Israel and Palestine: Reappraisals, Revisions, Refutations

By Avi Shlaim

(Verso, 392 pp., $34.95)

Avi Shlaim burst upon the scene of Middle Eastern history in 1988, with the publication of Collusion Across the Jordan: King Abdullah, the Zionist Movement, and the Partition of Palestine. Before that, as a young lecturer at Reading University in England, he had produced two books, British Foreign Secretaries Since 1945 (1977) and The United States and the Berlin Blockade, 1948–1949 (1983), and several revealing essays on modern Middle Eastern historical issues in academic journals. But it was Collusion Across the Jordan, with its 676 pages of solid and well-written research, that thrust him into the academic limelight.

Yes, you read it right. Here is the essence: If the Saudis (and other OPEC producers) export fewer hydrocarbons, the buyers should still pay as if they were purchasing the old amount. They should pay what the Saudis could charge when the market was tight and the demand high, and the arrangements should not made in the Arab bazaar, but by treaty. It's a nice world that Riyadh lives in. Perhaps this is King Abdullah's gracious response to President Obama's servile bow.

"Less global warming would be good, right?" ask Jad Mouawad and Andrew C. Revkin in a report in Tuesday's Times. No, they answer themselves: "Not to an oil giant."

This comes up now because of the upcoming Framework Convention on Climate Change in Copenhagen. The fact is that the Saudis (as well as the Iranians, the Venezuelans, the emirates, and other big producers) are frightened that their incomes will fall if the attendees commit themselves to "improvements in fuel economy and rising mandates for alternative fuels in the transportation sector." Yes, it could be happening ... and it could be happening this year.

Jake Schmidt, director of the Natural Resources Defense Council, has a very apt--in fact, devastating--analogy: "It is like the tobacco industry asking for compensation for lost revenues as a part of a settlement to address the health risks of smoking." In fact, if a smoker stops smoking, why don't we oblige him to pay for his cigarettes anyway?

A presidential election marred by allegations of fraud, rising casualties of American soldiers, even a few disturbing discoveries about the civilians hired to guard our embassy there--we figured it was about time to talk to terrorism expert Peter Bergen, who was in Afghanistan last month, to get his take on the situation there and what it will take to improve it.

TNR: What is your sense of the election’s validity?

Bergen: Of course there was fraud--the question is one of scale. I was there for the 2004 election and there were claims of fraud at that time. These claims seem to be much more serious and to have greater credence. How much fraud has there been? That’s just an impossible question to answer.

What do you think will be the impact of the fraud? Do you see any chance of a Green Revolution-style uprising?

That depends to some degree on what Dr. Abdullah chooses to do. I don’t think by nature he’s somebody who would be interested in forming a Tajik revolutionary movement. He’s a rather careful guy. But you could imagine a situation where a lot of Tajiks who voted for Dr. Abdullah feel like their votes have been invalidated by fraud. You can imagine that being a problem.

The “get out of Afghanistan” refrain is becoming more popular here in the States. What are some of the things that need to be done before that can happen?

One would be securing the Kabul to Kandahar road, which is the most important road in the country both symbolically and economically. Right now it would be a suicidal trip for anyone reading this to go down that without substantial security. If you can’t drive the most important road in the country, that says a lot about what’s happening.

It wasn't until I reported my print piece on how much Barack Obama's foreign policy--from closing Gitmo to Iran to the global economy-- depends on the Saudis that I appreciated the influence Riyadh has over its Sunni ally Pakistan.

Saudi Arabia's chief counterterrorism official has narrowly survived a suicide attack -- an event significant for two reasons. First, it underscores that the Saudi royals are still in a very dangerous battle with al Qaeda, which would love to overthrow their regime. The good news is that the Saudis have had success in fighting domestic al Qaeda militants over the past few years, something Obama officials praise the Saudis for.

Isabel Kershner and I do not exactly share the same politics on Israel. But she is an extraordinary and extraordinarily honest journalist. She has been the "Palestinian" correspondent of the Times for a while now, joining my good and admired friend Steven Erlanger (the head of its Jerusalem bureau) and Greg Myre in covering what may be the most emotionally laden beat in the world. She gets it.