Israel and the Arab World

     The U.S. press is unanimous in saying that there is little interest in international affairs in the presidential campaign. The media have devoted more space to Elián than to the rest of the world. The candidates say what they think will bring in votes: Thus they say that they would move the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem without even thinking of the votes they would lose. Their foreign affairs advisers are charming and bright, but they show little grasp of the incredible complexity of foreign affairs. There are country experts in the background, but that is another matter.
     The interest in world affairs is greater in Europe, because it has always had to live with them. At Oxford there is St. Antony's College, which did not even exist when I was there. It consists of a body of Fellows interested precisely in world affairs. WAIS has a natural affinity with it. The Warden, Sir Marack Goulding, is a WAIS Fellow. As in Europe generally, the discussion of sensitive affairs is not taboo there.
     In the United States, serious discussions of Israeli affairs are often halted with charges of anti-Semitism, which is about as insulting and stupid as calling a liberal a commie or a red. Many decide that serious discussion of Israeli affairs must therefore be left to Jews. It may be for this reason that the Council on Foreign Relations of Washington D.C. invited Avi Shlaim, Professor of International Relations and Fellow of St. Antony's College, to address it.
     He is a leading Israeli historian, the author of The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World (Norton). He spoke repeatedly of the old and the new historians, the former not really historians but propagandists for the Israeli nationalist line of what he called the immaculate conception. They insult in crude terms the New Historians, who are scholars with access to documents which had been kept secret under the Israeli 30-year rule. For example the documents reveal just how expansionist Ben Gurion was. Shlaim's address was excellent, and we hope he will be invited to other American cities to put an end to the stupid charges of anti-Semitism which make serious discussion impossible.

Ronald Hilton - 1/30/00