Escaping the Zionist Circle: Notes on Racial Capitalism and the Black Radical Tradition

Abstract

From the 1947–8 Nakba to the 2023–4 Gaza genocide, the history of Palestine appears to be stuck in a vicious circle of violence from which escape seems increasingly elusive. This leads one to ask, can one ever escape the Zionist circle? The work of Cedric Robinson provides a potential path forward. Since his death in 2016, Robinson’s name has become synonymous with the study of racial capitalism. But while racial capitalism was the background of his work, his chief concern was the Black Radical Tradition. Unlike racial capitalism, this concept has remained under-theorised, but without thoroughly accounting for it, our understanding of racial capitalism remains incomplete at best, misguided at worst. In this article, I turn our attention to the Black Radical Tradition and attempt to define it. As Robinson argued, the Black Radical Tradition is not simply derivative of racial capitalism; it actually precedes it and subverts it. Returning to Palestine, I show how Robinson’s notion of the Black Radical Tradition can contribute to our understanding of the struggle for Palestinian liberation, and I suggest that at least in some sense, the Palestinians have actually been escaping the Zionist circle all along.