The Jew-Arab enmity is structured by a history longer than its colonial phase

Evidence

In this book, I am engaging how the enemy becomes enemy, the history of the enemy that is inscribed within and between the polarized identities ofJew and Arab. If it constitutes a history, it is one that is longer than a colonial one, although colonial dimensions-the implication, indeed, the founding and continuing role of British colonialism and American imperialism, to mention only two prominent actors, in the creation and the continuation of the “Middle East conflict”-are perhaps better known and better studied, if not necessarily better understood. But The jew, the Arab: A History of the Enemy is also less than a history-less a history, that is, than a preliminary account of why that history has not been written. — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 34

Categorization

• XREF: Challenges the common postcolonial framing that the Middle East conflict is a purely colonial invention, complicating the ‘cycle of violence’ narrative. — connects to: Ottoman-era Jewish-Arab distinctions hardened only after Israel’s founding displaced Palestinians — Cyra Akila Choudhury, Racecraft and Identity in the Emergence…, 170
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab: A History of the…, 34