The Lion's Den: Zionism and the Left from Hannah Arendt to Noam Chomsky

by Susie Linfield,
The Forward, March 31, 2019

In 1981, in an essay titled “Revolutionary Realism and the Struggle for Palestine,” Fred Halliday, a member of the editorial board of the New Left Review, broke with his comrades. A scholar of the Arab and Muslim worlds, Halliday made clear that he continued to support a Palestinian state and the refugees’ right to return. He remained convinced that Israeli policies toward Palestinians were “stubborn, short-sighted, arrogant, messianic,” racist and, ultimately, suicidal.