strange as it may seem, there was a reason for this: when Herzl dreamed about his state-to-be he did not think about it in terms of any particular country. His was a blueprint for a national home that could be set up anywhere-in Argentina, in Canada, in Uganda. Only during the last phase of writing his book did Herzl become convinced that the idea of Palestine might give the project of a Jewish state the necessary emotional thrust. Because of this he inserted a small passage into his book, saying that Palestine might be the best of the potential sites for the new Jewish state. In this passage, which sounds rather like an afterthought, he said that a Jewish state in Palestine would constitute "a part of the rampart of Europe against Asia," adding, "We would serve as an outpost of culture against barbarism." These words, put down perhaps without much thought, are highly significant. Herzl at that time had obviously thought very little about Palestine as a concrete entity. Probably he knew very little about it, about its inhabitants and geo-political significance. The phrases he used were just unconscious echoes of the spirit of the times.

In the Zionist Congress of 1931 an interesting description of Herzl's evolution was given by Chaim Weizmann, who was to become the first President of Israel, in a speech opposing demands to set the "final aim" of Zionism as a Jewish state. "In all of Herzl's declarations," said Weizmann, "the idea of the Jewish State appears only in his book, Der Judenstaat. When he wrote this book, Herzl was far from certain that Palestine was the land where his plan would probably be realized."

On the contrary, contended Weizmann, "Herzl thought about the Palestinian plan as something academic, as a pious wish not meriting serious consideration. There is no certainty whatsoever that his vision of a Jewish state applied to Palestine. The whole style of his book makes it probable that while writing it he was thinking about

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