Summary
David Theo Goldberg’s concept, adopted by Molavi as a premise, for the racial configuration of Zionism and Israel: Palestinians are treated not simply in the manner of a racial group but as a despised and demonic racial group (Stateless Citizenship (2013), PDF p.36-37).
Details
- Goldberg refrains from defining Israel as an apartheid state and uses critical race theory to describe Israel as a racial state, “a state racially characterizing itself in its founding self-representation” (Goldberg 2008, 27, as quoted PDF p.36).
- In Goldberg’s account as quoted, Israel is taken as an outpost of European civilization that must be European, presumably white, its whiteness transparent and invisible, with Israelis occupying the structural positions of whiteness in the racial hierarchy of the Middle East and Arabs, most notably Palestinians, as the antithesis (Goldberg 2008, 32-33, PDF p.36-37).
- Molavi’s book does not itself undertake a critical analysis of race but is premised on this understanding of modern political Zionism as a racial ideological construct; its treatment of non-Jews functions as a racialized structure of exclusion even where it mobilizes ethno-national and religious identity inwardly (PDF p.37).
Related pages
Stateless Citizenship (2013), Racism, Zionism, Stateless Citizenship