Zionism has a chequered history: the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, wars without end, apartheid, land theft and now, genocide. Less well known is an older, darker chapter: the harm Zionism has done to the Jewish people it claims to protect. Many prominent adherents of an ideology that presents itself as the guardian of world Jewry have also, throughout Zionism’s history, “hated the Jews”, argues Joss Sheldon in a striking new book. “We’ve been gaslit for far too long,” Sheldon writes in the book’s opening passage, challenging the familiar premise that Zionism serves the interests of Jews. He continues: “This fabrication – that Israel is the ‘Jewish State’, a place which serves the Jewish people – has been repeated so many [...]
