Israel as doppelganger exists on two levels. First, it is a doppelganger of the forms of chauvinistic European nationalisms that turned Jews into pariahs on the continent since well before the Inquisition. That was Zionism’s win-win pitch to anti-Semitic European powers: you get rid of your “Jewish problem” (i.e., Jews, who will leave your countries and migrate to Palestine), and Jews get a state of their own to mimic/twin the very forms of militant nationalism that had oppressed them for centuries. (This is why Zionism was so fiercely opposed by the members of the Bund, who believed that nationalism itself was their enemy and the wellspring of race hatred.)

XREF: Connects to critiques of nationalism and the Bund movement's anti-nationalist stance — relates to any reading on the origins of Zionism versus diaspora socialism. QUESTION: How central was the 'mimicry' argument to early Zionist appeal, versus pre-existing Jewish nationalist sentiment? Worth chasing the Bund source. DEFINE: Clarifies 'doppelganger' here as a structural mimicry/twinning of oppressive nationalist forms, not an actual mirror image.

Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, loc. 975