We have come to think of Palestine as a barren land; but its apparent barrenness is not to be attributed to defects of soil or climate, as its productivity is in no degree impaired. The causes are the scantiness of population, lack of industry, skill, [♦]initiative and intelligence, and the want of a local administrative system to encourage the labour of husbandmen to productive activity. If these obstacles were removed and a little exertion bestowed upon it the soil would soon yield abundant crops of the richest grain, and plantations of all kinds would flourish; the country still answers the description given of it in days of old. A stronger proof of its fertility cannot be adduced than the fact that the territory of Judæa alone, at one period, brought into the field more than three hundred thousand, and at another two hundred and four score thousand “mighty men of valour” (2 Chron. xiv. 7). According to Flavius Josephus[¹] (37–95 ?), Galilee alone had hundreds of towns and millions of inhabitants. Even if we do not accept these as exact figures, there is undoubtedly room for several millions of people in Palestine, particularly if the Trans-Jordanic regions are irrigated, the old roads repaired and the projected railway lines constructed. There may be room in the future even for several millions. The country only awaits repopulation and reconstruction.
[♦] “initative” replaced with “initiative”
[¹] Joseph ben Matthias.
This work of repopulation and reconstruction has already been begun by Jews, who have created the nucleus of a flourishing settlement in Palestine during the last thirty years. All this has to be expanded, increased, developed and protected; but the basis is there, and the lines of progress are sufficiently marked out. This is the way, and there is no other. The Zionist Organization, the Baron Edmond de Rothschild administration and the Chovevé Zion are competent, by virtue of their knowledge and their devotion to the work, to suggest the necessary improvements. They alone know how much they have had to suffer through all kinds of obstacles which impeded and delayed development, through the absence of security in consequence of disputed title deeds and inability to acquire landed property, through exorbitant taxes and many other hindrances. Whatever has been done, in spite of these hindrances, is nothing short of a miracle; and a hundred times more could be done, and certainly would have been done, had there been freedom and security. Given those necessary conditions, the Jewish people could find in Palestine a real Homeland, where it could live according to its own spirit and work out its own civilization.
Now, the fundamental notion of civilization is that of a progressive movement, of a gradual development from the less to the more perfect. It suggests to us immediately the greatest activity and the best possible organization of society, an organization calculated to produce a continual increase of wealth and power and their proper distribution among its members, so that their condition is kept in a state of constant improvement. But great as is the influence which a well-organized civil society must have upon the condition of its members, the term civilization conveys something still more comprehensive and more lofty than the mere perfection of social relations in the economic sphere. In this other aspect the word embraces the development of the intellectual and moral faculties of man, of his feelings, his propensities, his natural capacities and tastes. Civilization in both aspects has to be worked out by the Jews in their own way. The rebuilding of a Home in the economic sense is not the sole aim of Zionism. Living, national Judaism on historic lines, expressing and asserting itself throughout the whole range of human life, is the principal object of Zionist effort: to procure for Jewish individuality the possibility of regaining harmony with itself, and of reaching its highest possible perfection, like any other national individuality, is an essential part of the Zionist programme. In this sense Zionism means the rebirth of Jewish civilization (or, as it is frequently termed, “culture”—“Jewish culture”).
Jews are not anxious to acquire military power; they reject and condemn the idea of subjugating any other people. On the other hand, they have grown tired of their rôle of a homeless Chosen People, and would prefer to be a self-supporting “small nation,” with a quiet spot of earth for themselves. They want to be united in an organic community, to feel entirely at home, with their institutions, congregations, societies, settlements, schools and with their national language, literature and Press. That, neither more nor less, is what Zionists look to as the goal of their efforts.
The only serious opposition to a return of the Jews to the Holy Land—and here we come to our third point—is that which is based upon the insecurity of political and economic conditions in Palestine. Zionism, therefore, demands improvement in these respects.
But how is that improvement to be brought about? The answer is supplied by Political Zionism, with its insistence on the security of public law.
“Political” Zionism does not mean politics for politics’ sake, nor does it mean state building as an end in itself. “Political” Zionists know perfectly well that political recognition by itself is nothing; one has to be on the spot to toil and to labour, to work out one’s destiny, and without this systematic work all rights are futile, all political combinations useless. The Jewish agriculturists, working-men, artisans, teachers and artists who have gone to Palestine to settle there, and those who are still to go, know better than all the preachers of Jewish spirituality what the essence of the Jewish character and aspirations should be and is: they not only know it, they help to make it, in the highest sense of the word. They are Jews, idealists, the People of the Book; all they seek for is life in peace. Without practical work in Palestine Zionism would have been one of a thousand futile political schemes, whereas now it is a solid national movement, the colonies being its most powerful argument, even from the strictly political point of view. But none the less some guarantee of security is indispensable. It makes no difference whether we lay more stress on culture or agriculture (the various activities have to be judiciously combined and balanced); in practice the importance of political and legal securities is too obvious to need particular emphasis. The reader of this book will have realized that this idea is no new-fangled invention of Zionism: it has been at the root of the attitude of various Governments which for generations have been occupied with the Near Eastern question. The innumerable schemes of reform suggested by England, France and other Powers during last century; the English projects of 1840; Great Britain’s protection of the Jews in the East; Lord Shaftesbury’s proposals; Sir Moses Montefiore’s negotiations with Mehemet Ali; the “Memorandum of the European Monarchs” of 1840; the suggestions for reform after the Crimean War—all these schemes and efforts, suggestions and demands presupposed the point of view which is expressed in “political” Zionism. The autonomy granted in 1860 to the Christians of the Lebanon, owing to the efforts of England and France, was a scheme very similar to that which Zionism contemplates for the Jews in Palestine. The idea was much the same as that in the Basle Programme: security, guaranteed by the Government of the country and other powers, for a successful settlement and the free development of a particular section of the population.
The Jewish settlers in Palestine will have to attach themselves to the soil, and to build up the superstructure of a complete settlement upon the model of their own ideas and spirit. In place of the existing forty to fifty Jewish colonies, Zionism wants four hundred to five hundred colonies. In place of the model town Tel-Aviv Zionists want a hundred Tel-Avivs. They want as many schools and libraries, a University and factories and workshops. There is a clever saying:—