Page:The International Jew - Volume 1.djvu/160

156 was this which formed the chief topic of conversation between Herzl and Litman Rosenthal in that Basle hotel. Herzl said to Rosenthal, as reported in this article: “There is a difference between the final aim and the ways we have to go to achieve this aim.”

Suddenly Max Nordau, who seems at the conference held last month in London to have become Herzl’s successor, entered the room, and the Rosenthal interview was ended.

Let the reader now follow attentively the important part of this Rosenthal story:—(the italics are ours)

“About a month later I went on a business trip to France. On my way to Lyons I stopped in Paris, and there I visited, as usual, our Zionist friends. One of them told me that this very same evening Dr. Nordau was scheduled to speak about the Sixth Congress, and I, naturally, interrupted my journey to be present at this meeting and to hear Dr. Nordau’s report. When we reached the hall in the evening we found it filled to overflowing and all were waiting impatiently for the great master, Nordau, who, on entering, received a tremendous ovation. But Nordau, without paying heed to the applause showered upon him, began his speech immediately, and said:

“‘You all came here with a question burning in your hearts and trembling on your lips, and the question is, indeed, a great one, and of vital importance. I am willing to answer it. What you want to ask is: How could I—I who was one of those who formulated the Basle program—how could I dare to speak in favor of the English proposition concerning Uganda, how could Herzl as well as I betray our ideal of Palestine, because you surely think that we have betrayed it and forgotten it. Yet listen to what I have to say to you. I spoke in favor of Uganda after long and careful consideration; deliberately I advised the Congress to consider and to accept the proposal of the English Government, a proposal made to the Jewish nation through the Zionist Congress, and my reasons—but instead of my reasons let me tell you a political story as a kind of allegory.

“‘I want to speak of a time which is now almost forgotten, a time when the European powers had decided to send a fleet against the fortress of Sebastopol. At this time Italy, the United Kingdom of Italy, did not