Zionism, and the project of ethnic cleansing and colonial settlement in historic Palestine, is often rightly compared to other projects of European colonialism. But in a recent essay for Parapraxis, my guest Jake Romm argues that Zionism not only has been influenced by the European imperial project, but that it has also been massively shaped by anti-semitism, and that in its recapitulation of anti-semitic stereotypes, and even anti-semitic practice, it makes sense to view Zionism as a species of anti-semitism itself.
We talked about how Jake came to this view via Max Horkheimer and Theodor Adorno's The Dialectic of Enlightenment, why he thinks Zionism has always been bent on the destruction of the Palestinian people and could never be content with merely exploiting Palestinian labour. And we also talked about the extreme machismo of Israeli society, and how October 7th was experienced as an emasculating event. Finally, we talked about Israel's likely turn to a permanent occupation of Gaza - and the possibility of the creation of new Israeli settlements in the territory.
