Zionist leaders themselves framed the project as European civilizing mission

Evidence

As Max Nordau, Herzl’s assertive assistant, put it in addressing European Jews in 1907, “We shall seek to do in Western Asia what the English did in India” – and then catches himself by adding, “I mean the cultural work, not rulership and domination. We aim to come to Eretz Israel as messengers of culture and we aim to extend the moral boundaries of Europe all the way to the Euphrates.” — David Theo Goldberg, The Threat of Race, 595

Categorization

• CANDY: A crisp 1907 quote showing Zionism’s own spokesmen used the British-in-India colonial analogy — the self-catch is almost comic.