in Vienna, the capital of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. He convened the first Congress of the World Zionist Organisation (WZO) at Basel in Switzerland in 1897. When it ended the public statement of Zionism’s mission was declared to be the striving “to create for the Jewish people a home in Palestine secured by public law.” But what Herzl wrote in his diary on 3 September, the day of the publication of Zionism’s official mission statement, was a much more explicit expression of purpose. In part the diary entry for that day read: “Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word—which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly—it would be this: At Basle I founded the Jewish state.” 1
The entry for 3 September continued: “Perhaps in five years, and certainly in 50, everyone will know it ... At Basel, then, I created this abstraction which, as such, is invisible to the vast majority of people.” 2
Because of the implications of the Zionist enterprise for all concerned—including world Jewry and Judaism itself—it was appropriate that Zionism’s first World Congress took place in a gambling casino.
In the year before the first Zionist Congress Herzl had written and published Der Judenstaat , ( The Jewish State ). It had opened with these words: “The Jews who will it shall have a state of their own.” But with the coming into being of political Zionism as a movement with institutions to make it happen, Herzl was among the first to appreciate the need for dropping the word state from all public policy statements and, in effect, telling a tactical lie about real intentions.
Herzl’s diaries were not made public until 1960 when they were published in book form, Completed Diaries . As we shall see in Chapter Six, there were entries in them which prove he was aware from the beginning that the Arabs of Palestine would have to be dispossessed of their land and their rights if Zionism was to prevail.
The Zionist claim to Palestine, a claim made long before Hitler’s arrival on the world stage and the Nazi holocaust, was based on the “historical connection” of the Jews to that land. The first formal presentation of the claim was made in a WZO memorandum to the Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I. It called upon the victorious Allied Powers “to recognise the historic title of the Jewish people to Palestine and the right of the Jews to reconstitute in Palestine their National Home.” What, actually, was the “historical connection” which, according to Zionism, gave the Jews of the world “historic title” to Palestine? It is possible to answer that question with one sentence. The first Jewish occupation of Palestine was only an episode, a relatively short one at that, in the long history of an Arab land that was constantly occupied by foreign powers, of which the ancient Hebrews were only one of many.
But though it is an accurate and honest summary, the one sentence is not enough to do justice to either the intensity of the spiritual attachment of Jews to Palestine or the flame of anger that burns in every Arab heart. This flame is there and burning ever more brightly because of Zionism’s use and abuse of the spiritual attachment of the Jews to Palestine to achieve its political objective by terrorism and institutional military means.
In the Western world the Arab–Israeli conflict is perceived as a struggle between two peoples with an equal claim to the same land. As we shall now see, the notion of there being two equal claims to the same land does not bear serious examination.
The earliest known inhabitants of Palestine were the Canaanites. They gave the country its first name—“the land of Canaan” as in the Bible. The Canaanites were the inhabitants of the land in 3000 BC, some 1,800 years before the first Hebrew occupation. The Canaanites had an advanced civilisation for their time and lived in cities. They founded Jerusalem which was to become the capital of Palestine.
The entry for 3 September continued: “Perhaps in five years, and certainly in 50, everyone will know it ... At Basel, then, I created this abstraction which, as such, is invisible to the vast majority of people.” 2
Because of the implications of the Zionist enterprise for all concerned—including world Jewry and Judaism itself—it was appropriate that Zionism’s first World Congress took place in a gambling casino.
In the year before the first Zionist Congress Herzl had written and published Der Judenstaat , ( The Jewish State ). It had opened with these words: “The Jews who will it shall have a state of their own.” But with the coming into being of political Zionism as a movement with institutions to make it happen, Herzl was among the first to appreciate the need for dropping the word state from all public policy statements and, in effect, telling a tactical lie about real intentions.
Herzl’s diaries were not made public until 1960 when they were published in book form, Completed Diaries . As we shall see in Chapter Six, there were entries in them which prove he was aware from the beginning that the Arabs of Palestine would have to be dispossessed of their land and their rights if Zionism was to prevail.
The Zionist claim to Palestine, a claim made long before Hitler’s arrival on the world stage and the Nazi holocaust, was based on the “historical connection” of the Jews to that land. The first formal presentation of the claim was made in a WZO memorandum to the Paris Peace Conference at the end of World War I. It called upon the victorious Allied Powers “to recognise the historic title of the Jewish people to Palestine and the right of the Jews to reconstitute in Palestine their National Home.” What, actually, was the “historical connection” which, according to Zionism, gave the Jews of the world “historic title” to Palestine? It is possible to answer that question with one sentence. The first Jewish occupation of Palestine was only an episode, a relatively short one at that, in the long history of an Arab land that was constantly occupied by foreign powers, of which the ancient Hebrews were only one of many.
But though it is an accurate and honest summary, the one sentence is not enough to do justice to either the intensity of the spiritual attachment of Jews to Palestine or the flame of anger that burns in every Arab heart. This flame is there and burning ever more brightly because of Zionism’s use and abuse of the spiritual attachment of the Jews to Palestine to achieve its political objective by terrorism and institutional military means.
In the Western world the Arab–Israeli conflict is perceived as a struggle between two peoples with an equal claim to the same land. As we shall now see, the notion of there being two equal claims to the same land does not bear serious examination.
The earliest known inhabitants of Palestine were the Canaanites. They gave the country its first name—“the land of Canaan” as in the Bible. The Canaanites were the inhabitants of the land in 3000 BC, some 1,800 years before the first Hebrew occupation. The Canaanites had an advanced civilisation for their time and lived in cities. They founded Jerusalem which was to become the capital of Palestine.
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