ABSTRACT
This chapter documents that from 1949 pro-Zionism – mere support for Zionism and Israel – started to give way to philo-Zionism, idealisation of Israel, among Norwegian social democrats. This philo-Zionist turn introduced a new attitude not only to Zionism and Israel but also to the viability and future of civilisation. Whereas pro-Zionism implied a need to support Zionism in order to protect Jews and thus ensure the survival of civilisation, philo-Zionism lifted the burden of responsibility from European shoulders. Its idealisation of Israel implied that the victims of the breakdown of civilisation themselves proved not only the continued viability of civilisation, but that a more perfect civilisation was possible than the one that actually existed in Europe. The Israeli victory in the first Arab-Israeli war played a significant role in allowing the philo-Zionist turn to occur. The chapter also argues that the turn was partly caused by the 1949 decision by the Labour Party to support NATO membership, and partly by the movement's drift away from commitments to socialism. A decisive moment in the latter development also occurred in 1949, with the Labour Party's adoption of a new manifesto.
