Night As a result of a motor neurone disorder, historian Tony Judt is effectively quadriplegic.

In one of a series of essays written for the New York eview of !ooks, he descri"es the frustration of nights trapped in his own "ody # and the mental agility he utilises to overcome them I suffer from a motor neuron disorder, in my case a variant of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis $A%&'( %ou )ehrig*s +isease. ,otor neuron disorders are far from rare( -arkinson*s disease, multiple sclerosis and a variety of lesser diseases all come under that heading. .hat is distinctive a"out A%& # the least common of this family of neuro/muscular illnesses # is firstly that there is no loss of sensation $a mi0ed "lessing' and secondly that there is no pain. In contrast to almost every other serious or deadly disease, one is thus left free to contemplate at leisure and in minimal discomfort the catastrophic progress of one*s own deterioration. In effect, A%& constitutes progressive imprisonment without parole. 1irst you lose the use of a digit or two2 then a lim"2 then and almost inevita"ly, all four. The muscles of the torso decline into near torpor, a practical pro"lem from the digestive point of view "ut also life/threatening, in that "reathing "ecomes at first difficult and eventually impossi"le without e0ternal assistance in the form of a tu"e/and/pump apparatus. In the more e0treme variants of the disease, associated with dysfunction of the upper motor neurons $the rest of the "ody is driven "y the so/called lower motor neurons', swallowing, speaking and even controlling the 3aw and head "ecome impossi"le. I do not $yet' suffer from this aspect of the disease, or else I could not dictate this te0t. !y my stage of decline, I am thus effectively quadriplegic. .ith e0traordinary effort I can move my right hand a little and can adduct my left arm some si0 inches across my chest. ,y legs, although they will lock when upright long enough to allow a nurse to transfer me from one chair to another, cannot "ear my weight and only one of them has any autonomous movement left in it. Thus when legs or arms are set in a given position, there they remain until someone moves them for me. The same is true of my torso, with the result that "ack ache from inertia and pressure is a chronic irritation. 4aving no use of my arms, I cannot scratch an itch, ad3ust my spectacles, remove food particles from my teeth or anything else which # as a moment*s reflection will confirm # we all do do5ens of times a day. To say the least, I am utterly and completely dependent upon the kindness of strangers $and anyone else'. +uring the day I can at least request a scratch, an ad3ustment, a drink, or simply a gratuitous re/ placement of my lim"s # since enforced stillness for hours on end is not only physically uncomforta"le "ut psychologically close to intolera"le. It is not as though you lose the desire to stretch, to "end, to stand or lie or run or even e0ercise. !ut when the urge comes over you there is nothing # nothing # that you can do e0cept seek some tiny su"stitute or else find a way to suppress the thought and the accompanying muscle memory. !ut then comes the night. I leave "edtime until the last possi"le moment compati"le with my nurse*s need for sleep. 6nce I have "een 7prepared7 for "ed I am rolled into the "edroom in the wheelchair where I have spent the past 89 hours. .ith some difficulty $despite my reduced height, mass and "ulk I am still a su"stantial dead weight for even a strong man to shift' I am manoeuvred on to my cot. I am sat upright at an angle of some 88:; and wedged into place with folded towels and pillows, my left leg in particular turned out "allet/like to compensate for its progressive propensity to collapse inwards. This process requires considera"le concentration. If I allow a stray lim" to "e misplaced, or fail to insist on having my midriff carefully aligned with legs and head, I shall suffer the agonies of the damned later in the night. I am then covered, my hands placed outside the "lanket to afford me the illusion of mo"ility "ut wrapped nonetheless since # like the rest of me # they now suffer from a permanent sensation of cold. I am offered a final scratch on any of a do5en itchy spots from hairline to toe2 the !i/-ap "reathing device in my nose is ad3usted to a necessarily uncomforta"le level of tightness to ensure that it does not slip in the night2 my glasses are removed < and there I lie( trussed, myopic and motionless like a modern/day mummy, alone in my corporeal prison, accompanied for the rest of the night only "y my thoughts.

6f course, I do have access to help if I need it. &ince I can*t move a muscle, save only my neck and head, my communication device is a "a"y*s intercom at my "edside, left permanently open so that a mere call from me will "ring assistance. In the early stages of my disease the temptation to call out for help was almost irresisti"le( every muscle felt in need of movement, every inch of skin itched, my "ladder found mysterious ways to refill itself in the night and thus require relief, and in general I felt a desperate need for the reassurance of light, company and the simple comforts of human intercourse. !y now, however, I have learned to forgo this most nights, preferring not to wake wife or assistant and finding solace and recourse in my own thoughts. The latter, though I say it myself, is no mean undertaking. Ask yourself how often you move in the night. I don*t mean change location altogether $eg to go to the "athroom, though that too'( merely how often you shift a hand, a foot2 how frequently you scratch assorted "ody parts "efore dropping off2 how un/self/consciously you alter position very slightly to find the most comforta"le one. Imagine for a moment that you had "een o"liged instead to lie a"solutely motionless on your "ack # "y no means the "est sleeping position, "ut the only one I can tolerate # for seven un"roken hours and constrained to come up with ways to render this =alvary tolera"le not 3ust for one night "ut for the rest of your life. ,y solution has "een to scroll through my life, my thoughts, my fantasies, my memories, mis/ memories and the like until I have chanced upon events, people or narratives that I can employ to divert my mind from the "ody in which it is encased. These mental e0ercises have to "e interesting enough to hold my attention and see me through an intolera"le itch in my inner ear or lower "ack2 "ut they also have to "e "oring and predicta"le enough to serve as a relia"le prelude and encouragement to sleep. It took me some time to identify this process as a worka"le alternative to insomnia and physical discomfort and it is "y no means infalli"le. !ut I am occasionally astonished, when I reflect upon the matter, at how readily I seem to get through, night after night, week after week, month after month, what was once an almost insuffera"le daily ordeal. I wake up in e0actly the position, frame of mind and state of suspended despair with which I went to "ed # which in the circumstances should "e thought a considera"le achievement. This cockroach/like nocturnal e0istence is cumulatively intolera"le even though on any given night it*s perfectly managea"le. 7=ockroach7 is of course an allusion to >afka*s ,etamorphosis in which the protagonist wakes up one morning to discover that he has "een transformed into an insect. The point of the story is as much the responses and incomprehension of his family as it is the account of his own sensations, and it*s hard to resist the thought that even the "est meaning and most generously thoughtful friend or relative cannot hope to understand the sense of isolation and imprisonment that this disease imposes upon its victims. 4elplessness is humiliating even in a passing crisis # imagine or recall some occasion when you have fallen down or otherwise required physical assistance from strangers. Imagine the mind*s response to the knowledge that the peculiarly humiliating helplessness of A%& is a life sentence $we speak "lithely of death sentences in this connection, "ut actually the latter would "e a relief'. ,orning "rings some relief, though it says something a"out the lonely 3ourney through the night that the prospect of "eing transferred to a wheelchair for the rest of the day should raise one*s spirits? 4aving something to do, in my case something purely cere"ral and ver"al, is a considera"le relief # if only in the almost literal sense of providing an occasion to communicate with the outside world and e0press in words, often angry words, the "ottled/up irritations and frustrations of physical inanition. The "est way to survive the night would "e to treat it like the day. If I could find someone who had nothing "etter to do than talk to me all night a"out something sufficiently diverting to keep us "oth awake, I would search them out. !ut one is also and always aware in this disease of the necessary normalcy of other people*s lives( their need for e0ercise, entertainment and sleep. And so my nights superficially resem"le those of other people. I prepare for "ed2 I go to "ed2 I get up $or am got up'. !ut the "it "etween is, like the disease itself, incommunica"le.

I suppose I should "e at least mildly satisfied to know that I have found within myself the sort of survival mechanism that most normal people only read a"out in accounts of natural disasters or isolation cells. And it*s true that this disease has its ena"ling dimension( thanks to my ina"ility to take notes or prepare them, my memory # already quite good # has improved considera"ly, with the help of techniques adapted from the 7memory palace7 so intriguingly depicted "y Jonathan &pence. !ut the satisfactions of compensation are notoriously fleeting. There is no saving grace in "eing confined to an iron suit, cold and unforgiving. The pleasures of mental agility are much over/stated, inevita"ly # as it now appears to me # "y those not e0clusively dependent upon them. ,uch the same can "e said of well/meaning encouragements to find non/physical compensations for physical inadequacy. That way lies futility. %oss is loss, and nothing is gained "y calling it "y a nicer name. ,y nights are intriguing2 "ut I could do without them. Night is part of a series of essays "y Tony Judt that are appearing in the New York eview of !ooks What Is Living and What Is Dead in Social Democracy? By Tony Judt The following is adapted from a lecture given at New York @niversity on 6cto"er 8A, B::A. Americans would like things to "e "etter. According to pu"lic opinion surveys in recent years, everyone would like their child to have improved life chances at "irth. They would prefer it if their wife or daughter had the same odds of surviving maternity as women in other advanced countries. They would appreciate full medical coverage at lower cost, longer life e0pectancy, "etter pu"lic services, and less crime. .hen told that these things are availa"le in Austria, &candinavia, or the Netherlands, "ut that they come with higher ta0es and an 7interventionary7 state, many of those same Americans respond( 7!ut that is socialism? .e do not want the state interfering in our affairs. And a"ove all, we do not wish to pay more ta0es.7 This curious cognitive dissonance is an old story. A century ago, the )erman sociologist .erner &om"art famously asked( .hy is there no socialism in AmericaC There are many answers to this question. &ome have to do with the sheer si5e of the country( shared purposes are difficult to organi5e and sustain on an imperial scale. There are also, of course, cultural factors, including the distinctively American suspicion of central government. And indeed, it is not "y chance that social democracy and welfare states have worked "est in small, homogeneous countries, where issues of mistrust and mutual suspicion do not arise so acutely. A willingness to pay for other people*s services and "enefits rests upon the understanding that they in turn will do likewise for you and your children( "ecause they are like you and see the world as you do. =onversely, where immigration and visi"le minorities have altered the demography of a country, we typically find increased suspicion of others and a loss of enthusiasm for the institutions of the welfare state. 1inally, it is incontroverti"le that social democracy and the welfare states face serious practical challenges today. Their survival is not in question, "ut they are no longer as self/confident as they once appeared. !ut my concern tonight is the following( .hy is it that here in the @nited &tates we have such difficulty even imagining a different sort of society from the one whose dysfunctions and inequalities trou"le us soC .e appear to have lost the capacity to question the present, much less offer alternatives to it. .hy is it so "eyond us to conceive of a different set of arrangements to our common advantageC 6ur shortcomingDforgive the academic 3argonDis discursive. .e simply do not know how to talk a"out these things. To understand why this should "e the case, some history is in order( as >eynes once o"served, 7A study of the history of opinion is a necessary preliminary to the emancipation of the mind.7 1or the purposes of mental emancipation this evening, I propose

that we take a minute to study the history of a pre3udice( the universal contemporary resort to 7economism,7 the invocation of economics in all discussions of pu"lic affairs. 1or the last thirty years, in much of the English/speaking world $though less so in continental Europe and elsewhere', when asking ourselves whether we support a proposal or initiative, we have not asked, is it good or "adC Instead we inquire( Is it efficientC Is it productiveC .ould it "enefit gross domestic productC .ill it contri"ute to growthC This propensity to avoid moral considerations, to restrict ourselves to issues of profit and lossDeconomic questions in the narrowest senseDis not an instinctive human condition. It is an acquired taste. .e have "een here "efore. In 8A:F, the young .illiam !everidgeDwhose 8AGB report would lay the foundations of the !ritish welfare stateDdelivered a lecture at 60ford in which he asked why it was that political philosophy had "een o"scured in pu"lic de"ates "y classical economics. !everidge*s question applies with equal force today. Note, however, that this eclipse of political thought "ears no relation to the writings of the great classical economists themselves. In the eighteenth century, what Adam &mith called 7moral sentiments7 were uppermost in economic conversations. Indeed, the thought that we might restrict pu"lic policy considerations to a mere economic calculus was already a source of concern. The ,arquis de =ondorcet, one of the most perceptive writers on commercial capitalism in its early years, anticipated with distaste the prospect that 7li"erty will "e no more, in the eyes of an avid nation, than the necessary condition for the security of financial operations.7 The revolutions of the age risked fostering a confusion "etween the freedom to make money...and freedom itself. !ut how did we, in our own time, come to think in e0clusively economic termsC The fascination with an etiolated economic voca"ulary did not come out of nowhere. 6n the contrary, we live in the long shadow of a de"ate with which most people are altogether unfamiliar. If we ask who e0ercised the greatest influence over contemporary Anglophone economic thought, five foreign/"orn thinkers spring to mind( %udwig von ,ises, 1riedrich 4ayek, Joseph &chumpeter, >arl -opper, and -eter +rucker. The first two were the outstanding 7grandfathers7 of the =hicago &chool of free/market macroeconomics. &chumpeter is "est known for his enthusiastic description of the 7creative, destructive7 powers of capitalism, -opper for his defense of the 7open society7 and his theory of totalitarianism. As for +rucker, his writings on management e0ercised enormous influence over the theory and practice of "usiness in the prosperous decades of the postwar "oom. Three of these men were "orn in Hienna, a fourth $von ,ises' in Austrian %em"erg $now %vov', the fifth $&chumpeter' in ,oravia, a few do5en miles north of the imperial capital. All were profoundly shaken "y the interwar catastrophe that struck their native Austria. 1ollowing the cataclysm of .orld .ar I and a "rief socialist municipal e0periment in Hienna, the country fell to a reactionary coup in 8AIG and then, four years later, to the Na5i invasion and occupation. All were forced into e0ile "y these events and allD4ayek in particularDwere to cast their writings and teachings in the shadow of the central question of their lifetime( .hy had li"eral society collapsed and given wayDat least in the Austrian caseDto fascismC Their answer( the unsuccessful attempts of the $,ar0ist' left to introduce into post/8A89 Austria state/directed planning, municipally owned services, and collectivi5ed economic activity had not only proven delusionary, "ut had led directly to a counterreaction. The European tragedy had thus "een "rought a"out "y the failure of the left( first to achieve its o"3ectives and then to defend itself and its li"eral heritage. Each, al"eit in contrasting keys, drew the same conclusion( the "est way to defend li"eralism, the "est defense of an open society and its attendant freedoms, was to keep government far away from economic life. If the state was held at a safe distance, if politiciansDhowever well/intentionedDwere "arred from planning, manipulating, or directing the affairs of their fellow citi5ens, then e0tremists of right and left alike would "e kept at "ay. The same challengeDhow to understand what had happened "etween the wars and prevent its recurrenceDwas confronted "y John ,aynard >eynes. The great English economist, "orn in

