Political Zionism: The Ideology of Jewish Self-Hatred--Part 3

Ber Borochov would be only a footnote in history if his ideas had not inspired the founders of the Israeli Labor Party.

Our Platform (1906) in Hertzberg.

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Since the Jewish nation has no peasantry, our analysis of its national problem deals with urban classes: the upper, middle, and petty bourgeoisie; the masses who are being proletarized; and the proletariat.

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The Jewish problem migrates with the Jews. Thus a universal Jewish problem is created which involves not only Jewish philanthropists but also the political powers of the civilized nations . . .

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Proletarian Zionism is possible only if its aims can be achieved through the class struggle; Zionism can be realized only if proletarian Zionism is realized.

. . . The Jewish proletariat is in need of revolution more than any other. ....

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Political territorial autonomy in Palestine is the ultimate aim of Zionism. For proletarian Zionists, this is also a step toward socialism.

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Vladimir Jabotinsky is the intellectual father of the Likud Party in Israel.

Evidence Submitted to the Palestine Royal Commission (1937) in Hertzberg

Three generations of Jewish thinkers and Zionists, among whom there were many great minds--I am not going to fatigue you by quoting them--three generations have given much thought to analyzing the Jewish position and have come to the conclusion that the cause of our suffering is the very fact of the Diaspora, the bedrock fact that we are everywhere a minority. It is not the anti-Semitism of men; it is above all, the anti-Semitism of things, the inherent xenophobia of the body social or the body economic under which we suffer....

We are not free agents. We cannot "concede" anything. Whenever I hear the Zionist, most often my own Party, accused of asking for too much--Gentlemen, I really cannot understand it. Yes, we do want a State; every nation on earth, every normal nation, beginning with the smallest and the humblest who do not claim  merit, anyany role in humanity's development, they all have States of their own. That is the normal condition for a people. Yet, when we, the most abnormal of peoples and therefore the most unfortunate, ask only for the same condition as the Albanians enjoy, to say nothing of the French and the English, then it is called too much. I should understand it if the answer were, "It is impossible," but when the answer is, "It is too much," I cannot understand it.....

I am going to make a "terrible" confession. Our demand for a Jewish majority is not our maximum--it is our minimum: it is just an inevitable stage if only we are allowed to go on salvaging our people....

There is only one way of compromise. Tell the Arabs the truth, and then you will see the Arab is reasonable, the Arab is clever, the Arab is just; the Arab can realize that since there are three or four or five wholly Arab states, then it is a thing of justice which Great Britain is doing if Palestine is transformed into a Jewish state. Then there will be a change of mind among the Arabs, then there will be room for compromise and there will be peace.