Freeland versus Zion

This chapter provides a more exclusive focus on the relationship between the Freeland League and the Zionist movement. As the chapter emphasizes, the Freelanders constantly defined themselves in relation to Zionism, but Territorialism's history leads to new insights into Zionist history as well. The chapter then unravels how the Freeland League's existence brought to light the growing complexities of Zionism and helped to show that, even though statehood was increasingly at the top of the Zionist agenda, this goal was not uncontested, either within or outside the Zionist movement. The fraught relationship between the two movements became ever more antagonistic, and by the 1940s the Territorialists had become heavily critical of Zionist and later Israeli politics, especially regarding the Palestinian Arabs. The chapter concludes by analysing how the Freelanders established warm contacts with several nonmainstream Zionist groups and individuals, most notably the bi-nationalist Zionist Ihud movement and its main leader Nathan Chofshi.