The Foundations of the 20th Century: Herzlian Zionism in Yoram Hazony's "The Jewish State"

[...]Hazony feels compelled to fabricate a chain of Zionist tradition, from Herzl to himself, as well as an immortal foe, a secular form of sitra ahra: universalist and assimilationist liberalism. [...]it was completely in keeping with liberal, assimilationist thinking in Herzl's era to trace the origin of the nation to irrational will rather than rational calculation. According to Hazony, as Mapai developed spiritual sclerosis during the i95os and i96os, the Zionist spirit found a new host in the form of the Merkaz Harav Yeshiva and its leader, Zvi Yehuda Kook In a fascinating reversal of classic religious-Zionist doctrine, which saw the secular Zionist state as an unwitting vehicle of divine redemption, Hazony presents the Merkaz as the servant of secular Zionism. According to Eran Kaplan, a young scholar completing an important doctoral thesis on radical Revisionist thought, Yeivin maintained that "the only true spiritual form of Zionism was political Zionism, because only as an independent nation could the Jews fully explore their spiritual potential...