http://www.algemeiner.com/2013/08/01/self-respect-the-unrealized-vision-for-the-jewish-state/
WHY DOES THE AUTHOR NOT MENTION VLADIMIR ZEEV JABOTINSKY, WHO, BETTER THAN ALL THE ZIONIST FOUNDING FATHERS EXEMPLIFIED THE ZIONIST DREAMS AND GOALS/ OTHERWISE THIS IS A FINE COLUMN…..RSK
In the nineteenth century, Theodor Herzl and other political Zionists shared a vision for a Jewish state that would allow the Jewish People to regain their self-respect after almost two millennia of national homelessness. Would Zionists like Alkalai, Kalischer, Mohilever, Hess, Pinsker, Pines, Nordau, Reines, Bar-Ilan, Ahad Ha’am, and Bialik see in modern Israel the dignity they craved for their people? After 65 years of Jewish political independence, unfortunately, it remains rather doubtful.
What, then, would a self-respecting Jewish state look like?
To be sure, it would not look like a nation that does not exert sovereignty over its heartland; that during wartime engages in repetitive rounds of combat instead of decisive victories; that releases busloads of bloodstained murderers for a single soldier or as a “gesture” of peace; or that engages in negotiations of any kind at any time with wolves in wolves’ clothing, envoys of a culture of hatred.
Leo Pinsker wanted Jews to “rise manfully to our full height.” And, indeed, for the most part the individual Jew no longer needs to stoop like a weary ghost wandering between shtetls and ghettos, or plead like a beggar on his knees. But is the State of Israel not routinely stooping before its international adversaries, not perennially begging for foreign aid, UN votes, and recognition of its rightful capital from its apparent allies?
