essential facts are that no Israeli, with the possible exception of a handful of crackpots, will consciously justify such discrimination and that it disappears in times of national stress, such as the recent war. For Zionists, a Jew is a Jew, wherever he comes from and whatever his mother tongue, the concept of Jewishness overriding other considerations. (In this respect, at least, there is little difference between Zionism and Israeli nationalism. An Israeli nationalist deplores the division among communities even more than Zionists do, believing that the common language, common culture, and community of political destiny of the new nation should abolish differences brought by the immigrants from their countries of origin.) It seems virtually certain that this kind of discrimination will disappear in time and constitute no real danger to the state, irksome as it may be right now.
A different situation prevails, however, as far as nonJews are concerned. The idea of a homogeneous Jewish state is inherent in Zionism. A state which exists for the solution of the Jewish problem should be populated, so the Zionists feel, by Jews. Any non-Jew is really a foreign element in the present Israeli regime. Non-Jewish immigrants, even non-Jewish spouses of Jewish immigrants, find great obstacles to their absorption into Israeli society. Here, Zionist religionism and Israeli nationalism part. In modern times it should be easy to join a nation, the average Israeli feels: if you want to be a part of Hebrew society, speak its language, bring up your children in its culture, support its state, and serve in its army, you should be welcome. For a Zionist, this idea is unacceptable. You can become a Jew only by undergoing a religious ritual-circumcision for men, immersion in water in a religious bathhouse for women, with all the accompanying religious ritual.
While this question may only be important to the few non-Jewish immigrants, the idea of a homogeneous Jewish state has grave consequences for Arabs. It was not only a question of security and political allegiance which made