899I $the same year as &chumpeter', grew up in a sta"le, confident, prosperous, and powerful !ritain. And then, from his privileged perch at the Treasury and as a participant in the Hersailles peace negotiations, he watched his world collapse, taking with it all the reassuring certainties of his culture and class. >eynes, too, would ask himself the question that 4ayek and his Austrian colleagues had posed. !ut he offered a very different answer. Yes, >eynes acknowledged, the disintegration of late Hictorian Europe was the defining e0perience of his lifetime. Indeed, the essence of his contri"utions to economic theory was his insistence upon uncertainty( in contrast to the confident nostrums of classical and neoclassical economics, >eynes would insist upon the essential unpredicta"ility of human affairs. If there was a lesson to "e drawn from depression, fascism, and war, it was this( uncertaintyDelevated to the level of insecurity and collective fearDwas the corrosive force that had threatened and might again threaten the li"eral world. Thus >eynes sought an increased role for the social security state, including "ut not confined to countercyclical economic intervention. 4ayek proposed the opposite. In his 8AGG classic, The oad to &erfdom, he wrote( No description in general terms can give an adequate idea of the similarity of much of current English political literature to the works which destroyed the "elief in .estern civili5ation in )ermany, and created the state of mind in which na5iism could "ecome successful. In other words, 4ayek e0plicitly pro3ected a fascist outcome should %a"our win power in England. And indeed, %a"our did win. !ut it went on to implement policies many of which were directly identified with >eynes. 1or the ne0t three decades, )reat !ritain $like much of the .estern world' was governed in the light of >eynes*s concerns. &ince then, as we know, the Austrians have had their revenge. Juite why this should have happenedDand happened where it didDis an interesting question for another occasion. !ut for whatever reason, we are today living out the dim echoDlike light from a fading starDof a de"ate conducted seventy years ago "y men "orn for the most part in the late nineteenth century. To "e sure, the economic terms in which we are encouraged to think are not conventionally associated with these far/off political disagreements. And yet without an understanding of the latter, it is as though we speak a language we do not fully comprehend. The welfare state had remarka"le achievements to its credit. In some countries it was social democratic, grounded in an am"itious program of socialist legislation2 in othersD)reat !ritain, for e0ampleDit amounted to a series of pragmatic policies aimed at alleviating disadvantage and reducing e0tremes of wealth and indigence. The common theme and universal accomplishment of the neo/>eynesian governments of the postwar era was their remarka"le success in cur"ing inequality. If you compare the gap separating rich and poor, whether "y income or assets, in all continental European countries along with )reat !ritain and the @&, you will see that it shrinks dramatically in the generation following 8AGF. .ith greater equality there came other "enefits. 6ver time, the fear of a return to e0tremist politicsDthe politics of desperation, the politics of envy, the politics of insecurityDa"ated. The .estern industriali5ed world entered a halcyon era of prosperous security( a "u""le, perhaps, "ut a comforting "u""le in which most people did far "etter than they could ever have hoped in the past and had good reason to anticipate the future with confidence. The parado0 of the welfare state, and indeed of all the social democratic $and =hristian +emocratic' states of Europe, was quite simply that their success would over time undermine their appeal. The generation that remem"ered the 8AI:s was understanda"ly the most committed to preserving institutions and systems of ta0ation, social service, and pu"lic provision that they saw as "ulwarks against a return to the horrors of the past. !ut their successorsD even in &wedenD"egan to forget why they had sought such security in the first place. It was social democracy that "ound the middle classes to li"eral institutions in the wake of .orld .ar II $I use 7middle class7 here in the European sense'. They received in many cases the same welfare assistance and services as the poor( free education, cheap or free medical

treatment, pu"lic pensions, and the like. In consequence, the European middle class found itself "y the 8AK:s with far greater disposa"le incomes than ever "efore, with so many of life*s necessities prepaid in ta0. And thus the very class that had "een so e0posed to fear and insecurity in the interwar years was now tightly woven into the postwar democratic consensus. !y the late 8AL:s, however, such considerations were increasingly neglected. &tarting with the ta0 and employment reforms of the Thatcher/ eagan years, and followed in short order "y deregulation of the financial sector, inequality has once again "ecome an issue in .estern society. After nota"ly diminishing from the 8A8:s through the 8AK:s, the inequality inde0 has steadily grown over the course of the past three decades. In the @& today, the 7)ini coefficient7Da measure of the distance separating rich and poorDis compara"le to that of =hina.M8N .hen we consider that =hina is a developing country where huge gaps will inevita"ly open up "etween the wealthy few and the impoverished many, the fact that here in the @& we have a similar inequality coefficient says much a"out how far we have fallen "ehind our earlier aspirations. =onsider the 8AAK 7-ersonal esponsi"ility and .ork 6pportunity Act7 $a more 6rwellian title would "e hard to conceive', the =linton/era legislation that sought to gut welfare provision here in the @&. The terms of this act should put us in mind of another act, passed in England nearly two centuries ago( the New -oor %aw of 89IG. The provisions of the New -oor %aw are familiar to us, thanks to =harles +ickens*s depiction of its workings in 6liver Twist. .hen Noah =laypole famously sneers at little 6liver, calling him 7.ork*us7 $7.orkhouse7', he is implying, for 89I9, precisely what we convey today when we speak disparagingly of 7welfare queens.7 The New -oor %aw was an outrage, forcing the indigent and the unemployed to choose "etween work at any wage, however low, and the humiliation of the workhouse. 4ere and in most other forms of nineteenth/century pu"lic assistance $still thought of and descri"ed as 7charity7', the level of aid and support was cali"rated so as to "e less appealing than the worst availa"le alternative. This system drew on classical economic theories that denied the very possi"ility of unemployment in an efficient market( if wages fell low enough and there was no attractive alternative to work, everyone would find a 3o". 1or the ne0t 8F: years, reformers strove to replace such demeaning practices. In due course, the New -oor %aw and its foreign analogues were succeeded "y the pu"lic provision of assistance as a matter of right. .orkless citi5ens were no longer deemed any the less deserving for that2 they were not penali5ed for their condition nor were implicit aspersions cast upon their good standing as mem"ers of society. ,ore than anything else, the welfare states of the mid/twentieth century esta"lished the profound impropriety of defining civic status as a function of economic participation. In the contemporary @nited &tates, at a time of growing unemployment, a 3o"less man or woman is not a full mem"er of the community. In order to receive even the e0iguous welfare payments availa"le, they must first have sought and, where applica"le, accepted employment at whatever wage is on offer, however low the pay and distasteful the work. 6nly then are they entitled to the consideration and assistance of their fellow citi5ens. .hy do so few of us condemn such 7reforms7Denacted under a +emocratic presidentC .hy are we so unmoved "y the stigma attaching to their victimsC 1ar from questioning this reversion to the practices of early industrial capitalism, we have adapted all too well and in consensual silenceDin revealing contrast to an earlier generation. !ut then, as Tolstoy reminds us, there are 7no conditions of life to which a man cannot get accustomed, especially if he sees them accepted "y everyone around him.7 This 7disposition to admire, and almost to worship, the rich and the powerful, and to despise, or, at least, to neglect persons of poor and mean condition...is...the great and most universal cause of the corruption of our moral sentiments.7 Those are not my words. They were written "y Adam &mith, who regarded the likelihood that we would come to admire wealth and despise poverty, admire success and scorn failure, as the greatest risk facing us in the commercial society whose advent he predicted. It is now upon us.

The most revealing instance of the kind of pro"lem we face comes in a form that may strike many of you as a mere technicality( the process of privati5ation. In the last thirty years, a cult of privati5ation has mesmeri5ed .estern $and many non/.estern' governments. .hyC The shortest response is that, in an age of "udgetary constraints, privati5ation appears to save money. If the state owns an inefficient pu"lic program or an e0pensive pu"lic serviceDa waterworks, a car factory, a railwayDit seeks to offload it onto private "uyers. The sale duly earns money for the state. ,eanwhile, "y entering the private sector, the service or operation in question "ecomes more efficient thanks to the working of the profit motive. Everyone "enefits( the service improves, the state rids itself of an inappropriate and poorly managed responsi"ility, investors profit, and the pu"lic sector makes a one/time gain from the sale. &o much for the theory. The practice is very different. .hat we have "een watching these past decades is the steady shifting of pu"lic responsi"ility onto the private sector to no discerni"le collective advantage. In the first place, privati5ation is inefficient. ,ost of the things that governments have seen fit to pass into the private sector were operating at a loss( whether they were railway companies, coal mines, postal services, or energy utilities, they cost more to provide and maintain than they could ever hope to attract in revenue. 1or 3ust this reason, such pu"lic goods were inherently unattractive to private "uyers unless offered at a steep discount. !ut when the state sells cheap, the pu"lic takes a loss. It has "een calculated that, in the course of the Thatcher/era @> privati5ations, the deli"erately low price at which long/standing pu"lic assets were marketed to the private sector resulted in a net transfer of O8G "illion from the ta0paying pu"lic to stockholders and other investors. To this loss should "e added a further OI "illion in fees to the "anks that transacted the privati5ations. Thus the state in effect paid the private sector some O8L "illion $PI: "illion' to facilitate the sale of assets for which there would otherwise have "een no takers. These are significant sums of moneyDappro0imating the endowment of 4arvard @niversity, for e0ample, or the annual gross domestic product of -araguay or !osnia/4er5egovina.MBN This can hardly "e construed as an efficient use of pu"lic resources. In the second place, there arises the question of moral ha5ard. The only reason that private investors are willing to purchase apparently inefficient pu"lic goods is "ecause the state eliminates or reduces their e0posure to risk. In the case of the %ondon @nderground, for e0ample, the purchasing companies were assured that whatever happened they would "e protected against serious lossDthere"y undermining the classic economic case for privati5ation( that the profit motive encourages efficiency. The 7ha5ard7 in question is that the private sector, under such privileged conditions, will prove at least as inefficient as its pu"lic counterpartDwhile creaming off such profits as are to "e made and charging losses to the state. The third and perhaps most telling case against privati5ation is this. There can "e no dou"t that many of the goods and services that the state seeks to divest have "een "adly run( incompetently managed, underinvested, etc. Nevertheless, however "adly run, postal services, railway networks, retirement homes, prisons, and other provisions targeted for privati5ation remain the responsi"ility of the pu"lic authorities. Even after they are sold, they cannot "e left entirely to the vagaries of the market. They are inherently the sort of activity that someone has to regulate. This semiprivate, semipu"lic disposition of essentially collective responsi"ilities returns us to a very old story indeed. If your ta0 returns are audited in the @& today, although it is the government that has decided to investigate you, the investigation itself will very likely "e conducted "y a private company. The latter has contracted to perform the service on the state*s "ehalf, in much the same way that private agents have contracted with .ashington to provide security, transportation, and technical know/how $at a profit' in Iraq and elsewhere. In a similar way, the !ritish government today contracts with private entrepreneurs to provide residential care services for the elderlyDa responsi"ility once controlled "y the state.

)overnments, in short, farm out their responsi"ilities to private firms that claim to administer them more cheaply and "etter than the state can itself. In the eighteenth century this was called ta0 farming. Early modern governments often lacked the means to collect ta0es and thus invited "ids from private individuals to undertake the task. The highest "idder would get the 3o", and was freeDonce he had paid the agreed sumDto collect whatever he could and retain the proceeds. The government thus took a discount on its anticipated ta0 revenue, in return for cash up front. After the fall of the monarchy in 1rance, it was widely conceded that ta0 farming was grotesquely inefficient. In the first place, it discredits the state, represented in the popular mind "y a grasping private profiteer. &econdly, it generates considera"ly less revenue than an efficiently administered system of government collection, if only "ecause of the profit margin accruing to the private collector. And thirdly, you get disgruntled ta0payers. In the @& today, we have a discredited state and inadequate pu"lic resources. Interestingly, we do not have disgruntled ta0payersDor, at least, they are usually disgruntled for the wrong reasons. Nevertheless, the pro"lem we have created for ourselves is essentially compara"le to that which faced the ancien rQgime. As in the eighteenth century, so today( "y eviscerating the state*s responsi"ilities and capacities, we have diminished its pu"lic standing. The outcome is 7gated communities,7 in every sense of the word( su"sections of society that fondly suppose themselves functionally independent of the collectivity and its pu"lic servants. If we deal uniquely or overwhelmingly with private agencies, then over time we dilute our relationship with a pu"lic sector for which we have no apparent use. It doesn*t much matter whether the private sector does the same things "etter or worse, at higher or lower cost. In either event, we have diminished our allegiance to the state and lost something vital that we ought to shareDand in many cases used to shareD with our fellow citi5ens. This process was well descri"ed "y one of its greatest modern practitioners( ,argaret Thatcher reportedly asserted that 7there is no such thing as society. There are only individual men and women and families.7 !ut if there is no such thing as society, merely individuals and the 7night watchman7 stateDoverseeing from afar activities in which it plays no partDthen what will "ind us togetherC .e already accept the e0istence of private police forces, private mail services, private agencies provisioning the state in war, and much else "esides. .e have 7privati5ed7 precisely those responsi"ilities that the modern state la"oriously took upon itself in the course of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. .hat, then, will serve as a "uffer "etween citi5ens and the stateC &urely not 7society,7 hard pressed to survive the evisceration of the pu"lic domain. 1or the state is not a"out to wither away. Even if we strip it of all its service attri"utes, it will still "e with usDif only as a force for control and repression. !etween state and individuals there would then "e no intermediate institutions or allegiances( nothing would remain of the spider*s we" of reciprocal services and o"ligations that "ind citi5ens to one another via the pu"lic space they collectively occupy. All that would "e left is private persons and corporations seeking competitively to hi3ack the state for their own advantage. The consequences are no more attractive today than they were "efore the modern state arose. Indeed, the impetus to state/"uilding as we have known it derived quite e0plicitly from the understanding that no collection of individuals can survive long without shared purposes and common institutions. The very notion that private advantage could "e multiplied to pu"lic "enefit was already palpa"ly a"surd to the li"eral critics of nascent industrial capitalism. In the words of John &tuart ,ill, 7the idea is essentially repulsive of a society only held together "y the relations and feelings arising out of pecuniary interests.7 .hat, then, is to "e doneC .e have to "egin with the state( as the incarnation of collective interests, collective purposes, and collective goods. If we cannot learn to 7think the state7 once again, we shall not get very far. !ut what precisely should the state doC ,inimally, it should not duplicate unnecessarily( as >eynes wrote, 7The important thing for )overnment is not to do things which individuals are doing already, and to do them a little "etter or a little worse2 "ut to

