Editing Israel Zangwill (section)

====Jewish politics====
Zangwill was also involved with specifically Jewish issues as an assimilationist, an early Zionist, and a [[Jewish Territorialist Organization|territorialist]].<ref name=MJR /> Jewish territorialism was a political movement that emerged as a response to the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe during the early 20th century. It proposed the establishment of a Jewish homeland outside of Palestine, offering alternative solutions to the ongoing debate about Jewish self-determination and Zionism.<ref>{{Citation |last=Almagor |first=Laura |title='The Soul is Greater than the Soil': Jewish Territorialism and the Jewish Future beyond Europe and Palestine (1905–1960) |date= 2022 |url=https://www.schoeningh.de/edcollchap-oa/book/9783657708406/BP000018.xml |work=Constructing and Experiencing Jewish Identity |pages=141–147 |access-date=18 May 2023 |publisher=Brill Schöningh |language=en |doi=10.30965/9783657708406_010 |isbn=978-3-657-70840-6|doi-access=free }}</ref> After having for a time endorsed [[Theodor Herzl]], including presiding over a meeting at the Maccabean Club, London, addressed by Herzl on 24 November 1895, and endorsing the main Palestine-oriented Zionist movement. Zangwill changed his mind and founded his own organization, named the [[Jewish Territorialist Organization]] in 1905, advocating a Jewish homeland in whatever land might be available<ref>Israel Zangwill, Joseph Leftwich, Yoseloff, 1957, p. 219</ref> in the world which could be found for them, with speculations including Canada, Australia, Mesopotamia, Uganda and [[Cyrenaica]].<ref>"At the centennial of his birth, even some of those who recognized the continuing relevance of his efforts to define the Jew in the modern world separated the compelling nature of his struggle from the Victorianness of his writing and the insufficiency of his solutions: territorialism, universal religion, assimilation into an American 'melting pot.' As [[John Gross]] wrote in ''[[Commentary (magazine)|Commentary]]'', 'one honors the writer, and puts aside his books'." Rochelson, Meri-Jane, Review of ''Dreamer of the Ghetto: The Life and Works of Israel Zangwill'', by Joseph H. Udelson. ''AJS Review'', vol. 17, no. 1 (Spring 1992), pp. 120–123 {{JSTOR|1487027}}</ref>

Zangwill is inaccurately known for creating the slogan "[[A land without a people for a people without a land]]" describing Zionist aspirations in the Biblical land of Israel. He did not invent the phrase; he acknowledged borrowing it from [[Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 7th Earl of Shaftesbury|Lord Shaftesbury]].<ref name="Garfinkle">Garfinkle, Adam M., "On the Origin, Meaning, Use and Abuse of a Phrase." ''Middle Eastern Studies'', London, October 1991, vol. 27</ref> In 1853, during the preparation for the [[Crimean War]], Shaftesbury wrote to Foreign Secretary Aberdeen that Greater Syria was "a country without a nation" in need of "a nation without a country.... Is there such a thing? To be sure there is, the ancient and rightful lords of the soil, the Jews!" In his diary that year he wrote "these vast and fertile regions will soon be without a ruler, without a known and acknowledged power to claim dominion. The territory must be assigned to some one or other.... There is a country without a nation; and God now in his wisdom and mercy, directs us to a nation without a country."<ref>Shaftsbury as cited in [[Albert Montefiore Hyamson|Hyamson, Albert]], "British Projects for the Restoration of Jews to Palestine," American Jewish Historical Society, Publications 26, 1918 p. 140; and in Garfinkle, Adam M., "On the Origin, Meaning, Use and Abuse of a Phrase." ''Middle Eastern Studies'', London, October 1991, vol. 27. See also [http://www.mideastweb.org/britzion.htm Mideast Web: British Support for Jewish Restoration]</ref> Shaftesbury himself was echoing the sentiments of [[Alexander Keith, D.D.]]<ref name="Muir">[http://www.meforum.org/1877/a-land-without-a-people-for-a-people-without A Land without a People for a People without a Land];" An oft-cited Zionist slogan was neither Zionist nor popular,"[[Diana Muir]], Middle Eastern Quarterly, Spring 2008, Vol. 15, No. 2, pp. 55–62.</ref>

In 1901, in the ''[[New Liberal Review]]'', Zangwill wrote that "Palestine is a country without a people; the Jews are a people without a country".<ref name=Garfinkle /><ref>Israel Zangwill, "The Return to Palestine", ''New Liberal Review'', Dec. 1901, p. 615</ref>

