1840’s
1840 British Foreign Secretary Lord Palmerston worked with the British Ambassador in Constantinople to get the Ottoman Turkish Sultan to allow Jews to colonize in Palestine.
1848 Lynch Expedition: USN Commander William Lynch makes the first known water transit down the length of the Jordan River; from its headwaters to its terminus at the Dead Sea. Lynch writes with a fine hand and describes a big, wild Jordan River flowing through a country rich in wildlife, agricultural communities, and pilgrims from all over. Lynch’s narrative of various groups inhabiting the region is the opposite of Zionist claims that Palestine was ‘a land without a people’. Which would follow decades later. Cmdr. Lynch thought highly of Palestinian people for their work ethic, agricultural skills, kindness, and the fact that Palestinians saved the expedition from disaster on several occasions.
1850’s Ottoman census shows Jews represent about 4 percent of Palestinian population
1860’s
1869 Suez Canal completed. This waterway connects Asia with Europe. In 1920’s Britian the Suez was considered ‘the spinal cord of of the British Empire’. To this day every major power on earth wants to ensure security of its cargo ships through the Suez.
1870’s
1870: First European Jewish Agricultural station, Mikveh Israel, established in Palestine. Advocates for Jewish settlements in Palestine are referred to today as proto Zionists since the label wasn’t coined until 1883.
1878: Petah Tikva founded by ultra Orthodox Jews (Haredi) from Europe. Northeast of Jaffa. First agricultural settlement founded by European Jews in what would become Israel. Saved from floundering by Lord Rothschild funding.
1880’s
1880: Jewish population in Ottoman Palestine numbers about 26,000.
1881: Practical Zionism Established: To implement European Jewish immigration to settle ‘The Land of Israel”
1881: First Aliyah begins: tens of thousands of (mostly) European Jews move to Palestine. Many bankrolled by Baron Abraham Edmond Benjamin James de Rothschild. This cardre called themselves the ‘Sons of Benjamin’ after their benefactor. There would be friction between them and the Zionists who would follow in the next decades.
January, 11, 1882: Focani (Romania) Zionist Conference: Mosheh Goldrin floats plan for mass European Jewish immigration to Palestine and Syria. This led to the Central Committee for Settling the Land of Israel and Syria.
1882-1903 First Aliyah: about 35,000 European Jews flood into Palestine.
July, 31, 1882: Rishon le Zion founded by Jewish Ukrainians. Second European Jewish farm colony in what would become Israel.
1883: Central Committee for Settling the Land of Israel and Syria running low on money transfers assets to Baron Rothschild. The Baron funded settlers and bought large parcels of land.
1883: Nathan Birnbaum founds proto-Zionist student association in Vienna which later morphed into Political Zionism. Birnbaum eventually became disgusted with Political Zionism and rejected it” (Theodore Herzl is often said to be the founder of Zionism but Birbaum was ahead of Herzl. After Birnbaum rejected Zionism for, among other things, its self-serving self-promotion, and contempt for Jews not aligned with Zionism, Herzl became the mouthpiece.
1890’s
1890 Nathan Birnbaum coins the terms Zionism, Zionist, and political Zionism.
September 11 1891: Jewish Colonisation Association (JCA) created by Baron Maurice de Hirsch to promote emigration of Eastern European/Russian Jews to other countries including Palestine.
1896 Theodore Herzl goes to Constantinople with backing of Jewish bankers to negotiate purchase of Palestine with the Sultan, “Herzl was prepared to offer millions of pounds to resolve the Turkish debt crisis, and get a Jewish state in exchange.” Turned out the Sultan didn’t meet with Herzl but his aides got Herzl to write articles for European consumption that there wasn’t mass murder of Armenian Christians by Turks going on.
1894-1896 Zionist front man Theodore Herzl whitewashes the Hamidian massacres–that killed over 100,00 Armenian Christians, and another 100,000 dead from famine–by writing positive articles about the Turks for the Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid, hoping to get him to sell Palestine to the Zionists — The killings were so bad that in 1895 the New York Times ran the title ‘Armenian Holocaust’ this was the forerunner of Armenian Genocide. Ottoman troops and Kurds butchered thousands of Armenian Christians in villages, in December of 1895 the Turks burned 3,000 Armenians alive in the cathedral at Urfa where the Armenians had sought refuge. Abdul Hamid asked Herzl to use “Jewish Power” to downplay the atrocities and Herzl did it. At the same time he pretended to be a friend to the Armenians. Herzl wrote to fellow Zionist Max Nordau, “Under no circumstances are the Armenians to learn that we want to use them in order to erect a Jewish state.”
1896 Theodor Herzl writes ‘The Jewish State.’
August 1897: First Zionist Conference: Basel Program: Over 200 delegates. Chaired by Theodore Herzl. Formulated and unanimously adopted a multi-faceted agenda to establish a Jewish homeland in Palestine. To wit:
Zionism seeks to establish a home in Palestgine for the Jewish People secure under public law. To achieve this goal, the Congrfess envison the following means:
1) The expedient promotion of the settlement of Jewish agriculturalists, artisans, and businessmen in Palestine.
2) The organization and bringing together of all Jews throgh local and general events, according to the laws of the various countries.
3) The sternghtening of Jewish feeling and national consciousness.
4) Preparatory stgeps for obtaining governmental approval which is necessary to the achievement of the Zionist purpose.
1898 Golda Mabobitch, aka Golda Meir future Prime Minister of Israel, born in Kiev, Ukraine.
1899: Baron Rothschild transfers title of his Palestine Jewish settlements to the Jewish Colonial Association (JCA) which created new colonies and provided agricultural training and support.
