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Canaanism was a cultural and ideological movement founded in 1939, reaching its peak among the Jews of Mandatory Palestine during the 1940s. It has had a significant effect on the course of Israeli art, literature and spiritual and political thought. Its adherents were called Canaanites (Hebrew: כנענים). The movement's original name was the Council for the Coalition of Hebrew Youth (הוועד לגיבוש הנוער העברי) or less formally, the Young Hebrews; Canaanism was originally a pejorative term. It grew out of Revisionist Zionism and had roots in European extreme right-wing movements, particularly Italian fascism.[1] Most of its members were part of the Irgun or Lehi.[2]
Canaanism never had more than around two dozen registered members[clarification needed], but because most of them were influential intellectuals and artists, the movement had an influence which went far beyond its size.[3] Its members believed that much of the Middle East had been a Hebrew-speaking civilization in antiquity.[4] Kuzar also says they hoped to revive this civilization, creating a "Hebrew" nation disconnected from the Jewish past, which would embrace the Middle East's Arab population as well.[4] They saw both "world Jewry and world Islam" as backward and medieval; Ron Kuzar writes that the movement "exhibited an interesting blend of militarism and power politics toward the Arabs as an organized community on the one hand and a welcoming acceptance of them as individuals to be redeemed from medieval darkness on the other."[2]