Thursday, January 03, 2008

Segev on 67. On the way to London, I was read Tom Segev's massive history of the year 1967 in Israel--did I mention how much I hate the filthy and inconvenient airport in London? But it is typical Segev: he is good to expose the racism of Israelis against other Israelis--the Mezrahim--but the Palestinians are a mere background noise in his account. They are always marginal as they were in his last history of the mandate where he only has token references to them, as if he remembers that midway through the book and then says something about Khalil Sakakini and shares some gossips about his son and about the wife of Goerge Antonius. Fair and balanced. And in this book by Segeve: I was introduced to a new theory about the 67 war: the Israelis were depressed so they had to go to war. His references to Ben Gurion don't deviate from the standard hero worship that you get in books on Israel--by left, center, and right although I was amused to see him attack the racism of Teveth--Ben Gurion's biographer. And why the references to Abe Nathan in the book? Who does he represent or was that inserted to show that Israelis want peace? I thought as I was reading it: Israeli "peace" offers to Arab leaders over the years are nothing more than invitations to dance over the dead corpses of the Palestinian people. More later as I don't have the book on me now to make references to specific pages.