Status Updates From في الأدب الصهيوني

chapter 6 |

Not much to add of my own thoughts as kanafani here highlights classic cases of dehumanization by Zionist writers to project themselves as superior, virtuous and saviours.

Chapter 5 shows that, in order to fill inconsistencies, Zionism reframes the past and, rather than investigate, it's brushed under the rug. For example, how can one claim Arab persecution (to justify invading Palestine) when Arab-Jews themselves existed? Zionism does so by conflating race and religion i.e. Jews of other nationalities were oppressed by a monolith, 'Arabs', who were, in their making, solely Muslim.

chapters 4 & 5 |
Chapter 4 draws the evolution of 'The Wandering Jew', a bit of which went over my head, mainly due to a gap in knowledge. But it ended with it being a sympathetic character, and that sets the tone on how Europeans were persuaded into believing in their cause.

Also, there's an argument that floats around, how the Zionist cause was pushed by the Brits (or Europe) to solve the 'Jewish problem'. But this erases the persistence that extremist Jews themselves had in regard to their nationalistic ambition. Remove Europe and extremist Jews/Zionists would have still propagated their alleged superiority.

chapter 3 |

George Eliot was a mouthpiece for Zionism. During this era, Zionists hailed/exploited the 'heroic' Jewish character, not for soft power to socially be accepted, but to be used as catalyst to 'convert Jews to Zionism' i.e. to coerce them into recognising their alleged superiority. THIS would lay the foundations to collectively aspire for nationalistic goals.

chapter 2 |

Zionism didn't start as a response to Jewish persecution. It was and is inherently an ideology built on Jewish supremacy. Even during times of security, there was a class of elite Jews who refused to integrate and proactively solve the 'Jewish question', instead suppressing Jewish proponents of integration and developing and propagating a racial superiority complex instead.

I wish I can go back in time