Revisionist Zionism is a form of Zionism which is characterized by territorial maximalism. Revisionist Zionism promoted expansionism and the establishment of a Jewish majority on both sides of the Jordan River.
Developed by Ze'ev Jabotinsky, this ideology advocated a "revision" of the "practical Zionism" of David Ben-Gurion and Chaim Weizmann which was focused on the settling of Eretz Yisrael (Land of Israel) by independent individuals. Differing from other types of Zionism, Revisionists insisted upon the Jewish right to sovereignty over the whole of Eretz Yisrael, which they equated to Mandatory Palestine and Transjordan. It was the chief ideological competitor to the dominant socialist Labor Zionism.
Revisionist Zionism directly opposed Labor Zionism within the general Zionist movement. Revisionist Zionism had its own paramilitary group called the Irgun, out of which another organization known as the Stern Gang emerged. Both the Irgun and the Stern Gang were responsible for several attacks against the British to try to expel them from Palestine.
In 1935, after the Zionist Executive rejected Jabotinsky's political program and refused to state that "the aim of Zionism was the establishment of a Jewish state", Jabotinsky resigned from the World Zionist Organization. He founded the New Zionist Organization (NZO), known in Hebrew as Tzakh, to conduct independent political activity for free immigration and the establishment of a Jewish State.
In its early years under Jabotinsky's leadership, Revisionist Zionism was focused on gaining support from Britain for settlement. Later, Revisionist groups independent of Jabotinsky initiated campaigns against the British to open up immigration during the 1930s following the White Paper, which severely limited Jews' right to immigrate at a time considered critical as the Nazis were gaining power.
Revisionist Zionism has strongly influenced modern right-wing Israeli parties, principally Herut and its successor Likud.
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Aliyah Bet (עלייה ב', "Aliyah 'B'" – bet being the second letter of the Hebrew alphabet) was the code name given to illegal immigration by Jews, most of whom were refugees escaping from Nazi Germany, and later Holocaust survivors, to Mandatory Palestine between 1920 and 1948, in violation of the restrictions laid out in the British White Paper of 1939, which dramatically increased between 1939 and 1948. With the establishment of the State of Israel in May 1948, Jewish displaced persons and refugees from Europe began streaming into the new sovereign state.
The Betar Movement (תנועת בית"ר), also spelled Beitar (בית"ר), is a Revisionist Zionist youth movement founded in 1923 in Riga, Latvia, by Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. Chapters sprang up across Europe, even during World War II. After the war and during the settlement of what became Israel, Betar was traditionally linked to the original Herut and then Likud political parties of Jewish pioneers. It was closely affiliated with the pre-Israel Revisionist Zionist paramilitary group Irgun Zevai Leumi.
The Land of Israel () is the traditional Jewish name for an area of the Southern Levant. Related biblical, religious and historical English terms include the Land of Canaan, the Promised Land, the Holy Land, and Palestine. The definitions of the limits of this territory vary between passages in the Hebrew Bible, with specific mentions in Genesis 15, Exodus 23, Numbers 34 and Ezekiel 47. Nine times elsewhere in the Bible, the settled land is referred as "from Dan to Beersheba", and three times it is referred as "from the entrance of Hamath unto the brook of Egypt" (1 Kings 8:65, 1 Chronicles 13:5 and 2 Chronicles 7:8).