Zionist leaders publicly grounded their legitimacy in Semitic racial kinship with Arabs

Evidence

Our membership of the Semitic race, our title to a place in the civilisation of the world and to influence the world and take our share in the development of civilisation, have always been emphasised. If racial kinship really counts, if great associations exist which must serve as a foundation for the future, these associations exist between us and the Arabs. I believe in the logic of these facts. — James Renton, Ben Gidley (eds.), Antisemitism and Islamophobia in Europe, 667

Categorization

• DEFINE: Shows how ‘Semitic race’ was deployed publicly as a positive, fraternal category by Zionists — the same term that antisemites weaponized against them, demonstrating the term’s radical polyvalence.
• BMF: The deliberate performance of fraternal kinship to a patron power — Sokolow’s obedient enthusiasm to Sykes — evokes Changez’s calculated loyalty performances toward the American elite in The Reluctant Fundamentalist, and the way colonized/semi-colonized figures talked about ‘our’ shared values to their patrons.