Shlomo Avineri

I have always said that in the West, a Zionist is by default an expert on the Middle East no matter what.  Fanatic Zionism is the qualification needed to work on the Middle East in the US government, for example.  Think about all those who never studied the Middle East who work on Middle East: Daniel Shapiro, Richard Haas, Elliott Abrams, Jeffrey Feltman, etc.  The list is too long. That was not the case before, of course.  In the West, for example, they seek the opinion of Israeli professors (even if they teach Potato Studies) because they are fanatic Zionists.  Shlomo Avineri is an expert on Marx and Hegel and wrote on political theory but he is always asked to write about the Arab world.  Oh, this is his nugget of wisdom:  "In other words, for the West the agenda was about democracy; for Israel, it was peace."  What can I say about a guy who summarizes Israeli and US wars and policies thus?