This mentality permeated every aspect of the PLO's operations: notorious terrorist Leila Khaled hijacked an aeroplane in 1969 as part of a group that styled itself the "Che Guevara Brigade"; a group of adolescent hijackers were christened the "Tiger Cubs" of the "Ho Chi Minh Division"; Khaled's second hijacking was assisted by a Nicaraguan Sandinista; and, in 1972, members of the Japanese Red Army massacred passengers at Israel's Lod Airport in "revolutionary solidarity" with the PLO. As recently as 2010, Arafat's successor, Mahmoud Abbas, on a visit to Vietnam, averred: ". . . when people mention the Palestinian struggle they recall the struggle of the Vietnamese people. We have both suffered occupation, colonisation and oppression, but you eventually prevailed, and we are certain that, thanks to your position and your support, we shall prevail as well." Thus although the Arabs' aspirations have not changed, Ho Chi Minh and Che Guevara are certainly more chic than Hitler and Goebbels.
The book goes on to consider Arab terrorism in more detail, the oil embargo, the Non-Aligned Movement's domination of the United Nations; and other significant developments. In two chapters, Muravchik concentrates on a relevant personality to trace the evolution of broader movements and institutions — Bruno Kreisky vis-à-vis the European socialists and, for academia, Edward Said. This is inevitably simplistic but it does make the text accessible; Muravchik is an engrossing storyteller.
There are a few minor disappointments in the book. Muravchik is unduly harsh toward Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin, blaming him for confirming elements of the Western leftist critique, even though most of the book is spent underscoring the dubiousness of that critique in the first place. There is also little analysis of leftist ideology as a whole: Muravchik does not, for instance, explore why the Left seems reflexively to prefer the underdog, which is (not unreasonably) his underlying assumption. Nor does he explicate in detail how these various developments influenced that ideology. For example, he writes that the oil embargo revealed the Arabs to be the "masters of the global economy". While it is clear why this prompted Western countries to turn on Israel, should not such a perception have turned the Arabs back into Goliath again in the eyes of the Left?
Perhaps, though, this is a question better aimed at Israel's liberal detractors themselves, who would surely gain the most from examining these two intriguing publications with genuine liberality.
The book goes on to consider Arab terrorism in more detail, the oil embargo, the Non-Aligned Movement's domination of the United Nations; and other significant developments. In two chapters, Muravchik concentrates on a relevant personality to trace the evolution of broader movements and institutions — Bruno Kreisky vis-à-vis the European socialists and, for academia, Edward Said. This is inevitably simplistic but it does make the text accessible; Muravchik is an engrossing storyteller.
There are a few minor disappointments in the book. Muravchik is unduly harsh toward Israel's Prime Minister Menachem Begin, blaming him for confirming elements of the Western leftist critique, even though most of the book is spent underscoring the dubiousness of that critique in the first place. There is also little analysis of leftist ideology as a whole: Muravchik does not, for instance, explore why the Left seems reflexively to prefer the underdog, which is (not unreasonably) his underlying assumption. Nor does he explicate in detail how these various developments influenced that ideology. For example, he writes that the oil embargo revealed the Arabs to be the "masters of the global economy". While it is clear why this prompted Western countries to turn on Israel, should not such a perception have turned the Arabs back into Goliath again in the eyes of the Left?
Perhaps, though, this is a question better aimed at Israel's liberal detractors themselves, who would surely gain the most from examining these two intriguing publications with genuine liberality.
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