My Program for the Next Zionist Congress

In connection with the present session of the Actions Committee in Palestine, the views expressed in this article by Prof. Brodetsky will be of interest to those interested in the Zionist movement.

Jerusalem.

Politics, economics, and organization—the nation—these are the three problems before the forth coming Zionist Congress and before the Zionist movement. It is a mistake to place all emphasis on politics or on economics, and to ignore organization. To me the greatest of the problems is the organization. What will at bottom make the success of the Jewish nation is the Jewish nation itself.

Nobody can help but be gratified by the growth of the Jewish population of Palestine. A Jewish population like that of Palestine today, is a great thing, but it is a very small thing compared with what Zionism means. We have come out of a preparatory stage and are in a stage of expanding. But it must be approached from a broad point of view. Palestine has become the most important Jewish problem. There is nothing else to compare with it. Out of about 27,000 Jews from Germany who have established themselves in overseas countries, 22,000 have established themselves in Palestine. Palestine has become the main issue in Jewish life.

But the Zionist movement in the last two years has not risen to the occasion. I do not say that Palestine has not risen to the occasion. But the movement as such has not taken in Jewish life the place it should have done. There are some Jews who hold definite opinions that are not Zionistic— anti-Zionists and non-Zionists. But there is a vast movement of millions who are attracted to Palestine, a vast movement of the Jewish youth that is attracted to Palestine. Nevertheless, the Zionist movement as a movement and the Zionist organization do not seem to have become what they should have become.

While I am not of the group of alarmists, we must take into account the fact that conditions in the world change. The particular relations established between Great Britain and Palestine, and the Jews and Great Britain and Palestine, can be regarded as something stable, both because of our own achievements in Palestine, and also because of the way in which British interests have developed in that part of the world.

We have the opportunity now to do a big thing to establish on a sound economic basis the future of a large section of the Jewish people. It would be a crime if we should afterwards have to look back and realize that we did not take full advantage of our opportunities, that we failed Jewry at a time when the opportunities were greater than for many centuries. That corner of West Asia is not going to wait for us.

It would be a mistake, therefore, to consider the coming Zionist Congress only from a narrow point of view.

Immigration. I hope we shall never get rid of the problem of immigration. I hope the problem will grow. It is not merely necessary to demand greater immigration. It is necessary to do all the work politically possible to get a large immigration; but also to do everything in Palestine that makes large immigration inevitable. The great fact is that the Jewish people needs this large immigration.

Any divorcing of Jewish immigration into Palestine from the problem of the Jewish people is something we cannot allow, At bottom absorptive capacity depends not only on the constant factors, like the size of Palestine, and the amount of available land, but it depends on the variable problems of the development of the country and the capital put into it. If Jewish immigration were to be stopped, the development of the country would stop.

Out of the fact certain problems arise; problems like Jewish labor. The problem is how to assure that whatever absorptive capacity created by Jewish work and Jewish faith, which should be enjoyed by Jews, is being used up by others. After all we are in Palestine building up a Jewish land.

Then there is the problem of land. It would be a mistake on our part, because there is a lull, to think that this problem has been settled. The Hope-Simpson Report and the French Report did not have their effect. But the problem of the land still exists, as it did. Any neglect of the problem of the land is a neglect of what is fundamental.

It was a commonplace to denounce land speculation. Not all economists were sure that speculation was a bad thing in itself. But irrespective of right or wrong, anything that raises the price of land against Jewish settlers in Palestine is a crime. If a Jewish settler who comes to Palestine with a small amount of money finds the land closed to him because of the speculation of his Jewish brothers, then those Jewish brothers are guilty of high treason. The question of Jewish labor is very similar. There may be two sides to the question of cheaper labor. But anyone who is using labor that keeps out Jewish labor is guilty of a crime against the Jewish national home.

At the basis of all our policies there must lie this conception, that what we do must be based on the conception of a Jewish political status in Palestine, which means a Jewish national life. I am not opposed to Jewish settlement in Biro-Bidjan, or anything else. I am not opposed to settling Jews anywhere they find opportunities to live. But in Palestine there must be something more. In Palestine there must be a Jewish political status that must never be reduced to that of a minority receiving rights at the hands of a majority, that must never be reduced to that of individual Jews immigrating into a country. In Palestine immigration must definitely mean the coming back of the Jewish nation into Palestine for building up a Jewish national life.

That is why we are opposed to taking away citizenship from Jews in Palestine. Everybody is agreed that laws must be obeyed, and breaking laws must be punished. But a Jew who has gone to Palestine and has made his home there, no matter what he has done, must not be deprived of his citizenship in the way in which he can have his naturalization withdrawn in any other country. Palestine must be regarded as his home.

The complete identification of Palestine citizenship with being a Jew has not yet been achieved, but nothing must be done that is contrary to this principle.