do those things which at present are not done at all.7 And we know from the "itter e0perience of the past century that there are some things that states should most certainly not "e doing. The twentieth/century narrative of the progressive state rested precariously upon the conceit that 7we7Dreformers, socialists, radicalsDhad 4istory on our side( that our pro3ects, in the words of the late !ernard .illiams, were 7"eing cheered on "y the universe.7MIN Today, we have no such reassuring story to tell. .e have 3ust survived a century of doctrines purporting with alarming confidence to say what the state should do and to remind individualsDforci"ly if necessaryDthat the state knows what is good for them. .e cannot return to all that. &o if we are to 7think the state7 once more, we had "etter "egin with a sense of its limits. 1or similar reasons, it would "e futile to resurrect the rhetoric of early/twentieth/century social democracy. In those years, the democratic left emerged as an alternative to the more uncompromising varieties of ,ar0ist revolutionary socialism andDin later yearsDto their =ommunist successor. Inherent in social democracy there was thus a curious schi5ophrenia. .hile marching confidently forward into a "etter future, it was constantly glancing nervously over its left shoulder. .e, it seems to say, are not authoritarian. .e are for freedom, not repression. .e are democrats who also "elieve in social 3ustice, regulated markets, and so forth. &o long as the primary o"3ective of social democrats was to convince voters that they were a respecta"le radical choice within the li"eral polity, this defensive stance made sense. !ut today such rhetoric is incoherent. It is not "y chance that a =hristian +emocrat like Angela ,erkel can win an election in )ermany against her &ocial +emocratic opponentsDeven at the height of a financial crisisDwith a set of policies that in all its important essentials resem"les their own program. &ocial democracy, in one form or another, is the prose of contemporary European politics. There are very few European politicians, and certainly fewer still in positions of influence, who would dissent from core social democratic assumptions a"out the duties of the state, however much they might differ as to their scope. =onsequently, social democrats in today*s Europe have nothing distinctive to offer( in 1rance, for e0ample, even their unreflective disposition to favor state ownership hardly distinguishes them from the =ol"ertian instincts of the )aullist right. &ocial democracy needs to rethink its purposes. The pro"lem lies not in social democratic policies, "ut in the language in which they are couched. &ince the authoritarian challenge from the left has lapsed, the emphasis upon 7democracy7 is largely redundant. .e are all democrats today. !ut 7social7 still means somethingDargua"ly more now than some decades "ack when a role for the pu"lic sector was uncontentiously conceded "y all sides. .hat, then, is distinctive a"out the 7social7 in the social democratic approach to politicsC Imagine, if you will, a railway station. A real railway station, not New York*s -ennsylvania &tation( a failed 8AK:s/era shopping mall stacked a"ove a coal cellar. I mean something like .aterloo &tation in %ondon, the )are de l*Est in -aris, ,um"ai*s dramatic Hictoria Terminus, or !erlin*s magnificent new 4aupt"ahnhof. In these remarka"le cathedrals of modern life, the private sector functions perfectly well in its place( there is no reason, after all, why newsstands or coffee "ars should "e run "y the state. Anyone who can recall the desiccated, plastic/ wrapped sandwiches of !ritish ailway*s cafQs will concede that competition in this arena is to "e encouraged. !ut you cannot run trains competitively. ailwaysDlike agriculture or the mailsDare at one and the same time an economic activity and an essential pu"lic good. ,oreover, you cannot render a railway system more efficient "y placing two trains on a track and waiting to see which performs "etter( railways are a natural monopoly. Implausi"ly, the English have actually instituted such competition among "us services. !ut the parado0 of pu"lic transport, of course, is that the "etter it does its 3o", the less 7efficient7 it may "e. A "us that provides an e0press service for those who can afford it and avoids remote villages where it would "e "oarded only "y the occasional pensioner will make more money for its

owner. !ut someoneDthe state or the local municipalityDmust still provide the unprofita"le, inefficient local service. In its a"sence, the short/term economic "enefits of cutting the provision will "e offset "y long/term damage to the community at large. -redicta"ly, therefore, the consequences of 7competitive7 "usesDe0cept in %ondon where there is enough demand to go aroundDhave "een an increase in costs assigned to the pu"lic sector2 a sharp rise in fares to the level that the market can "ear2 and attractive profits for the e0press "us companies. Trains, like "uses, are a"ove all a social service. Anyone could run a profita"le rail line if all they had to do was shunt e0presses "ack and forth from %ondon to Edin"urgh, -aris to ,arseilles, !oston to .ashington. !ut what of rail links to and from places where people take the train only occasionallyC No single person is going to set aside sufficient funds to pay the economic cost of supporting such a service for the infrequent occasions when he uses it. 6nly the collectivityD the state, the government, the local authoritiesDcan do this. The su"sidy required will always appear inefficient in the eyes of a certain sort of economist( &urely it would "e cheaper to rip up the tracks and let everyone use their carC In 8AAK, the last year "efore !ritain*s railways were privati5ed, !ritish ail "oasted the lowest pu"lic su"sidy for a railway in Europe. In that year the 1rench were planning for their railways an investment rate of OB8 per head of population2 the Italians OII2 the !ritish 3ust OA.MGN These contrasts were accurately reflected in the quality of the service provided "y the respective national systems. They also e0plain why the !ritish rail network could "e privati5ed only at great loss, so inadequate was its infrastructure. !ut the investment contrast illustrates my point. The 1rench and the Italians have long treated their railways as a social provision. unning a train to a remote region, however cost/ineffective, sustains local communities. It reduces environmental damage "y providing an alternative to road transport. The railway station and the service it provides are thus a symptom and sym"ol of society as a shared aspiration. I suggested a"ove that the provision of train service to remote districts makes social sense even if it is economically 7inefficient.7 !ut this, of course, "egs an important question. &ocial democrats will not get very far "y proposing lauda"le social o"3ectives that they themselves concede to cost more than the alternatives. .e would end up acknowledging the virtues of social services, decrying their e0pense...and doing nothing. .e need to rethink the devices we employ to assess all costs( social and economic alike. %et me offer an e0ample. It is cheaper to provide "enevolent handouts to the poor than to guarantee them a full range of social services as of right. !y 7"enevolent7 I mean faith/"ased charity, private or independent initiative, income/dependent assistance in the form of food stamps, housing grants, clothing su"sidies, and so on. !ut it is notoriously humiliating to "e on the receiving end of that kind of assistance. The 7means test7 applied "y the !ritish authorities to victims of the 8AI:s depression is still recalled with distaste and even anger "y an older generation.MFN =onversely, it is not humiliating to "e on the receiving end of a right. If you are entitled to unemployment payments, pension, disa"ility, municipal housing, or any other pu"licly furnished assistance as of rightDwithout anyone investigating to determine whether you have sunk low enough to 7deserve7 helpDthen you will not "e em"arrassed to accept it. 4owever, such universal rights and entitlements are e0pensive. !ut what if we treated humiliation itself as a cost, a charge to societyC .hat if we decided to 7quantify7 the harm done when people are shamed "y their fellow citi5ens "efore receiving the mere necessities of lifeC In other words, what if we factored into our estimates of productivity, efficiency, or well/"eing the difference "etween a humiliating handout and a "enefit as of rightC .e might conclude that the provision of universal social services, pu"lic health insurance, or su"sidi5ed pu"lic transportation was actually a cost/effective way to achieve our common o"3ectives. &uch an e0ercise is inherently contentious( 4ow do we quantify 7humiliation7C .hat is the measura"le cost of depriving isolated citi5ens of access to metropolitan resourcesC 4ow much are we willing to pay for a good societyC @nclear. !ut unless we ask such questions, how can we hope to devise answersCMKN

.hat do we mean when we speak of a 7good society7C 1rom a normative perspective we might "egin with a moral 7narrative7 in which to situate our collective choices. &uch a narrative would then su"stitute for the narrowly economic terms that constrain our present conversations. !ut defining our general purposes in that way is no simple matter. In the past, social democracy unquestiona"ly concerned itself with issues of right and wrong( all the more so "ecause it inherited a pre/,ar0ist ethical voca"ulary infused with =hristian distaste for e0tremes of wealth and the worship of materialism. !ut such considerations were frequently trumped "y ideological interrogations. .as capitalism doomedC If so, did a given policy advance its anticipated demise or risk postponing itC If capitalism was not doomed, then policy choices would have to "e conceived from a different perspective. In either case the relevant question typically addressed the prospects of 7the system7 rather than the inherent virtues or defects of a given initiative. &uch questions no longer preoccupy us. .e are thus more directly confronted with the ethical implications of our choices. .hat precisely is it that we find a"horrent in financial capitalism, or 7commercial society7 as the eighteenth century had itC .hat do we find instinctively amiss in our present arrangements and what can we do a"out themC .hat do we find unfairC .hat is it that offends our sense of propriety when faced with unrestrained lo""ying "y the wealthy at the e0pense of everyone elseC .hat have we lostC The answers to such questions should take the form of a moral critique of the inadequacies of the unrestricted market or the feckless state. .e need to understand why they offend our sense of 3ustice or equity. .e need, in short, to return to the kingdom of ends. 4ere social democracy is of limited assistance, for its own response to the dilemmas of capitalism was merely a "elated e0pression of Enlightenment moral discourse applied to 7the social question.7 6ur pro"lems are rather different. .e are entering, I "elieve, a new age of insecurity. The last such era, memora"ly analy5ed "y >eynes in The Economic =onsequences of the -eace $8A8A', followed decades of prosperity and progress and a dramatic increase in the internationali5ation of life( 7glo"ali5ation7 in all "ut name. As >eynes descri"es it, the commercial economy had spread around the world. Trade and communication were accelerating at an unprecedented rate. !efore 8A8G, it was widely asserted that the logic of peaceful economic e0change would triumph over national self/interest. No one e0pected all this to come to an a"rupt end. !ut it did. .e too have lived through an era of sta"ility, certainty, and the illusion of indefinite economic improvement. !ut all that is now "ehind us. 1or the foreseea"le future we shall "e as economically insecure as we are culturally uncertain. .e are assuredly less confident of our collective purposes, our environmental well/"eing, or our personal safety than at any time since .orld .ar II. .e have no idea what sort of world our children will inherit, "ut we can no longer delude ourselves into supposing that it must resem"le our own in reassuring ways. .e must revisit the ways in which our grandparents* generation responded to compara"le challenges and threats. &ocial democracy in Europe, the New +eal, and the )reat &ociety here in the @& were e0plicit responses to the insecurities and inequities of the age. 1ew in the .est are old enough to know 3ust what it means to watch our world collapse.MLN .e find it hard to conceive of a complete "reakdown of li"eral institutions, an utter disintegration of the democratic consensus. !ut it was 3ust such a "reakdown that elicited the >eynes#4ayek de"ate and from which the >eynesian consensus and the social democratic compromise were "orn( the consensus and the compromise in which we grew up and whose appeal has "een o"scured "y its very success. If social democracy has a future, it will "e as a social democracy of fear.M9N ather than seeking to restore a language of optimistic progress, we should "egin "y reacquainting ourselves with the recent past. The first task of radical dissenters today is to remind their audience of the achievements of the twentieth century, along with the likely consequences of our heedless rush to dismantle them.

The left, to "e quite "lunt a"out it, has something to conserve. It is the right that has inherited the am"itious modernist urge to destroy and innovate in the name of a universal pro3ect. &ocial democrats, characteristically modest in style and am"ition, need to speak more assertively of past gains. The rise of the social service state, the century/long construction of a pu"lic sector whose goods and services illustrate and promote our collective identity and common purposes, the institution of welfare as a matter of right and its provision as a social duty( these were no mean accomplishments. That these accomplishments were no more than partial should not trou"le us. If we have learned nothing else from the twentieth century, we should at least have grasped that the more perfect the answer, the more terrifying its consequences. Imperfect improvements upon unsatisfactory circumstances are the "est that we can hope for, and pro"a"ly all we should seek. 6thers have spent the last three decades methodically unraveling and desta"ili5ing those same improvements( this should make us much angrier than we are. It ought also to worry us, if only on prudential grounds( .hy have we "een in such a hurry to tear down the dikes la"oriously set in place "y our predecessorsC Are we so sure that there are no floods to comeC A social democracy of fear is something to fight for. To a"andon the la"ors of a century is to "etray those who came "efore us as well as generations yet to come. It would "e pleasingD"ut misleadingDto report that social democracy, or something like it, represents the future that we would paint for ourselves in an ideal world. It does not even represent the ideal past. !ut among the options availa"le to us in the present, it is "etter than anything else to hand. In 6rwell*s words, reflecting in 4omage to =atalonia upon his recent e0periences in revolutionary !arcelona( There was much in it that I did not understand, in some ways I did not even like it, "ut I recogni5ed it immediately as a state of affairs worth fighting for. I "elieve this to "e no less true of whatever we can retrieve from the twentieth/century memory of social democracy. Notes M8N&ee 74igh )ini Is %oosed @pon Asia,7 The Economist, August 88, B::L. MBN&ee ,assimo 1lorio, The )reat +ivestiture( Evaluating the .elfare Impact of the !ritish -rivati5ations, 8ALA#8AAL $,IT -ress, B::G', p. 8KI. 1or 4arvard, see 74arvard Endowment -osts &olid -ositive eturn,7 4arvard )a5ette, &eptem"er 8B, B::9. 1or the )+- of -araguay or !osnia/4er5egovina, see www.cia.govRli"raryRpu"licationsRthe/world/fact"ookRgeosR00.html. MIN!ernard .illiams, -hilosophy as a 4umanistic +iscipline $-rinceton @niversity -ress, B::K', p. 8GG. MGN1or these figures see my 7*Twas a 1amous Hictory,7 The New York eview, July 8A, B::8.

MFN1or compara"le recollections of humiliating handouts, see The Auto"iography of ,alcolm S $!allantine, 8A9L'. I am grateful to =asey &elwyn for pointing this out to me. MKNThe international =ommission on ,easurement of Economic -erformance and &ocial -rogress, chaired "y Joseph &tiglit5 and advised "y Amartya &en, recently recommended a different approach to measuring collective well/"eing. !ut despite the admira"le originality of their proposals, neither &tiglit5 nor &en went much "eyond suggesting "etter ways to assess economic performance2 non/economic concerns did not figure prominently in their report. &ee www.stiglit5/sen/fitoussi.frRenRinde0.htm. MLNThe e0ception, of course, is !osnia, whose citi5ens are all too well aware of 3ust what such a collapse entails. M9N!y analogy with 7The %i"eralism of 1ear,7 Judith &hklar*s penetrating essay on political inequality and power.

