Israel's leaders have forgotten Herzl's dream

You said “even George W. Bush - who Netanyahu and Rivlin miss sorely - would not move the U.S. embassy from Jerusalem to Tel Aviv”. That should presumably read from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem!

This article is just typical of a lefties view point not commensurate to the 21 st century. Where Hertz"l be alive to day he most certainly wold not approve to the above man stance. Vilnai is today's MAN, Hetztle was yesterdays dream,all be it flawed in many aspects.

We cannot know what Theodor Herzl would say if he were alive today, but we can make educated guesses?the best we can do, based on the tenor of his writings and contemporary accounts. I like to look at his vision through his classic, Altneuland, from which the Hebrew words Tel Aviv are derived (tel representing the old, aviv the new). It is clear that he wanted to see an egalitarian, liberal state. (He even assumed the national language would be German, naively.) In Altneuland the pivotal scene involves an election in which a rightist who wants to suppress the Arabs is decisively defeated. We have come a long way, for better and for worse. The humanitarian values Herzl wanted for the State of the Jews (Judenstaat) are being eroded by the very rightists he deplored.

It would be smaller not non-existent, remember Arabs rejected it because it took up 56% of a land whose population is 67% Arab. Look up History.

So, because Arabs in Israel have more rights than in neighboring countries, is a good enough excuse to treat them as second-rate citizen? Moreover, Israel isn't a complete democracy. No self-respecting democracy would force people to marry religiously (civil marriages aren't recognized in Israel, which results in direct discrimination against couples who weren't married according to Jewish religious rituals), nor impose sex-segregated bus-lines (women in the back of the bus, men in the front), nor persecute journalists who aren't in line with the government's ideas, etc. Israel already has a foot in theocracy and the religious extreme-right movements are pushing all they can for it to step completely into that kind of regime, eating up the democratic aspect of this state, chunks by chunks.

In the history that I've read (un-revised) Theodore Hertzl was in contact with Cecil Rhodes concerning a Jewish homeland in africa but "lord" Rothschild had already purchased land in Palestine which was inhabited by Arabs,Semites and a few Jews. As far as Jerusalem goes the Jews were expelled in 135CE!

Carlo Strenger aptly reminds us ?that Herzl believed in cooperation; he believed in multiculturalism long before the word was even invented. And yes, Herzl believed in diplomacy: He didn't think that the Jewish state should or could be in constant confrontation with its environment.? Herzl also wrote THIS about Jerusalem: ?We shall exterritorialize Jerusalem, so that it will belong to nobody and yet everybody; and with it the Holy Places, which will become the joint possession of all believers ? a great condominium of culture and morality.? (Herzl?s Diaries, May 7, 1896) We might do well bearing this in mind when ? hopefully soon! ? negotiations with the Palestinians will be resumed. Translated into today?s language, Herzl?s vision may be expressed thus: Let Jerusalem be united, open to all and belonging to all its inhabitants. Let Jerusalem be the capital of both the State of Israel and the State of Palestine. Let us turn Jerusalem into a modern symbol of Peace, without walls or barbed wire. That surely is how Herzl would have loved to see it.

Politics, rhetoric, and name calling aside, the reality is that the Palestinians are here to stay and so are we. Whether we survive together or manage to make life a living hell depends on us. As Israel is by any rational measure the stronger side, logic and ethics suggest that the current political leadership should indulge itself in moves that will convince convince Palestinians, (and me),that in spite of right-wing illusions,(or because of them), that it truly desires an equitable peace. It might then turn its attention to guaranteeing that all Israeli citizens, Jews, minorities and, yes by God, even the misguided on the right, equal opportunities in fields of endeavor.

The "2 State solution" has self-liquidated and in the toliet Are the Jewish people going to share this land with their native semitic fellahin breathren? Or continue to colonize it primarily/exclusively for right wing "Europeanized" Jewish people?

