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The Myths of Liberal Zionism
Yitzhak Laor is one of Israel’s most prominent dissidents and poets, a latter-day Spinoza who helps keep alive the critical tradition within Jewish culture. In this work he fearlessly dissects the complex attitudes of Western European liberal Left intellectuals toward Israel, Zionism and the “Israeli peace camp.” He argues that through a prism of famous writers like Amos Oz, David Grossman and A.B. Yehoshua, the peace camp has now adopted the European vision of “new Zionism,” promoting the fierce Israeli desire to be accepted as part of the West and taking advantage of growing Islamophobia across Europe.
The backdrop to this uneasy relationship is the ever-present shadow of the Holocaust. Laor is merciless as he strips bare the hypocrisies and unarticulated fantasies that lie beneath the love-affair between “liberal Zionists” and their European supporters.
The backdrop to this uneasy relationship is the ever-present shadow of the Holocaust. Laor is merciless as he strips bare the hypocrisies and unarticulated fantasies that lie beneath the love-affair between “liberal Zionists” and their European supporters.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published February 2, 2009
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September 8, 2020This book really focused on the portrayal of Zionism/Israel in media and the way popular media is used as propaganda. I adore reading nonfiction that really makes me think and that was definitely the case with this one. I feel like this is definitely a good overview of the way Zionism is displayed to Western audiences as acceptable and progressive. I don’t know whether I would recommend this as a place to start learning about Zionism and the Israel-Palestine conflict because it’s definitely a lot more focused on the portrayal of Israel in media, as opposed to the actual history of Palestine/Israel. That said, I definitely think this is a very valuable read and I would definitely recommend it. (Also the writing in this is very sarcastic and I love it sm).
September 17, 2020
I was disappointed when I first received this book in the mail and had a preliminary flip through it. Based on the title, I had expected the book would be a walk-through of clearly identified "myths," perhaps even with one myth per chapter, carefully identified and deconstructed. Instead Laor, who is a poet, meanders, jumps around, interweaves all the ideas together- and asks more questions than he gives answers. So, at first glance, instead of simplifying and decoding, Laor seems to heap complexity on top of complexity - perhaps even hiding amid complexity for fear of having to overtly defend one's ideas.
Yet upon closer inspection, the complex tapestry Laor has woven is more valuable than a simple and straightforward decoding would have been. This is not only because these myths are not so easily seperable from one another. His approach of asking questions to the reader provokes, allows the reader to complete thought processes themselves, and allows him to raise more issues than otherwise. More than this, it allows him to lead the reader toward the conclusion, which is made all the more powerful precisely because it is not a stark soundbite ready for prime time.
The central question that Laor asks is not, "what is paradoxical or hypocritical about liberal Zionist premises," but rather "why are liberal Zionist premises so popular in Europe?" Along the way toward answering the second question, he manages to address the first question. Laor, rightly in my opinion, implies that the dog wags the tail. This contrasts with much of contemporary news analysis that, philo-/ anti-semetically, over-attributes Jewish power and assumes tail wags dog.
Laor's perspective has been verified by recent turns of events. As the Netanyahu government has pulled Israel and Israeli society toward a more overt/ stark/ conservative Zionism, we have witnessed Europe seek to reign in its wayward creation. But Europe has not done so in an anti-Zionist manner that seeks to enforce Palestinian human rights. Rather, it is encouraging an Israeli return to its liberal Zionist mean and connected liberal Zionist two-state rhetoric.
Laor's emphasis on the centrality of Europe's Liberal Zionism, an external audience for whom authors like Oz and Yehouda ultimately write, also for the first time helped me understand previous comments I had heard from Jewish-Israeli allies of the Palestinians, in which they spoke of secular Israeli persecution of religious Jews in Israeli society. In MLK's language, Laor might call Israel a tyranny of the 'white moderate' more than that of the Klu Klux Klanner.
Israel's paradoxical bargain with its European metropole - to include Jews in conceptions of "the West" so long as they physically exclude themselves via a peripheral nation-state - is laid bare. Halfway through the book, Laor begins to focus on two authors, each taken in turn. He begins with the Ashkenazi Oz, in order to set up the baseline argument, and then proceeds to the Mizrahi Yehouda, in order to demonstrate how Israel's internal racist divisions add yet another layer to the paradox. Through these explorations it becomes clear just how Israel is, by design, destined to be forever in the position of outsider seeking to prove its insider status - unless, of course, it can make a fundamental change in its nature to indigenize itself into the region where it lives and from where the majority of its citizens come.
