World War II & the Holocaust: Necessary Conditions for Modern Israel?

Abstract

A central argument of anti-Zionists is that the Holocaust was a “pretext” for Israel’s 1948 establishment. Because of their belief in the Holocaust's centrality, Israel's opponents sometimes deny the Holocaust — inferring that if the justification for Israel's founding was the Holocaust, and if the Holocaust is a myth, then the justification underlying Israel's foundation is illegitimate. In this essay, I argue that the "Israel happened because the Holocaust happened" argument is false and, more importantly, pernicious. While the Second World War certainly accelerated Israel's creation — opening the eyes of non-Jews to the validity of Jewish anxiety — it was one factor of many. The groundwork had been laid long before the Second World War through the efforts of late 19th and early 20th century Jewish immigrants to the Levant; these refugees established the nascent political, economic, and military institutions that would ultimately become formalized as the state of Israel. .