Tony Judt

Tony Judt was a prominent historian, essayist, and public intellectual. Born to a Jewish family, he initially identified as a fervent Zionist, spending time on a kibbutz and participating in Israeli efforts during the 1967 Six-Day War. However, he became increasingly critical of Zionism and the Israeli state's policies, advocating for a single democratic state solution in Israel and Palestine. Judt's 2003 essay in The New York Review of Books sparked significant controversy as it called for a departure from the two-state solution and a rethinking of Zionism's foundations. In his later writings, he critiqued Israeli apartheid, occupation, and the ideological rigidity of the Zionist project.