For work that thinks in a similar fashion, but takes more accessible forms, Victor Kattan gives a historical treatment of the same in the first chapter of his book From Coexistence to Conquest; and Gabriel Piterberg provides both historical and political treatment in his book The Returns of Zionism and in articles for the New Left Review and Settler Colonial Studies.
Yet upon closer inspection, the complex tapestry Laor has woven is more valuable than a simple and straightforward decoding would have been. This is not only because these myths are not so easily seperable from one another. His approach of asking questions to the reader provokes, allows the reader to complete thought processes themselves, and allows him to raise more issues than otherwise. More than this, it allows him to lead the reader toward the conclusion, which is made all the more powerful precisely because it is not a stark soundbite ready for prime time.
The central question that Laor asks is not, "what is paradoxical or hypocritical about liberal Zionist premises," but rather "why are liberal Zionist premises so popular in Europe?" Along the way toward answering the second question, he manages to address the first question. Laor, rightly in my opinion, implies that the dog wags the tail. This contrasts with much of contemporary news analysis that, philo-/ anti-semetically, over-attributes Jewish power and assumes tail wags dog.
Laor's perspective has been verified by recent turns of events. As the Netanyahu government has pulled Israel and Israeli society toward a more overt/ stark/ conservative Zionism, we have witnessed Europe seek to reign in its wayward creation. But Europe has not done so in an anti-Zionist manner that seeks to enforce Palestinian human rights. Rather, it is encouraging an Israeli return to its liberal Zionist mean and connected liberal Zionist two-state rhetoric.
Laor's emphasis on the centrality of Europe's Liberal Zionism, an external audience for whom authors like Oz and Yehouda ultimately write, also for the first time helped me understand previous comments I had heard from Jewish-Israeli allies of the Palestinians, in which they spoke of secular Israeli persecution of religious Jews in Israeli society. In MLK's language, Laor might call Israel a tyranny of the 'white moderate' more than that of the Klu Klux Klanner.
Israel's paradoxical bargain with its European metropole - to include Jews in conceptions of "the West" so long as they physically exclude themselves via a peripheral nation-state - is laid bare. Halfway through the book, Laor begins to focus on two authors, each taken in turn. He begins with the Ashkenazi Oz, in order to set up the baseline argument, and then proceeds to the Mizrahi Yehouda, in order to demonstrate how Israel's internal racist divisions add yet another layer to the paradox. Through these explorations it becomes clear just how Israel is, by design, destined to be forever in the position of outsider seeking to prove its insider status - unless, of course, it can make a fundamental change in its nature to indigenize itself into the region where it lives and from where the majority of its citizens come.
For work that thinks in a similar fashion, but takes more accessible forms, Victor Kattan gives a historical treatment of the same in the first chapter of his book From Coexistence to Conquest; and Gabriel Piterberg provides both historical and political treatment in his book The Returns of Zionism and in articles for the New Left Review and Settler Colonial Studies.
August 17, 2021
Yitzhak Laor is an Israeli poet, and critical thinker and 'post Zionist'. This essay from 2006 is both a political takedown, but more tellingly a cultural crticism of the abject failure of the Jewish state as it continually lurches into being one of the most sophisticated and brutal racist Apartheid states in the world.
Laor main hypothesis is that the ideoa of the 'Liberal Zionist' is a complete sham, and his biggest targets are Israel's most successful and dull man of letter Amoz Oz and AB Yehoshua who is regarded as the 'Faulkner of Israel'.. Laors'c criticism and brilliant denouncement of both of these writers works is brutal, honest, TRUE and utterly hilarious! Both are complete failures, as their stories are merely distractions, glossed over nonsense and ultimately meaningless failures that ignore the complex and brutal ethnic cleansing the State of Israel has imposed on the Palestinian people.
