This article attempts to shed light on a special kind of Orientalist discourse that circulates in Russian-Israeli literature and press. This discourse feeds on the cultural sources buried in
One of the central elements of Herzlian spatial-political thought that has been filtered out of the deterministic historiographical discourse on Herzl-the-visionary-of-the-nation-state is that of travel and tourism, as well as the cultural significance and political context of the representations of travel and tourism in his utopian-political novel Altneuland. The present article argues, however, that it is precisely through accounting for the notions of travel and tourism at work in Theodor Herzl's Altneuland that one can appreciate Herzl’s perception of homecoming in its full complexity. The development of this argument is divided into the following three areas: (1) a survey of the expressions of the theme of travel and tourism in Altneuland which have been largely overlooked by virtually all the historians, political scientists and literary scholars dealing with Herzl’s novel; (2) a rethinking of the cultural and political aspects of Herzlian Zionism given the appropriate assessment of the role played by the motif(s) of travel and tourism in his vision of the future Palestine, as well as placing those aspects within the wider historical context of the contemporary development of political territorially-oriented national movements in the Habsburg Central Europe where Herzlian nationalism had emerged; (3) framing discussion on the journey element in the Herzlian Zionism in terms of relevant theoretical discourse on travel, tourism and homecoming, with purpose of drawing through the case of Herzl's employment of travel motifs some broad theoretical reflections on travel, Zionism and homecoming in the time (and space) of fin-de-siècle multiethnic empires.
Most studies dealing with Kohn (1891Kohn ( -1971, a central Zionist figure in Prague, emphasize his resistance to the idea of a Jewish nation-state in Palestine and his consequent binationalism as indications of an exceptional position with respect to the contemporary Zionist mainstream. This representation is embedded in one of the fundamental conventions of Zionist historiography that the movement was intended exclusively to create a Jewish nation-state in Palestine. This convention, however, is the outcome of the misleading, teleological tendency to observe pre-1948 Zionist history through the retrospective lens of the establishment of the State of Israel. In fact, pre-state sources show that Kohn's binationalism was not exceptional. Kohn, the radical members of "Brith Shalom," and even the Zionist mainstream shared a basic outlook regarding Palestine's future political complexion, which I call autonomist Zionism and which rested on an autonomist interpretation of national self-determination. Statehood in Palestine was envisaged within a confederational political framework embracing both a Jewish and an Arab autonomous entity. A common governing body would deal with civil and territorial matters, but would refrain from intervening in purely national-cultural matters that would be the exclusive perview of the respective autonomous authorities.
Franz Kafka's short story “Schakale und Araber” (Jackals and Arabs) was published in October 1917 in the monthly journalDer Jude, the intellectual organ of German-speaking Zionism founded and edited by Martin Buber. The narrator, an unidentified and pleasant-mannered European man traveling in the desert, makes a stop at an oasis in an Arab area. The circumstances of his journey and its objectives are unknown. It becomes apparent from his story that the man has come to the Arab desert merely by chance “from the far North,” and that he has no intention of remaining in the area for long. All of a sudden, shortly after his “tall [and] white” Arab host has retired to the sleeping area, the narrator finds himself completely surrounded by a pack of jackals. One of them, who introduces himself as “the oldest jackal far and wide,” approaches the man and implores him to solve once and for all the long-standing dispute between the jackals and the Arabs, as the traveler alone—a man hailing from those countries in which reason reigns supreme, which is not the case among the Arabs—is capable of doing so. Once the jackal elder has related to the European traveler the story of his tribe's tribulations, and how they have been compelled to reside alongside the “filthy Arabs” from one generation to the next, another jackal produces a pair of scissors, which, according to the jackals' ancient belief, is to serve the long-awaited man of reason “from the North” to rescue them from their abhorrent and hated neighbors. But at that moment, the Arab caravan leader appears, wielding an immense whip. The reader learns that not only was the Arab awake while the jackal elder sought to persuade the European man to undertake the salvation project and listening attentively to the jackal's words, but in fact, he has been well aware of the jackals' intentions for a long time:It's common knowledge; so long as Arabs exist, that pair of scissors goes wandering through the desert and will wander with us to the end of our days. Every European is offered it for the great work; every European is just the man that Fate has chosen for them. They have the most lunatic hopes, these beasts; they're just fools, utter fools.
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