiduously as anyone else.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
while many early Israeli leaders were socialist they were not communist by and large, and not "friends" of Stalin... remember before and after WWII the communists almost everywhere, under direction from Moscow, attacked socialists/social democrats as "social fascists" and in the postwar period pushed them out as government as assiduously as anyone else.
Politics can make strange bedfellows, though.
 
Wouldn't a socialist state in the Middle East hold some appeal for Stalin, though?

Late in his life, Stalin was very much antisemitic. It's hard to see him actually working with them, especially in a world where semitism is not yet disenfranchised from prejudice.
 

CaliGuy

Banned
Late in his life, Stalin was very much antisemitic. It's hard to see him actually working with them, especially in a world where semitism is not yet disenfranchised from prejudice.
Wasn't he very anti-Semitic in response to Israel refusing to be a Soviet ally, though?
 
Wasn't he very anti-Semitic in response to Israel refusing to be a Soviet ally, though?

Stalin's antisemitism predates Israel. Plus, it's not like Israel told the Soviets to take a hike; rather, the Soviets decided (probably correctly) that it was better politics to turn to the Arabs, rich in oil and angry against the West. This meant no Israel for the Soviets.

Stalin's antisemitism is a curious thing though. It might have been real - God knows that Russia before the Revolution was a hotbed of antisemitism (it's the birthplace of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, for one, plus the Canton Schools, the Pogroms...

However, a disproportionate amount of the Soviet leadership was Jewish in the early years of the Union (more or less before Stalin started cracking down on them), and antisemitism gave Stalin a powerful tool to use to rally people at all levels against his enemies and rivals. Even if he didn't actually hate Jews himself, antisemitism was very useful for him.

In regards to your last point here, I would like to point out that it was the 1947 UN Partition Plan which gave Israel international legitimacy. Indeed, had such a plan not been approved by the LON or UN, Israel might have had much less international legitimacy than it actually had (assuming that it would have still been created, that is).

There are a lot of countries that have formed since 1947. Very few of them were created by UN resolution. The UN would have been happy to recognize Israel post facto (or not, I guess, if the Arabs were able to rally enough resistance to the idea). I'm not sure how much the "legitimacy of the UN resolution" has actually helped, especially considering that none of the Powers would touch Israel until the British and French needed them for some skullduggery, and a significant number of countries still don't have relations with them.
 
Yeah, this is what I am wondering about as well. Of course, given many Zionist leaders' socialist inclinations, one might wonder if the Soviets would have been the ones who would have been supporting Israel in this TL while the West would have opposed Israel and supported the Arabs (due to the West viewing Israel as a rogue state which was created as the result of a successful insurgency against a legitimate Palestinian government).

I very much doubt the Soviets would've supported Israel for long. I think inevitably they would've backed the arabs simply because they were in a competition for world influence with the West and the arab world is vastly bigger and economically more important than Israel. I think it was Kosygin (or Podgorny?) who said to Johnson at Glassboro in '67 "I can't understand you Americans backing Israel. There are 100 million arabs and only three million jews." And he said this in the wake of the '67 war. Israel's military proficiency didn't alter fundamental geopolitical realities.
 
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