The Lions' Den

Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky

By: Susie Linfield

Narrated by: Kathe Mazur

A lively intellectual history that explores how prominent midcentury public intellectuals approached Zionism and then the State of Israel itself and its conflicts with the Arab world

Cultural critic Susie Linfield investigates how eight prominent 20th-century intellectuals struggled with the philosophy of Zionism, and then with Israel and its conflicts with the Arab world. Constructed as a series of interrelated portraits that combine the personal and the political, the book includes philosophers, historians, journalists, and activists such as Hannah Arendt, Arthur Koestler, I. F. Stone, and Noam Chomsky.

In their engagement with Zionism, these influential thinkers also wrestled with the 20th century's most crucial political dilemmas: socialism, nationalism, democracy, colonialism, terrorism, and anti-Semitism. In other words, in probing Zionism, they confronted the very nature of modernity and the often catastrophic histories of our time. By examining these leftist intellectuals, Linfield also seeks to understand how the contemporary Left has become focused on anti-Zionism and how Israel itself has moved rightward.

©2019 Susie Linfield (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Great insights into the origins of modern Left’s attitudes to Israel

The author presents an in-depth and very cogently argued analysis of the writings of several of the most influential left-wing thinkers on the subject of Israel and Zionism. Very timely, especially given that most of the progressive discourse on Israel today is in the form of direct copy-paste from the authors featured or at least discussed in the book, with none of the supporting argumentation. If you want to see what considerations these modern positions actually rest on, this book is an eminently readable review of that.

Great trek through post war Zionist thought

Linfield has a encyclopedic grasp of the subject matter, and brings thoughtful insight to the Jewish/ Zionist questions.

Trick of definition to make political points

Did you know that if you take several different thinkers who all share a dislike of Zionism without using their definitions of zionisms but your own... that you can make easy points?

"Zionism is support for a Jewish homeland". Sure. But where and how will that homeland be created, and what is the morality of such a project? That is what antizionists argue about. That the Author express confusion to why the left see Israel as an imperialist entity is not confusing, which it appears as to the author.

The obnoxious attitude towards the left, which is reduced to a pastiche without much attempt to understand, strikes one in the introduction. The gall to generalize the sheer plurality of leftwing perspectives into generalized abstractions is also obnoxious. The arrogance about others not knowing Israeli history and thereby having flawed opinions...

I only made it halfway through Arendt before writing this. That Arendt apparently doesn't understand the relevance of establishing a state to have dignity makes one really question the Author's knowledge. "The Right to have Rights" is a critique about what, exactly?

The book may make some points later, but its claim to be an investigation of the Left's relation to Zionism is about asaccurate as something one sees from rightwing Youtube.

In light of current events this book is a misfortunr