All in a Life-time

by Henry Morgenthau; French Strother

Zionism is not a new idea, but it gained a fresh impetus following the outbreak of wholesale massacres in Russia beginning with Kiev and Kishineff, and all through that ghastly trail of bloodshed following the recrudescence of Anti-Semitism. The Jews, in their agony and peril, sought afresh for a path toward safety. Zionism was then restated as the remedy. Theodore Herzl gained new power as its fiery apostle, and Jews the world over embraced the doctrine as a drowning man grasps at a straw. This largely accounts for the present intense agitation of the Zionists.

Let me now define Zionism more fully. To the average Jew, unread in other histories than his own, ignorant of the great currents of world progress in science, industry, and the art of government, it is a blind and simple faith in the imminence of realization of the dream I have just described of the reërection of Zion as an earthly Kingdom. By those intellectual leaders of Jewish thought who have embraced this fallacy of a panacea, Zionism is defined in more subtle and in more plausibly rational terms. There are, first, those intellectual Jews who conceive of “Zion” (that is, Jerusalem restored to the Jews) as being a physical symbol of spiritual leadership, lifted up before their eyes and inspiring them all to a common purpose; as a demonstration of Hebraic civilization; a centre from which should proceed instruction and exhortation to the Jews of all the world.

This analogy, however, is not complete. For these leaders conceive the Jews to be, not merely a religious congregation, but, besides, a nation. They think that not merely should spiritual power be centralized in Zion, but temporal power as well. In their view, the discrimination against Jews in other countries will greatly diminish, once there is erected a Jewish state in Palestine.

This nation is to be, in their theory, not only the seat of a religion and the fostering home of distinctive racial culture. It is to be, as well, an actual political entity, with territorial boundaries and a capital city, maintaining a temporal government with a ruler accrediting ambassadors to foreign courts and capitals, dealing with other governments on an equality as a sovereign state, and seeking to use the familiar instruments of diplomatic pressure to redress the wrongs of its citizens who happen to reside under the jurisdiction of “foreign” nations.

I say that this is the programme of the Zionists: perhaps I should say was. It is true that they have, for the moment, altered the structure of their dream, to accept the compromise held out to them by the Balfour Declaration. They have stepped down from their plans for a sovereign Jewish state in Palestine: they now accept the ideal of a “National Home for the Jewish People”—to quote the words of that declaration. This is, however, only a temporary compromise—a truce. Nothing short of the full glory of their Zion will long content the ambitious apostles of Zionism.

It is worth while at this point to digress for a moment from my main argument, to point out that the Balfour Declaration is itself not even a compromise. It is a shrewd and adroit delusion.

The Balfour Declaration is: “His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, nor the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country.”

The plain sense of these plain words has been woefully misunderstood by some of the Zionist leaders, and wilfully distorted by others. They contain no promise of a Jewish state: they offer no recognition of a Jewish nation. They do, it is true, apply the obscure but pleasant name of “Jewish Home Land” to the land which the Declaration then accurately defines by its political name as “Palestine”; but it guarantees to the Jews in their Home Land only those familiar assurances of security of person and property which are the common possessions of British subjects the world over.

I have been astonished to find that such an intelligent body of American Jews as the Central Conference of American Rabbis should have fallen into a grievous misunderstanding of the purport of the Balfour Declaration. In a resolution adopted by them, they assert that the Declaration says: “Palestine is to be a national home land for the Jewish people.” Not at all! The actual words of the Declaration (I quote from the official text) are: “His Majesty’s Government views with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people.” These two phrases sound alike, but they are really very different. I can make this obvious by an analogy. When I first read the Balfour Declaration I was making my home in the Plaza Hotel. Therefore I could say with truth: “My home is in the Plaza Hotel.” I could not say with truth: “The Plaza Hotel is my home.” If it were “my home,” I would have the freedom of the whole premises, and could occupy any room in the house with impunity. Quite obviously, however, I could not occupy the rooms of any other of the guests of the hotel whose leases long antedated mine.

These men would gladly entertain me as a visitor, but how they would resent and legally fight so unjustifiable an attempt as my trying forcibly to enter their premises and displace them and make their quarters my home.