John Gray enjoys Tony Judt's devastating criti ue o! intellectual li!e over the "ast t#o decades$ %ea""raisals eappraisals( "y Tony Judt eflections on the 1orgotten Twentieth =entury

GKGpp, .illiam 4einemann, OB: The period stretching from the collapse of communism up to the attack on Iraq was a time when western leaders prided themselves on their ignorance of history. They em"raced the defining delusion of the post/cold war era( the conflicts of the B:th century are safely "ehind us, and we have nothing to learn from the past. !acked "y America*s seemingly invinci"le military might and the superior productivity of western economies, the world had entered a new epoch of peace and democracy. Tony Judt has always "een a dissenter from this consensus. In eappraisals the !ritish/"orn historian, now a university professor in New York, collects BI essays, written "etween 8AAG and B::K, in which he undertakes a ruthless dissection of the ruling illusions of the post/cold war years / 7the years the locusts ate7, as he calls them. A "ook of essays originally pu"lished over a period of 8B years may seem an unlikely place to find a systematic analysis of the follies of an era, and it is true that the pieces gathered here cover a remarka"le range of writers and themes. There are illuminating assessments of -rimo %evi and 4annah Arendt, a super" deconstruction of !lair*s !ritain, a penetrating discussion of the fall of 1rance in 8AG:, e0plorations of !elgium*s fractured statehood and the am"iguous position of omania in Europe, analyses of the =u"a crisis and >issinger*s diplomacy, and much else "esides. This "readth of reference may seem to militate against continuous argument, "ut in fact these articles and reviews pursue a single overarching theme. eappraisals is a devastating critique of intellectual life over the past two decades, and it is mostly icons of the left that are smashed. The ,ar0ist historian Eric 4o"s"awm is descri"ed as 7a communist mandarin / with all the confidence and pre3udices of his caste7, who "y ignoring &talin*s crimes 7slept through the terror and shame of the age7. %ouis Althusser, the founder of a hermetic type of ,ar0ism whose gi""erish "lighted academic discourse for a generation, resem"les 7a minor medieval scholastic, desperately scra""ling around in categories of his own imagining7, whose theories are worth less than 7the most o"scure theological speculation, which usually had as its goal something of significance7. These are severe 3udgments, "ut they are not un3ust. Each of these writers insulated his political "eliefs from any contact with historical realities / 4o"s"awm "y affecting a patrician silence, Althusser "y retreating into incomprehensi"ility. As a result they have contri"uted nothing to understanding the past century. In contrast, Judt praises Arthur >oestler as 7the e0emplary intellectual7 whose courageous nonconformity 7has assured him his place in history7. 4e descri"es %es5ek >olakowski*s reply to an 7open letter7 "y E- Thompson in which the !ritish historian "erates the -olish philosopher for his departures from socialist orthodo0y as 7the most perfectly e0ecuted demolition in the history of political argument( no one who reads it will ever take E- Thompson seriously again.7 In similar vein Judt writes sympathetically of .hittaker =ham"ers, the American former =ommunist party mem"er who outed Alger 4iss as a &oviet agent, whose reward for speaking out at great risk to himself was to "e defamed and detested "y right/thinking li"erals. In their different ways, these e0/communists demonstrated a kind of integrity that has "een noticea"ly a"sent in the paragons of the intellectual left. Judt is pitiless in his assault on "ien/pensant illusions a"out communism, "ut his concern is not to rehash the intellectual "attles of the cold war. It is to show the chronic unreality of post/cold war thinking, and here his target is as much the American li"eral mainstream as neoconservative intellectuals. As Judt points out, "oth li"eral and neocon thinking has suffered from an ingrained provincialism that, when com"ined with grandiose schemes for re"uilding the world on an American model, helped to precipitate the foreign policy disasters of the !ush era. Thinking of the cold war in narrowly Americocentric terms, neocons along with most li"erals

never paused to e0amine the origins of that conflict, which go "ack all the way to the start of the &oviet regime, and they were unprepared for the new conflicts that followed it. The upshot has "een the destruction of Iraq and an accelerating decline in American power, which is now entering a critical phase. Judt is especially hard on America*s li"eral hawks. These 7 tough7, 7muscular7 li"erals have colla"orated with neocons in in3ecting into the centre of politics a type of thinking inherited from the old left, he suggests. 7They see themselves as having migrated to the opposite shore2 "ut they display precisely the same mi0 of dogmatic faith and cultural provincialism, not to mention an e0u"erant enthusiasm for violent political transformation at other people*s e0pense, that marked their fellow/travelling predecessors across the cold war ideological divide.7 As Judt sees it, left/li"erals such as ,ichael Ignatieff and -aul !erman are not much more than camp followers of the !ush administration. 7America*s li"eral armchair warriors,7 he writes sharply, 7are the *useful idiots* of the .ar on Terror.7 A few pages later, he hammers the point home( 7In today*s America, neoconservatives generate "rutish policies for which li"erals provide the ethical fig/leaf. There really is no other difference "etween them.7 Judt entitles the essay in which he takes American li"erals to task 7The &ilence of the %am"s( 6n the &trange +eath of %i"eral America7. This may "e a little overdone. A good many American li"erals / not least !arack 6"ama / were opposed to the Iraq war pretty much from the start. !ut it is true that the organs of the li"eral centre in America / the .ashington -ost and New York Times, for e0ample / colluded with the !ush administration in a grotesquely ill/3udged and demeaning way. The 3o" of countering pro/war disinformation was left to investigative 3ournalists such as &eymour 4ersh and ,ichael ,assing, writing in the New Yorker and the New York eview of !ooks. The voices of those who were opposed to the war from the start / often old/style conservatives and remnants of the anti/imperialist left / were hardly heard in America*s mainstream media. The continuing carnage in Iraq is as much the responsi"ility of the li"erals who legitimised the war as it is of the neocons who engineered it. Analysing the motives of the li"eral hawks, Judt finds a yearning for lost moral simplicities( 7%ong nostalgic for the comforting verities of a simpler time, today*s li"eral intellectuals have at last discovered a sense of purpose. They are at war with *Islamo/fascism*.7 4e is surely right a"out left/li"eral moral nostalgia. Though he does not comment on the fact, a similar shift has occurred on this side of the Atlantic where, on some sections of the !ritish left, the @& has succeeded the former &oviet @nion as the regime appointed "y history to "ring a"out a revolutionary transformation in human affairs. Neocons and strong/arm li"erals have not lost the taste for "loodshed in faraway places of the fellow/travelling left, they have merely fastened on a different regime as the vehicle for their fantasies of world revolution. Judt*s critique of the role of li"eral intellectuals in politics is wide/ranging and unsparing. If his tone is sharp it is "ecause, despite everything, he writes as one of these intellectuals. .hen he takes seriously a one/state solution for the -alestineRIsrael conflict, or suggests looking to Europe for a B8st/century model of the good society, he is as remote from historically realisa"le possi"ilities as the writers he criticises. Even when he is wrong, however, Judt writes with fearless integrity and moral seriousness. %ike aymond Aron, the su"tle and relentless 1rench polemicist whose spirit "reathes through these pages, Judt is a li"eral thinker dedicated to demystifying li"eral illusions. eappraisals is an indispensa"le tract for the times "y one of the great political writers of the age.

The ne# &uro"ean century Norman +avies applauds Tony Judt*s -ostwar, one American*s personal view of our continent*s recent history -ostwar( A 4istory of Europe &ince 8AGF "y Tony Judt 8,:::pp, 4einemann, OBF =ontemporary history is not an easy option. It deals with incomplete processes and with the uncertain outcomes of recent events. Timothy )arton Ash, the mastercraftsman of the genre, has written of 7analytical reportage7 demanding the highest skills of "oth historian and 3ournalist. !y these criteria, Tony Judt has splendid qualifications. An authority on modern 1rench intellectual history, he is director of the emarque Institute in New York, entrusted with the task of e0plaining Europe to America. 4e has also involved himself in current international relations, nota"ly in the former Yugoslavia and the ,iddle East. 4e is a principled critic of the Iraq war. .ith -ostwar, however, Judt moves up into the ranks of the grands simplificateurs. 4e dares to e0pound the sum total of Europe since 8AGF in a seamless narrative. !y presenting 7an avowedly personal interpretation7, he accepts that his personal make/up will "e reflected in the end product. 4is 1rench e0pertise, his Jewish "ackground, his American mission and, one suspects, a mis/spent political youth can all help to e0plain particular, and not always felicitous, points of emphasis. &o whatC This is history/writing with a human face, as well as with "rainpower. Naturally enough, the 7advance praise7 on the cover is over the top. %ord 6wen "egs a question or two "y praising a "ook a"out 7the true Europe7. The pu"lishers announce a volume that supposedly deals 7uniquely7 with the whole of Europe. In this connection, the structure of the te0t deserves comment. &ome of the BG chapters are pan/European. An e0cellent essay on 7The =oming of the =old .ar7, for e0ample, discusses "oth western and eastern factors in the growing conflict, "efore revealing critical links to the >orean war and to 1rance*s sponsorship of the nascent European pro3ect. Yet the ma3ority of chapters deal separately either with the west or the east2 and the west has the numerical edge. )iven G: years of the iron curtain, the treatment is 3ustified. Judt*s style is crisp. =omplicated su"3ects are tamed "y uncomplicated sentences2 and four or five slim paragraphs fit on to every page. The "risk pace is accompanied "y fine quotes, lively anecdotes and acer"ic phrases. I particularly liked 1ran3o Tud3man "eing 7notoriously ecumenical in his pre3udices7. The 9:: pages of the main te0t do not weigh heavily. The terminology occasionally lacks precision. 7 ussia7 and 7the @&& 7 should not "e used as interchangea"les in a "ook of this quality. In the &oviet era, for instance, -oland never played 7 ussia7 at foot"all $although a -olish goalkeeper is once said to have "een imprisoned for saving a penalty'. &imilarly, the careless use of 7small states7 smacks of =hurchill*s imperial division of the world into 7giants7 and 7pygmies7. Europe has countries of all shapes and si5es. And 7the insecurity of small/state nationalism7 is dou"ly du"ious. Insecurity is a psychological trait of all nationalisms. egarding western Europe, Judt stands on firm ground. 4e puts 1rance and )ermany centre stage, and nicely elucidates the lurches and fum"les "y which the European movement has progressed. !ritain, including Northern Ireland, is not sidelined2 &candinavia emerges in 7The &ocial/+emocratic ,oment72 and there are first/rate sections on the retreat from empire in the 8AK:s and on the reha"ilitation of the ,editerranean countries in the 8AL:s. Judt, however, is impervious to religion, unmoved "y music and rather complacent a"out non/ 1rench and non/political "ranches of art and culture. -arisian intellectual warlords and east European dissidents, though important, do not tell the whole story. Authors of syntheses must sometimes try to empathise with incongenial su"3ects. The attack on the late pope as a

7parochial7 idolater is demeaning. As a paid/up professor of philosophy, with a -h+ on &chelerian phenomenology, John -aul II could have offered Judt a much/needed tutorial on comprehending the full spectrum of human ideas and e0perience. &urprisingly, therefore, Judt*s e0posQ of the workings of the &oviet "loc is almost magnificent. 4e is specially good on =5echoslovakia, and carefully differentiates the reactions of different countries to successive crises. 4is chapter 7Into the .hirlwind7 $after )in5"urg' is a model, nuanced analysis of &talinist practices( from the monopoly power of the party/state to its mad economics, its colonialism and its gargantuan organs of repression. $6ne statistic speaks volumes( the &tasi employed five times as many operatives in the ++ as the )estapo employed in the entire eich.' None the less, one has to say 7almost7 "ecause of Judt*s strange reluctance to give the &talinist spade its real name. Elsewhere, he accepts the fact of communism*s criminality. Yet the term 7mass murder7 does not occur until page FFA, echoing &ol5henitsyn, and the term 7crimes against humanity7 does not surface until page K98 in relation to e0/Yugoslavia. As Judt knows perfectly well, ,ilosevic compared to &talin, or to &talin*s pupil, ,ao, is a garden gnome. 4e records Tarrou*s good intention, from %a -este, 7to re3ect everything that makes people die7. It is a fair motto. &imilarly, the account of the &oviet "loc*s demise is very nearly "rilliant. There is no need to invent an antithesis "etween the role of &olidarity / which is dismissed as a 7sideshow7 / and su"sequent events in ,oscow. &urely the two were complementary. !ut Judt is a"solutely correct to concentrate on )or"achev*s "ungling. It would "e still "etter if discussion of the mishandling of the nationalities issue were not postponed to a further, e0quisite section on the !altic states, and if the meaning of glasnost in the &oviet conte0t were properly e0plained. $Initially it meant internal party discussion.' evered in the west for reversing foreign policy, 7)or"ie7 was widely reviled throughout the @&& as a clueless reformer. 4e knew very little a"out &oviet history, and hence a"out the foundations of the system which he headed. -ostwar is worth "uying for one 3udgment alone( )or"achev 7had no idea what he was doing7. @nlike the @&& , the @& features only sporadically, like the ghost at the feast. -erhaps the author assumed that his readers* grasp of the American "ackground was adequate. At all events, the later chapters, 7Harieties of Europe7 and 7Europe as a .ay of %ife7, stress the contrasts with the @&. And they end on an up"eat. 7The B8st century7, writes Judt, 7might yet "elong to Europe.7 Errors and omissions inevita"ly occur. Apart from religion and the arts, the thinnest coverage relates to the Irish repu"lic, to the "ig regions of 1rance and )ermany, and to European regionalism in general. .hat a pity, too, that Judt does not share his thoughts here on the founding of Israel / surely an important topic in 7The %egacy of .ar7. $In B::I, he courageously criticised Israel as an 7anachronistic7 7ethno/state7, there"y earning himself a rich crop of inappropriate epithets.' 6verall, the great schoolmaster in the sky might mark this effort at 9 or A out of 8:. +etermined nit/pickers, with their own priorities, might rate it lower. The only sensi"le response to their carping is( 7%et them produce something "etter.7 In reality, it is most unlikely that Judt*s achievement will "e superseded soon. T Norman +avies*s ne0t "ook, Europe at .ar, will "e pu"lished "y ,acmillan in B::K. To order -ostwar for OBI with free @> pUp call )uardian "ook service on :9L: 9IK :9LF. ' hero !or our times The -lague, an allegory of the )erman occupation of 1rance and an attack on dogma and cowardice, esta"lished the reputation of Al"ert =amus. Today, argues Tony Judt, it is more relevant than ever

%a -este, Al"ert =amus*s fa"le of the coming of the plague to the North African city of 6ran, was pu"lished in 8AGL, when =amus was II. It was an immediate triumph. .ithin a year it had "een translated into nine languages, with many more to come. It has never "een out of print and was esta"lished as a classic of world literature even "efore its author*s untimely death in a car accident in January 8AK:. ,ore am"itious than %*Etranger, the first novel that esta"lished his reputation, and more accessi"le than his later writings, The -lague $%a -este' is the "ook "y which =amus is known to millions of readers. Today, The -lague takes on fresh significance. =amus*s insistence on placing individual moral responsi"ility at the heart of all pu"lic choices cuts sharply across the comforta"le ha"its of our own age. 4is definition of heroism / ordinary people doing e0traordinary things out of simple decency / rings truer than we might once have acknowledged. 4is depiction of instant e0/cathedra 3udgments / 7,y "rethren, you have deserved it7 / will "e grimly familiar to us all. =amus*s compassion for the dou"ters and the compromised, for the motives and mistakes of imperfect humanity, matched with his unwavering grasp of the difference "etween good and evil, casts unflattering light upon the relativisers and trimmers of our own day. And his controversial use of a "iological epidemic to illustrate the dilemmas of moral contagion succeeds in ways the writer could not have imagined( in New York, in Novem"er B::8, we are "etter placed than we could ever have wished to feel the lash of the novel*s astonishing final sentence. =amus started gathering material for the novel in January 8AG8, when he arrived in 6ran, the Algerian coastal city where the story is set. 4e continued working on the manuscript in %e =ham"on/sur/ %ignon, a mountain village in central 1rance where he went to recuperate from one of his periodic "outs of tu"erculosis in the summer of 8AGB. !ut he was soon swept into the resistance, and it was not until the li"eration of 1rance that he was a"le to return his attention to the "ook. !y then, the o"scure Algerian novelist had "ecome a national figure( a hero of the intellectual resistance, editor of =om"at $a daily paper that was hugely influential in the postwar years', and an icon to a new generation of 1rench men and women hungry for ideas and idols. =amus fitted the role to perfection. 4andsome and charming, a charismatic advocate of radical social and political change, he held unparalleled sway over millions of his countrymen. In the words of aymond Aron, readers of =amus*s editorials had 7formed the ha"it of getting their daily thought from him7. There were other intellectuals in postwar -aris who were destined to play ma3or roles in years to come( Aron himself, &imone de !eauvoir and, of course, Jean/-aul &artre. !ut =amus was different. !orn in Algeria in 8A8I, he was younger than his left/"ank friends, most of whom were already G: when the war ended. 4e was more 7e0otic7, coming as he did from Algiers rather than from the hothouse milieu of -arisian schools and colleges2 and there was something special a"out him. 6ne contemporary o"server caught it well( 7I was struck "y his face, so human and sensitive. There is in this man such an o"vious integrity that it imposes respect almost immediately2 quite simply, he is not like other men.7 =amus*s standing guaranteed his "ook*s success. !ut its timing had something to do with it too. !y the time the "ook appeared, the 1rench were "eginning to forget the discomforts and compromises of )erman occupation. ,arshal -Qtain, the head of state who initiated and incarnated the policy of colla"oration with the Na5is, had "een tried and imprisoned. 6ther colla"orating politicians had "een e0ecuted or else "anished from pu"lic life. The myth of a glorious national resistance was carefully cultivated "y politicians of all colours, from =harles de )aulle to the communists2 uncomforta"le private memories were overlaid with the air"rushed official version, in which 1rance had "een li"erated from its oppressors "y the 3oint efforts of domestic resisters and 1ree 1rench troops led from %ondon "y +e )aulle. In this conte0t, =amus*s allegory of the wartime occupation of 1rance reopened a painful chapter in the recent 1rench past, "ut in an indirect and ostensi"ly apolitical key. It thus avoided arousing partisan hackles, e0cept at the e0tremes of left and right, and took up sensitive topics without provoking a refusal to listen. 4ad the novel appeared in 8AGF, the angry, partisan mood of revenge would have drowned its moderate reflections on 3ustice and responsi"ility. 4ad it "een delayed until the 8AF:s, its su"3ect/matter would pro"a"ly have "een overtaken "y new alignments "orn of the cold war.

