64 I UK g t F.Sl IOS OK I'AI KS I INK whereby our fathers maintained their separateness, refusing the ease o f falsehood." Zionism is to be a dramatic lesson for mankind. But what ought to catch the reader's attention about the way Mordecat illustrates his thesis is his depiction of the land: [The Jews] have wealth enough to redeem the soil from debauched and paupered conquerors; they have the skiil of the statesman to devise, the longue of the orator to persuade. And is there no prophet or poet among us to make the ears of Christian Europe tingle with shame at the hideous obloquy of Christian strife which the Turk gazes at |thc reference here is to the long history of European disputes about the Holy Landj at at the fighting of beasts to which he has lent an arena? There is a store of wisdom among us to found a new Jewish polity, grand, simple, just tike the old— a republic where there is equality of protection, an equality which shone like a star on the forehead of our ancient community, and gave it more than the brightness of Western freedom amid the despotisms of the East. Then our race shall have an organic centre, a heart and brain to watch and guide and execute: the outraged Jew shall have a defence in the court o f nations, as the outraged Englishman or American. And the world will gain as Israel gains. For there will be a community in the van of the East which carries the culture and the sympathies of every great nation in its bosom; there wilt be a land set for a halting-place o f enmities, a neutral ground for the East as Belgium is for the West. Difficulties? I know- there are difficulties. But let the spirit of sublime achievement move in the great among our people, and the work will begin. [Emphases added]4 The land itself is characterized in two separate ways. On the one hand, it is associated with debauched and paupercd conquerors, an arena lent by the Turk to fighting beasts, a part of the despotic East; on the other, with "th e brightness of Western freedom ,” with nations like England and Am erica, with the idea o f neutrality (Belgium ). In short, with a degraded and unworthy East and a noble, enlightened West, The bridge between those warring representatives o f East and West will be Zionism.