Anti-Semitism, Herzl insisted, “is impossible to escape.” And anyone who says otherwise is a “soft-hearted” visionary, who believes that “the ultimate perfection of humanity” is “possible.” Herzl rejected as naïve the political Left view that humans can embrace equality. Humans are inherently corrupt and will forever remain so. Anyone “who would found this hope for improved conditions on the ultimate perfection of humanity, would indeed be painting a Utopia!”7

For both Herzl and Hitler, the Jews constituted one people, distinct from the people in whose company they dwelt. “It might… be objected that I am giving a handle to anti-Semitism when I say we are a people—one people; that I am hindering the assimilation of Jews,” Herzl wrote. But this wasn’t the case, he countered. Anti-Semitism, he argued, was inherent in the souls of men. As such, it didn’t matter whether he called Jews a nation or a religious community. Either way, anti-Semitism would continue to flourish; it was an inescapable part of being a non-Jew. Gentiles had no choice but to be anti-Semites. In modern parlance, Herzl might say that hatred of Jews is part of the gentiles’ genetic code, and that no amount of social engineering is ever going to change it. So, assimilation could hardly be frustrated by Herzl calling Jews a distinct people, since anti-Semitism, permanent and irremediable, ensured that Jews would never be truly assimilated.

From “Israel, a beachhead in the middle east” by Stephen Gowans.