Connected Vessels / Yig'al Allon (1979)

From: Connected Vessels / Yig'al Allon (1979)

In the beginning, there was the vision, the dream. By any parameter of a social- cultural national revival movement, Israel is a dream that has come true. But in the process of its actualization, something happened to the state which often happens to dreams: it started losing height. Only three decades old, and already growing plump, its muscles limping and its legs searching for padded slippers. In a troubling speed it is moving away from the image that the fathers of the Zionist movement envisioned, and particularly the thinkers of the Socialist Zionist workers movement, the first of whom is Syrkin who wrote: "the more Zionism comes closer to its actual realization, the more it will purify and elevate to the level of a Socialist utopia.
What happened is natural – the realists will say – since all utopias are destined to disappoint. But I agree more with Zalman Arran's statement that "Zionism is a movement for the realization of an utopist goal in realistic means". The ones who restrict themselves in the valley of realistic thought will sink in it to their necks. And what is even more severe in my eyes: on their knees a conformist generation is raised, lacking the urge to climb up, despising the peaks. A generation that is short sighted, and hurries to capture only what is reachable. These realists and pragmatists tend to forget, that striving towards what may seem as impossible, is what elevates the human being to the level worthy of this title, as well as turning what seems impossible to possible.
A slow but continuous destruction of the healthy cells befalls Israeli society, due to the hegemony of ambitiousness, which educates to unrestrained competition, to alienation, destructiveness, to the radical admiration of violence and power, to the victory selfishness and temporary convenience – on the expense of the level of solidarity and mutual assistance.
The ravenous hunger for money, the greedy chase after a life which seems easy, often end up leading to inferior life, that leaves behind it unrecognized broken and damaged sets of values, national and human values as well.
An achievement- oriented society lives the moment and sanctifies the "immediate" and "present". This is the root of its deep contempt for the dreamer, the utopist, the idealist and anyone else who is concerned with the future, and sticks onto them the label of "bleeding hearts", as if it is offensive.
The inspiration that characterized the Zionist society is being nibbled away, and the sense of belonging weakens more and more as well.
Hertzl, not even one of the Zionist Socialists, was the one that stated: "work will give our nation tomorrow's bread, tomorrow's dignity and tomorrow's freedom".
The anti- Zionist revolution started soon after the establishing of the state, when many good people, and less good people, imagined that with the establishing of the state Zionism was realized, and now each person can turn to their private matters.
What is the avoiding of work if not the return to the Diaspora? Revolutionaries sometimes sin in their total invalidation of the past. Even if we have sinned, and we have sinned much in portraying the character of the nation in the Diaspora, our sins shall be forgiven in face of the rising anti- Zionist wave, which glorifies everything created by the Diaspora of then and now. As if Zionism was not a rebellion against the Diaspora, a bitter rebellion full of struggles, boycotts and expulsions, a rebellion that has triumphed in a historically exceptional way.
All of a sudden, many have forgotten that the realizing Zionist movement was never satisfied with simply removing the Jews from the Diaspora, but insisted also on removing the Diaspora from within the Jew. And who will deny that here in Israel there are big swamps of Diaspora that constantly spreads, a mentality of Diaspora and an occupational structure of Diaspora. Indeed – "slavery within freedom", as Achad Ha'Am said.

The future of Israel as a Jewish sovereign state is what is at stake here. Because the youth's conceptual world and the face of the future Israeli society is not only shaped by our generation, but also by the Arab boy picking tomatoes in front of the eyes of his Jewish boss's son.
The book of Proverbs says: "without a vision a nation is lost". But Yitzhak Ben- Aharon added thousands of years later – "without realization a vision is lost". The combination of these two inseparable things: the vision and its realization, is the test that we are facing. And our success in this test will determine the fate of the workers' movement.
Historical experience teaches that only catastrophe opens the eyes of a society that is growing morally corrupt. We are cannot allow ourselves to pay such a price. On the contrary, we need to take preventive steps and shake ourselves ahead of time. I do not identify with the orthodox determinists and the prophets of predetermined fate. I believe in the driving force of the human spirit and its determined will. I believe in the force that lies in the aspiration, the individual aspiration and the national aspiration, as aspiration that generates rational thought, that encourages the will of power and the actions needs for the realization of aspirations.
The sad reality and the future dangers necessitates the unifying of all the constructive and creative forces in the nation around a united workers movement for an action of self, social and national repair, which will bring us back to the path of original Zionism.
If this is utopia – then I am an utopist. A utopia that can be realized, I believe.