Middle East Bonanza

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

“It was the struggle between Britain and France for the mastery of the Middle East that led the two countries to carve up the Ottoman Empire with the Sykes-Picot agreement, and it was their dissatisfaction over the outcome of this deal that led the British, fatefully, to proclaim their support for Zionist ambitions in the Balfour Declaration. And so the Jews’ right to a country of their own became dangerously associated with a cynical imperial maneuver that was originally designed to outwit the French.” 

I happen to think that reading is still the best way to knowledge about anything, so here are two books I really enjoyed last year but didn’t have time to review. 

Both are by James Barr, a historian from King’s College London. If you want to know more about what has been happening in the Middle East and why, this is a great way to start. Although it does require you to know some basic facts about the region and some Western and Middle Eastern political figures (Google can be your friend here), these books are really accessible to most readers and very well written.

Starting with WWI and ending with the violent birth of the state of Israel, A Line in the Sand will tell you about the French and British rivalry to control the Middle East, drawing lines randomly (yes, with a pencil) across maps with (almost) no second thoughts. The book is a smorgasbord of people and events so engagingly presented that you always want to learn more, like going down that rabbit hole on Wikipedia or using the excellent references at the end of the book. 

Lords of the Deserts then introduces the third protagonist in this long tragicomedy of errors. Drunk on their WWII victory, the Americans, seeing the French and the Brits as a bunch of clueless has-beens, decided it was their turn to restore order and spread their influence. Well, we all know how that ended… I especially enjoyed the chapters on the US coup in Iran in the 50s, masterfully retold by Barr with real spy novel vibes. And those pesky Russians, always there to mess up alliances and highlight western moral bankruptcies. What’t more, the Middle Easterners scheme and plot for power and influence in the region as much as the Western side, often outsmarting colonial powers and using them to crush local rivals. 

The author is not tender with the French, and the many quotes and excerpts from various never before consulted archives make for some funny reading too. It struck me that Britain’s grasp of the situation on the ground was the most thorough and realistic, and their warnings to all protagonists on many occasions were genuine but sadly ignored. A really balanced and fair account of a tragic endeavour.

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A Line in the Sand (2011), 352 pages
Lords of the Desert (2018), 416 pages
by James Barr
Simon & Schuster UK

Star gazing with Neil

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

Neil deGrasse Tyson, who really doesn’t need an introduction, is a great educator, and a thoughtful and polite man. But let’s face it, this little marvel of a book is not for people in a hurry, it is for people who are bad at science but ashamed to admit it. I assure you, I’m not being mean, I’m one of those. Who wants to read a 500 pages book on astrophysics with a lot of equations and graphs?

Here, with his usual wit, Tyson gives us an overview of the cosmos and the laws that govern it. And right from the start, he tells us how it is:

“The Universe is under no obligation to make sense to you.”

Humbled, and a bit anxious, you start on this short journey full of questions and you really do get answers that you can actually process without getting a headache. Tyson has a gift: he can break down the most complex ideas and theories, and make them understandable and fun. Is the universe expending or collapsing, and even better, has it always existed or did it have a starting point? What are we made of? What are protons, neutrons, and what in heaven’s name is a quark (no, it’s not a type of cheese)? What’s in a black hole? And what is dark matter? Where are the aliens and are they avoiding us (do we suck at interstellar parties)?  

It’s not that I didn’t know some of the basic answers to these questions, but Tyson really makes it come together and you get a unified picture of what it means to be us, alone on that pale blue dot. And this being an American book, I was expecting some really over-the-top hopefulness and grand, emotional conclusions (yes, I’m a French cynic like that) but no, his closing chapter is strangely freeing. Tyson rids you of some of that existential dread by simply showing you how amazing it is that we exist at all. Biology and physics conspired to make every single one of us (yes, I’m a French atheist too), and we last just a short while. We might as well enjoy it while we can. 

A read that will make you feel a bit better in these difficult times.

“We are stardust brought to life, then empowered by the universe to figure itself out—and we have only just begun.”

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Astrophysics for People in a Hurry
by Neil deGrasse Tyson
W. W. Norton, 2017
224 pages

The coming idiocracy

⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 5 out of 5.

“Freedom of the mind requires not only, or not even specially, the absence of legal constraints but the presence of alternative thoughts. The most successful tyranny is not the one that uses force to assure uniformity but the one that removes the awareness of other possibilities.” 

Have universities lost the plot and given up on their educative mission?

For anyone who wants to understand the culture wars of today, at least one important aspect of it, reading Allan Bloom’s book is a safe bet. Written in 1987 and becoming an instant success that no one really expected, Bloom’s critique sparked outrage and a sense of unease in universities, and raked in millions for writer and publisher as an anxious public was dying to find out exactly how higher ed was failing the future of democracy in America. This legitimate anxiety has since crossed the pond and reached Europe.

Bloom, a student of the famed Leo Strauss, was part of the ivory tower that was the University of Chicago when it still had the best Liberal Arts curriculum in the country. A professor of political philosophy, his translation of Plato’s Republic is highly praised, he wanted to say out loud what everybody already felt was true: the sixties had ruined the highest ideal of the university, the search for the “truth about life”. Hedonism, careerism, consumerism, and most of all the relativism ardently pushed by the New Left were not progress to him because it all created a life of emptiness, a nihilist society. And the university was dangerously conforming to that world when it was meant to stand apart.

