The Doctrine of Beitar

• 76 -

One must not forget this: it is necessary to attack the opponent at his weak point, and the Jews are weaker than the English, the French, and the Italians.

Again I want to emphasize: I am not speaking here of the ill will of the Communists; on the contrary, I know Russian Bolsheviks who even hold a sentimental sympathy for Zionism, but this sympathy is powerless to change the objective relationship of the facts. Communism is anti-Zionist by its nature, whether all the Stalins want it so or not.

Not only is it impossible to "serve" two such movements—it is impossible for a person to remain loyal to one of them even in theory, if he truly "serves" its cause. If one wants to serve Zionism, then one must at every step act and fight against Communism. Any advance of Communism anywhere—even at the ends of the earth, in Mexico or in Siam—is a real loss, like a knife in the building of the Hebrew Land of Israel. Every defeat of Communism is a real gain for Zionism. Rarely has it been possible to see such an example of a total and multi-faceted conflict between two movements.

Even Arab nationalism is not so harmful to us from an objective standpoint: it threatens only one side of our enterprise, it brings the danger of increasing the obstacles in the Land of Israel; but it does not threaten the financial source of the building, and as long as it is possible to build, hope remains. And Arab nationalism, however strong it may be, cannot destroy the foundations of the Western nations, which the Communists call "imperialist"—that is, their tendency to bring quiet and peace to the East. And as long as such foundations exist (though we have, to our sorrow, a decline in finding loyal allies), there is a basis for hope. But Communism destroys all the assets we need for the building of the Jewish state in the Land of Israel: both the political guarantees, and the material means, and even the hope of finding a supporter among the Western nations—for they too must transition to a Soviet regime.

Here there is no "before" and "after"—a choice of loyalty between the two movements is now required. If you want "first" to help the people of Israel create their state on the banks of the Jordan, you cannot...