Walter Laqueur - A History of Zionism

Theodor Herzl has entered political history as the author of two small books: a political pamphlet titled Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State) and a work of political science fiction he called Altneuland (Old New Land). Altneuland, published in 1902, describes the visit to Palestine, after an absence of many years, of two Europeans sympathetic to the Zionist cause. Confronting a Jewish state for the first time, they are awestruck by the enormous achievements that have been made, over and above what even the most enthusiastic visitors could reasonably have expected. Had they postponed their visit a bit longer, their amazement would have been even greater. Even those who knew Palestine in 1948, the year the Jewish state actually came into being, would not recognize it today. The number of Jews living in Palestine in 1948 was about half a million; it has increased tenfold since. Palestine was a tiny community at that time; Israel today is more populous than half a dozen European countries, including Norway and Finland. It absorbed during its first years of statehood a population of immigrants three times larger than the population already living in the country, a feat unique in the annals of mankind. Many hundreds of new cities, towns, and suburbs came into being. While for years Israel depended on outside financial help, it gradually became economically independent. Its standard of living is comparable to that of many European countries, it has a vibrant cultural life, with many universities, theaters, and symphony orchestras, and its scientific institutions are second to none (as indeed Herzl had envisaged). In reports produced by international organizations that measure various types of economic and social progress, Israel usually appears among the first ten or twenty countries. But the quality of its domestic political life is far from ideal. There are too many political parties, and there has been corruption at even the highest levels of government; minorities have not always been treated fairly. But elections are still free, and the judiciary is still independent. The media enjoy almost complete freedom. It is the only democracy in a part of the world in which democracies are conspicuously absent.

Militarily, Israel does not depend on outside help but has armed forces capable in every respect of defending itself. And yet the Jewish state finds itself in serious trouble during the sixth decade of its existence. Contemporary visitors to Altneuland, having been duly impressed by the extraordinary achievements, are bound to ask whether the society that came into being still corresponds in any significant way to the dreams of Herzl and the other early leaders of the Zionist movement.

Let us be realistic: Altneuland was, of course, a utopia, and utopias are seldom realized. In the inevitable collision between dreams and realties, realities inevitably prove stronger. Herzl and his contemporaries did not really expect the Jewish state to be somehow superior, more highly accomplished, more ethically motivated than other countries; they were primarily looking for a refuge for the persecuted Jewish people and were aware of how difficult it would be simply to build a country like all others. If Israel has not lived up to expectations, it is certainly true that many of the countries that came into being after World War II have been disappointments to those who envisioned them and fought to bring them into being. Some of the basic reasons for such disappointments are rooted in history, and it would be pointless to put the blame on human shortcomings. It was the historical tragedy of Zionism (as I note in the last chapter of this book) that it appeared very late on the international scene, but it could not have appeared earlier on. The great majority of Jews did not want a state of their own before the twentieth century, and when storm clouds appeared on the horizon (and it is the historical merit of Zionism that it recognized this earlier than all others), when it became increasingly urgent to find a refuge for the Jews of Europe, the gates of Palestine were virtually closed. Nor was there sufficient willingness on the part of European and American Jewry to invest energy and financial resources in building a Jewish national home.