Unsettling Zionism : diasporic consciousness and Australian Jewish identities

The motivation for writing this thesis derives from the lengthy conflict between Israelis and Palestinians and its effects on Jews who have been engaged politically and intellectually in challenging a paradigm most prevalent among Australian and other diasporic Jewry since the establishment of the state of Israel in 1948. The paradigm asserts that Israelis’ right to live safely within secure borders must be of exclusive concern. To challenge this exclusively therefore, by speaking in support of Palestinian justice and needs for similar basic conditions of life which have not yet been met, is viewed by many Jews as disloyalty and even as antisemitism. Australian Jewry has become known as Zionism’s ‘last bastion’. What were the particular conditions in Australia that led to Zionism and identification with Israel becoming the key symbol of Jewish identity within the Jewish community? The Zionist project has been sustained by deeply held metaphors. These include the historically-based claims and lived experiences of victimisation and vulnerability as Jews, whether individual and collective. Through revealing and synthesising the complexities and contradictions that are inherent in Jewish-Zionist subjectivities today, the thesis hopes to illuminate more generally questions of identity formation, diaspora and community, power and victimisation, and the unifying force of discourse