The Myths of Liberal Zionism

Description

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. Foreword by José Saramago Preface to the English-Language Edition Introduction 1 - The Shoah Belongs to Us (Us, the Non-Muslims) 2 - The Right of Return (of the Colonial): On the Role of the “Peace Camp” and its French Sponsors 3 - It Takes a Lot of Darkness and Self-Love to merge “Us” with “You”: Amos Oz’s A Tale of Love and Darkness 4 - “I Don’t Even Want to Know Their Names”—On Hatred for the East: A. B. Yehoshua, and the Shame of Being Sephardi 5 - In Lieu of a Conclusion: A Banished Thought from the East about a Polish Saltfish Notes