Zionist return to the East functioned as identification with the West against Arabs

Evidence

Paradoxically, for Zionism, the exodus from Europe and the aspiration to create a distinctly Jewish political entity in the East has been always a means of joining the Christian West and an expression of identification with the latter’s self-perceptions. “Return” was directed toward an imagined East – the proverbial cradle of Western (Judeo-Christian) civilization – imagined and constructed in opposition to the real Arab-Muslim world. — Nadim N. Rouhana and Nadera Shalhoub-Kevorkian, When Politics Are Sacralized, 344

Categorization

• XREF: Contradicts the surface narrative of ‘return to the East’ and fits the reader’s interest in how an external enemy (Arabs/‘East’) is constructed to sustain a Western-aligned national identity. — connects to: Zionism externalized the Arab from the Jew and the Jew from Europe — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab: A History of the…, 975; Zionism was an extreme desire to assimilate into the West; Zionism sought assimilation into the West, not departure from its dichotomy (+3 more)

Broader Connections

• Zionism is an extreme form of Western assimilation despite rejecting assimilationism #corroborates (0.93) — Ivan Davidson Kalmar, Derek Penslar, Orientalism and the Jews, 638
• Zionism sought assimilation into the West, not departure from its dichotomy #corroborates (0.92)
• Zionism externalized the Arab from the Jew and the Jew from Europe #corroborates (0.90) — Gil Anidjar, The Jew, the Arab, 975
• Zionism was an extreme desire to assimilate into the West #corroborates (0.90)
• Orientalism functioned to produce the West rather than describe the East #expands (0.80)
• Zionism’s secularization reinscribed the Semitic wedge separating Jew from Arab #complicates (0.75)