"Herzl very much believedin diplomacy and his impact on the Zionist movement was primarily a combination of his visionary and diplomatic abilities" Strenger His diplomatic abilities were disastrous and utterly narcissistic. Even the apologetic Herzl's scholars like S. Avineri will tell you. Arabs of Altneuland are shown as willingly renouncing their national aspirations (in opposition to the Jews) in exchange of the material opportunities brought by the Jewish newcomers. Herzl tried all means he could from blackmailing the millionaires, exploiting massenpolitik and brushing the corridors of power of alternatively British and Prussian empires, not excluding the Ottoman Sultan, always with quite sobering outcome which eventually killed him at the age of 44. He wouldn't have excluded military action if he commanded troops. Only he commanded a bunch of European Jewish high bourgeois dreamers. If anyone wants a non-mediated image, read at least the unabridged Herzl' Diaries.

But okay, let's impose the borders of the UN Partition Plan.

Kindly name me one country in the Middle East where Arabs have more rights than in Israel.

Diversity is the nature of this world we live in. Any nation attempting to advance one people over another is in direct conflict with that reality. In fact Ben Gurion once recognized Israel would always have and Arab population and said Israel will be judged on how it treats the Arabs. After sixty-two years, the score card shows Israel has failed in its treatment of Arabs. The occupation has become an opportunity to supplant and deprive Arabs of rights they would have had under any other government. Israel has never given equal rights to those Arabs that are citizens of Israel. Israel has refused to eliminate the very internal prejudices against Arabs and sustains a contempt for its surrounding Arab neighbors. Herzl's dream has been replaced by an Israeli people that will not tolerate diversity within its own Jewish people and justify extreme violence against non-Jews.

I suggest that good old Carlo take a course in basic Logical Reasoning. There is no contradiction between "settlements" and democracy. Do the Arabs in East Jerusalem have the right to vote in free and fair elections? Are they granted the basic democratic rights (free speech etc..)? Yes. Whether or not a bunch of Jews moves into "their" neighborhood has no inherent bearing on whether or not democracy exists. Likewise, whether or not Israelis continue to settle empty land in the West Bank that the Palestinians have thus far refused to accept as a final deal for their own state has no bearing on whether or not Israel is a democracy. A military occupation of a belligerent territory has no bearing on whether or not the occupier is a democracy.

This false dilemma was used by Rabin, Peres and Beilin - which led to the Oslo disaster, the Oslo intifada, the Camp David Intifada, the Gaza War, and the Goldstone report. Look at what was predicted by whom: Rabin predicted Peace in 9 months, before his election. 18 years hav passed, there have been mroe wars and casualties of terror. The level of terror after Oslo's "peace" was worse than anything seen before Oslo, or madrid. Netanyahu predicted: the PLO will continue its terrorist war either direct or by proxy; pressure will be on Israel to continue slicing up the land like salami; the west bank and Gaza will be used as springboards for terror, whilst on the political front there will eb continued delegitimization of Israel, and calls to give up additional land. Who was right and who was wrong? Netanyahu based his view largely on Jabotinsky's vision, as well as reading the PLO charter correctly. Rabin has been proven wrong.

That left-wing ideology is just as cliche as on the right. Don't kid yourself into thinking that you and J-Street have reinvented the wheel. AIPAC is fine the way it.

....and you guys need the sun, in order to stay happy, that's what you got used to from Israel. I'm afraid you wouldn't make it very long in our foggy November...:)

....by yourself, that's okay, but please don't expect from others (the U.S. etc...) to do it for you, fair enough...??? The Israel of 2010 is not the "helpless Jew" of 1938, they are very well capable of defending themselves without help from the rest of the world....

Why California or Florida, Dino? Given the warped views of Jews that you entertain, I would have thought Switzerland, with its bank vaults, would have been a more appropriate resettlement site.

if the arab war had succeeded, then this had caused a counter-attack of the international community. including germany. maybe not immediately, but a few years later. your arab neighbours would have been bombed to ashes. no sphynx, no petra, and whatever else is there today... jewish survivors would have returned another time. heavily secured by the itl community. maybe israel would not be that strong as today in military terms. CONCLUSION: today, israel would be there were it is, and always has been. swiss dino: you obviously find it very impossible or stupid(?) to fight people who want to commit a genocide ? maybe one could agree to the idea, to temporarily evacuate them, during the fight. but at the end of the day, such an aggressor has to be defeated. or not ?

