22 THE QUESTION OF PALESTINE Jews must do everything themselves. The natives would continue to benefit indirectly from the general improvement and economic upsurge, particularly in trade. But henceforth Jews must try to be self-sufficient and do all the physical work with their hands, including the most difficult, the least paying, and the most menial. If there was no “ exploitation" of Arab labor, Arab laborers could not “ objectively” be opposed to the Zionists. , . . Avoda Ivrit was predicated in part upon a doctrinaire illusion; it was rampant with intellectual inconsis­ tencies. In effect, it created a subculture, free from the demands of the larger society, not parasitic upon it, and above all, enjoying that kind of immunity from “ reality”— whether Turkish, British, or Arab— that permitted its members to indulge in their dreams.11 T he principal and dircct benefit to the natives was the loss of their country— but E lon's point in general is a good one; A vod a Ivrit, and the other Zionist devices for alienating the land from the natives, allow ed no one to say that there was an objective exploitation. “ O b jective” in this context takes on the most direct and cruellest meaning. It means (and meant) that Zionism would do its preparatory work and win its early battles objectively on its own ground, and not against anyone, "an yon e” in this case (and henceforward) being defined as non-Jcwish. Note that even Eion cannot see the moral distinction between British and A rab “ reality" in Palestine. That by virtue o f its unbroken existence in Palestine for centuries the native presence had and still has an incomparably greater moral authority than that o f the imperial European power, has not occurred to him. A nd it did not always occur to the Zionists, who after 1948 did their best to eliminate objectively the A rab Palestinians. A typical view o f what happened is W eizm ann’s remark that “ it was a miraculous cleaning o f the land; the miraculous simplification o f Israel's ta sk ."“ Thus all appeals on behalf o f Zionism were international appeals perforce. The site o f Zionist struggle was only partially in Palestine; most o f the time until 1948, and even after— and W eizmann's own work is the best case in point— the struggle