6ran, the setting for the novel, was a city =amus knew well and cordially disliked, in contrast to his much/loved home town of Algiers. 4e found it "oring and materialistic and his memories of it were further shaped "y the fact that his tu"erculosis took a turn for the worse during his stay there. This involuntary deprivation of everything that =amus most loved a"out his Algerian "irthplace / the sand, the sea, physical e0ercise and the ,editerranean sense of ease / was compounded when he was sent to the 1rench countryside to convalesce. The ,assif =entral of 1rance is tranquil and "racing, and the remote village where =amus arrived in August 8AGB might "e thought the ideal setting for a writer. !ut 8B weeks later, in Novem"er 8AGB, the Allies landed in North Africa. The )ermans responded "y occupying the whole of southern 1rance $hitherto governed from Hichy "y -Qtain*s puppet government' and Algeria was cut off from the continent. =amus was thenceforth separated not 3ust from his homeland "ut also from his mother and his wife, and would not see them again until the )ermans had "een defeated. Illness, e0ile and separation were thus present in =amus*s life as in his novel, and his reflections upon them form a vital counterpoint to the allegory. =amus put himself directly into the characters of the novel, using three of them in particular to represent his moral perspective. am"ert, the young 3ournalist cut off from his wife in -aris, is initially desperate to escape the quarantined city. 4is o"session with his personal suffering makes him indifferent to the larger tragedy, from which he feels quite detached / he is not, after all, a citi5en of 6ran, "ut was caught there "y chance. It is on the eve of his getaway that he realises how, despite himself, he has "ecome part of the community and shares its fate2 ignoring the risk and in the face of his earlier, selfish needs, he remains in 6ran and 3oins the 7health teams7. 1rom a purely private resistance against misfortune he has graduated to the solidarity of a collective resistance against the common scourge. =amus*s identification with +r ieu0 echoes his shifting mood in these years. ieu0 is a man who, faced with suffering and a common crisis, does what he must and "ecomes a leader and an e0ample, not out of heroic courage or careful reasoning, "ut rather from a sort of necessary optimism. !y the late 8AG:s =amus was e0hausted and depressed at the "urden of e0pectations placed on him as a pu"lic intellectual( as he confided to his note"ooks, 7everyone wants the man who is still searching to have reached his conclusions7. 1rom the 7e0istentialist7 philosopher $a tag that =amus always disliked', people awaited a polished worldview2 "ut =amus had none to offer. As he e0pressed it through ieu0, he was 7weary of the world in which he lived72 all he could offer with any certainty was 7some feeling for his fellow men and Mhe wasN determined for his part to re3ect any in3ustice and any compromise7. +r ieu0 does the right thing 3ust "ecause he sees clearly what needs doing. In Tarrou, =amus invested a more developed e0position of his moral thinking. Tarrou, like =amus, is in his mid/ I:s2 he left home, "y his own account, in disgust at his father*s advocacy of the death penalty / a su"3ect of intense concern to =amus and on which he wrote widely in the postwar years. Tarrou has reflected painfully upon his past life and commitments, and his confession to ieu0 is at the heart of the novel*s moral message( 7I thought I was struggling against the plague. I learned that I had indirectly supported the deaths of thousands of men, that I had even caused their deaths "y approving the actions and principles that inevita"ly led to them.7 This passage can "e read as =amus*s own rueful reflections upon his passage through the =ommunist party in Algeria during the 8AI:s. !ut Tarrou*s conclusions go "eyond the admission of political error( 7.e are all in the plague... All I know is that one must do one*s "est not to "e a plague victim... And this is why I have decided to re3ect everything that, directly or indirectly, makes people die or 3ustifies others in making them die.7 This is the authentic voice of Al"ert =amus and it sketches out the position he would take towards ideological dogma, political or 3udicial murder, and all forms of ethical irresponsi"ility for the rest of his life / a stance that would later cost him dearly in friends and even influence in the polarised world of the -arisian intelligentsia. ,ost of the story is told in the third person. !ut strategically dispersed through the te0t is the occasional 7we7, and the 7we7 in question / at least for =amus*s primary audience / is the 1rench in 8AGL. The 7calamity7 that has "efallen the citi5ens of fictionalised 6ran is the one that

came upon 1rance in 8AG:, with the military defeat, the a"andonment of the repu"lic and the esta"lishment of the regime of Hichy under )erman tutelage. =amus*s account of the coming of the rats echoed a widespread view of the divided condition of 1rance itself in 8AG:( 7It was as though the very soil on which our houses were "uilt was purging itself of an e0cess of "ile, that it was letting "oils and a"scesses rise to the surface which up to then had "een devouring it inside.7 ,any in 1rance, at first, shared 1ather -anelou0*s initial reaction( 7,y "rethren, you have deserved it.7 1or a long time people don*t realise what is happening and life seems to go on / 7in appearance, nothing had changed72 7The city was inha"ited "y people asleep on their feet7. %ater, when the plague has passed, amnesia sets in / 7they denied that we $sic' had "een that "enum"ed people7. All this and much more / the "lack market, the failure of administrators to call things "y their name and assume the moral leadership of the nation / so well descri"ed the recent 1rench past that =amus*s intentions could hardly "e misread. Nevertheless, most of =amus*s targets resist easy la"els, and the allegory runs quite against the grain of the polarised moral rhetoric in use after the war. =ottard, who accepts the plague as too strong to com"at and who thinks the 7health teams7 are a waste of time, is clearly someone who 7colla"orates7 in the fate of the city. 4e thrives in the new situation and has everything to lose from a return to the 7old ways7. !ut he is sympathetically drawn, and Tarrou and the others continue to frequent him and even discuss with him their actions. At the end =ottard is "rutally "eaten "y the newly li"erated citi5enry / a reminder of the violent punishments meted out at the li"eration to presumed colla"orators, often "y men and women whose enthusiasm for revenge helped them and others forget their own wartime compromises. The same insights shape his representation of the resisters themselves. 1or =amus, as for ieu0, resistance was not a"out heroism at all / or, if it was, then it was the heroism of goodness. 7It may seem a ridiculous idea, "ut the only way to fight the plague is decency.7 Joining the health teams was not in itself an act of great significance / rather, 7not doing it would have "een incredi"le at the time7. This point is made over and over again in the novel, as though =amus were worried lest it "e missed( 7.hen you see the suffering it "rings,7 ieu0 remarks at one point, 7you have to "e mad, "lind or a coward to resign yourself to the plague.7 =amus, like the narrator, refuses to 7"ecome an over/eloquent eulogist of a determination and heroism to which he attaches only a moderate degree of importance7. This has to "e understood in conte0t. There were of course tremendous courage and sacrifice in the resistance2 many died for the cause. !ut =amus was uncomforta"le with the smug myth of heroism that had grown up in postwar 1rance, and he a"horred the tone of moral superiority with which self/styled former resisters $including some of his famous fellow intellectuals' looked down upon those who did nothing. In =amus*s view it was inertia, or ignorance, that accounted for people*s failure to act. The =ottards of the world were the e0ception2 most people are "etter than you think. As Tarrou puts it, 7You 3ust need to give them the opportunity.7 In consequence, some of =amus*s intellectual contemporaries did not particularly care for The -lague. They e0pected a more 7engaged7 sort of writing from him and found the "ook*s am"iguities and the tone of disa"used tolerance and moderation politically incorrect. &imone de !eauvoir especially disapproved strongly of =amus*s use of a natural pestilence as a sym"ol for $she thought' fascism / it relieves men of their political responsi"ilities, she insisted, and runs away from history and real political pro"lems. In 8AFF the literary critic oland !arthes reached a similarly negative conclusion, accusing =amus of offering readers an 7antihistorical ethic7. Even today this criticism sometimes surfaces among academic students of =amus( he lets fascism and Hichy off the hook, they charge, "y deploying the metaphor of a 7nonideological and nonhuman plague7. &uch commentaries are dou"ly revealing. In the first place they show 3ust how much =amus*s apparently straightforward story was open to misunderstanding. The allegory may have "een tied to Hichy 1rance, "ut the 7plague7 transcends political la"els. It was not 7fascism7 that =amus was aiming at / an easy target, after all, especially in 8AGL / "ut dogma, conformity, compliance and cowardice in all their intersecting pu"lic forms.

&econdly, the charge that =amus was too am"iguous in his 3udgments, too unpolitical in his metaphors, illuminates not his weaknesses "ut his strengths. This is something that we are perhaps "etter placed to understand now than were The -lague*s first readers. Thanks to -rimo %evi and Haclav 4avel, we have "ecome familiar with the 7grey 5one7. .e understand "etter that in conditions of e0tremity there are rarely to "e found comfortingly simple categories of good and evil, guilty and innocent. .e know more a"out the choices and compromises faced "y men and women in hard times, and we are no longer so quick to 3udge those who accommodate themselves to impossi"le situations. ,en may do the right thing from a mi0ture of motives and may with equal ease do terri"le deeds with the "est of intentions / or no intentions at all. It does not follow from this that the 7plagues7 that humankind "rings down upon itself are 7nat ural7 or unavoida"le. !ut assigning responsi"ility for them / and thus preventing them in the future / may not "e an easy matter. And with 4annah Arendt we have "een introduced to a further complication( the notion of the 7"anality of evil7 $a formulation that =amus himself would pro"a"ly have taken care to avoid', the idea that unspeaka"le crimes can "e committed "y very unremarka"le men with clear consciences. =amus was a moralist who unhesitatingly distinguished good from evil "ut a"stained from condemning human frailty. 4e was a student of the 7a"surd7 who refused to give in to necessity. 4e was a pu"lic man of action who insisted that all truly important questions came down to individual acts of kindness and goodness. And, like Tarrou, he was a "eliever in a"solute truths who accepted the limits of the possi"le( 76ther men will make history... All I can say is that on this earth there are pestilences and there are victims / and as far as possi"le one must refuse to "e on the side of the pestilence.7 %ooking "ack on the grim record of the B:th century, we can see more clearly now that Al"ert =amus had identified the central moral dilemmas of the age. %ike 4annah Arendt, he saw that 7the pro"lem of evil will "e the fundamental question of postwar intellectual life in Europe / as death "ecame the fundamental question after the last war.7 1ifty years after its first appearance, the closing sentence of =amus*s great novel rings truer than ever, a fire"ell in the night of complacency and forgetting( 7The plague "acillus never dies or vanishes entirely... it can remain dormant for do5ens of years in furniture or clothing... it waits patiently in "edrooms, cellars, trunks, handkerchiefs and old papers, and... perhaps the day will come when, for the instruction or misfortune of mankind, the plague will rouse its rats and send them to die in some well/contented city.7 V Tony Judt. This is an edited version of his introduction to the new -enguin =lassics edition of The -lague price O8G.AA. To order a copy for O8B.AA plus pUp, call the )uardian "ook service on :9L: :KK LALA. !ushWs @seful Idiots Tony Judt on the &trange +eath of %i"eral America .hy have American li"erals acquiesced in -resident !ushWs catastrophic foreign policyC .hy have they so little to say a"out Iraq, a"out %e"anon, or a"out reports of a planned attack on IranC .hy has the administrationWs sustained attack on civil li"erties and international law aroused so little opposition or anger from those who used to care most a"out these thingsC .hy, in short, has the li"eral intelligentsia of the @nited &tates in recent years kept its head safely "elow the parapetC It wasnWt always so. 6n BK 6cto"er 8A99, the New York Times carried a full/page advertisement for li"eralism. 4eaded XA eaffirmation of -rincipleW, it openly re"uked onald eagan for deriding Xthe dreaded %/wordW and treating Xli"eralsW and Xli"eralismW as terms of oppro"rium. %i"eral principles, the te0t affirmed, are Xtimeless. E0tremists of the right and of the left have long attacked li"eralism as their greatest enemy. In our own time li"eral democracies have "een crushed "y such e0tremists. Against any encouragement of this tendency in our own country, intentional or not, we feel o"liged to speak out.W

The advertisement was signed "y KI prominent intellectuals, writers and "usinessmen( among them +aniel !ell, J.>. )al"raith, 1eli0 ohatyn, Arthur &chlesinger Jr, Irving 4owe and Eudora .elty. These and other signatories # the economist >enneth Arrow, the poet o"ert -enn .arren # were the critical intellectual core, the steady moral centre of American pu"lic life. !ut who, now, would sign such a protestC %i"eralism in the @nited &tates today is the politics that dares not speak its name. And those who style themselves Xli"eral intellectualsW are otherwise engaged. As "efits the new )ilded Age, in which the pay ratio of an American =E6 to that of a skilled worker is G8B(8 and a corrupted =ongress is awash in lo""ies and favours, the place of the li"eral intellectual has "een largely taken over "y an admira"le cohort of Xmuck/rakingW investigative 3ournalists # &eymour 4ersh, ,ichael ,assing and ,ark +anner, writing in the New Yorker and the New York eview of !ooks. The collapse of li"eral self/confidence in the contemporary @& can "e variously e0plained. In part it is a "ackwash from the lost illusions of the 8AK:s generation, a retreat from the radical nostrums of youth into the all/consuming "usiness of material accumulation and personal security. The signatories of the New York Times advertisement were "orn in most cases many years earlier, their political opinions shaped "y the 8AI:s a"ove all. Their commitments were the product of e0perience and adversity and made of sterner stuff. The disappearance of the li"eral centre in American politics is also a direct outcome of the deliquescence of the +emocratic -arty. In domestic politics li"erals once "elieved in the provision of welfare, good government and social 3ustice. In foreign affairs they had a longstanding commitment to international law, negotiation, and the importance of moral e0ample. Today, a spreading me/first consensus has replaced vigorous pu"lic de"ate in "oth arenas. And like their political counterparts, the critical intelligentsia once so prominent in American cultural life has fallen silent. This process was well underway "efore 88 &eptem"er B::8, and in domestic affairs at least, !ill =linton and his calculated policy XtriangulationsW must carry some responsi"ility for the evisceration of li"eral politics. !ut since then the moral and intellectual arteries of the American "ody politic have hardened further. ,aga5ines and newspapers of the traditional li"eral centre # the New Yorker, the New epu"lic, the .ashington -ost and the New York Times itself # fell over themselves in the hurry to align their editorial stance with that of a epu"lican president "ent on e0emplary war. A fearful conformism gripped the mainstream media. And AmericaWs li"eral intellectuals found at last a new cause. 6r, rather, an old cause in a new guise. 1or what distinguishes the worldview of !ushWs li"eral supporters from that of his neo/conservative allies is that they donWt look on the X.ar on TerrorW, or the war in Iraq, or the war in %e"anon and eventually Iran, as mere serial e0ercises in the re/ esta"lishment of American martial dominance. They see them as skirmishes in a new glo"al confrontation( a )ood 1ight, reassuringly compara"le to their grandparentsW war against 1ascism and their =old .ar li"eral parentsW stance against international =ommunism. 6nce again, they assert, things are clear. The world is ideologically divided2 and # as "efore # we must take our stand on the issue of the age. %ong nostalgic for the comforting verities of a simpler time, todayWs li"eral intellectuals have at last discovered a sense of purpose( they are at war with XIslamo/fascismW. Thus -aul !erman, a frequent contri"utor to +issent, the New Yorker and other li"eral 3ournals, and until now "etter known as a commentator on American cultural affairs, recycled himself as an e0pert on Islamic fascism $itself a new term of art', pu"lishing Terror and %i"eralism 3ust in time for the Iraq war. -eter !einart, a former editor of the New epu"lic, followed in his wake this year with The )ood 1ight( .hy %i"erals # and 6nly %i"erals # =an .in the .ar on Terror and ,ake America )reat Again, where he sketches at some length the resem"lance "etween the .ar on Terror and the early =old .ar.M8N Neither author had previously shown any familiarity with the ,iddle East, much less with the .ahha"i and &ufi traditions on which they pronounce with such confidence. !ut like =hristopher 4itchens and other former left/li"eral pundits now e0pert in XIslamo/ fascismW, !einart and !erman and their kind really are conversant # and comforta"le # with a "inary division of the world along ideological lines. In some cases they can even look "ack to their own youthful Trotskyism when seeking a template and thesaurus for world/historical

