Albert Memmi, the great prophet of anti-colonialism, embraced Zionism without ever questioning its colonial implications.

Albert Memmi, who passed away on May 22 at the age of 99, was the author of that indispensable analysis of the colonial psyche, The Colonizer and the Colonized, and dedicated adherent of that impossible conjunction “left-wing Zionism”. How can one reconcile Memmi’s commitment to Israel with the fact that his work continues to have exceptional explanatory power for our understanding of the Zionist settler colonial state?