On absolute anti-Zionism
“You are either with the Nazis, or you’re against the Nazis, you are either with the Zionists, or you’re against the Zionists, that’s it.” (Kumar, 2026) There is no Jewish question, yet currents of the leftist milieu are obsessed with ‘the Jewish question’: the idea that the Jewish collective poses the ultimate harm to humanity. […]
Why isn’t Hamas the same as the Algerian FLN? (Clive Bradley, 2002)
Too many, far too many, leftists cheered the 7th October – a phenomenon I explore in my talk, ‘Decolonization is not a metaphor’. As the anniversary of the horror of the 7th October 2023 approaches (a horror which should not be negated by all the horror thereafter in Gaza), I am reminded of this article […]
‘The Zionist entity is burning down the UK’: on conspiratorial creep in academia
“The Zionist entity is burning down the UK to defend the genocide in the Gaza” (Press TV, 2024) I demonstrate in my book Outcast (Bassi, 2023) how a dominant body of academic left literature on the Palestinian-Israeli conflict pitches Zionism as the globalising crucible and exporter of colonialism, imperialism, social dispossession, injustice, repression, and racism everywhere. Zionism (including all […]
This is what the University ‘death spiral’ feels like
“[W]hat is a cost allocation death spiral, and why does it matter so much to universities at the moment? It’s about management not understanding the limits of their own accounting systems and so destroying their own organisations.” (Mills, 2024) “Universities’ management systems are not up to that task. They are often made up of ex-academics […]
Expanding our understanding of racism and anti-racist politics (Dr Camila Bassi, Professor Alastair Bonnett and Kenan Malik)
Multiracism by Professor Alastair Bonnett, Not So Black and White by Kenan Malik and Outcast by Dr Camila Bassi, while in some respects very different books, share one common goal: to expand our enquiry and understanding on the nature of racism and the anti-racist project. Multiracism is an empirically rich exploration that traverses the globe to re-conceptualise the origins and trajectories […]
Racist anti-Zionism: the boycott of Third Rock
Let’s start with some fundamental political positions: 1948 was the moment when Israeli Jews took up the right to national self-determination on territory already occupied by Palestinian Arabs, and 1948 (the Nakba) was the moment when Palestinian Arabs were denied their right to national self-determination on the same territory; the Israeli state and military occupation […]
