new Hebrew nation had evolved, it had become an unconsciously accepted fact.

We are a new nation, the Hebrew nation, whose homeland is Palestine (which we call Eretz-Israel) and whose political creation is the State of Israel.

This does not mean, except for a small lunatic fringe, that we want to turn our backs on world Jewry and cut ourselves off from it. As the period of the Six-Day War has clearly demonstrated, there is a very real and profound feeling of solidarity between Jews all over the world and Israel. We are grateful for this and reciprocate it. Solidarity there is. Affinity there is. But world Jewry is not a nation, while the Hebrew Israelis are.

It is never quite accurate to draw an analogy between different peoples, because there are no two quite alike. Yet, to illustrate a point, one could say that the relationship between Israelis and Jews is like that between Australians and Englishmen. Australia has a deep sense of affinity for Great Britain; in two world wars, Australia rushed to the defense of England long before it was threatened itself. Some Australians, even today, say "home" when they mean England. Yet there can be no doubt that Australia is a nation by itself, with its own special interests, trying to respond to its own particular challenges, conducting a national policy suited to its own geo-political circumstances (as its participation in the war in Viet Nam has shown).

Thus, Zionism created something which it never consciously intended, a new nation. And by its very success, Zionism has become obsolete; by attaining its goals, Zionism provided for its own negation.

* * *

The existence of a new nation, Middle Eastern by birth, makes an entirely different approach to the Israeli-Arab problem possible. Unfortunately, this has yet to become clear to both Arab and Israeli. It is a common historical phenomenon that the ideological superstructure of a so¬

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