Learn about the history of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, equality and justice by exploring major events in the history of their oppression on this day of the year.
20 April
NAPOLEON FLIRTS WITH ZIONISM
On this day in 1799, Napoleon issued a call for a Jewish Palestine as a bulwark against Britain, a century before the birth of Jewish Zionism. “In year 7 of the French Republic, Buonaparte, Commander-in-Chief of the Armies of the French Republic in Africa and Asia - to the rightful heirs of Palestine“...herewith calls on you…to take over that which has been conquered and, with French warranty and support...to maintain it against all comers.”
تودد نابليون الى الصهيونية
20 أبريل
في مثل هذا اليوم من عام 1799 ، أصدر نابليون دعوة لجعل فلسطين يهودية كحصن ضد بريطانيا ، قبل قرن من ولادة الصهيونية اليهودية. "في العام السابع للجمهورية الفرنسية ، وجه بونابارت ، القائد العام لجيوش الجمهورية الفرنسية في إفريقيا وآسيا ، دعوته إلى الوريث الحقيقي لفلسطين " ... في ما يلي ادعوكم ...للاستيلاء على ما تم احتلاله منكم وبضمان ودعم فرنسي ...وذلك للحفاظ عليها ضد كل الغزاة القادمين ".
The idea to use Jews to establish a European settler colony in the Middle East was driven by a similar strategic calculation to that which fuelled the Balfour Declaration 118 years later. Napoleon's Zionist call was short-lived and came to nought.
Napoleon dropped the idea as soon as he returned to France and adopted a policy directly opposed to the fundamental tenets of Herzl's future Jewish Zionism: "Napoleon's big contribution came, in fact, in the form of promoting the incorporation of the Jews into French society" as equal citizens. Historian Mordechai Gichon, author of Napoleon in the Holy Land, agrees that Napoleon's dalliance with Zionism was short-lived: "When he returned to France and became its ruler, Zionism was replaced by an approach according to which France is the country of the Jews."
A century later, when Herzl was seeking a European military power to adopt the Zionist colonising project, he tried his luck with Germany. In a March 1899 letter to the Kaiser he hoped: "What couldn't be fulfilled under the rule of Napoleon I can be fulfilled by Wilhelm II."
Full text of Napoleon's Zionist proposal almost a century before Herzl's First Zionist Congress:
General Headquarters, Jerusalem 1st Floreal, April
20th, 1799, in the year of 7 of the French Republic
BUONAPARTE, COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF OF THE ARMIES OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC IN AFRICA AND ASIA, TO THE RIGHTFUL HEIRS OF PALESTINE.
Israelites, unique nation, whom, in thousands of years, lust of conquest and tyranny have been able to be deprived of their ancestral lands, but not of name and national existence !
Attentive and impartial observers of the destinies of nations, even though not endowed with the gifts of seers like Isaiah and Joel, have long since also felt what these, with beautiful and uplifting faith, have foretold when they saw the approaching destruction of their kingdom and fatherland: And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads; they shall obtain joy and gladness and sorrow and sighing shall flee away. (Isaiah 35,10)
Arise then, with gladness, ye exiled ! A war unexampled In the annals of history, waged in self-defense by a nation whose hereditary lands were regarded by its enemies as plunder to be divided, arbitrarily and at their convenience, by a stroke of the pen of Cabinets, avenges its own shame and the shame of the remotest nations, long forgotten under the yoke of slavery, and also, the almost two-thousand-year-old ignominy put upon you; and, while time and circumstances would seem to be least favourable to a restatement of your claims or even to their expression ,and indeed to be compelling their complet abandonment, it offers to you at this very time, and contrary to all expectations, Israel's patrimony !
The young army with which Providence has sent me hither, let by justice and accompanied by victory, has made Jerusalem my head-quarters and will, within a few days, transfer them to Damascus, a proximity which is no longer terrifying to David's city.
Rightful heirs of Palestine !
The great nation which does not trade in men and countries as did those which sold your ancestors unto all people (Joel,4,6) herewith calls on you not indeed to conquer your patrimony; nay, only to take over that which has been conquered and, with that nation's warranty and support, to remain master of it to maintain it against all comers.
Arise! Show that the former overwhelming might of your oppressors has but repressed the courage of the descendants of those heroes who alliance of brothers would have done honour even to Sparta and Rome (Maccabees 12, 15) but that the two thousand years of treatment as slaves have not succeeded in stifling it.
Hasten! Now is the moment, which may not return for thousands of years, to claim the restoration of civic rights among the population of the universe which had been shamefully withheld from you for thousands of years, your political existence as a nation among the nations, and the unlimited natural right to worship Jehovah in accordance with your faith, publicly and most probably forever (JoeI 4,20).2-minute video on Napoleon's and Lord Palmerston's Zionist efforts well before Herzl was born.