Political Zionism: The Ideology of Jewish Self-Hatred--Part 4

Chaim Weizmann led the establishment Zionist movement in the first half of the 20th century and was the first president of Israel.

Zionism Needs a Living Content (1914) in Hertzberg

In its initial stage, Zionism was conceived by its pioneers as a movement wholly depending on mechanical factors: there is a country which happens to be called Palestine, a country without a people, and, on the other hand, there exists the Jewish people, and it has no country. What else is necessary, then, than to fit the gem into the ring, to unite this people with this country. The owners of the country must, therefore, be persuaded and convinced that this marriage is advantageous, not only for the people and for the country, bu.t also for themselves. On this basis grew Zionism. First, we must sell many shekalim to show the Turks how strong we are, in the meantime, the leaders will discuss the question of the marriage....

It is the Zionists' good fortune that they are considered mad; if we were normal, we would not think of going to Palestine, but stay put, like all normal people. Who does not believe in taking a hard road and thinks that a dangerous road should not be taken had better stay abt home. With fear and timidity the permanent home of the nation cannot be established. Never has a people freed itself by profitable investments, but by energy and sacrifice. And we Jews have not made many sacrifices yet, and that is why we own only 2 per cent of the Palestinian soil.

What value there is in real sacrifice, the example of a Jew from Kiev will show you; his name is Barski. One of his sons, a worker, was killed on Palestinian soil, at Degania; the bereaved father writes a letter of comfort to the workers in Palestine and send his second son into this most dangerous life to take the place of the fallen one. This is the continuation, writes the bereaved father. And it is this Jew who is the greatest political Zionist after Herzl.

Reminiscences in Hertzberg (1937)

We Jews got the Balfour Declaration quite unexpectedly, or in other words, we are the greatest war profiteers. We never dreamed of the Balfour Declaration; to be quite frank, it came to us overnight. But--"What you have inherited from your father you must earn it anew to really possess it!" (Goethe) The Balfour Declaration of 1917 was built on air, and a foundation had to be laid for it through years of exacting work; every day and every hour of these last ten years, when opening the newspapers, I thought: Whence will the next blow come? I trembled lest the British Government would call me and ask: "Tell us, what is this Zionist Organization? Where are they, your Zionists?" For these people think in terms different from ours. The Jews, they knew, were against us; we stood alone on a little island, a tiny group of Jews with a foreign past.

David Ben-Gurion was a founder of the Histadrut and the first prime minister of Israel.

The Imperatives of the Jewish Revolution (1944) in Hertzberg

.... The separatist tendency that has manifested itself in our land uses the empty phrase "of proletarian origin" as its slogan. This doctrine is totally foreign to the spirit and essence of the Jewish revolution. Not the origin but the mission, not "whence" but "whither," is what will decide the fate of our revolution. The Jewish people is not a proletarian people and there are no sons of the proletariat to assure the success of its revolution. The mission of the Jewish revolution is to transform the Jewish people into a laboring people....

Next analysis and alternative views.