THE yt'KSTION OK P\I,ES'MNK Between them, Hess and Eliot concur that Zionism is to be curried out by the Jews with the assistance o f m ajor European powers: that Zionism will restore "a lost fatherland," and in so doing mediate between the various civilizations; that presentday Palestine was in need o f cultivation, civilization, reconsti­ tution; that Zionism would finally bring enlightenment and progress where at present there was neither. T he three ideas that depended on one another in Hess and Eliot— and later in almost every Zionist thinker or ideologue— are (a) the nonex­ istent A rab inhabitants, (b) the com plem entary WesternJewish attitude to an “ em pty" territory, and (c) the restorative Zionist project, which would repeat by rebuilding a vanished Jewish state and comhine it with modern elements like disciplined, separate colonies, a special agency For land acquisition, etc. O f course, none o f these ideas would have any force were it not for the additional fact of their being addressed to, shaped for, and out o f an international (i.e., non-Oriental and hcnce European) context. This context was the reality, not only because o f the ethnocentric rationale governing the whole project, but also because o f the overwhelm ing facts o f D ias­ pora realities and imperialist hegemony over the entire gamut o f European culture. It needs to be rem arked, how ever, that Zionism (like the view o f Am erica as an empty land held by Puritans) was a colonial vision unlike that o f most other nineteenth-century European powers, for whom the natives of outlying territories were included in the redem ptive mission civilistilrice, From the earliest phases o f its modern evolution until it culminated in the creation of Israel, Zionism appealed to a European audience for whom the classification o f overseas territories and natives into various uneven classes was canoni­ cal and “ natural." That is why, for exam ple, every single state or movement in the formerly colonized territories of Africa and Asia today identifies with, fully supports, and understands the Palestinian struggle. In many instances— as 1 hope to show presently— there is an unmistakable coincidence between the experiences of A rab Palestinians at the hands o f Zionism and the experiences of those black, yellow , and brown people who