Einstein's other theory : on forming a Jewish state

[Dover]

Einstein's other theory

In 1947 Zionist leaders asked Albert Einstein to work a miracle and persuade a sceptical India to support the birth of a Jewish state. His fascinating correspondence with Jawaharlal Nehru has recently surfaced in Israeli archives. Benny Morris analyses their exchange

Wednesday February 16, 2005
The Guardian

Albert Einstein was a somewhat reluctant Zionist. To be sure, he often referred to himself as a proud Jewish nationalist, and declared that though the Zionist enterprise was threatened by "fanatical Arab outlaws" (as he phrased it in 1938) the country would become "a centre of culture for all Jews, a refuge for the most grievously oppressed, a field of action for the best among us, a unifying ideal, and a means of attaining inward health for the Jews of the whole world". In a letter to the Manchester Guardian in 1929, he lauded the "young pioneers, men and women of magnificent intellectual and moral calibre, breaking stones and building roads under the blazing rays of the Palestinian sun" and "the flourishing agricultural settlements shooting up from the long-deserted soil... the development of water power... industry... and, above all, the growth of an educational system ... What observer... can fail to be seized by the magic of such amazing achievement and of such almost superhuman devotion?"

But his praise of Zionism was peppered with unease. Traumatised by central European anti-semitism, Einstein was keenly aware of the potential for excess embedded in nationalist ideologies and movements. From early on, he found much to admire in the liberal vision, propagated by some Palestinian Jewish intellectuals, of a binational Arab-Jewish state. Speaking in New York City in 1938, he declared: "I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state... My awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power... I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain."

Indeed, in 1952 he turned down an appeal by Israel's founding prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, that he become the state's second president, following the death of Chaim Weizmann. Einstein argued that he wasn't suited for the job but also that he feared that as president he would "have... to assume moral responsibility for the decisions of others", decisions that might conflict with his conscience...cont'd

http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,3604,1415327,00.html

[Dookus]

1. Proof that Einstein was a genius

not just mathematically, but ethically.

[punpirate]

2. In a book made up of Einstein's....

... wide-ranging thoughts of a variety of subjects, The World As I See It, there's an interesting lecture of his on what Zionism was, as he saw it.

He concluded at that time (1931) that Zionism was not a political force, but rather was one of social and cultural significance. He emphasized that the only way Jews could accomplish a re-integration of their own society was to find common ground with Arabs.

To this end, he said, "We need to pay great attention to our relations with the Arabs. By cultivating these carefully we shall be able in future to prevent things from becoming so dangerously strained that people can take advantage of them to provoke acts of hostility. This goal is perfectly within our reach, because our work of construction has been, and must continue to be, carried out in such a manner as to serve the real interests of the Arab population also...."

Right-wing forces in Israel have turned Israel into an armed camp and the Palestine into an analog of apartheid South Africa and have made of Palestinians an analog of the diaspora. Liberal elements in Israel know this. Right-wing Jews there, and here, do not, or will not admit it.

[EastWind]

3. Einstein's view...

is the long view, the historical view. The early settlers did try to befriend the Arabs, and succeeded to an extent. The opposition was in the Arab leadership.

To surmise that it is a modern phenomenon is very short-sighted. Terrorism did not begin with the second Intifada and suicide bombings.