Zionism affirmed the very culture that had excluded Jews

Evidence

Despite the Zionist rejection of “assimilationist trends,” it can be read as an extreme expression of the desire to assimilate the Jews into the Western narrative of enlightenment and redemption. The condemnation of assimilation was, in fact, the rejection of the ambiguity and “in betweenness.” Generally, Zionist thought, in spite of very important differences from assimilationist ideologies, did not challenge the dichotomy between Europe and the Orient; rather, it was based on the desire to assimilate into the West. The process of Jewish colonization embodied the perspective of both the colonized and the colonizer, by transforming the colonized and assimilating the perspective of the colonizer. — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 638 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Israel also became a doppelganger of the colonial project, specifically settler colonialism. Many of Zionism’s basic rationales were thinly veiled Judaizations of core Christian colonial conceptions: Terra Nullius, the claim that continents like Australia were effectively empty because their Indigenous inhabitants were categorized as less than fully human, became “A land without a people for a people without a land”—a phrase adopted by many Zionists and that originated with nineteenth-century Christians. Manifest Destiny became “land bequeathed to the Jews by divine right.” “Taming the wild frontier” became “making the desert bloom.” — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 976 (#complicates, via linked claim)

Categorization

• XREF: connects to: Zionists pitched Jews as carriers of European culture against the Arabs; Zionist secularism was a European cultural identity by definition — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 663; Zionism’s defining traits came from Eastern European Yiddish culture — Bernard Lewis, From Babel to Dragomans: Interpreting…, 950 (+9 more)

Broader Connections

• Zionism is an extreme form of Western assimilation despite rejecting assimilationism #complicates (0.82) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 638
• Zionism’s core rationales were Judaized colonial doctrines #complicates (0.74) — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 976