Power and technology in theodor Herzl’s Zionist plan

The article traces the role of technical expertise and modern technology in Herzl’s Zionist plan. Writers about Herzl have claimed misleadingly that in keeping with his vision, expertise and technology were to be subject to social and political controls. However, a closer examination of Herzl’s accounts of the Zionist movement and later on, of the Jewish state reveals that the experts and their highly centralized technical systems were themselves the driving force behind Herzl’s envisioned Zionist enterprise. The article seeks to elucidate Herzl’s distinctive notion of technological control as the sociopolitical underpinning of his Zionist plan.