Parallel Roads to Ruin

Examines the entwined destinies of Zionists and Islamists and the political outcome of their deadly embrace.

Zionism and Islamism both emerged in response to oppression and injustice, and started with the best intentions to bring dignity, freedom and security to the downtrodden followers of one of the world’s great religions. Yet both have 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. He traces the problematic relationship of Europe and ‘the West’ with Jews and Muslims, from the Middle Ages to nineteenth-century nationalism and the Israel–Palestine conflict. He focuses on the personalities involved as much as their ideology—from Theodor Herzl, Chaim Weizmann, David Ben-Gurion and Ze’ev Jabotinsky to Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Rashid Rida, Izz al-Din al-Qassam and Hajj Amin al-Husseini; and from Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Ariel Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu to Hassan al-Banna, Sayyid Qutb, Osama bin Laden and Shaykh Ahmad Yassin.

Wrestling with the unwelcome facts of this intertwined history is a precondition for reaching a settlement respecting the rights of all, and for securing lasting peace. Parallel Roads to Ruin makes these essential truths plain.

After studying Arabic and Islamic studies at the University of Oxford and the American University in Cairo in the 1970s, John McHugo practised international law in the Middle East, where his work during the 1980s and 1990s concentrated on boundary disputes between sovereign states. In the early 2000s, he turned his attention to studying and writing about the history of the Middle East and Islam. His books include A Concise History of Sunnis and Shi‘is; A Concise History of the Arabs; and Syria: A Recent History.