Zionism is not a redeemable movement gone awry; it did not become an occupying power only in 1967 but is so inherently and inescapably. Its appetite for extreme violence and expansion is insatiable and facilitated without limits or red lines by what Sayegh calls its “vital and continuing association” with imperialism. Netanyahu is not an outlier or unrepresentative of the whole, but in fact the perfect embodiment of the racism, violence and expansionism that [Fayez] Sayegh understood was inherent to Zionism over half a century ago, traits that are supported by the overwhelming majority of the settler population.
“The West won the world not by the superiority of its ideas or values or religion (to which few members of other civilizations were converted) but rather by its superiority in applying organized violence. Westerners often forget this fact; non-Westerners never do.” —Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilisation and the Remaking of the World Order, 1996, p. 51