A Strange Case

The tale of Zionism and Fascism in the pre-war 30s is a weird, unpleasant and contradictory one. Parts of it have been told well enough, but not the whole. Very different historians have had very different ways of telling it very badly. This is in part because it is hard to see clearly when your view is obstructed by an enormous axe which you are forced to grind.

A good comprehensive book on this topic is sorely needed in a western language. It would need to take fascism into account for what it genuinely was: the only genuinely new political ideology of the 20th century, which influenced a broad array of movements with its centripetal power.

It would have to be written by somebody more interested in what actually happened rather than in either vilifying or beatifying the modern State of Israel. Somebody who couldn't be dragooned onto either side of the polemic war of attrition that has slowly engulfed all discussions of the history of Zionism. Somebody with a fanatical devotion to historical truth. Somebody able and willing to conduct tedious archival research in at least seven languages.

Good luck finding that somebody anywhere in the historiographic landscape of today.