It is a book that is hard to define and thus difficult to review. Some of its arguments are highly abstract but satisfying, while some parts are ramblings, albeit really funny ones, about the decadence of society, German intellectual influence, and Mick Jagger’s hip moves.  His rant is divided in three parts, and the second one is, simply put, the most amazing philosophy course you will ever attend. 

Although the book is today sadly viewed as a conservative pamphlet, Bloom wrote as a moderate Liberal Democrat genuinely worried about the future of his students. As his friend Saul Bellow mentions in the introduction, “Academics (…) seldom offer themselves publicly and frankly as individuals.” Bloom was willing to take the risk for what he believed was important. We should take the risk to be challenged by his writings.

Highly recommended.

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The Closing of the American Mind
by Allan Bloom
Simon & Schuster, 2012
404 pages

Rogue Zion

⭐⭐⭐⭐

Rating: 4 out of 5.

The first thing that struck me upon finishing this excellent book is that it was not so much about the US as it was about Israel and its future as a prosperous democratic state (or not). When Mearsheimer and Walt published it in 2007 it felt like a brick hitting a magnificently kept old stained glass., the shattering of a lot of illusions. They were simultaneously praised for having opened Pandora’s box and relentlessly attacked as provocateurs, amateurs, and unpatriotic, but also charged with antisemitism. Amateurs they are certainly not. John J. Mearsheimer is professor of political science at the University of Chicago and is one of the most important theorists of international politics of the last 30 years. Walt is a professor of international affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. And they aren’t cheap provocateurs nor antisemites, as their detailed analysis clearly shows. Their critique is fairly straightforward: The Israel lobby now has a disproportionate influence on US foreign policy decisions and this influence is bad for the US and Israel in many different ways, and ultimately for the whole Middle East as well. 

From the start, they are very careful to define what the Israel lobby is. It is not the “Jewish lobby”, that old antisemitic trope painting jews as money grabbers who want to control the world. The Israel lobby is not a single entity, it is a constellation of Jewish and non-Jewish interest groups advancing the cause of the State of Israel in the US. Its most famous member is AIPAC that pops up on American screens and newspaper headlines as soon as an election approaches. As the authors say, lobbies are “as American as apple pie” and we all know about the pharmaceutical lobby, the oil lobby, and the infamous NRA. All are working to influence congressional legislation and presidents from both parties, and there is absolutely nothing illegal or wrong with that. The Israel lobby is the best organised and the most efficient lobby in the whole world, and as the authors point out, it is a reflection of how Jews are a prosperous and highly educated population worldwide, something to be proud of, especially after all they have suffered as a community. 

The US has long been a champion of Jews and of the State of Israel, especially during its creation and during the Cold War when the country was a real ally against Soviet intrusion in the Middle East. It gave money and arms so that the young country could stabilise and flourish, and it worked out pretty well.  But the US have kept up these generous handouts even as Israel became a prosperous, democratic country and a power house in the Middle East thanks to its vibrant and innovative economy, and its nuclear deterrent. Even as Israel started to have expansionist ambitions and started to shift dramatically to the right or extreme right of the political spectrum. Even now that Israel is committing something that could be called a national suicide. 

Mearsheimer and Walt argue that Israel has become a strategic liability to the US and that the stubbornness of the American Israel lobby to support Israel no matter what has become a danger for the US and for Israel itself. The throwing around of antisemitism charges as soon as Israel is criticised is washing down the true meaning of that word and is a danger for the Jewish community. The lobby’s close ties with the neoconservative hawks and their imperial and militaristic view of foreign policy is a real threat to both countries. Most of all, the Israel lobby is more and more out of step with the Jewish Diaspora at large (especially younger generations), and with the moral values America supposedly wants to uphold whenever and wherever it can. 

Both men knew that what they were claiming was bound to be controversial and they knew that the case had to be rock solid. And they deliver. The book is extremely well constructed and clear. It follows a neat schematic with pros and cons, a lot of references, excellent presentations of the different actors, of various moments in the historical timeline of US/Israel relations. Most importantly they give sound foreign policy advice to both countries. Readers also get a better understanding of the whole Middle East situation. There are some repetitions but that is not surprising considering the thematic and the impact the book was going to have. They wanted to be well understood. 

2007 is long gone, and the sad irony of the extraordinary effectiveness of the Israel lobby having negative consequences on Israel itself is more apparent than ever today.  And the Jewish diaspora is suffering the most, caught between a rock and a hard place, their understandable love for Israel and a lobby gone rogue. The authors believe that without the lobby the US could have used all its might as a super power to gently pressure Israel and the Palestinians into a two-state solution and achieve lasting peace with other actors in the Middle East. But US foreign policy is too much a slave of US elections cycles, and the lobby has too much sway in Congress and on electoral outcomes. Political careers trump common sense and good policy. And courage is lacking. A very important read for Jews and non-Jews alike.

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The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy
by John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt
Penguin Books, 2007
484 pages