Jabotinsky schildert ein Gespräch mit Nordau während des Ersten Weltkriegs (zitiert in Stanislawski 2001, S. 241):

I asked Nordau's opinion about the idea of the Jewish Legion, and he gave me a skeptical reply. Why should we ally ourselves with one camp before we have received any promise regarding the future of the Land of Israel? And where would we find the soldiers? In the neutral lands of Europe there is but a tiny number of Jews, and America is too far away; and most importantly, the emotional and absurd position of the Zionists towards "our brother Ishmael." There is no one in the world expert enough to tell us when and how the Turanian Ottomans will claim family solidarity with the Semitic Arabs. And indeed Nordau himself had suffered the consequence of this connection after he spoke out at the Hamburg Zionist Congress in 1910 against the Young Turks.

"I well remember that speech," I said. You said: "They recommend that we assimilate in Turkey? Das haben wir neher, billiger und besser" - this we can do closer, cheaper, and better! I then came to Hamburg from Constantinople and cheered you wildly.

"And how many problems I later had with the idiots around me!" he answered.

"Doctor," I said, "we cannot run our ship according to the directions of idiots. No, the Turks are not our 'brothers' and even with the real Ismaelites we have no spiritual connection. We are, thank God, Europeans, and the builders of Europe for a millennium. I remember one of your speeches in which you said: 'We are going to Palestine to extend the boundaries of Europe to the Euphrates. And the obstacle is: Turkey.' Now its end is nigh - shall we just sit back and do nothing?"