This 1967 essay, originally published in France, was written by Maxime Rodinson, a French socialist historian whose parents were 19th century refugees from pogroms against Jews in the Russian empire. The excellent introduction to this American edition is written by Peter Buch, an American Jew & anti-Zionist who played an important role in my education about the Palestinian struggle–as did Rodinson’s essay. Rodinson’s analysis is incisive & brilliant but above all is a historically scientific analysis of Zionist colonialism within the framework of European & American colonialism. If Zionism is not understood in class, social, & political terms, anti-Zionism can lose its bearings & compromise–or at least appear to compromise–with hatred of Jews, which is not tolerable. That is not to blunt our fury or opposition to Israeli apartheid & genocide against Palestinians but to understand the underpinnings of Zionist ideology that it may be decisively defeated along with every vestige of European & American colonialism.