'Hashomer' and Volunteering for Service in the Ottoman Army

Abstract

The author attempts to prove that the Ottoman orientation of the World Zionist Organization was necessarily tied to promoting Turkish patriotism, and took into account the possibility of organized Jewish volunteering for service in the Turkish army as part of the efforts to achieve favourable political concessions for Zionism in Palestine. The author also claims that the Poalei Zion party not only did not distance itself from this aim, but enthusiastically offered the Shomer in order to help achieve it. Considerations such as these were accepted by the Zionist leadership, and that of Poalei Zion (Shohat, Ben-Zvi and Ben-Gurion), and were specifically discussed during the Tripoli dispute (1911), and at the time of the Balkan War in January 1913. The Ottomanization plan at the beginning of the First World War was even aimed at promoting the enlistment of Jews on the Turkish side, once again on the basis of Zionist political considerations. Therefore, the opposition to Rotenberg's plans in 1914 concerning Jewish regiments on the Allied side, in return for a commitment to the setting up of a Jewish republic in Palestine, and/or to Jabotinsky's plans, did not derive from neutral ideological or pacifist positions, but rather from loyalty to Turkey due to a pragmatic evaluation of the situation concerning the chances of success of the sides at war and of the consequent desired Jewish orientation.