This is an original Al haNissim paragraph for Yom ha-Atsma’ut, focusing on the actual reason for Zionism’s necessity — European antisemitism. As I put it when I wrote the first draft of this paragraph, “Zionism was necessary because of the Europeans. The original enemy of Israel’s independence was the European nations who wanted us assimilated or dead. Israel was not declared independent from the Arab world, it was declared independent from Britain, and I think we should remember that on Yom ha-Atsma’ut.”