Between Might and Right essays

Between Might and Right essays Herzel believed that anti-Semitism was an incurable gentile pathology. Zionism was developed as an ideology determined to lead its people out of perpetual enemy territory. The Jews, he posited, should have a nation-state of their own. Herzel himself would have been ready to contemplate any territory for this purpose, but most Zionists felt that Palestine was the only possible one. Palestine was the land of their ancestors; the idea of the return to Zion, of Next Year in Jerusalem, had been kept alive throughout the long centuries of exile and suffering; only the mighty legend of Palestine had the power to stir the Jewish masses. Herzel said It is their [the Arabs of Palestine] well-being, their individual wealth, which we will increase by bringing in our own. But we must not forget that Herzel was a man of his times, times in which an ethnocentric European imperialism dominated the backwards lands of the world through conquest and control. The moral dilemmas derived from the f orce necessary in accomplishing such imposing goals in the service of civilization did not seem as reprehensible as it does in todays day and age. In approaching a dilemma or conflict of sorts one must decide what one wishes to gain in its resolution. However, assuming a resolution is not at hand, one must decide what values intrinsic to sustaining their own livelihood are most important to them. Indeed, only after these principle values have been established can one even begin to attempt forming a resolution to their moral dilemma. Herzel knew that immigration into an already populated country would soon turn the natives against the newcomers ... Immigration is consequently futile unless based on an assured supremacy. Even at this fledgling conception of Jewish Nationhood the principle values of strength, superiority, and victorious military power were realized. However ...