antagonisms. In order for todayWs XfightW $note the recycled %eninist le0icon of conflicts, clashes, struggles and wars' to make political sense, it too must have a single universal enemy whose ideas we can study, theorise and com"at2 and the new confrontation must "e reduci"le, like its B:th/century predecessor, to a familiar 3u0taposition that eliminates e0otic comple0ity and confusion( +emocracy v. Totalitarianism, 1reedom v. 1ascism, Them v. @s. To "e sure, !ushWs li"eral supporters have "een disappointed "y his efforts. Every newspaper I have listed and many others "esides have carried editorials criticising !ushWs policy on imprisonment, his use of torture and a"ove all the sheer ineptitude of the presidentWs war. !ut here, too, the =old .ar offers a revealing analogy. %ike &talinWs .estern admirers who, in the wake of >hrushchevWs revelations, resented the &oviet dictator not so much for his crimes as for discrediting their ,ar0ism, so intellectual supporters of the Iraq .ar # among them ,ichael Ignatieff, %eon .ieseltier, +avid emnick and other prominent figures in the North American li"eral esta"lishment # have focused their regrets not on the catastrophic invasion itself $which they all supported' "ut on its incompetent e0ecution. They are irritated with !ush for giving Xpreventive warW a "ad name. In a similar vein, those centrist voices that "ayed most insistently for "lood in the prelude to the Iraq .ar # the New York Times columnist Thomas 1riedman demanded that 1rance "e voted X6ff the IslandW $i.e. out of the &ecurity =ouncil' for its presumption in opposing AmericaWs drive to war # are today the most confident when asserting their monopoly of insight into world affairs. The same 1riedman now sneers at Xanti/war activists who havenWt thought a whit a"out the larger struggle weWre inW $New York Times, 8K August'. To "e sure, 1riedmanWs -ulit5er/winning pieties are always road/tested for middle"row political accepta"ility. !ut for 3ust that reason they are a sure guide to the mood of the American intellectual mainstream. 1riedman is seconded "y !einart, who concedes that he XdidnWt realiseW$?' how detrimental American actions would "e to Xthe struggleW "ut insists even so that anyone who wonWt stand up to X)lo"al JihadW 3ust isnWt a consistent defender of li"eral values. Jaco" .eis"erg, the editor of &late, writing in the 1inancial Times, accuses +emocratic critics of the Iraq .ar of failing Xto take the wider, glo"al "attle against Islamic fanaticism seriouslyW. The only people qualified to speak on this matter, it would seem, are those who got it wrong initially. &uch insouciance in spite of # indeed "ecause of # your past mis3udgments recalls a remark "y the 1rench e0/&talinist -ierre =ourtade to Edgar ,orin, a dissenting =ommunist vindicated "y events( XYou and your kind were wrong to "e right2 we were right to "e wrong.W It is particularly ironic that the X=linton generationW of American li"eral intellectuals take special pride in their Xtough/mindednessW, in their success in casting aside the illusions and myths of the old left, for these same XtoughW new li"erals reproduce some of that old leftWs worst characteristics. They may see themselves as having migrated to the opposite shore2 "ut they display precisely the same mi0ture of dogmatic faith and cultural provincialism, not to mention the e0u"erant enthusiasm for violent political transformation at other peopleWs e0pense, that marked their fellow/travelling predecessors across the =old .ar ideological divide. The use value of such persons to am"itious, radical regimes is an old story. Indeed, intellectual camp followers of this kind were first identified "y %enin himself, who coined the term that still descri"es them "est. Today, AmericaWs li"eral armchair warriors are the Xuseful idiotsW of the .ar on Terror. In fairness, AmericaWs "ellicose intellectuals are not alone. In Europe, Adam ,ichnik, the hero of the -olish intellectual resistance to =ommunism, has "ecome an outspoken admirer of the em"arrassingly Islamopho"ic 6riana 1allaci2 HYclav 4avel has 3oined the +=/"ased =ommittee on the -resent +anger $a recycled =old .ar/era organisation dedicated to rooting out =ommunists, now pledged to fighting Xthe threat posed "y glo"al radical Islamist and fascist terrorist movementsW'2 AndrQ )lucksmann in -aris contri"utes agitated essays to %e 1igaro $most recently on 9 August' lam"asting Xuniversal JihadW, Iranian Xlust for powerW and radical IslamWs strategy of Xgreen su"versionW. All three enthusiastically supported the invasion of Iraq. In the European case this trend is an unfortunate "y/product of the intellectual revolution of the 8A9:s, especially in the former =ommunist East, when Xhuman rightsW displaced conventional political allegiances as the "asis for collective action. The gains wrought "y this transformation

in the rhetoric of oppositional politics were considera"le. !ut a price was paid all the same. A commitment to the a"stract universalism of XrightsW # and uncompromising ethical stands taken against malign regimes in their name # can lead all too readily to the ha"it of casting every political choice in "inary moral terms. In this light !ushWs .ar against Terror, Evil and Islamo/ fascism appears seductive and even familiar( self/deluding foreigners readily mistake the @& presidentWs myopic rigidity for their own moral rectitude. !ut "ack home, AmericaWs li"eral intellectuals are fast "ecoming a service class, their opinions determined "y their allegiance and cali"rated to 3ustify a political end. In itself this is hardly a new departure( we are all familiar with intellectuals who speak only on "ehalf of their country, class, religion, race, gender or se0ual orientation, and who shape their opinions according to what they take to "e the interest of their affinity of "irth or predilection. !ut the distinctive feature of the li"eral intellectual in past times was precisely the striving for universality2 not the unworldly or disingenuous denial of sectional interest "ut the sustained effort to transcend that interest. It is thus depressing to read some of the "etter known and more avowedly Xli"eralW intellectuals in the contemporary @&A e0ploiting their professional credi"ility to advance a partisan case. Jean !ethke Elshtain and ,ichael .al5er, two senior figures in the countryWs philosophical esta"lishment $she at the @niversity of =hicago +ivinity &chool, he at the -rinceton Institute', "oth wrote portentous essays purporting to demonstrate the 3ustness of necessary wars # she in Just .ar against Terror( The !urden of American -ower in a Hiolent .orld, a pre/emptive defence of the Iraq .ar2 he only a few weeks ago in a shameless 3ustification of IsraelWs "om"ardments of %e"anese civilians $X.ar 1airW, New epu"lic, I8 July'. In todayWs America, neo/conservatives generate "rutish policies for which li"erals provide the ethical fig/leaf. There really is no other difference "etween them. 6ne of the particularly depressing ways in which li"eral intellectuals have a"dicated personal and ethical responsi"ility for the actions they now endorse can "e seen in their failure to think independently a"out the ,iddle East. Not every li"eral cheerleader for the )lo"al .ar against Islamo/fascism, or against Terror, or against )lo"al Jihad, is an unreconstructed supporter of %ikud( =hristopher 4itchens, for one, is critical of Israel. !ut the willingness of so many American pundits and commentators and essayists to roll over for !ushWs doctrine of preventive war2 to a"stain from criticising the disproportionate use of air power on civilian targets in "oth Iraq and %e"anon2 and to stay coyly silent in the face of =ondolee55a iceWs enthusiasm for the "loody X"irth pangs of a new ,iddle EastW, makes more sense when one recalls their "acking for Israel( a country which for fifty years has rested its entire national strategy on preventive wars, disproportionate retaliation, and efforts to redesign the map of the whole ,iddle East. &ince its inception the state of Israel has fought a num"er of wars of choice $the only e0ception was the Yom >ippur .ar of 8ALI'. To "e sure, these have "een presented to the world as wars of necessity or self/defence2 "ut IsraelWs statesmen and generals have never "een under any such illusion. .hether this approach has done Israel much good is de"ata"le $for a clear/ headed recent account that descri"es as a resounding failure his countryWs strategy of using wars of choice to XredrawW the map of its neigh"ourhood, see &cars of .ar, .ounds of -eace( The Israeli/Ara" Tragedy "y &hlomo !en/Ami,MBN a historian and former Israeli foreign minister'. !ut the idea of a super/power "ehaving in a similar way # responding to terrorist threats or guerrilla incursions "y flattening another country 3ust to preserve its own deterrent credi"ility # is odd in the e0treme. It is one thing for the @& unconditionally to underwrite IsraelWs "ehaviour $though in neither countryWs interest, as some Israeli commentators at least have remarked'. !ut for the @& to imitate Israel wholesale, to import that tiny countryWs self/destructive, intemperate response to any hostility or opposition and to make it the leitmotif of American foreign policy( that is simply "i5arre. !ushWs ,iddle Eastern policy now tracks so closely to the Israeli precedent that it is very difficult to see daylight "etween the two. It is this surreal turn of events that helps e0plain the confusion and silence of American li"eral thinking on the su"3ect $as well, perhaps, as Tony !lairWs syntactically sympathetic me/tooism'. 4istorically, li"erals have "een unsympathetic to Xwars of choiceW when undertaken or proposed "y their own government. .ar, in the li"eral imagination

$and not only the li"eral one', is a last resort, not a first option. !ut the @nited &tates now has an Israeli/style foreign policy and AmericaWs li"eral intellectuals overwhelmingly support it. The contradictions to which this can lead are striking. There is, for e0ample, a "latant discrepancy "etween !ushWs proclaimed desire to "ring democracy to the ,uslim world and his refusal to intervene when the only working instances of fragile democracy in action in the whole ,uslim world # in -alestine and %e"anon # were systematically ignored and then shattered "y AmericaWs Israeli ally. This discrepancy, and the "ad faith and hypocrisy which it seems to suggest, have "ecome a staple of editorial pages and internet "logs the world over, to AmericaWs lasting discredit. !ut AmericaWs leading li"eral intellectuals have kept silent. To speak would "e to choose "etween the tactical logic of AmericaWs new Xwar of movementW against Islamic fascism # democracy as the sweetener for American involvement # and the strategic tradition of Israeli statecraft, for which democratic neigh"ours are no "etter and most likely worse than authoritarian ones. This is not a choice that most American li"eral commentators are even willing to acknowledge, much less make. And so they say nothing. This "lind spot o"scures and risks polluting and o"literating every traditional li"eral concern and inhi"ition. 4ow else can one e0plain the appalling illustration on the cover of the New epu"lic of L August( a lurid depiction of 4i5"ullahWs 4assan Nasrallah in the style of +er &tZrmer crossed with more than a touch of the X+irty JapW cartoons of .orld .ar TwoC 4ow else is one to account for the convoluted, sophistic defence "y %eon .ieseltier in the same 3ournal of the killing of Ara" children in Jana $XThese are not tender timesW'C !ut the "lind spot is not 3ust ethical, it is also political( if American li"erals XdidnWt realiseW why their war in Iraq would have the predicta"le effect of promoting terrorism, "enefiting the Iranian ayatollahs and turning Iraq into %e"anon, then we should not e0pect them to understand $or care' that IsraelWs "rutal over/ reaction risks turning %e"anon into Iraq. In 1ive )ermanys I 4ave >nown, 1rit5 &tern # a coauthor of the 8A99 New York Times te0t defending li"eralism # writes of his concern a"out the condition of the li"eral spirit in America today.MIN It is with the e0tinction of that spirit, he notes, that the death of a repu"lic "egins. &tern, a historian and a refugee from Na5i )ermany, speaks with authority on this matter. And he is surely correct. .e donWt e0pect right/wingers to care very much a"out the health of a repu"lic, particularly when they are assiduously engaged in the unilateral promotion of empire. And the ideological left, while occasionally adept at analysing the shortcomings of a li"eral repu"lic, is typically not much interested in defending it. It is the li"erals, then, who count. They are, as it might "e, the canaries in the sulphurous mineshaft of modern democracy. The alacrity with which many of AmericaWs most prominent li"erals have censored themselves in the name of the .ar on Terror, the enthusiasm with which they have invented ideological and moral cover for war and war crimes and proffered that cover to their political enemies( all this is a "ad sign. %i"eral intellectuals used to "e distinguished precisely "y their efforts to think for themselves, rather than in the service of others. Intellectuals should not "e smugly theorising endless war, much less confidently promoting and e0cusing it. They should "e engaged in distur"ing the peace # their own a"ove all. M8N 4arper=ollins, B99 pp., PBF.AF, June, : :K :9G8K8 I. MBN .eidenfeld, B9: pp., OB:, Novem"er, : BAL 9G99I K. MIN To "e reviewed in a future issue. Hol. B9 No. 89 T B8 &eptem"er B::K [ Tony Judt [ !ushWs @seful Idiots $print version' pages I/F \ I8AL words %etters Hol. B9 No. 8A T F 6cto"er B::K 1rom &tephen )rau"ard