Heroics in connection with the British government, heroics in connection with Geneva, heroics in connection with the Arabs are not going to build the Jewish National home. We have seen the effect of heroics in Geneva, in what happened to the petition of some Palestinian citizens asking for the establishment of a Jewish State. And heroics in connection with the Arabs will not help matters. It is a problem of tremendous difficulty and delicacy. But the Arab problem is changing as Palestine changes. Palestine development has made a tremendous difference to hundreds of thousands of Arabs in Palestine and outside, with the result that in countries outside Palestine they are looking with envy upon Palestine. That fact cannot be without its political effects. The progress in Palestine must produce a state of equilibrium between Jews and Arabs in Palestine. It is a problem to be applied with great respect and a sense of great responsibility.

In economics, the time has come for the movement again to take active charge of economic affairs in Palestine. Is it necessary that there should be in Palestine so many public or semi-public bodies engaged in economic development, without co-ordination ? That there should be so many private groups and individuals committing the country to big economic obligations without that work being coordinated in the interests of the development of the future? We are seeing the result of leaving the land question to private initiative. If national capital can be made available for land development, as in Huleh, for strengthening our roots in Palestine, it must be welcomed. There must be no missed opportunities. All those millions of pounds lying idle in Palestine while opportunities exist for development, show that the opportunities are not being used fully.

You may say it is the fault of the Executive. I am not interested whom you blame, so long as it is put right. As I see it, it is the whole movement that is at fault. But even if it were the fault of the Executive, we are now coming to a Congress, and we are not interested in what the Executive did, but in what is to be done to utilize in the future fully the opportunities that exist. That is what the Congress has to consider.

There is, too, the problem of marketing Palestine products. That must be dealt with from the point of view of large national economics. It is a question that raises large political problems.

The suggestion has been made that in order to give Palestine oranges a big English market, Palestine should be made a British colony. Palestine oranges are very important, but the two problems are not of the same importance. One should not raise fundamental political problems in that way. The problem of selling Palestine oranges is an important problem to which we must apply serious constructive efforts. But it is not the way to deal with it by raising slogans of Seventh Dominion or Crown Colony.

The neglect of organization has introduced chaos into our movement and has deprived our movement of the opportunity of embracing the whole Jewish nation, of bringing about the time when Zionism is almost identical with Jew, in almost all parts of the world.

The greatest fault is the complete lack of sense of discipline. To go to Geneva and induce the Council of the League of Nations to adopt a resolution against the creation of a Jewish State is not of service to the Jewish nation. The statement made on the B.B.C. that the demand for a Jewish State had been turned down, was a disaster. And it is a disaster brought upon themselves by ourselves.

Unless the Nineteenth Congress deals with this question once and for all, it will have met in vain. I am not interested in the question whether the political opinions of Revisionism are right or wrong. No matter what views one may have on the political problems, one thing no Zionist may do—that is, break through the Jewish front and take your own line. That is a crime against the Jewish people. It is just as much a crime when the Mizrachi declares a boycott of the funds, or when another party does not carry out the decisions of Congress in one or another matter. Without relation to the problem whether the particular view is right or wrong, this matter must be dealt with.

The question of leadership consists of political representation to the world outside, the day-to-day administration of the problems of the movement, and the leadership of the nation to its goal. To make the nation face its goal, is in leadership the most important task.

I do not say the Zionist leadership has not done its duty in this direction. But the movement has not done its duty in this direction. Blame the Executive if you like. But it is the fault of the movement that has not been attuned to these things.

The movement has become interested in party squabbles. A year ago I was a little more hopeful about the outlook. There was some signs of things getting better. Today I am less hopeful. Those signs are being dissipated. I hope the signs are wrong. The great thing is that we must forget the narrowness of party views. We all have a right to our opinions, But the movement has become split up into groups that do not even speak to each other. It is true that our problems have grown more acute, because our work has grown more complex. But the result of what is happening is that we are not bringing the people into the movement.

The Jewish people are interested in Palestine, but they are more interested in Palestine than Zionism. People are interested in getting their certificate to go to Palestine. But if they were Zionists they would think not only of their certificate, but of their relation to the great Jewish national movement. In a sense the Jewish masses are out of contact with the Zionist movement. I do not say they are not Zionistic. But they are out of contact with Zionism. We cannot win them by trying convince them that this party is right and the other party is wrong. We have to convince them that Zionism is their hope. This policy of parties has destroyed what driving power Zionism possessed.

The Nineteenth Congress must represent a change in this direction. The question of whether we are going to have a Coalition Executive or not, is not so important. I believe that if we have not an Executive embracing the greatest part of all the parties, we shall again have trouble. Zionism must not be the slogan of a party.

But the problem will not be dealt with effectively unless it is linked up with the widest aspects of what Zionism now stands for unless it is linked up again with the problem of the Jewish soul, and not only of its body. The Jewish youth wants to know where it stands in relation to the problems of the world. And if we do not give them that sense and meaning of their place in life, the Jewish youth will not listen to us. We have not only to build up Palestine, not only to further Jewish immigration, but we have also to build up again Jewish spirit and life.