of diplomacy were disappointed, the masses once more lost faith in the
possibility of escape from _galuth_; and when at the same time they saw
a slight chance of an improvement of their condition in the land of
their exile in a not distant future, they turned in that direction. So
the masses are deserting the Zionist flag before our eyes, and—what is
still more painful—they sometimes take the Zionist flag with them and
tack it on to the flag of another camp.
When the history of Zionism comes to be written, the historian will not
be able to pass in silence over an extraordinary inconsistency of
contemporary Zionist propagandists and writers. When they are trying to
attract the people to their flag, they wax enthusiastic over the lofty
mission of Zionism, which is to end our exile and to deliver the Jews
from all their troubles; and at the same time they gird or scoff at the
“spiritual” Zionists, whose unfeeling hearts soar skywards while their
brethren are afflicted and their blood is shed like water—and so forth,
and so forth. But these same men, when they confront the opponents of
Zionism, who ask to be told clearly how Zionism can end our exile if it
cannot gather all our scattered hosts into Palestine—then they take
refuge in the spiritual mission of Zionism, and instead of “blood shed
like water,” they expatiate on our spiritual slavery and the
impossibility of developing our spiritual powers in exile. This jumping
about from one side to the other, which shows clearly how weak is the
belief in a material redemption of those who stand up for it, has become
especially noticeable since the question of “Uganda” came up and since
the birth of “Territorialism,” which was really latent in the Zionism of
material redemption. All those who had become Zionists only for the sake
of saving the people from persecution could not understand how it was
possible to reject the Uganda proposal, or any other similar proposal
which seemed to offer us the desired salvation—“a secure home of
refuge”—merely on the ground that we wanted Palestine and Palestine
only, though we did not know when, if ever, it would be given to us. And
what was the answer of the “Zion-Zionists” (a name, coined in the Uganda
period, which also will interest the future historian)? Did they try to
show that our scattered hosts could be gathered more quickly and more
easily into Palestine, or that in Palestine we should be better able
politically to protect the Jews of the Diaspora? No! They had recourse
to the “spirit,” and openly admitted the bitter truth that neither in
Palestine nor in any other territory could we gather all our exiles from
the four corners of the globe; that the object of Zionism was only to
establish “a secure home of refuge” for a minority of the people, which
should become the centre of the whole people and influence it
spiritually; and that this object could be achieved only in Palestine,
the birth-place of our national spirit, and in connection with our
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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