Tony Judt is a courageous critic, prepared to do "attle with influential intellectuals in "oth New York and .ashington, fully anticipating the anger he is certain to provoke. )iven that, I am reluctant to find fault with his essay on Xthe strange death of li"eral AmericaW # essentially, the intellectual death of the +emocratic -arty # "ut there are other things to "e said $% !, B8 &eptem"er'. It is the wish to achieve a high position in the federal government that has made so many young and not so young people ardent supporters of the epu"lican -arty even when they are not avowedly neo/cons. It is important to recall that +emocrats have held the .hite 4ouse for only 8B years since Ni0onWs arrival as president in 8AKA. The inept Jimmy =arter did little to generate li"eral enthusiasm among the young, and !ill =linton, who wasted much of his second term in trying to avoid impeachment, could never "e mistaken for a li"eral in the oosevelt or Truman tradition. .hat is commonly said of Tony !lair # that his has "een the "est Tory government in decades # can also "e said of =linton, a far "etter centrist epu"lican than either Eisenhower or Ni0on. There is no young li"eral intellectual who in any way resem"les Arthur &chlesinger Jr or the late >enneth )al"raith, 3ust as there is no +emocratic -arty contender for the presidency in B::9 who resem"les oosevelt or Truman. Journalists know the price that they are likely to pay if they dare to criticise the president or his aggressively self/righteous and untruthful vice/ president. In the new America, with its very rich and its desperately poor, neither e0cessive wealth nor grinding poverty figures very high on the +emocratic -arty agenda. Instead, as Judt e0plains, race, gender and se0ual orientation issues give the +emocrats the support they need, "ut are not enough to guarantee their victory in B::9. &o there is a move to claim that the +emocrats are non/ideological, 3ust good old American pragmatists, faithful to the &tars and &tripes. Judt asks why the li"eral intellectuals have "een so silent on Iraq, %e"anon and Iran. 4e knows the answers, and sometimes comes close to making them e0plicit. ,any +emocrats, fearing new attacks following AR88, su"scri"ed to !ushWs view that Iraq was a clear and present danger, armed with lethal weapons that might at any moment "e released. >nowing now that this was false, they are reluctant to admit their error and are confused a"out what to do ne0t. To argue for an immediate military withdrawal from Iraq is much too ha5ardous. They dare not tell the truth, that American troops are likely to "e in Iraq a decade from now, though almost certainly in somewhat reduced num"ers. Judt also knows why the li"eral intellectuals are silent on %e"anon. Though he is a"le to write critically a"out IsraelWs policies in a Jerusalem newspaper, and anticipate criticism, that criticism is nothing like the "arrage he e0periences in New York whenever he says the same things. As for Iran, AmericaWs li"eral intellectuals do not know what to say or recommend. They are aware that Europeans see the Iran issue differently, "ut dare not suggest that they may have a greater purchase on reality than the president or =ondolee55a ice. They recall the hesitations Europeans had a"out !osnia and &er"ia in the =linton years, and are unwilling to "elieve that this time they may "e "etter informed and more astute. Judt writes convincingly a"out Eastern and =entral Europe and the support in those countries for the presidentWs policies in Iraq and elsewhere. In this area, where Judt knows far more than I do, I hesitate to argue the o"vious. In Eastern and =entral Europe # in -oland and the !altic states, "ut also in other former =ommunist states # the @nited &tates is "lamed for Yalta and much else. =entral European opinions on the &econd .orld .ar and the postwar settlements are su"stantially different from those that o"tain in the @& and the @>, and may well constitute a grave threat to the future via"ility of "oth the European @nion and Nato. The hostility to li"eral values that Judt descri"es will not necessarily survive for very long in the B8st century, when economic inequality, climate change and the dangers of terrorism and social upheaval are likely to assume new and more threatening forms. The most significant and powerful indictment of the president and his minions is pro"a"ly Thomas icksWs 1iasco( The American ,ilitary Adventure in Iraq. icks sees )eorge .. !ush as a child of the 8AK:s2 so, interestingly, is !lair. !oth will soon go and whether they are eventually succeeded "y more a"le and e0perienced men $or women' with a sense of history will depend on how the @& and the @> and others perceive new threats and opportunities, and how they recognise and remedy the follies of recent years.

&tephen )rau"ard -ilton, =am"ridgeshire 1rom &ean =oleman XTough/mindedW li"erals were nowhere near as eager to "egin war with Iraq as Tony Judt makes out. ,any were, and remain, quite anguished a"out it # any consultation of the New Yorker, the New York eview and the New York Times will tell you that. ,ichael Ignatieff, %eon .ieseltier and +avid emnick, not to mention )eorge -acker and -eter )al"raith, did indeed all support the war, "ut primarily for humanitarian ends( the removal of a psychopathic and genocidal dictator. JudtWs sly comparison of these commentatorsW support for human rights with the .estern ,ar0istsW silence on &talin in the wake of >hrushchevWs revelations is sheer sophistry. !ut then Judt seems to have no use for talk of human rights at all, "ecause of its Xa"stract universalismW, as though the notions of freedom of conscience, religion and speech were airy fatuities, and somehow not relevant to those living in despotic regimes. 1urthermore, Judt nowhere addresses the fact that a ma3ority of Iraqis approved of the invasion. They did so while har"ouring no illusions a"out American intentions( most "elieved America was there for the oil. 1inally, Judt omits one of the most honoura"le achievements of American li"eralism # its agitation for intervention to halt ethnocide in +arfur. The comparative silence of "ien pensant Europe should "ring a measure of perspective to JudtWs anger, and a measure of shame too. &ean =oleman +u"lin 1rom Jasper )oss Tony Judt descri"es -alestine and %e"anon as the only working instances of democracy in the Xwhole ,uslim worldW. The epu"lic of Indonesia may "e a relatively new democracy, "ut it is functioning and, unlike citi5ens of the @&, the @> or Australia, Indonesians may directly elect their head of state. Jasper )oss &ydney, Australia Hol. B9 No. B: T 8A 6cto"er B::K 1rom o"ert !oyers

,ost American li"eral intellectuals surely agree with Tony Judt a"out the catastrophe that is the !ush foreign policy, and the !ush administrationWs Xsustained attack on civil li"erties and international lawW $% !, B8 &eptem"er'. As a consequence, it seems necessary to say that the charges he levels are, to a considera"le degree, misleading, and reflect a deplora"le Xcultural provincialismW $JudtWs words' that is surprising in so seasoned a critic. To read Judt, one would think that the only li"eral intellectuals that matter in the @nited &tates # and the only ones he reads # are the handful of 3ournalists who contri"ute pieces to the New Yorker and the New York eview of !ooks. The only other so/called or one/time li"erals who apparently wield any influence, according to Judt, are the new hawks who write to urge a war against Islamofascism, people like -aul !erman, ,ichael Ignatieff and %eon .ieseltier. The truth is that the pages of American 3ournals are filled with attacks on !ushWs foreign policy, and indeed on the entire record of the current administration in .ashington. The op/ed pages of the New York Times and the .ashington -ost regularly contain "listering attacks on !ush and his policies, attacks which do not at all "uy into the X"inary division of the world along ideological linesW that Judt rightly condemns. To "e sure, Thomas 1riedman has not given up his hectoring a"out Xthe larger struggle weWre inW, "ut the New York Times has done a good deal to rally the li"eral intelligentsia with hard/hitting pieces "y 1rank ich, -aul >rugman and others. !eyond the newspapers of record, there is a whole other world in the @nited &tates that Judt seems either to know nothing a"out or to ignore.

.hy does he not cite the American li"eral intellectuals who write for 4arperWs, or +aedalus, or my own quarterly, &almagundiC .hy not mention the lengthy pieces contri"uted to 4arperWs in recent months "y its 3ust/retired editor, %ewis %aphamC The current issue of &almagundi, a special num"er on XJihad, ,c.orld, ,odernityW, contains contri"utions from li"eral intellectuals like !en3amin !ar"er, ,artha Nuss"aum, 6rlando -atterson, James ,iller and =arolyn 1orche, not to mention other intellectuals like !reyten !reyten"ach, -eter &inger and T5vetan Todorov. Not one of these people has XacquiescedW in the !ush programme. Not one has agreed to the silence that Judt contends has spread across the American intellectual scene. Not one is other than committed to resisting what Judt calls Xthe unilateral promotion of empireW. Yes, quite as Judt contends, Xmany of AmericaWs most prominent li"erals have censored themselves in the name of the war on terror,W "ut many other prominent and not so prominent intellectuals have refused to Xprovide the ethical fig leafW for the "rutal policies Judt would have us identify and resist. To suggest otherwise is not to get the picture right. o"ert !oyers &aratoga &prings, New York 1rom 4arold Jaffe Tony Judt names a do5en or so former Xli"eralsW who have seemingly deserted the cause "y "acking !ushWs war in Iraq. Nearly all of the so/called li"erals he cites happen to "e mainstream and Jewish, and one can readily infer that many of them put their concern for IsraelWs welfare, as they interpreted it, ahead of their li"eralism. The greater omission in JudtWs article is the plethora of dissenting opinion in organs that are simply not represented in mainstream media. 1rom "logs to ]/,aga5ine online, and from =homsky and ]inn to graduate students throughout the @&, there is and has "een a great deal of informed dissent. That this dissent is marginalised or utterly unacknowledged is the fault of the corporatised media, which ought really to "e the su"3ect of JudtWs interrogation. 4arold Jaffe &an +iego, =alifornia Hol. B9 No. B8 T B Novem"er B::K 1rom Tony Judt o"ert !oyers and 4arold Jaffe $%etters, 8A 6cto"er' take issue with my characterisation of the intellectual scene in the @& today, pointing out that there are many dissenting voices and much opposition to the !ush administration. They are of course correct and I did not wish to suggest that a "lanket of universal conformity had fallen across the land, silencing or muffling every e0pression of criticism. !ut JaffeWs complaint, at least, is "eside the point( I am well aware that Noam =homsky, 4oward ]inn and others on the American left continue to write what they have "een writing for many years, "erating Xthe corporatised mediaW for e0cluding them while offering an interpretation of American politics whose credi"ility rests on that very e0clusion. They were not my su"3ect. !oyers offers a more interesting o"3ection. I failed to take into account, he notes, the many li"eral intellectuals who pu"lish in 4arperWs, +aedalus, or the 3ournal !oyers edits, &almagundi, not to mention commentators like 1rank ich and -aul >rugman in the New York Times. !ut for these purposes >rugman and ich, like &eymour 4ersh, ,ichael ,assing and ,ark +anner, are 3ournalists( investigative 3ournalists. And it was part of my point to suggest that it is 3ust such 3ournalists who have taken up the role and the responsi"ilities a"andoned "y mainstream li"eral intellectuals. &o on this we agree. As to the contri"utors to &almagundi and elsewhere( it is a cruel truth that any of the writers I named in my essay can reach more readers in one New York Times ,aga5ine essay, or televised chat/show appearance, than a do5en contri"utions to &almagundi $circulation c.F:::' can hope to attract in a decade. This is not an evaluation of quality "ut of visi"ility. And when we are discussing the influence $such as it is' of the pu"lic intellectual, this is what counts.

Tony Judt New York Holume F:, Num"er 8K T 6cto"er BI, B::I Israel( The Alternative !y Tony Judt The ,iddle East peace process is finished. It did not die( it was killed. ,ahmoud A""as was undermined "y the -resident of the -alestinian Authority and humiliated "y the -rime ,inister of Israel. 4is successor awaits a similar fate. Israel continues to mock its American patron, "uilding illegal settlements in cynical disregard of the 7road map.7 The -resident of the @nited &tates of America has "een reduced to a ventriloquist*s dummy, pitifully reciting the Israeli ca"inet line( 7It*s all Arafat*s fault.7 Israelis themselves grimly await the ne0t "om"er. -alestinian Ara"s, corralled into shrinking !antustans, su"sist on E@ handouts. 6n the corpse/strewn landscape of the 1ertile =rescent, Ariel &haron, Yasser Arafat, and a handful of terrorists can all claim victory, and they do. 4ave we reached the end of the roadC .hat is to "e doneC At the dawn of the twentieth century, in the twilight of the continental empires, Europe*s su"3ect peoples dreamed of forming 7nation/states,7 territorial homelands where -oles, =5echs, &er"s, Armenians, and others might live free, masters of their own fate. .hen the 4a"s"urg and omanov empires collapsed after .orld .ar I, their leaders sei5ed the opportunity. A flurry of new states emerged2 and the first thing they did was set a"out privileging their national, 7ethnic7 ma3orityDdefined "y language, or religion, or antiquity, or all threeDat the e0pense of inconvenient local minorities, who were consigned to second/class status( permanently resident strangers in their own home. !ut one nationalist movement, ]ionism, was frustrated in its am"itions. The dream of an appropriately sited Jewish national home in the middle of the defunct Turkish Empire had to wait upon the retreat of imperial !ritain( a process that took three more decades and a second world war. And thus it was only in 8AG9 that a Jewish nation/state was esta"lished in formerly 6ttoman -alestine. !ut the founders of the Jewish state had "een influenced "y the same concepts and categories as their fin/de/si^cle contemporaries "ack in .arsaw, or 6dessa, or !ucharest2 not surprisingly, Israel*s ethno/religious self/definition, and its discrimination against internal 7foreigners,7 has always had more in common with, say, the practices of post/4a"s"urg omania than either party might care to acknowledge. The pro"lem with Israel, in short, is notDas is sometimes suggestedDthat it is a European 7enclave7 in the Ara" world2 "ut rather that it arrived too late. It has imported a characteristically late/nineteenth/century separatist pro3ect into a world that has moved on, a world of individual rights, open frontiers, and international law. The very idea of a 7Jewish state7Da state in which Jews and the Jewish religion have e0clusive privileges from which non/Jewish citi5ens are forever e0cludedDis rooted in another time and place. Israel, in short, is an anachronism. In one vital attri"ute, however, Israel is quite different from previous insecure, defensive microstates "orn of imperial collapse( it is a democracy. 4ence its present dilemma. Thanks to its occupation of the lands conquered in 8AKL, Israel today faces three unattractive choices. It can dismantle the Jewish settlements in the territories, return to the 8AKL state "orders within which Jews constitute a clear ma3ority, and thus remain "oth a Jewish state and a democracy, al"eit one with a constitutionally anomalous community of second/class Ara" citi5ens. Alternatively, Israel can continue to occupy 7&amaria,7 7Judea,7 and )a5a, whose Ara" populationDadded to that of present/day IsraelDwill "ecome the demographic ma3ority within five to eight years( in which case Israel will "e either a Jewish state $with an ever/larger ma3ority of unenfranchised non/Jews' or it will "e a democracy. !ut logically it cannot "e "oth. 6r else Israel can keep control of the 6ccupied Territories "ut get rid of the overwhelming ma3ority of the Ara" population( either "y forci"le e0pulsion or else "y starving them of land and livelihood, leaving them no option "ut to go into e0ile. In this way Israel could indeed remain "oth Jewish and at least formally democratic( "ut at the cost of "ecoming the first modern

