The Doctrine of Beitar

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My words exude a scent of conjecture and opinion. There is no doubt that the slogan "Zionism without bloodshed," and perhaps (according to the rules that apply to every "new" doctrine), sips from the old, ancient Torah, the primordial Torah of pioneering (halutziut).

Ten years ago, they criticized me, saying that we are tellers of "easy Zionism," while they, the heroes-of-the-budget, bear the burden of "hard Zionism." It is doubtful if even then their Zionism was harder than ours; but this formula here lacks its sharpness. Even in the Diaspora, where factional hatred is not so intense, he suffers and suffers from the slanders of the young men; an official or an adult does not get a job because of his affiliation as a "Tz"R" [Revisionist Zionist], or he loses his position because he is suspected of [sympathizing with] "Tzohar." However, in the Land of Israel, among the latter types (apart from the Sephardic Jews and Eastern communities), there remains only one type of pioneer who lives a hard life – and these are the young pioneers; the overwhelming majority is the symbolic "pioneer," the petit bourgeois, who has his own house, or has saved up a bit of money, and who frequently "discovers" reasonable work for himself (sometimes even Arab work).

It is true that he sends money to his parents abroad, but he does it in such a measured way that he is not, God forbid, supported [by them], while his standard of living – a "standard-of-living" that in Eastern Europe and even in parts of Western Europe is called "luxury," opulence. To anyone who was refined, I count this "standard-of-living" and wish him even more: and I even know all the excuses, that "thereby the purchasing power of the Yishuv is strengthened, the local produce increases, etc.'" But there is something more important: the impression of a terrible lie, of an unseemly forgery. Behold, like Sennacherib, when sending to conquer a city for himself, he first sends his processions, his heroes, bearers of a yearning gaze and his program. We, when we tell of these pioneers, appear as a camp of the bewildered, the persecuted, the impassioned, and the distress that is becoming a symbol. It is impossible not to tear at it, "an area without order." And we are to serve as trumpets for economic forgeries, for the ugly ugliness of inaction; this is not a vision that leads to failure, but rather a kind of curiosity: "its ugliness"—thousands of leftists feel that the matter was very ugly.