My Promised Land: The Triumph and Tragedy of Israel

Forty-five years after it came into the Lydda Valley in the name of the Kishinev pogrom, Zionism instigated a human catastrophe in the Lydda Valley. Forty-five years after Zionism came into the valley in the name of the homeless, it sent out of the Lydda Valley a column of homeless.

And when I try to be honest about it, I see that the choice is stark: either reject Zionism because of Lydda, or accept Zionism along with Lydda.

Herbert Bentwich estate

The Jewish state about to be born would not survive the external battle with the armed forces of the Arab nations if it did not first rid itself of the Palestinian population that endangered it from within.

Zionism carries out a massacre in the city of Lydda.

In November, the UN General Assembly endorses the partition plan and calls for the establishment of a Jewish state and an Arab state. As the Arab League and the Arabs of Palestine reject Resolution 181, violence flares throughout the country.

But in 1947 the question of Palestine reaches its moment of truth. In February, His Majesty’s government has had enough of the conflict between the Arabs and the Jews and decides to leave the Holy Land and let the United Nations determine its fate.

Lehmann believed that Zionism must plant the Jews in their ancient homeland in an organic fashion. It must respect the Orient and become a bridge between East and West. Though he never said so explicitly, Lehmann saw his Lydda Valley youth village as an example of what Zionism should be: a salvation project giving home to the homeless, providing ro

He wanted Zionism to be a settlement movement that was not tainted by colonialism, a national movement that was not scarred by chauvinism, a progressive movement that was not distorted by urban alienation. He believed that Zionism must not establish a closed-off, condescending colony in Palestine that ignored its surroundings and native neighbors;