PanJewish CurrentsSusie Linfield\'s new intellectual history...is a fascinating examination of the attitudes of a series of Jewish figures identified with the left on the question of Zionism and Israel. Linfield defines herself as a liberal, and thus The Lions’ Den might be best understood as a liberal critique of leftist perspectives on this question ... Throughout the book, Linfield employs a notion of \'realism\' that is never adequately explained, even as the purported threat of an ideological war against realism serves as the book’s centerpiece ... One can only infer that Linfield is referring not to realism in a developed philosophical sense, but rather to a version of what one might call common-sense realism, which involves presuming that certain empirical observations about the world are obvious and incontestable. The problem with this kind of realism is that it’s a subjective category disguised as an objective one ... the eight case studies in The Lions’ Den represent not so much a rigorous accounting of the left’s critique of Zionism and Israel, but a scorecard of how much each figure fails or succeeds in apprehending the “real,” which amounts to no more than Linfield’s own liberal view of the situation in Israel/Palestine combined with her vision of gradualism as the only solution. Arguing in this way allows Linfield to avoid actually engaging with the thinkers she critiques, making her own ideology the primary measure by which to weigh the subjects’ commitments to theirs. The book suffers greatly from this facile acceptance of her version of the \'real,\' which asserts its self-evidence without ever arguing for its accuracy.
