It was absolutely necessary, though, quite apart from “politics”. Ashkenazic Jews spoke Yiddish, Russian or High German. Sephardic Jews spoke Ladino. Eastern Jews spoke Arabic, Farsi, Buchara or Russofarsi. The only single language they all, without exception, knew and identified with was Hebrew, the language of Jewish liturgy and scholarship, similar to Latin and Ancient Greek for most branches of Christianity, Arabic for Muslims, and Coptic for Coptic Christians. So to communicate, they adopted their common literary and liturgical language as the collquial tongue. Ben Yehuda perhaps saw it coming, but neither he nor the Zionist movement were the inspiration for the Hebrew revival, merely the mid-wife at most.
Those are ancient Israelites -- descended from Naphtali, right?