Herzl's was a vision, Rivkin's is a reality. Mr. Stenger's arguments would be a good deal more persuasive and realistic were he to have Palestinian counterparts. However unfortunately Oslo should have finally convinced those who truly believed, that regardless of the approach that is used by the Arabs the goal is the same. THEY DON"T WANT YOU THERE !! Nothing you do will change that. Who would have believed 62 years ago that while Israel under the most adverse conditions built a first world nation from scratch, the Palestinians would build refugee camps and little else. It boggles the mind. As far as J Street is concerned don't delude yourselves. They are a stealth organization with very little support in the U.S. They are NOT pro Israel, but they will be Obama's cover as he continues to undermine both the security of Israel as well as that of the United States.

Carlo--Take a look at who is backing J street then tell me that they have Israel's best interest at heart

Thank you Mr. Strenger for making the fatalists out themselves in their tireless effort to ruin present and future by dwelling on the past. And I do hope you are right about Netanyahu being wrong in his conviction that the US will support Israel no matter what she does.

If the Jewish people would have been defeated by the Arabs in 1947, I would definitely not have recommended them to settle in Uganda. Florida or a part of California would then surely have been a more appropriate place for the Jewish people to establish their own state. In retrospective, I tend to agree with those, who are saying, that it most probably wasn't a very smart idea to establish a Jewish state in the middle of a very hostile Arab world. I understand very well, that the Holy Land is the place, where many Jews see their roots (by far not all of them !!), but if you are making an honest cost/benefit calculation, you might very well come to the conclusion, that the Jewish people might be much better off today with a state of Israel in Florida or California than the ongoing mess in the Middle East....

So what? It is true. Israel was attacked by Arabs. Inclluding Egyot, which is now at peace with Israel. Does it change the any of the words of this excellent article? Peace is done with enemies, not with friends.

In the movie "Chariots of Fire" about two English atheletes runneing in the Olympics against each other, one Jewish the other a Protestant minister, the answer by the minister as to why such competition exists, the minister answers "God is not in the de4mocracy business." I thought of this statement when I read Mr. Strenger who makes a fair point about those in Israel who have not read Herzl. Herzl, Marx or whomever be the reigning intellectual of the day does not have the authority to decide Israel's direction. That is the core dilemma and there is nothing that can be done about it.

Herzl was a Jewish Leader that had no Jewish Nation,no Jewish Army,had only a dream.He would even take the Jews to Uganda,to solve "the Jewish Question".He was very right for the conditions of his time. Rivlin talked in the name of A JEWISH SOVEREIGN NATION,WITH A JEWISH ARMY TO DEFEND HER.HE IS RIGHT FOR THE PRESENT TIME... IN SPITE OF WHAT PEOPLE AND "LEADERS" SITTING 3000 MILES APART WANT FROM ISRAEL,IN ORDER TO SUIT THEIR AGENDAS...

Herzl proposed British Uganda as an option, rejected by the zionist movement. Ben Gurion's views should be better remembered and not so conviniently forgoten. He stated, Source: Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs: for the State of Israel there has always been and always will be one capital only - Jerusalem the Eternal. Thus it was 3,000 years ago - and thus it will be, we believe, until the end of time.

Carlo Stenger writes "Herzl wanted Jews to have a sovereign state of their own" This sovereign state was mandated by the UN in 1947. The result was being attacked by 5 Arab armies intent on the destruction of said sovereign state. I will put forward this question for the umpteenth time. Maybe you will answer it TRUTHFULLY. What or where would Israel be if she was defeated in 1947 ? Remember to answer truthfully.

when carlo and his friends brought us oslo many many years ago, they claimed that the 'palestinians' will call abu dis jerusalem. after they got abu dis everthing would be all right, say it ain't so, carlo. now, it's either jerusalem or peace. even if i wanted to believe it, it is clear that we have no idea about what we'll receive for jerusalem. it's just a hypothesis. and why should we compromise and not arabs that have more land. we all know that the 'palestinians' were created to play the role of poor landless people. the arabs have over 20 states, let them compromise. and did you actually think about how divided jerusalem will look like, how will you manage day-to-day life and provided security for our holy sites.

The whole article makes a lot of sense, and especially liberal Jews in the U.S. would be well advised, to listen well to its final part, where Mr. Strenger urges them, to not keep sitting quietly on the sidelines, but clearly and publicly distance themselves from the Ed Kochs, Ronald Lauders, Malcolm Hoenleins, Charles Krauthammers and Abe Foxmans in their midst.... If not by now, when then...???