A People Without a Land

Abstract

Zionism was founded on the premise that the Jews are a nation, and they have always been one. What they have lacked for many centuries is a state of their own, a Jewish state; but that deficit was now going to be remedied by the Zionist movement.²

Jews are a nation which, having once acted as the leaven of the social world, is destined to be resurrected with the rest of the civilized nations.

—Moses Hess, 1862

Let sovereignty be granted us over a portion of the globe large enough to satisfy the reasonable requirements of a nation; the rest we shall manage for ourselves.

—Theodore Herzl, 1896

We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and the gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house.

—Moshe Dayan, April 1956

Zionism comprises a belief that Jews are a nation, and as such are entitled to self-determination as all other nations are.

—Emanuele Ottolenghi, 2003¹