An early blueprint for Zionism

Istóczy, a member of the Diet between 1874-96, proposed in 1876 the restoration of the Jews to Palestine, thus ridding Hungary of their presence while furthering the economic development of the Ottoman Empire. In 1882-84 he was the spokesman for the popular antisemitism aroused by the Tiszaeszlár blood libel and by the mass immigration of Russian Jews, but his demands were opposed by Prime Minister Kálmán Tisza and the majority in the Diet. Popular support and the prestige he gained through his prominent role at the First International Anti-Jewish Congress in Dresden (1882) encouraged Istóczy to found the National Antisemitic Party, which won 17 seats in the 1884 elections. Handicapped by the fizzling out of the Tiszaeszlár affair and the condemnation of Lajos Kossuth, it soon split and lost momentum. In Istoczy's later years he wrote antisemitic tracts. Hypothesizes that Herzl, growing up in Budapest, would have heard of Istóczy's 1876 "Palestine speech". Ivan Simonyi, a supporter of Istóczy, published an enthusiastic review of Herzl's "Jewish State" in his antisemitic daily "Westungarischer Grenzbote". (From the Bibliography of the Vidal Sassoon International Center for the Study of Antisemitism - The Hebrew University of Jerusalem)