According to the Hebrew calendar, today is the 120th anniversary of the death of Theodor Herzl. Yizhar Hess uses the opportunity to examine this great Zionist leader’s relationship with the physician and philosopher Max Nordau. Hess, like Nordau before him, currently holds the position of vice-chairman of the World Zionist Organization:

They differed in appearance, in temperament, in age (Nordau was more than a decade older than Herzl), and in public standing. Nordau was better known than Herzl when the First Zionist Congress convened. The very participation of the esteemed author and physician in the Zionist movement created a sensation.

Nordau was very serious as well as aware of his own stature. In this sense, he actually resembled Herzl. Neither was petty—nor especially modest. The hierarchy between them should have seemingly been obvious. The publicity, the status, the age. However, something happened to Nordau at that first Congress that caused him not only to overcome his inclination but also to understand that he had the privilege of standing alongside a unique figure in Herzl.

Examining the effects of Iran’s decision to launch nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel on October 1, Benny Morris takes stock of the Jewish state’s strategic situation:

The massive Iranian attack has turned what began as a local war in and around the Gaza Strip and then expanded into a Hamas–Hizballah–Houthi–Israeli war [into] a regional war with wide and possibly calamitous international repercussions.

Before the Iranians launched their attack, Washington warned Tehran to desist (“don’t,” in President Biden’s phrase), and Israel itself had reportedly cautioned the Iranians secretly that such an attack would trigger a devastating Israeli counterstrike. But a much-humiliated Iran went ahead, nonetheless.

For Israel, the way forward seems to lie in an expansion of the war—in the north or south or both—until the country attains some sort of victory, or a diplomatic settlement is reached. A “victory” would mean forcing Hizballah to cease fire in exchange, say, for a cessation of the IDF bombing campaign and withdrawal to the international border, or forcing Iran, after suffering real pain from IDF attacks, to cease its attacks and rein in its proxies: Hizballah, Hamas, and the Houthis.

At the same time, writes Morris, a victory along such lines would still have its limits:

An IDF withdrawal from southern Lebanon and a cessation of Israeli air-force bombing would result in Hizballah’s resurgence and its re-investment of southern Lebanon down to the border. Neither the Americans nor the French nor the UN nor the Lebanese army—many of whose troops are Shiites who support Hizballah—would fight them.