Herzl's Nightmare: One land, two people

Theodor Herzl’s dream of a national homeland for the Jewish people was realised when Israel declared its independence in 1948 - a triumph achieved in little more than half a century. Yet the desire for the peace and security of Eretz Israel was to prove more elusive. The state of Israel had been made possible not only by the deaths of millions of European Jews but also at the expense of Palestinian society. Whatever their historical claim or emotional attachment to the land they came to rule, the Jews of Israel had supplanted another people- a people who would not forget what they saw as a grave injustice.

While the story of the conflict between Jew and Palestinian in the past century has its share of political and military and human triumphs, too often the recurring themes are those of lies and hypocrisy, myth-making and mutual demonisation and of a determined, energetic refusal to contemplate and acknowledge the other’s history and point of view.

This important new study shows how little the dynamics of the conflict have actually changed; how eerily reminiscent today’s antagonisms and falsehoods are of yesteryear’s; how ‘modern’ leadership is anything but; and how much today’s self-righteous intransigence owes to what went before. Peter Rodgers brings a rare understanding of the recent history of the region to explain with fair-minded clarity the nightmare of modern Israel and Palestine.