You will pardon me if I trouble you at the outset with a
few personal observations. My name has been placed in error on the Orders of
the Day. I came to Basle with the firm intention of only speaking if, in
con-sequence of the trend of any discussion, I regarded it as my bounden duty,
as the representative of numerous constituent groups, to place my views before
you. Should this necessity not have arisen I wished to remain in my seat a
silent listener, voting on occasion with the rank and file. I find critics in
recent years have represented me as imagining myself to be a sort of tenor of
the Congress, whose role it is to come and sing a few heroic notes, receive
applause and then to gracefully retire. I was resolved to avoid even the
appearance of this so just and disinterested a representation of my activity
at the Congress. I am conscious of never having indulged here in idle oratory,
though I can imagine that a realistic survey of the past and present of the
Jewish people might appear purely academic to one who failed to realise that
we had to begin our Argonaut journey by taking our bearings. This
indispensable item of navigation is now accomplished. Henceforth we must
engage in steering a straight course. Less than ever may this Congress become
an academic assembly. Mere rhetoric, art for art's sake, has here no place.
Here only sober, calmly intelligent business speeches may be delivered. For
such a one I ask your indulgence.
Our President communicated to us yesterday two facts, which
spread a hitherto unfamiliar light across our path. He conveyed to us the
intelligence that the British Government is prepared to grant a concession of
land to the Jewish people, not in the form in which such concessions are
usually granted, not for the purpose of financial speculation and commercial
exploitation, but with the authoritative expression of the wish of the British
Government to evince its sympathy for the Jewish people and to help it in its
endeavours to help itself. The Chairman further stated that the Russian
Government had given him officially to understand that Russia was disposed to
further our efforts for the settlement of Palestine.
That is then the diplomatic situation with which the
Zionist movement is confronted. Four Powers, including the greatest that hold
sway over the globe, have expressed themselves as favourably disposed, if not
to the Jewish people, at any rate to the Zionist movement. His Majesty the
German Emperor expressed his sympathy with our movement at its inception. The
British Government is prepared to evince its sympathy in a very substantial
and practical manner -- in the form of a grant of land. The Russian Government
has declared its willingness to further our plans so far as they comprise the
Jewish settlement of Palestine. The United States of North America has
recently taken two diplomatic steps which justify the hope that when the time
comes we shall not have to turn to them for sympathy in vain.
The fourth item of the Basle programme, on the granite
composition of which the snarlers and back-biters will break their teeth,
speaks in its necessary and deliberate terseness, which admits of no broad
examination of details nor any expansion of its laconically expressed idea --
it speaks, I repeat, of the "steps for obtaining the assent of the
Governments which are necessary for Zionism to achieve its end." This
sentence has always had the good fortune of being regarded by every opponent
of Zionism as a thorn in the side. Round this sentence the wit of our
opponents has played the most. "This assent of the Governments," we
were ironically told again and again, "you will never, never obtain. The
Sultan will and can never grant you Palestine, for even if he were disposed to
do so -- which will never be the case -- he would encounter the opposition of
Russia, and on your sweet behalf the Sultan will not pick a quarrel with his
most powerful neighbour. Russia will never allow the ground which has been
trodden by the founder of the Christian religion ever to become Jewish."
Our critics have once more tested the correctness and wisdom of the English
saying "Never prophesy unless you know."
Russia, whom we were told to recognise and fear as the
insurmountable obstacle in our path, Russia declares in a friendly way that it
has absolutely no objection to the occupation of Palestinian soil by Jews. II
And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, cast your eye back upon the
path which Zionism, after something less than seven years' existence, has
covered in its present form. After barely a year's activity it called this
Congress into being; a body to which none, but a few crazy Jewish opponents,
denies the quality of legitimately representing the Jewish people.
All serious people recognise that we are the executive and
deliberate representatives of the Jewish people. Since the first achievement,
to which I have just referred, six years have elapsed. In these six years
apart from everything else we have done one thing attracted in all possible
ways the attention of the world to the Jewish question. Contemporaries do not
often take account of the historical significance of events that take place
before their own eyes. Posterity is usually juster; it is in a position to be
so since it regards human affairs from a higher perspective, from a broader
standpoint. Posterity will know how to appreciate the fact I have just
mentioned. For until the rise of Zionism the non-Jewish world was assured by
the persons, who till then had alone been recognised as the official
representatives of Jewry, that there was no Jewish question, that the Jews
were happy and contented. It had become, particularly in the last decades,
since the emancipation of the Jews in the West, a fixed tradition of official
Jewry to put on a pleasant face whenever it came into contact with non-Jews.
The position of our celebrated "great Jew" has always been that he
is eternally rubbing his hands, if he has not stuck them in the arm-holes of
his waistcoat, or put them in his pocket to pay contributions to public --
generally anti-Jewish -- funds or institutions.
