The famous phrase that serves as the title of this book has long been a touchstone of debates about the purpose of Zionism and the character of the State of Israel. For some Zionists, the transformation of the scattered and oppressed Jewish people into "a nation like all the nations" has represented the epitome of their aspirations. For others, these words have denoted a debased and impoverished version of the Zionist ideal, one that falls far short of the goal of being a "light unto the nations," let alone the first stage of our redemption. The author of this book, the Israeli social scientist Moshe Berent, belongs to the former group. He wants above all to see the State of Israel catch up to the Western states on which it ought to be modeling itself. In order to do so, he believes, it will have to abandon its self-declared but unfortunately self-contradictory aim of being a "Jewish and democratic" state. Indeed, it will have to cease to be a Jewish state altogether and become an "Israeli republic."

To people who keep a close watch on Israeli political discourse, none of this may sound very new. Readers with long memories may wonder if Berent's work marks a return of the notorious "Canaanism" of the 1950s. To others, Berent may sound like nothing more than a run-of-the-mill post-Zionist who has figured out a new way to package the familiar idea of a single "state of all its citizens." But Berent does not fall so easily into either of these categories. If one had to pigeonhole the man, it would be most accurate to identify him as someone who has followed in the footsteps of his teacher, Joseph Agassi.

A philosopher married to the granddaughter of Martin Buber, Agassi took his bearings in Israeli politics from Hillel Kook, a.k.a. Peter Bergson, who was himself the less than orthodox nephew of the celebrated Abraham Isaac Kook. Best remembered in the United States as the leader of the "Bergson Boys," who during World War II loudly and unsuccessfully demanded more vigorous action on behalf of Hitler's victims, Kook was someone who also, in Agassi's words, "demanded all . . .

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