Lawrence of Arabia, Zionism and Palestine - The World War I ...

ZIONISM AND PALESTINE 49
love of Zion, Hibbath Tsiyon—to behold her face before
they died. Disraeli, the first imperialist, wielding an
Empire, creating an Empress, still yearned in his heart
and cried in his lyric romance for Zion. 1
Before the
end of his century there arose a giant in Israel, splendid
to look upon as the bearded and winged deities of
Assyria. The scandal of Dreyfus convinced Theodor
Herzl that there was no refuge for the soul of Jewry,
either from martyrdom or assimilation into nothing,
save an individual land, state, and name: die letzte
Anstrengung der Juden. What other land could there be
than Eretz Yisroel, the Land of Israel? The spirit of
world Jewry was moved by the grand conception, as
the spirit of modern Greece used to be moved by the
Μeyάλη Ιδία—the Great Idea—of Constantinople,
only more profoundly and far more justifiably; for the
supreme intellects of Athens had lived and died five
hundred years before the Roman built Constantinople,
whereas the creative spirit of Judaism was of The Land,
and ceased to create when The Land was taken from
them. Therefore this Austrian Jew, Theodor Herzl,
was able to stand before the Sultan of Turkey, empowered
to buy back from him Palestine for the Jews. But that
tremendous boon which the Sultan might have granted,
the Caliph, fearing the anger of his Moslem Empire,
refused; and once more hope seemed to die. There
were already projects for colonization in South America
when Joseph Chamberlain, the greatest Secretary of
State of the greatest Colonial Empire, had the vision to
offer Zion in exile a healthy, fertile and beautiful territory
in East Africa. For many, including Herzl himself, the
quest seemed to be ended; and the offer would have
been accepted but for a small group headed by one
1
In Tancred (1847) a Jerusalem Jew says: "The English will
take this city ; they, will keep it." It is not unreasonable to assume
that in securing Cyprus for Great Britain he felt that, sooner
or later, the step would bring Palestine and Syria within the
orbit of British Control.