In the late 1980s and early 1990s, I read scores of books about the Arab-Zionist conflict. In the course of that, I compiled a chronology of violence and other events in the history of the conflict. The chronology grew to nearly 200 pages before other projects brought that research to a halt. Recently, I dusted off that chronology and found it curious that I had never read the seminal Zionist work The Jewish State by Theodore Herzl. This was because I was mainly looking to chronical the history of the conflict and not its ideological origins. So my reading it now was long overdue.
In the 19th century, Europe underwent significant political changes due to the rise of nationalism. It was then that Germany and Italy both became unified countries. Other nationalist, independence movements appeared elsewhere in Europe, including Hungary, Greece, Norway, Belgium, Ireland, Romania, Serbia, and elsewhere. It was in this context that the right of self-determination of peoples gathered international support. What counted as "a people" was, however, a matter of debate. It was in this context the Herzl proposed in the last decade of the 19th century that Jews should be considered "a people" with the same right to self-determination as any other people. That they were scattered across Europe (and elsewhere) simply posed a logistical problem that could be solved by concentrating the population in a specific geographic area and creating a majority population capable of enforcing their right to self-determination.
I had no preconceived notions about Herzl's The Jewish State, but I was surprised to discover just how programmatic it is. Herzl sought to offer a practical plan for how the Jewish people could create a viable state out of their dispersed population. To start, a geographic gathering place would be needed. Herzl suggested Argentina and Palestine. Of Argentina, he wrote,
Argentina is one of the most fertile countries in the world, extends over a vast area, has a sparse population and a mild climate. The Argentine Republic would derive considerable profit from the cession of a portion of its territory to us. The present infiltration of Jews has certainly produced some discontent, and it would be necessary to enlighten the Republic on the intrinsic difference of our new movement.
Of Palestine, he wrote,
Palestine is our ever-memorable historic home. The very name of Palestine would attract our people with a force of marvelous potency. If His Majesty the Sultan were to give us Palestine, we could in return undertake to regulate the whole finances of Turkey. We should there form a portion of a rampart of Europe against Asia, an outpost of civilization as opposed to barbarism. We should as a neutral State remain in contact with all Europe, which would have to guarantee our existence.
In both cases, Herzl recognized significant obstacles to forming a Jewish state in lands already occupied by other peoples. To overcome these obstacles, Herzl proposed the formation of two agencies: the Society of Jews and the Jewish Company.
The Society of Jews would be responsible for what we might now call "urban planning on an national scale." The Society would assess the resources available to accommodate the influx of immigrants and design the national infrastructure. It would also be responsible for establishing the political and governmental institutions of the new state.
The Jewish Company would be responsible for helping to liquidate the assets of European Jews seeking to emigrate to the new state and to arrange for the purchase of land (developed and undeveloped) which would then be sold or provided to the immigrants. The Jewish Company would act roughly as a real estate agent, but it would also have the responsibility of raising revenue for the development and expansion of the Jewish state. Herzl believed that the high price of land and assets owned by Jews in Europe compared to the low prices in the new Jewish state would allow for the easy colonization of the new state.
He furthermore predicted that different classes of Jews would emigrate in different waves. The first emigrants would be from the lower classes which suffered most from European anti-Semitism and had little to lose by emigrating to a new land. These emigrants would be employed to build homes, schools, roads, and other infrastructure in return for passage to the new state, room, and board. It's hard not to see them as indentured servants. As conditions in the new state improved, middle class Jews would be drawn to emigrate and upper class Jews would find making investments in the new state attractive.
It is interesting how much Herzl's plan actually played out in the decades after he published his book. Two agencies came into being that more or less enacted his two-agency plan: The Jewish Agency for Palestine (later Israel) did the work of the Society of Jews and the Jewish National Fund did the work of the Jewish Company. Herzl's expectation that Jews would flee Europe as a result of anti-Semitism and the promise of protection in the new Jewish state came to pass writ large in the wake of World War II and the Holocaust.
As the 20th century wore on, the recognition of the right of the self-determination of peoples led to the end of the classical colonial era and the independence of colonies around the world. It has, however, created significant problems for the Zionist movement and the indigenous Palestinian population. Both make claims to their right of self-determination, while occupying the same territory. It reveals a challenge to the right of a people for self-determination that is playing out in many places around the world.
With the advent of international air travel, once homogenous and geographically separated peoples have become increasingly mixed, making the very notion of a people even more difficult to circumscribe. In Europe and the United States, rightwing movements have risen to oppose immigration and to identify the native population as a people. These movements are based on a not-so disguised ethnic identity.
It is, however, long past the time when a people can be easily identified ethnically. We live, instead, in self-governing societies that are ethnically diverse; so any appeal to the self-determination of a people, must find a basis other than ethnicity for that right or risk the imposition of the rule of one ethnicity over others. The most obvious alternative to ethnicity is citizenship within a liberal democratic state in which each citizen has the same standing in relation to the law and the state.
Returning to Herzl's vision of the Jewish state, it begins to look like an ethnocratic remnant of a fading past. If current global trends make headway in Israel/Palestine, the future of the Jewish state might not be a state living side-by-side with a Palestinian state nor a Jewish ethnocracy from "the river to the sea." Instead, there might emerge a single, liberal democratic state in which all citizens enjoy the same rights equally. That, however, will certainly require a radical shift in the identity politics of the region.
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