In an interview with the Israeli daily Ha-aretz published in August 2000, Edward Said concluded a discussion about home, belonging, and exile with the somewhat surprising announcement: “I am the last Jewish intellectual . . . the only true follower of Adorno.” As a clarifying statement he added: “Let me put it this way: I am a Jewish-Palestinian.”1 That Theodor Adorno’s views on dialectical history, displacement, and exile greatly influenced Said is a well-known fact, but his statement draws attention to other, not less significant points: first, that Said, an outspoken critic of Zionism, has always been careful not to conflate Zionism and Judaism and has, accordingly, always stressed the importance of distinguishing between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.2 Furthermore, in frequently emphasizing (as in his words: “I am the last Jewish intellectual”) his adherence to what he associates with a certain historical “Jewish position,” Said seems to radically differentiate, even oppose, Zionism (as a ethnonational ideology) to Judaism, or at least to a critical Jewish sensibility as observed in the writings of Adorno, Hannah Arendt, or more recently Zeev Sternheel, Uri Avnery, and Ilan Pappe.
