Washington Monthly - September/October 2014 - 109

on political books
Jabotinsky, by contrast, did not believe this. The failure of liberal reform in
Russia and the nationalism of the warring minorities in central Europe, Halkin
writes, had "convinced him that in the
growing turmoil of the early twentieth
century it was every people for itself." In
the age of Great Power imperialism, when
nation vied with nation for predominance, whether in Europe, Asia, or Africa,
it was imperative for the Jews to be able to
create a personal balance of power by establishing a state rather than be ruthlessly swallowed up by their enemies. In a 1910
essay, he sketched out his lupine credo:
"He who puts his trust in a neighbor, be
it the friendliest and most kindhearted,
is a fool. ... Separateness, distrust, vigilance at all times, a club in one's hands at
all times-there is no other way to survive the wars of the wolves."
This was the credo that animated Jabotinsky in coming decades. Together with
the legendary Zionist pioneer Joseph
Trumpeldor, he set about creating a "Jewish legion" that would be ready to fight
after World War I to assist the Zionist
cause once the Ottoman Empire had disintegrated. Trumpeldor established the
Zion Mule Corps, whose soldiers fought
at Gallipoli, among other battles. But Jabotinsky had his eye on a greater prize-
he wanted, in effect, to militarize Zionism. In July 1917, after much bureaucratic
stalling on the part of the British, the
38th Service Battalion, City of London
Regiment, with about eight hundred Jewish soldiers, complete with a rabbi and kosher food, began training for combat. In
July, the British government also issued
the Balfour Doctrine, promising a Jewish
"national home."
But the declaration, of course, only intensified rather than alleviated the tensions surrounding the future of the former Ottoman territories. Jabotinsky's
own views continued to harden after the
death of Trumpeldor, who had attempted
to defend several settlements that were
attacked by Bedouins in 1919. He asked for
reinforcements but did not receive them.
Jabotinsky believed that the Jewish left,
by refusing to allow Trumpeldor to evacuate the settlements and failing to supply
him with aid, had betrayed his friend.

In the 1920s, Jabotinsky sought to carry
on Trumpeldor's militant spirit by founding the Betar movement, whose very
name, Halkin writes, was a "Hebrew acronym for B'rit Trumpeldor, 'the Trumpeldor League.' " Betar had its origins in the
Jewish dueling fraternities of Latvia and
Jabotinsky's Jewish Legion. Indeed, with
its ethos of submission to the state and
blind fealty to a leader, Betar had a whiff
of fascism about it, which is what would
prompt Jabotinsky's old adversary, Abraham Cahan, to censure him for, in his
words, imitating "the outward forms of
Hitler and Mussolini's forces by instituting in his organization the brown-shirt
uniform, with certain Nazi-like ceremonies included." Cahan added, "[O]n inexperienced young people, such comedy
sometimes works like a charm."
The British, however,
were not amused by Jabotinsky's efforts to stir
up trouble. One of his
causes was the Western
Wall, the last remnant of
the Second Temple compound. Muslim religious
authorities claimed, as
they do today, that the
Wall belongs solely to Islam. In 1929 several hundred young Jews, a goodly
number belonging to Betar, held a demonstration,
raising the Zionist flag
and singing the Hatikvah.
Riots broke out, lasting for a week. The
liberal newspaper Haaretz said that Jabotinsky's propaganda had "poisoned
the atmosphere." The British ended up
expelling him from Palestine permanently. As Halkin shows, Jabotinsky became more radical as the 1930s went on
and the Arabs resorted increasingly to violence against the Jews. In 1938, a young
Betar and Irgun member, Shlomo BenYosef, along with two comrades, fired
on an Arab passenger bus, and was later hanged by the British. A furious Jabotinsky began to endorse Jewish terror,
referring to Ben-Yosef as an example of
a "new spiritual race." "If you don't want
to die," said Jabotinsky, "shoot and don't
blabber."

Unlike Cahan, who became a powerful
and revered figure, Jabotinsky has long
been viewed with mixed feelings. It's not
hard to see why. Jabotinsky was quite correct to argue that the left-wing Zionists
lacked a sufficient sense of urgency about
establishing a homeland for the millions
of Jews who would end up being murdered
by Hitler and his accomplices in World War
II. Current events seem to suggest that
he was also right to maintain that it was
a comforting chimera to think that Jews
and Arabs could live easily side by side-
though had the Israeli left managed to negotiate a peace deal with the Palestinians
in the West Bank and Gaza years ago, they
might have had the better of the argument.
Jabotinsky's insistence on the need to
employ brute force against the Arabs is
fast becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy as

When Benjamin Netanyahu
states that it's premature to
have real negotiations with
the Palestinians, as he always
does, he's channeling his inner
Jabotinsky. The reasoning
is circular: the only way to
reach an agreement, after
all, is to not reach one.
Israel remains locked in seemingly permanent combat with the Palestinians on the
West Bank and the Gaza Strip. (One cannot help but wonder if he would still have
been right if Israel had returned Gaza and
the West Bank to Palestinian control after the Six-Day War.) But now, like Sherlock Holmes and his nemesis Professor
Moriarty grappling with each other as
they plunge into the Reichenbach Falls,
the two sides seem unable to disentangle
themselves from one another. More than
ever, Jabotinsky's spirit hovers uneasily
over the state whose creation he fervently
espoused but never got to witness.
Jacob Heilbrunn is editor of the National
Interest.
Washington Monthly

109

Washington Monthly - September/October 2014

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Washington Monthly - September/October 2014