History of Zionism, 1600-1918, Vol. 2 (of 2)Sokolow, Nahum
History
History of Zionism, 1600-1918, Vol. 2 (of 2)
Sokolow, Nahum
Jews -- Restoration; Zionism -- History
“Everywhere the rights of nations are triumphant. Let it not be said
that only countries that had been stolen fifty or a hundred years
ago shall be returned to their former lawful owners. Whoever says so,
falsifies history, either intentionally or unintentionally. The right
of the Greeks to Greece is also a right which has remained through
thousands of years. The right of the Armenians to Armenia has also
been suppressed by force throughout the centuries. And yet these rights
will be granted. Let it not be said either, that a nation robbed of
the country must have remained on its native soil, or otherwise it will
have lost its rights. That is not true. More Greeks live outside Greece
than in Greece, and there are still other nations, the majority of
whose citizens dwell outside the frontiers of their old home. Nor let
it be said that it is sufficient to grant equal rights to mankind.
Were not equal rights given to the Greeks――and yet the problem was not
solved till Greece redeemed herself!
“We, the orphans, the disinherited, the playthings in history’s sports,
the step-children of a world founded on nationalities――we summon the
world before the high court of history.
“For two thousand years past they put us off with excuses and false
promises. Civilization has been progressing for thousands of years:
mankind now flies loftier than the eagle and dives deeper than the
_Leviathan_. Has it become better for us? Have we not remained the same
scapegoats from the time of Rome to the Crusades, from these to the
‘Haidamaks,’ and from them to the Pogroms of the present day?
“We, the wandering souls, demand our rest. Enough of wanderings and
being bandied about! Give us back our body, our country! We want to be
equal with the rest, suffer with the rest, fight with the rest, live
with the rest.”
Thus lament the dead, teaching the living. Will the world not listen to
them?
“What do you wish?” the Zionists are asked. They reply: We want a home
in the land of _Israel_. On the day of Judgment, when every historical
right――from the smallest to the greatest――is announced, elevated,
proclaimed, and demanded; when even the weakest, the most doubtful
claims of half-forgotten and but recently-awakened little peoples,
based on old, torn, ambiguous and now scarcely legible documents and
traditions, assert themselves and demand rights of ownership; when
history takes its place as judge on the throne of justice, and the
national territorial idea is accepted as the world’s code, in order
to resolve every doubt and to arbitrate every dispute; when the great
in power penitently declare that every injustice, especially towards
suffering peoples, must be righted; when these things come to pass,
then (we Zionists say) the Jewish people is in duty bound to proclaim
its old, holy, historical right to the heritage of its heroes, its
prophets, its civilization, its religion, its language, and its labours!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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