Laor's essay goes deeper, stating that both these writers are representive the schism of the Israeli identity between the Ashkenazi's (always makes me chuckle how there's a 'nazi' in there) with their European Supremacism, and the Sephardis and their 'Eastern' and Arabic instincts, which 70+ years of Zionism and Likud ideology has cleansed and repressed (much like the Yiddish language)to create the 'new Israeli' ie, a conflicted and racist uber-Israeli (Jew?) that only speaks Hebrew ('RUCK IVRIT'!)
Laor is far more radical and honest in his post-Zionism compared to hacks like saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, for one Laor was a a rare bird in Israeli life, he refused military service and was jailed, no irony Laor is a massive influence on Atzmon, and Atzmon seems to have pilfered many of the ideas explored in this essay.
The insights he has gained and the clarity in which he expresses the sad failure of the Israel project is an important lesson, but is also crucial to the survival of the Jewish state itself, it has to accept that it is a 'multi cultural' state and break from the paranoid and dogmatic bonds of the Bible, and as Laor states t, the backward thinking 'Shtetl' mind that came from pre-war Poland, Germany, Hungary, Russia, that continues to stunt Israel to this day.
Laor main hypothesis is that the ideoa of the 'Liberal Zionist' is a complete sham, and his biggest targets are Israel's most successful and dull man of letter Amoz Oz and AB Yehoshua who is regarded as the 'Faulkner of Israel'.. Laors'c criticism and brilliant denouncement of both of these writers works is brutal, honest, TRUE and utterly hilarious! Both are complete failures, as their stories are merely distractions, glossed over nonsense and ultimately meaningless failures that ignore the complex and brutal ethnic cleansing the State of Israel has imposed on the Palestinian people.
Laor's essay goes deeper, stating that both these writers are representive the schism of the Israeli identity between the Ashkenazi's (always makes me chuckle how there's a 'nazi' in there) with their European Supremacism, and the Sephardis and their 'Eastern' and Arabic instincts, which 70+ years of Zionism and Likud ideology has cleansed and repressed (much like the Yiddish language)to create the 'new Israeli' ie, a conflicted and racist uber-Israeli (Jew?) that only speaks Hebrew ('RUCK IVRIT'!)
Laor is far more radical and honest in his post-Zionism compared to hacks like saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, for one Laor was a a rare bird in Israeli life, he refused military service and was jailed, no irony Laor is a massive influence on Atzmon, and Atzmon seems to have pilfered many of the ideas explored in this essay.
The insights he has gained and the clarity in which he expresses the sad failure of the Israel project is an important lesson, but is also crucial to the survival of the Jewish state itself, it has to accept that it is a 'multi cultural' state and break from the paranoid and dogmatic bonds of the Bible, and as Laor states t, the backward thinking 'Shtetl' mind that came from pre-war Poland, Germany, Hungary, Russia, that continues to stunt Israel to this day.
April 6, 2023
Could have done with some cuts to the nearly 50 page diatribe of Amos Oz but I’m petty so I lived for it.
Overall, despite its brevity, I gained a lot of insight into the relation between Zionism/Israel and Europe/the West. Laor does a good job at poking at the heart of an argument im a way that made me think a lot more about the subject and develop new insights, which the typical book of facts/statistics, though valuable, does not often do (for me). The academic writing that I typically read attempts to be as professional as possible, so I quite enjoyed Laor’s unbridled antagonism for the writers and people he critiques in this book. That could totally turn some people off from the book, but I found it quite refreshing. I’m glad I bought a copy instead of borrowing from a library, since there’s so much I highlighted and plan to come back to as needed.
Overall, despite its brevity, I gained a lot of insight into the relation between Zionism/Israel and Europe/the West. Laor does a good job at poking at the heart of an argument im a way that made me think a lot more about the subject and develop new insights, which the typical book of facts/statistics, though valuable, does not often do (for me). The academic writing that I typically read attempts to be as professional as possible, so I quite enjoyed Laor’s unbridled antagonism for the writers and people he critiques in this book. That could totally turn some people off from the book, but I found it quite refreshing. I’m glad I bought a copy instead of borrowing from a library, since there’s so much I highlighted and plan to come back to as needed.
