Zionism as a form of anti-semitism w/ Jake Romm
Added 2024-09-09 04:00:03 +0000 UTCZionism, 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.
Comments
A great episode as usual, thank you Alex. I will have to check out Jake's work. I am reminded of Sara Roy's recent writing in Deluge about paradigm shifts similar to what Jake is describing. In her book on the Gaza economy, she also points out that Israeli (and Zionist) economic policy had primarily political objectives rather than economic ones: "Within this framework, the Gaza Strip and West Bank economies were subsumed to secu- rity imperatives, and the economic system became a critical component in Israel’s larger system of control. This is not to say that the economic exploitation of the occupied territories was not an objective of Israeli policy; it was just not the primary objective. It was the ideological need, over the long-term, to insure Israeli control over the occupied areas that set the policy framework for the de- development of the Palestinian economy." Also wanted to comment that it is widely accepted that Zionism was not just a response to antisemitism. Of course antisemitism was important for its development. Shlomo Avineri (a Zionist and widely seen as an authority on Zionist ideology) goes as far as to say that Zionism "was a response to the challenges of liberalism and nationalism much more than a response merely to anti-Semitism". He also says that Zionism emerged in the "best century" for European Jews. Lastly, on the Zionist acceptance of anti-semitism, basically every Zionist thinker (and Zionist historian, Lacquer, Shimoni, Avineri and others) spoke of European Jews as parasitical elements.
Dany Haddad
2024-09-10 02:11:40 +0000 UTCThanks! I’ve made it public.
Politics Theory Other
2024-09-09 18:58:39 +0000 UTCThis excellent interview (and Romm’s essay) goes a very long way to explaining the atrocious treatment of Palestinians. Please make it available to non-subscribers.
Michael Peck
2024-09-09 17:43:20 +0000 UTC
