Israel’s Arms for Iran

In distancing Iran from the Arab Peace Initiative, Gholamhossein Mahmoudi (Letters, November 28) is correct in pointing out that his country has never recognised “the illegitimate and fabricated Israeli regime” since the Islamic revolution in 1979.However, he seems to forget that it was Israel’s clandestine supply of arms to Iran at the onset of the … Read more

Echoes of Nazism in the Middle East

Anne Karpf is right to attack the equating of Palestinians with Nazis by rightwing authors, using the sojourn of the Mufti of Jerusalem in wartime Berlin (Islamofascist slanders, November 4). However, it is simplistic to gloss over the alignment of the mainstream Palestinian Arab national movement with Germany which argued from the standpoint of “the … Read more

Selective Outrage

The Koch Papers: My Fight against Anti-Semitism By Edward I. Koch with Rafael Medoff. Palgrave MacMillan 256 pages; $24.95 Ed Koch is known internationally as the outspoken mayor of New York between 1978 and 1989. Before that, he was a US congressman for almost a decade. Since his public career ended, Koch has reinvented himself … Read more

Ben-Gurion against the Knesset

Giora Goldberg, Ben-Gurion against the Knesset (London: Routledge, 2003). Pp 338. $150.00 cloth. Ben-Gurion, of course, helped to construct and shape the state of Israel, but his actions in the arena of the Knesset, according to Giora Goldberg, led to unforeseen consequences in later years. In the early years of the state, Ben-Gurion wielded tremendous … Read more