Theodor Herzl[a] (2 May 1860 – 3 July 1904)[3] was an Austro-Hungarian Jewish journalist and lawyer who was the father of modern political Zionism. Herzl formed the Zionist Organization and promoted Jewish immigration to Palestine in an effort to form a Jewish state. Due to his Zionist work, he is known in Hebrew as Chozeh HaMedinah (חוֹזֵה הַמְדִינָה), lit. ‘Visionary of the State’.[4][5] He is specifically mentioned in the Israeli Declaration of Independence and is officially referred to as “the spiritual father of the Jewish State”.[6]
Were I to sum up the Basel Congress in a word — which I shall guard against pronouncing publicly — it would be this: At Basel, I founded the Jewish State. If I said this out loud today, I would be answered by universal laughter. Perhaps in five years, certainly in fifty, everyone will know it.
Herzl Diary entry (3 September 1897), a few days after the First Zionist Congress in Basel, Switzerland, as quoted in 'Nonstate Nations in International Politics: Comparative System Analyses (1977) by Judy S. Bertelsen, p. 37; 50 years after writing this in his diary, the state of Israel was established.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theodor_Herzl
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herzl’s_Mauschel_and_Zionist_antisemitism
Yep.
his Wikiquote page:
wq:Theodor Herzl