Parallel Roads to Ruin

A vivid account of Zionism and Islamism’s deadly embrace.

Zionism and Islamism both emerged in response to oppression and injustice, aiming to bring dignity, freedom and security to the downtrodden followers of one of the world’s great religions. Yet both have since created oppression and injustice and used violence to attain their goals, fomenting bitter hatreds. These led directly to the horrifying October 7 attacks and ensuing destruction of Gaza.

John McHugo calls for a radical rethink of these two ideologies. Tracing the problematic relationship of Europe and ‘the West’ with Jews and Muslims, from the Middle Ages to nineteenth-century nationalism to today, he shows how the Israel–Palestine conflict stained both movements indelibly. He focuses on the personalities involved as much as their ideas—from Theodor Herzl, David Ben-Gurion, Menachem Begin and Benjamin Netanyahu to Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Sayyid Qutb, Shaykh Ahmad Yassin and Osama bin Laden.

Only by confronting the unwelcome facts of this intertwined history can lasting peace and fundamental rights be secured—and the downward spiral towards disaster reversed.