The Iron Wall

The Iron Wall, Jabotinsky’s treatise— a cornerstone of Zionist thought— contextualizes the often misunderstood elements that underpin Zionism. Its legitimacy, necessity, and most importantly the justice it demands in the goal of liberating the exiled Jewish people via a revolutionary Return to Zion; their ancestral and indigenous homeland.

Zionism, the idea of one of humanity’s most hated and persecuted minorities returning to their native homeland to self-determine and be sovereign, is a radical notion. Like most radical ideas, Zionism elicits an emotional response- positive and negative. Ze’ev Jabotinsky understood that. In The Iron Wall, Jabotinsky addressed the misconceptions surrounding his feelings toward Arabs; our cousins. “Emotionally, my attitude to the Arabs is the same as to all other nations – polite indifference. Politically, my attitude is determined by two principles. First of all, I consider it utterly impossible to eject the Arabs from Palestine. There will always be two nations in Palestine – which is good enough for me, provided the Jews become the majority.”

Zionism, and the justness of its goals, exists irrespective of the Arabs living alongside us in our indigenous homeland; whether in the coastal plain, the Negev, Judea, or Samaria. The Jew seeks the same freedom and equality the nations of the world have been able to achieve through nationalism. To be represented in the international arena, not as a perpetual vagabond, but a nation rooted in its past, seizing the present, and preparing for the future. However, without a Jewish majority, the Land of Israel may once again become a place of Jewish exile, rather than redemption.

Indeed, all we Zionists seek is a Jewish majority in the Land of Israel; equal rights to all of the Land’s inhabitants is non-negotiable. Yet, the Jewish return met harsh violence and anti-Semitic propaganda. This is as it should be, for all native people resist the immigration of who they perceive as a foreign partner, as Jabotinsky notes in the Iron Wall. They understand what we want, and act accordingly.

This is the moral misunderstanding. The belief that the Arab world will accept our immigration with “moderation,” understanding, and sympathy is a wishful thinking par excellence. As long as the Arab world (whether in their Palestinian or Saudi regional expression) refuses to accept the Jewish people as the aboriginal population of “Palestine” and/or refuses the right of Jews to exist outside of dhimmitude, the Jewish State will remain an anathema to their sensibilities.

Justice is justice, independent of the current reality. Justice enforced through strong will, the Iron Wall, is justice realized. Only with our intentions acted upon, fortified by this impervious wall, will justice become reality. Only with this Iron Wall will Israel’s enemies drop their desire to destroy her. Only with this Iron Wall will Jews and Arabs coexist in peace, according to the laws of nature.