harm in Palestine.... The Turkish government may feel itself compelled to defend its reign in Palestine, in Syria, against its subjects by armed power. ... In such a position, Turkey might become convinced that it may be important for her to have, in Palestine and Syria, a strong and well organized people which, with all respect to the rights of the inhabitants living there, will resist any attack on the authority of the Sultan and defend this authority with all its might.

This was, quite clearly, a direct offer to turn the Zionist settlement into a bastion for the Turkish government, against the inhabitants of the country. It meant, practically speaking, a declaration of war on the emerging Arab nationalist movement.

A far-reaching decision indeed, yet it was arrived at quite naturally, even automatically. It was not inspired, as it might seem now, by any enmity toward the Arabs and their aspirations, nor even by any sympathy toward imperialism. It was simply an outcome of the particular situation in which Zionism found itself. As Nordau himself put it four years later, addressing the Ninth Zionist Congress in Hamburg following the Revolt of the Young T urks,

The land of our hopes, our aspirations and our efforts, the Holy Land of our fathers, is within the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire. Its shores and its frontiers are guarded by Turkish soldiers. The keys of the house which the Zionists want to turn into their national home are in the hands of the Turkish government. It is, therefore, natural that all our endeavors turn themselves toward Turkey, much as the needle of the compass turns toward the magnetic pole.

A different policy, such as was advocated by some faint Zionist voices in Constantinople, would have meant antagonizing the Turkish government, closing the doors of Palestine to Jewish immigration perhaps forever. Zionist leaders in Europe could not forsee that within a few years the Ottoman Empire would break up and the Arab na¬

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