published_or_final_version / Philosophy / Master / Master of Arts

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Hong Kong. / "Errata" slip included. Shelved with H.K.U. publications. Type-written copy. Includes bibliographical references (1, 241-243).

Thesis (M.A.) - University of Hong Kong. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 241-243) Also available in print.

My thesis focuses on the ideological development of the Maximalist Revisionist Zionist leader Abba Ahimeir, and positions him more accurately within the contexts of the Zionist Right, the period of his political activity, and the Zionist movement in general. Through an examination of his doctoral thesis on Oswald Spengler and first publications, I conclude that Spenglerian theory exerted a fundamental influence upon Ahimeir throughout his entire life, and that his embrace of Fascist ideology began six years earlier than is generally accepted. I thus contend that Ahimeir's ideological path was already set in 1924, far earlier than is generally believed. A survey of his journalistic output, while a member of the moderately socialist party HaPoel HaTzair, shows that Ahimeir's apparent shift from Left to Right was not the radical defection that it is currently considered to be. A study of primary source archival material allows me to demonstrate that as a leader of the Revisionist Youth Group Betar and instructor in its Leadership Training School, Ahimeir's ideological influence upon Revisionist youth was far greater than is commonly accepted. A discussion of more general intellectual-historical concepts - Spenglerian-, Fascist-, and Revolutionary- theory, Jewish Völkisch-nationalism, secular Messianism - allows me to re-weight certain ideological outlooks in the current body of research regarding Ahimeir, the Revisionist Party, and the Zionist Left. Notably, I suggest we view Ahimeir as a 'Revolutionary' who used Fascism merely as a modus operandi in the service of his revolution. This particularistic ideological outlook was exemplified in his semi-clandestine, anti-British resistance group Brit HaBiryonim, as a thorough examination of court documents from the group's trial demonstrates. The study provides the first intellectual biography of one of the most influential figures on the Zionist Right, and rights some historical wrongs that exist within Revisionist- and Labour-Zionist myths, and indeed, Israeli collective memory.

The following dissertation studies the idea and mythologization of the "Hebrew Sea" in the writings and political activity of Vladimir (Ze'ev) Jabotinsky. Jabotinsky (1880-1940), the leader of the Zionist Revisionist movement, developed the concept of the "Hebrew Sea" as an ideal that was used in various fields of his Zionist activity. Within inter-Zionist politics it was utilized as a means of competing with the dominant ideological faction, labor Zionism, over contribution to the national revival and Zionist youth, and its greatest achievement was the establishment of the Civitavecchia Naval Academy in Italy. On the international-diplomatic level the "Hebrew Sea" was used in order to advance closer political relations between Revisionism and Italy - an endeavor Jabotinsky was interested in from an early stage of his Zionist career. The "Hebrew Sea" also played an important role in the development of Jabotinsky's unique ideal of national identity, which sought to depict the Jewish people as a Mediterranean, and not a desert or Middle Eastern people. This vision drew from contemporary theories about Hebrew identity, which associated the Hebrews with the Phoenician empire and not necessarily with Jewish monotheism. Finally, economically this ideal supported the socioeconomic vision of Revisionism,...