May 23, 2021
This book was a treat to read. I am not that familiar with Israeli media and I was expecting a technical treatise on Israeli politics. The book is most certainly not a technical treatise. Rather, it is clear that the author is a poet and it is through this lens that he aims to describe the complex relationship between Israel and Europe.
First of all, I would recommend this book to anyone with a WW2 history. To those people, this would be a book of healing - it describes in detail how WW2 was rebranded as a war that cruelly murdered countless Jewish people, conveniently forgetting many of the other atrocities that were committed. It describes how it was possible that many members of the SS could continue their lives in peace and calm. It describes how Germans tried to forget. Finally, it describes how it happened that the Holocaust became a symbol of all evil, forgetting all the banal cruelties committed to thousands of others.
The later chapters describe with great eloquence how it is possible that Israel became yet another grand symbol of colonialism and how language was used to dehumanize certain groups of people. It describes the separation of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi people, a part of Israeli history that I was not familiar with. Finally, the book concludes with a discussion of a number of Israeli authors and the ways these authors impacted European media. Although I am not familiar with these authors, I am familiar with their rhetoric and I found it enlightening to read how so-called advocates of peace were able to justify such abhorrent cruelty.
Given the current situation in Israel, this is a timely read. It is also an enjoyable read and one that gives a perspective not easily found in most English media. I absolutely recommend reading this.
First of all, I would recommend this book to anyone with a WW2 history. To those people, this would be a book of healing - it describes in detail how WW2 was rebranded as a war that cruelly murdered countless Jewish people, conveniently forgetting many of the other atrocities that were committed. It describes how it was possible that many members of the SS could continue their lives in peace and calm. It describes how Germans tried to forget. Finally, it describes how it happened that the Holocaust became a symbol of all evil, forgetting all the banal cruelties committed to thousands of others.
The later chapters describe with great eloquence how it is possible that Israel became yet another grand symbol of colonialism and how language was used to dehumanize certain groups of people. It describes the separation of Ashkenazi and Mizrahi people, a part of Israeli history that I was not familiar with. Finally, the book concludes with a discussion of a number of Israeli authors and the ways these authors impacted European media. Although I am not familiar with these authors, I am familiar with their rhetoric and I found it enlightening to read how so-called advocates of peace were able to justify such abhorrent cruelty.
Given the current situation in Israel, this is a timely read. It is also an enjoyable read and one that gives a perspective not easily found in most English media. I absolutely recommend reading this.
December 12, 2023
I sometimes had a hard time understanding what he was talking about in this book because I am kind of ignorant of the history of Israel and the Middle East in general, BUT there is some golden social critique in here. Laor presents a series of analyses of the relationship between Israel and the West, the way that the media and some artists portray that relationship, and the political motivation behind those stories and how they're told. He starts with an anecdote about how US and Israeli soldiers are presented in films produced by each country (by his description, US soldiers are depicted to be older, tougher, more mature; and Israeli soldiers are presented as young, childlike, and innocent -- in need of protection). In general, it's a fascinating journey deeper into why the US has the impressions it does about Israel, and where those impressions came from.
He also has some incredible saucy moments when talking about other writers, including my two following fave sentences:
"This is such a scandalous example of kitsch that I will refrain from elaborating on it further."
and
"I shall quote very little from this treasure trove of mediocrity..."
Anyway, I can't say I understood 100% of it but it was enjoyable to read some analysis of the cultural state we find ourselves in in the US, and why the West acts the way it does about Israel.
He also has some incredible saucy moments when talking about other writers, including my two following fave sentences:
"This is such a scandalous example of kitsch that I will refrain from elaborating on it further."
and
"I shall quote very little from this treasure trove of mediocrity..."
Anyway, I can't say I understood 100% of it but it was enjoyable to read some analysis of the cultural state we find ourselves in in the US, and why the West acts the way it does about Israel.
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February 20, 2024disclaimer: I don’t really give starred reviews. I hope my reviews provide enough information to let you know if a book is for you or not. Find me here: https://linktr.ee/bookishmillennial
I fear that my newest insufferable catchphrase (& I have a lot!) is “this should be required reading” because I find myself saying it again about this book.
A *lot* is packed into ~150 pages, so it can feel unstructured, but I think Laor simply got right to the point of discussing media portrayals and false narratives.
