46 chapter two ideological­and conceptual model of colonialism, and cooperated with the forces of European imperialism, in their justification of Jewish statehood. Israeli sociologist Baruch Kimmerling points out that, since its inception, Zionism was adept at distancing itself from the colonial milieu within which it developed: Zionism emphasized the uniqueness of the ‘Jewish problem’: anti-Semitism, persecution, and, later, the Holocaust. It presented itself as the sole realistic and moral solution. Thus, the Jewish immigration movement was able to successfully present itself as a ‘return to Zion’, the correction of a cosmic injustice that had gone on for thousands of years, and as totally disconnected from other European immigration movements to other continents (Kimmerling 2002a, 1122). Granted, the historical record shows that prior to the advent of Zionism as a national movement, Jewish migration to Palestine spanned a number of centuries and was mainly driven either by religious motivations, or as a result of the socio-political circumstances for Jews becoming unbearable in other places (Van Der Hoeven Leonhard 2005a, 115–116). During these periods, however, and for almost thirteen centuries, the mainly peas­ ant indigenous Arab population had remained on their native soil, and ­managed to survive the range of “natural catastrophes, epidemics, fam­ ines, devastating armies, foreign occupiers and tax collectors” that befell the land. The discourse of Jewish immigration to Palestine radically ­transformed after World War I, whereby Zionism became intensively reformulated around European notions of statehood, colonialism and imperialism.4 Spearheading the political Zionist discourse, Herzl sought both Jewish and European support for his national project through “extortion, and stimulation of anti-Semitism” (Van Der Hoeven Leonhard 2005a, 118). As outlined by Walid Khalidi, Herzl’s framework of analysis can be summarized as follows: 4 Maxime Rodinson outlines the ideological and conceptual influences and parameters of Zionism, analyzing it in terms of its colonial character. In this text he explains that “the dominant outlook of European chauvinism” along with the “ethnocentric and racially exclusive ideology … [of ] European bourgeois nationalist doctrines” were the main sources of influence and main spaces of organizing and support the Zionist colonists in Palestine. Rodinson writes, “Although very few Zionists had come from Great Britain, this country, in regard to Palestine, played the role of mother country for a colony that was being settled” (2004, 10, 11, 62–71). As such, what is called the Zionist ‘rebellion’ or ‘insurgency’ against British rule in Palestine during the 1940s was essentially a dispute between the colonizers and the colonial centre fuelled by their political and material interests.