Whenever a Minister or Ruler on a journey or on solemn
occasions received the official representatives of Jewry, the burden of the
song was always: "We are happy under your Government, or under your
administration, we are deeply grateful for the gracious protection which you
grant us; we shall humbly endeavour to continue to deserve your grace and
favour.
We cannot blame the Governments if with a parade of good
faith they amazedly reply to the Jews who now complain, "What, you are
not contented? You are complaining? That is something new! Your recognised
representatives have always assured us of the contrary." I claim it as a
great service rendered by Zionism that it has put an end to the humbug about
being happy and contented, and to the comedy of gratitude. From the very
beginning we boldly and distinctly said, "We are not contented; we regard
our situation as a very bad one; we consider our treatment as discreditable
and undeserved; we regard a fundamental change in our situation as a vital
necessity; after the humiliating attempts we have made at assimilation with
other peoples we have taken counsel with ourselves and we desire to live in
our own way, in our own right, on our own soil." We have, I repeat,
placed our wishes in all kinds of ways before the world, we have spoken to the
nations as a people suffering from a wrong and demanding justice, wt have gone
to the Governments. That, I repeat, may appear a small matter to contemporary
observers; as a matter of fact it is a turning-point in the history of the
Jewish people.
We have asked. Since the world began there have ever been
but two methods of obtaining anything. These two methods may be succinctly
stated in the words: Take it or ask for it.
We are neither in a position nor desire to take anything so
we are thrown back upon the second method, that of asking. It is strange, but
literally true, that before the rise of Zionism we absolutely did not ask.
Among ourselves we heaved deep sighs, expressed longing desires in prose and
verse, pressed each other's hands with significant looks, but we have never
stood before the Powers, and in an unequivocal form openly and distinctly
stated what we wanted. We can neither reproach ourselves nor others on that
account. The Jewish people was in a state of chaos; it was unorganised; it was
a human swarm; it did not even know itself what it wanted; it had no
representatives competent to speak in its name; and as it did not know itself
what it wanted, it was only natural that the Governments remained in
ignorance. To have altered all that appears little, but in reality it is very
much. We had asked! We had asked that Palestine should be open to our
occupation. III In more than one official quarter we received a reply, couched
perhaps in polite terms, something to the following effect: "You are
discontented and you wish to change your quarters. We congratulate you on this
resolve which testifies to your self-respect and to your energy. But no
Government machinery need be put in motion. We place not the slightest
obstacle in the way of your emigration, and even give you our best wishes for
a pleasant journey." Perhaps for the first time in our lives we did not
require to possess a sense of humour but were forced to reply with
imperturbable, respectful seriousness: Pardon, it does not suffice to open
your doors when the other doors are bolted. You permit our going out, but
nobody allows our coming in. As we cannot believe you are playing with the
lives of a nation of twelve million souls, we ask you not to stop at the
permission to emigrate but to secure an entry in the land which we have in
view as our goal.
Not from those to whom we appealed, not from official
quarters, but from the numerous amateur diplomats with which the ranks of our
opponents swarm, did we get the mocking reply, "What on earth do you
imagine is going to happen? Do you expect the Powers are going to say to the
Sultan: Now, then, just you give Palestine to the Jews or you'll have us to
reckon with!"? To this we reply with a seriousness which the objection
hardly deserves: "That has never been our idea nor our desire. The
sovereign rights and the dignity of the Sultan shall never be infringed. The
day on which we enter a Turkish Province shall for all time be a great and
happy day in the history of the Ottoman Empire. All that we desire is to be
placed by the Great Powers into official communication with the Sultan so
that, after comprehensive discussion with His Majesty, in the course of which
we confidently expect to convince him that an agreement with us would be to
his advantage, at the final conference the Great Powers would be represented
as participants, witnesses and guarantors. If it became apparent that it was
impossible to come to an agreement with His Majesty the Sultan, if his
unbending will shut us out of Palestine, then, still solemnly asserting our
undying historical claims to the land of our fathers, firmly and resolutely
adhering to the Basle programme, we should have to be patient and wait. We can
afford to wait.
Make no mistake. We cannot afford to wait if we abandon
ourselves to despair of our future, if we lay down our arms in abject
surrender; for then we should rush at terrific speed to a most horrible
downfall. But if we once again summon up courage, resolve to continue to live
as a nation, have a clear and settled purpose, then once more shall we be the
"everlasting people," am olam, and nothing nor anybody will
be able to do us the least bit of harm. Then we shall wait patiently till
better circumstances present themselves, and continue to renew, when the time
comes, deliberately and with imperturbable tenacity -- which our enemies, if
they please, can call by another uglier name -- our demands, till a situation
arises in the politics of the world which will cause the Powers to deem it
desirable to give us a hearing.