I was in disbelief at the utter lack of compassion for Palestinians displayed by the IOF and many Israeli media organizations that were noted in this. I’ll leave you with an excerpt of a 2004 interview that novelist A.B. Yehoshua had with Haaretz, an Israeli news organization:
“Because after we remove the settlements and after we stop being an occupation army, all the rules of war will be different.... We will make use of force against an entire population. Because the minute we withdraw I don’t even want to know their names.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Genocide, Racism, and Colonisation
I fear that my newest insufferable catchphrase (& I have a lot!) is “this should be required reading” because I find myself saying it again about this book.
A *lot* is packed into ~150 pages, so it can feel unstructured, but I think Laor simply got right to the point of discussing media portrayals and false narratives.
I was in disbelief at the utter lack of compassion for Palestinians displayed by the IOF and many Israeli media organizations that were noted in this. I’ll leave you with an excerpt of a 2004 interview that novelist A.B. Yehoshua had with Haaretz, an Israeli news organization:
“Because after we remove the settlements and after we stop being an occupation army, all the rules of war will be different.... We will make use of force against an entire population. Because the minute we withdraw I don’t even want to know their names.”
Content Warnings
Graphic: Classism, Genocide, Racism, and Colonisation
July 12, 2021
By the title, I was hoping this would be a dismantling of some myths, one by one in an orderly fashion, but instead, I found a jealous poet spewing vitriol on a few people(more famous than him) he believes to be the mythmakers and their "myths". More interested in dismissing with ad hominems and crude language rather than actually showing the missteps clearly. It's more like a character assassination rather than a good addition to the debate. Seldom have I read somebody saying so little with so many words! Going in, I found myself between two parties that I both seem to disagree with(given that he does not touch upon the basics of "liberal Zionism" as Wikipedia puts it is "advocating free market principles, democracy and adherence to human rights." which I can fall in line with), Laor attacking perceived myths by being blind to his own. I quickly realized that this book was not meant for me, but I did learn a thing or two and the reading flowed well so I gave it a chance anyway.
February 26, 2024
Like other reviewers I was initially a bit confused by Laor's focus on media. I'm at heart a philosopher and hoped to read about the very real contradictions between Israeli ideas about themselves and their material reality.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and did take me back to my few days of litcrit. The conclusions Laor works with have always been glaringly obvious to me, as I've dealt with contradictions of US self-described excepionalism and innocence quite a lot in my studies of history and media.
Laor deals with those contradictions, especially the "we are European excepionalists yet we are a separate Jewish nation that is also somehow levantine."
He writes with verve and humor. For as anyone with two eyes can see by now, of you're not laughing at the absurdity of simultaneous Israeli bravado and helplessness, you are crying for the Palestinians as Israel slaughters them and razes their cities for settlement by Israelis.
It was a thoroughly enjoyable read, and did take me back to my few days of litcrit. The conclusions Laor works with have always been glaringly obvious to me, as I've dealt with contradictions of US self-described excepionalism and innocence quite a lot in my studies of history and media.
Laor deals with those contradictions, especially the "we are European excepionalists yet we are a separate Jewish nation that is also somehow levantine."
He writes with verve and humor. For as anyone with two eyes can see by now, of you're not laughing at the absurdity of simultaneous Israeli bravado and helplessness, you are crying for the Palestinians as Israel slaughters them and razes their cities for settlement by Israelis.
October 26, 2022
Jews and Jews
This short book answers the question (or attempts to, at least): How are various Jews different from each other ?
While the topic is very interesting and perhaps necessary in order to understand Jewry and Israel, the book the discourse appears to me disorganized and discontinue .
I’d say a book “so - so”
This short book answers the question (or attempts to, at least): How are various Jews different from each other ?
While the topic is very interesting and perhaps necessary in order to understand Jewry and Israel, the book the discourse appears to me disorganized and discontinue .
I’d say a book “so - so”
March 24, 2019
I understood the content but found that there was relatively more chastisement and I struggled to see it as analysis
October 28, 2021
Great book refuting liberal zionsm!
August 21, 2025
High brow enquiry into the doomed condition of Israel’s liberal Zionist literary culture
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December 16, 2015An impulse purchase before a bus. Unrateable, frankly
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