Ussama Makdisi is professor of history at the University of California, Berkeley.
Legislation on protected identities is supposed to foster good intercommunal relations. When it’s used to protect Zionism, it means shielding a 19th-century nationalist ideology from criticism as if it were an innate characteristic of all Jews.
Western media often characterizes the Middle East as a region eternally riven with sectarian conflicts. In an interview, historian Ussama Makdisi says this is wrong, starting with the fact that the region has a rich history of multiethnic coexistence.
Zionism emerged in response to 19th-century European antisemitism — but its aims in Palestine drew upon Western colonial ideologies. To present the current conflict as a timeless feud denies both European responsibility and Palestine’s multiethnic history.