Zionism and the war(s) on terror: extinction phobias, anti-Muslim racism, and critical scholarship

Abstract

ABSTRACT This article traces the genealogy of 21 st century “terrorism” discourse to mid-to-late 20th century neoconservative thought and Israeli propaganda, arguing that Zionism is the disavowed rhetorical, political, and affective centre of the Global War on Terror (GWOT). The paper further analyzes Zionism and the “terrorism” discourse to which it gives rise as extinction phobias, or moralised narratives of existential threat that explain the voluminous, horrific violence unleashed by the GWOT, the persistence of the GWOT’s signature racisms (anti-Muslim, anti-Arab, and anti-Palestinian racism), and the world-destroying violence unleashed by Israel on the Gaza Strip most spectacularly in 2023–24. The article concludes by explaining the implications of this genealogy for efforts to classify white supremacist violence as terrorism and scholarly accounts of terrorism in the fields of TS and CTS.