Essential reading for anyone interested in the issues of Zionism, Judaism, Jewish-ness, anti-Semitism, and history in general. (Atzmon maintains that ...moreEssential reading for anyone interested in the issues of Zionism, Judaism, Jewish-ness, anti-Semitism, and history in general. (Atzmon maintains that Zionism "developed as a reaction to the emancipation of European Jewry", when it was realized that this "might lead to the disappearance of the Jewish identity". He further maintains that Zionism drew strength from a "created image of emerging anti-Semitism" . . . "a myth of persistent persecution". Hence Herzl's displeasure when French Jews, in the wake of the Dreyfus affair, showed signs of feeling "truly emancipated".)
Elsewhere, Atzmon shows how a tribal cult like Zionism, which by its nature is exceptionalist, is incompatible with a universalist ethic, and suggests that nothing truly progressive can be expected from a state, such as Israel, that clings relentlessly to "a phantasmic, invented yesterday". Appositely, he notes that Britain and America have also abandoned a "true historical discourse" in favor of a "banal and simplistic historic tale to do with WWII, Cold War, Islam, 911, etc".(less)
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