Theodor Herzl got along well with Israel Zangwill and Max Nordau. They were both writers or 'men of letters'. In November 1901 Zangwill was still misreading the situation: "Palestine has but a small population of Arabs and [[fellahin]] and wandering, lawless, blackmailing [[Bedouin]] tribes."<ref name="Article">Israel Zangwill, The Commercial Future of Palestine, Debate at the Article Club, 20 November 1901. Published by Greenberg &amp; Co. Also published in ''English Illustrated Magazine'', Vol. 221 (Feb 1902) pp. 421–430.</ref><ref name=":3">{{Cite web |title=The commercial future of Palestine : debate at the Article Club opened by Israel Zangwill, November 20, 1901 |url=https://hdl.handle.net/2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t11n8bv28?urlappend=%3Bseq=5 |access-date=2024-04-09 |website=HathiTrust | hdl=2027/uc2.ark:/13960/t11n8bv28?urlappend=%3Bseq=5 |language=en}}</ref> To conclude his opening address to the Article Club, Zangwill pretended to speak as the weary, Ashkenazic folktale character, the [[Wandering Jew]], saying, "restore the country without a people to the people without a country... For we have something to give as well as to get. We can sweep away the blackmailer{{snd}}be he Pasha or Bedouin{{snd}}we can make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and build up in the heart of the world a civilization that may be a mediator and interpreter between the East and the West."<ref name="Article" /><ref name=":3" />

In 1902, Zangwill wrote that Palestine "remains at this moment an almost uninhabited, forsaken and ruined Turkish territory".<ref>{{cite journal| author = Israel Zangwill | title = Providence, Palestine and the Rothschilds | journal = The Speaker | date = 22 February 1902 | volume =  4 | issue = 125 | pages = 582–583}}</ref> However, within a few years, Zangwill had "become fully aware of the Arab peril", telling an audience in New York, "Palestine proper has already its inhabitants. The [[Mutasarrifate of Jerusalem|pashalik of Jerusalem]] is already twice as thickly populated as the United States" leaving Zionists the choice of driving the Arabs out or dealing with a "large alien population".<ref>I. Zangwill, ''The Voice of Jerusalem'', MacMillan, 1921, p. 92, reporting 1904 speech.</ref> He moved his support to the [[British Uganda Programme|Uganda scheme]], leading to a break with the mainstream Zionist movement by 1905.<ref>H. Faris, "Israel Zangwill's challenge to Zionism", ''Journal of Palestine Studies'', Vol. 4, No. 3 (Spring, 1975), pp. 74–90</ref> In 1908, Zangwill told a London court that he had been naive when he made his 1901 speech and had since "realized what is the density of the Arab population", namely twice that of the United States.<ref>{{cite book | author = Maurice Simon | title = Speeches Articles and Letters of Israel Zangwill | place = London | publisher = The Soncino Press | year = 1937 | page = 268}}</ref> In 1913 he criticized those who insisted on repeating that Palestine was "empty and derelict" and who called him a traitor for reporting otherwise.<ref>Simon (1937), pp. 313–314. He continued, "Well, consistency may be a political virtue, but I see no virtue in consistent lying."</ref>

According to [[Ze'ev Jabotinsky]], Zangwill told him in 1916 that, "If you wish to give a country to a people without a country, it is utter foolishness to allow it to be the country of two peoples. This can only cause trouble. The Jews will suffer and so will their neighbours. One of the two: a different place must be found either for the Jews or for their neighbours".<ref>Cited in Yosef Gorny, ''Zionism and the Arabs, 1882–1948'' (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), p. 271</ref>

In 1917, he wrote "'Give the country without a people,' magnanimously pleaded Lord Shaftesbury, 'to the people without a country.' Alas, it was a misleading mistake. The country holds 600,000 Arabs."<ref>Zangwill, Israel, ''The Voice of Jerusalem'', New York: Macmillan, 1921, p. 96</ref>[[File:Blue Plaque Ayrton & Zangwill.jpg|thumb|''Far End'', East Preston, West Sussex]]In 1921, Zangwill suggested Lord Shaftesbury "was literally inexact in describing Palestine as a country without a people, he was essentially correct, for there is no Arab people living in intimate fusion with the country, utilizing its resources and stamping it with a characteristic impress: there is at best an Arab encampment, the break-up of which would throw upon the Jews the actual manual labor of regeneration and prevent them from exploiting the ''[[fellah]]in'', whose numbers and lower wages are moreover a considerable obstacle to the proposed immigration from Poland and other suffering centers".<ref>Zangwill, Israel, ''The Voice of Jerusalem'', New York: Macmillan, 1921, p. 109</ref>