Nachman Oz delivers a startling portrait of Israel's founding fathers not as monolithic ideologues, but as deeply intellectual, contradictory, and surprisingly mortal men whose personal quirks shaped a nation's destiny. By weaving together the Nietzschean philosophy that fueled their will to power with the mundane failures of their private lives, Oz reframes the creation of the state as a fragile human project rather than an inevitable historical force.
The Intellectuals Behind the Myth
Oz challenges the standard caricature of early Zionist leaders as simple agrarian socialists or unyielding nationalists. He highlights the surprising cosmopolitanism of Ze'ev Jabotinsky, describing him as "an Odessan cosmopolitan, an author and playwright, a cad who could flirt seamlessly in Italian and almost a dozen other languages." This detail is crucial because it dismantles the notion that the movement was driven solely by a narrow, defensive Jewish identity. Instead, Oz argues these men were voracious readers and translators who "moved beyond their inherited traditions to bend history to the will of a new Jewish self."
The author points out that David Ben-Gurion, often remembered for his stern political pragmatism, was equally obsessed with literature and philosophy. Oz notes that Ben-Gurion was "book obsessed, building a huge library into his first home," and even startled the philosopher Isaiah Berlin with his "rich inner life." This framing suggests that the ideological rigidity of the modern state was born from a period of intense intellectual fluidity. However, this focus on their intellectualism risks downplaying the sheer violence required to implement their visions. While Oz acknowledges their fallibility, the human cost of their "forceful will" is often treated as a tragic backdrop rather than a central moral failure.
The Nietzschean Will and the Cost of Creation
The piece's most provocative argument centers on the philosophical underpinnings of the leadership. Oz identifies a shared belief in the "indomitable will" of the nation, tracing it back to the thinker Micha Yosef Berdyczewski, who introduced Nietzschean ideas into the Jewish milieu. Oz writes, "The typically Nietzschean expression he used, 'the man with the will of the gods,' alludes to a leader's most notable quality—willpower—linking it to the legacy Herzl has supposedly left young people."
This philosophical lens explains the leaders' willingness to make brutal, utilitarian calculations about the future of the region. Oz cites historian Anita Shapira to reveal Ben-Gurion's casual dismissal of the Gaza Strip's population: "If I believed in miracles I would want it to be swallowed up by the sea." This quote is chilling in its brevity, exposing a mindset where the removal of a people was a logistical preference rather than a moral dilemma. Oz connects this to the broader strategy of the time, noting that the early leadership's priority was not maximizing the Jewish population, but "converting into peasant farmers an urbanized people" to transform Jewish values.
"The desire to strive for the rebirth delegated to us by the man with the will of the gods will burn within us until completion of the great task, for which the great leader sacrificed his illustrious life."
Critics might argue that attributing such decisions to a philosophical "will to power" absolves the leaders of specific political accountability. It frames the displacement of Palestinians and the consolidation of power as the inevitable result of a grand philosophical project, rather than the outcome of specific, debatable policy choices. Yet, Oz's inclusion of the historian Benny Morris's harsh critique adds necessary weight to this analysis. Morris blames Ben-Gurion for not going far enough, stating, "If he had carried out a full expulsion – rather than a partial one – he would have stabilized the State of Israel for generations." Oz presents this not as a endorsement, but as a stark illustration of the moral abyss at the heart of the founding narrative.
The Mortality of Leaders
Despite the grandiosity of their ambitions, Oz insists on grounding these figures in their human frailty. He details Ben-Gurion's fatal miscalculation of betting on the Ottoman Empire, noting how the leader arrived in Jaffa "sporting thick mustaches, red fezzes, and Turkish-style suits" in a desperate bid for trust. This image of a future nation-builder dressed in the uniform of a declining empire serves as a powerful metaphor for the uncertainty of the era.
Oz writes that "both were prophetic, but deeply fallible," and he does not shy away from the pathetic end of Ben-Gurion's life, describing him as "shrunken and, like all men, returns to nothing." The author suggests that, stripped of their historical context, these men might have been "fine middle class professionals — lawyers or academics or writers — complaining about house prices." This perspective is effective because it humanizes the architects of a modern state, reminding the reader that history is made by flawed individuals, not by destiny. However, this humanization can sometimes feel like an attempt to soften the edges of their actions, particularly when discussing the "partial expulsion" that Morris deems a "fatal mistake."
Bottom Line
Oz's strongest contribution is the vivid reconstruction of the founders as complex, intellectual, and deeply flawed human beings driven by a Nietzschean belief in their own will to shape history. The piece's greatest vulnerability lies in its tendency to frame the catastrophic consequences of their policies—particularly the displacement of Palestinians—as the tragic byproduct of a philosophical struggle rather than a moral catastrophe that demands deeper scrutiny. Readers should watch for how this narrative of "willpower" continues to influence the current administration's approach to conflict and governance today.