democracy to conduct full/scale ethnic cleansing as a state pro3ect, something which would condemn Israel forever to the status of an outlaw state, an international pariah. Anyone who supposes that this third option is unthinka"le a"ove all for a Jewish state has not "een watching the steady accretion of settlements and land sei5ures in the .est !ank over the past quarter/century, or listening to generals and politicians on the Israeli right, some of them currently in government. The middle ground of Israeli politics today is occupied "y the %ikud. Its ma3or component is the late ,enachem !egin*s 4erut -arty. 4erut is the successor to Hladimir Ja"otinsky*s interwar evisionist ]ionists, whose uncompromising indifference to legal and territorial niceties once attracted from left/leaning ]ionists the epithet 7fascist.7 .hen one hears Israel*s deputy prime minister, Ehud 6lmert, proudly insist that his country has not e0cluded the option of assassinating the elected president of the -alestinian Authority, it is clear that the la"el fits "etter than ever. -olitical murder is what fascists do. The situation of Israel is not desperate, "ut it may "e close to hopeless. &uicide "om"ers will never "ring down the Israeli state, and the -alestinians have no other weapons. There are indeed Ara" radicals who will not rest until every Jew is pushed into the ,editerranean, "ut they represent no strategic threat to Israel, and the Israeli military knows it. .hat sensi"le Israelis fear much more than 4amas or the al/Aqsa !rigade is the steady emergence of an Ara" ma3ority in 7)reater Israel,7 and a"ove all the erosion of the political culture and civic morale of their society. As the prominent %a"or politician Avraham !urg recently wrote, 7After two thousand years of struggle for survival, the reality of Israel is a colonial state, run "y a corrupt clique which scorns and mocks law and civic morality.7M8N @nless something changes, Israel in half a decade will "e neither Jewish nor democratic. This is where the @& enters the picture. Israel*s "ehavior has "een a disaster for American foreign policy. .ith American support, Jerusalem has consistently and "latantly flouted @N resolutions requiring it to withdraw from land sei5ed and occupied in war. Israel is the only ,iddle Eastern state known to possess genuine and lethal weapons of mass destruction. !y turning a "lind eye, the @& has effectively scuttled its own increasingly frantic efforts to prevent such weapons from falling into the hands of other small and potentially "elligerent states. .ashington*s unconditional support for Israel even in spite of $silent' misgivings is the main reason why most of the rest of the world no longer credits our good faith. It is now tacitly conceded "y those in a position to know that America*s reasons for going to war in Iraq were not necessarily those advertised at the time.MBN 1or many in the current @& administration, a ma3or strategic consideration was the need to desta"ili5e and then reconfigure the ,iddle East in a manner thought favora"le to Israel. This story continues. .e are now making "elligerent noises toward &yria "ecause Israeli intelligence has assured us that Iraqi weapons have "een moved thereDa claim for which there is no corro"orating evidence from any other source. &yria "acks 4e5"ollah and the Islamic Jihad( sworn foes of Israel, to "e sure, "ut hardly a significant international threat. 4owever, +amascus has hitherto "een providing the @& with critical data on al/Jaeda. %ike Iran, another longstanding target of Israeli wrath whom we are actively alienating, &yria is more use to the @nited &tates as a friend than an enemy. .hich war are we fightingC 6n &eptem"er 8K, B::I, the @& vetoed a @N &ecurity =ouncil resolution asking Israel to desist from its threat to deport Yasser Arafat. Even American officials themselves recogni5e, off the record, that the resolution was reasona"le and prudent, and that the increasingly wild pronouncements of Israel*s present leadership, "y restoring Arafat*s standing in the Ara" world, are a ma3or impediment to peace. !ut the @& "locked the resolution all the same, further undermining our credi"ility as an honest "roker in the region. America*s friends and allies around the world are no longer surprised at such actions, "ut they are saddened and disappointed all the same. Israeli politicians have "een actively contri"uting to their own difficulties for many years2 why do we continue to aid and a"et them in their mistakesC The @& has tentatively sought in the past to pressure Israel "y threatening to withhold from its annual aid package some of the money that goes to su"sidi5ing .est !ank settlers. !ut the last time this was attempted, during the =linton administration, Jerusalem got around it "y taking the money as 7security e0penditure.7

.ashington went along with the su"terfuge, and of P8: "illion of American aid over four years, "etween 8AAI and 8AAL, less than PLLF million was kept "ack. The settlement program went ahead unimpeded. Now we don*t even try to stop it. This reluctance to speak or act does no one any favors. It has also corroded American domestic de"ate. ather than think straight a"out the ,iddle East, American politicians and pundits slander our European allies when they dissent, speak gli"ly and irresponsi"ly of resurgent anti/ &emitism when Israel is critici5ed, and censoriously re"uke any pu"lic figure at home who tries to "reak from the consensus. !ut the crisis in the ,iddle East won*t go away. -resident !ush will pro"a"ly "e conspicuous "y his a"sence from the fray for the coming year, having said 3ust enough a"out the 7road map7 in June to placate Tony !lair. !ut sooner or later an American statesman is going to have to tell the truth to an Israeli prime minister and find a way to make him listen. Israeli li"erals and moderate -alestinians have for two decades "een thanklessly insisting that the only hope was for Israel to dismantle nearly all the settlements and return to the 8AKL "orders, in e0change for real Ara" recognition of those frontiers and a sta"le, terrorist/free -alestinian state underwritten $and constrained' "y .estern and international agencies. This is still the conventional consensus, and it was once a 3ust and possi"le solution. !ut I suspect that we are already too late for that. There are too many settlements, too many Jewish settlers, and too many -alestinians, and they all live together, al"eit separated "y "ar"ed wire and pass laws. .hatever the 7road map7 says, the real map is the one on the ground, and that, as Israelis say, reflects facts. It may "e that over a quarter of a million heavily armed and su"sidi5ed Jewish settlers would leave Ara" -alestine voluntarily2 "ut no one I know "elieves it will happen. ,any of those settlers will dieDand killDrather than move. The last Israeli politician to shoot Jews in pursuit of state policy was +avid !en/)urion, who forci"ly disarmed !egin*s illegal Irgun militia in 8AG9 and integrated it into the new Israel +efense 1orces. Ariel &haron is not !en/)urion.MIN The time has come to think the unthinka"le. The two/state solutionDthe core of the 6slo process and the present 7road map7Dis pro"a"ly already doomed. .ith every passing year we are postponing an inevita"le, harder choice that only the far right and far left have so far acknowledged, each for its own reasons. The true alternative facing the ,iddle East in coming years will "e "etween an ethnically cleansed )reater Israel and a single, integrated, "inational state of Jews and Ara"s, Israelis and -alestinians. That is indeed how the hard/liners in &haron*s ca"inet see the choice2 and that is why they anticipate the removal of the Ara"s as the inelucta"le condition for the survival of a Jewish state. !ut what if there were no place in the world today for a 7Jewish state7C .hat if the "inational solution were not 3ust increasingly likely, "ut actually a desira"le outcomeC It is not such a very odd thought. ,ost of the readers of this essay live in pluralist states which have long since "ecome multiethnic and multicultural. 7=hristian Europe,7 pace ,. HalQry )iscard d*Estaing, is a dead letter2 .estern civili5ation today is a patchwork of colors and religions and languages, of =hristians, Jews, ,uslims, Ara"s, Indians, and many othersDas any visitor to %ondon or -aris or )eneva will know.MGN Israel itself is a multicultural society in all "ut name2 yet it remains distinctive among democratic states in its resort to ethnoreligious criteria with which to denominate and rank its citi5ens. It is an oddity among modern nations notDas its more paranoid supporters assertD"ecause it is a Jewish state and no one wants the Jews to have a state2 "ut "ecause it is a Jewish state in which one communityDJewsDis set a"ove others, in an age when that sort of state has no place. 1or many years, Israel had a special meaning for the Jewish people. After 8AG9 it took in hundreds of thousands of helpless survivors who had nowhere else to go2 without Israel their condition would have "een desperate in the e0treme. Israel needed Jews, and Jews needed Israel. The circumstances of its "irth have thus "ound Israel*s identity ine0trica"ly to the &hoah, the )erman pro3ect to e0terminate the Jews of Europe. As a result, all criticism of Israel is drawn inelucta"ly "ack to the memory of that pro3ect, something that Israel*s American

apologists are shamefully quick to e0ploit. To find fault with the Jewish state is to think ill of Jews2 even to imagine an alternative configuration in the ,iddle East is to indulge the moral equivalent of genocide. In the years after .orld .ar II, those many millions of Jews who did not live in Israel were often reassured "y its very e0istenceDwhether they thought of it as an insurance policy against renascent anti/&emitism or simply a reminder to the world that Jews could and would fight "ack. !efore there was a Jewish state, Jewish minorities in =hristian societies would peer an0iously over their shoulders and keep a low profile2 since 8AG9, they could walk tall. !ut in recent years, the situation has tragically reversed. Today, non/Israeli Jews feel themselves once again e0posed to criticism and vulnera"le to attack for things they didn*t do. !ut this time it is a Jewish state, not a =hristian one, which is holding them hostage for its own actions. +iaspora Jews cannot influence Israeli policies, "ut they are implicitly identified with them, not least "y Israel*s own insistent claims upon their allegiance. The "ehavior of a self/descri"ed Jewish state affects the way everyone else looks at Jews. The increased incidence of attacks on Jews in Europe and elsewhere is primarily attri"uta"le to misdirected efforts, often "y young ,uslims, to get "ack at Israel. The depressing truth is that Israel*s current "ehavior is not 3ust "ad for America, though it surely is. It is not even 3ust "ad for Israel itself, as many Israelis silently acknowledge. The depressing truth is that Israel today is "ad for the Jews. In a world where nations and peoples increasingly intermingle and intermarry at will2 where cultural and national impediments to communication have all "ut collapsed2 where more and more of us have multiple elective identities and would feel falsely constrained if we had to answer to 3ust one of them2 in such a world Israel is truly an anachronism. And not 3ust an anachronism "ut a dysfunctional one. In today*s 7clash of cultures7 "etween open, pluralist democracies and "elligerently intolerant, faith/driven ethno/states, Israel actually risks falling into the wrong camp. To convert Israel from a Jewish state to a "inational one would not "e easy, though not quite as impossi"le as it sounds( the process has already "egun de facto. !ut it would cause far less disruption to most Jews and Ara"s than its religious and nationalist foes will claim. In any case, no one I know of has a "etter idea( anyone who genuinely supposes that the controversial electronic fence now "eing "uilt will resolve matters has missed the last fifty years of history. The 7fence7Dactually an armored 5one of ditches, fences, sensors, dirt roads $for tracking footprints', and a wall up to twenty/eight feet tall in placesDoccupies, divides, and steals Ara" farmland2 it will destroy villages, livelihoods, and whatever remains of Ara"/Jewish community. It costs appro0imately P8 million per mile and will "ring nothing "ut humiliation and discomfort to "oth sides. %ike the !erlin .all, it confirms the moral and institutional "ankruptcy of the regime it is intended to protect. A "inational state in the ,iddle East would require a "rave and relentlessly engaged American leadership. The security of Jews and Ara"s alike would need to "e guaranteed "y international forceDthough a legitimately constituted "inational state would find it much easier policing militants of all kinds inside its "orders than when they are free to infiltrate them from outside and can appeal to an angry, e0cluded constituency on "oth sides of the "order.MFN A "inational state in the ,iddle East would require the emergence, among Jews and Ara"s alike, of a new political class. The very idea is an unpromising mi0 of realism and utopia, hardly an auspicious place to "egin. !ut the alternatives are far, far worse. D&eptem"er BF, B::I Notes M8N &ee !urg*s essay, 7%a rQvolution sioniste est morte,7 %e ,onde, &eptem"er 88, B::I. A former head of the Jewish Agency, the writer was speaker of the >nesset, Israel*s -arliament, "etween 8AAA and B::I and is currently a %a"or -arty mem"er of the >nesset. 4is essay first appeared in the Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot2 it has "een widely repu"lished, nota"ly in the 1orward $August BA, B::I' and the %ondon )uardian $&eptem"er 8F, B::I'.

MBN &ee the interview with +eputy &ecretary of +efense -aul .olfowit5 in the July B::I issue of Hanity 1air. MIN In 8ALA, following the peace agreement with Anwar &adat, -rime ,inister !egin and +efense ,inister &haron did indeed instruct the army to close down Jewish settlements in the territory "elonging to Egypt. The angry resistance of some of the settlers was overcome with force, though no one was killed. !ut then the army was facing three thousand e0tremists, not a quarter of a million, and the land in question was the &inai +esert, not 7"i"lical &amaria and Judea.7 MGN Al"anians in Italy, Ara"s and "lack Africans in 1rance, Asians in England all continue to encounter hostility. A minority of voters in 1rance, or !elgium, or even +enmark and Norway, support political parties whose hostility to 7immigration7 is sometimes their only platform. !ut compared with thirty years ago, Europe is a multicolored patchwork of equal citi5ens, and that, without question, is the shape of its future. MFN As !urg notes, Israel*s current policies are the terrorists* "est recruiting tool( 7.e are indifferent to the fate of -alestinian children, hungry and humiliated2 so why are we surprised when they "low us up in our restaurantsC Even if we killed 8::: terrorists a day it would change nothing.7 &ee !urg, 7%a rQvolution sioniste est morte.7 Israel must unpick its ethnic myth !y Tony Judt -u"lished( +ecem"er L B::A B:(IG \ %ast updated( +ecem"er L B::A B:(IG .hat e0actly is _]ionism`C Its core claim was always that Jews represent a common and single people2 that their millennia/long dispersion and suffering has done nothing to diminish their distinctive, collective attri"utes2 and that the only way they can live freely as Jews # in the same way that, say, &wedes live freely as &wedes # is to dwell in a Jewish state. Thus religion ceased in ]ionist eyes to "e the primary measure of Jewish identity. In the course of the late/8Ath century, as more and more young Jews were legally or culturally emancipated from the world of the ghetto or the shtetl, ]ionism "egan to look to an influential minority like the only alternative to persecution, assimilation or cultural dilution. -arado0ically then, as religious separatism and practice "egan to retreat, a secular version of it was actively promoted. I can certainly confirm, from personal e0perience, that anti/religious sentiment # often of an intensity that I found discomforting # was widespread in left/leaning Israeli circles of the 8AK:s. eligion, I was informed, was for the haredim and the _cra5ies` of JerusalemWs ,ea &harim quarter. _.e` are modern and rational and _western`, it was e0plained to me "y my ]ionist teachers. !ut what they did not say was that the Israel they wished me to 3oin was therefore grounded, and could only "e grounded, in an ethnically rigid view of Jews and Jewishness. The story went like this. Jews, until the destruction of the &econd Temple $in the 1irst century', had "een farmers in what is now IsraelR-alestine. They had then "een forced yet again into e0ile "y the omans and wandered the earth( homeless, rootless and outcast. Now at last _they` were _returning` and would once again farm the soil of their ancestors. It is this narrative that the historian &hlomo &and seeks to deconstruct in his controversial "ook The Invention of the Jewish -eople. 4is contri"ution, critics assert, is at "est redundant. 1or the last century, specialists have "een perfectly familiar with the sources he cites and the arguments he makes. 1rom a purely scholarly perspective, I have no quarrel with this. Even I, dependent for the most part on second/hand information a"out the earlier millennia of Jewish history, can see that -rof &and # for e0ample in his emphasis upon the conversions and ethnic mi0ing that characterise the Jews in earlier times # is telling us nothing we do not already know. The question is, who are _we`C =ertainly in the @&, the overwhelming ma3ority of Jews $and perhaps non/Jews' have a"solutely no acquaintance with the story -rof &and tells. They will

never have heard of most of his protagonists, "ut they are all too approvingly familiar with the caricatured version of Jewish history that he is seeking to discredit. If -rof &andWs popularising work does nothing more than provoke reflection and further reading among such a constituency, it will have "een worthwhile. !ut there is more to it than that. .hile there were other 3ustifications for the state of Israel, and still are # it was not "y chance that +avid !en/)urion sought, planned and choreographed the trial of Adolf Eichmann # it is clear that -rof &and has undermined the conventional case for a Jewish state. 6nce we agree, in short, that IsraelWs uniquely _Jewish` quality is an imagined or elective affinity, how are we to proceedC -rof &and is himself an Israeli and the idea that his country has no _raison dWetre` would "e a"horrent to him. ightly so. &tates e0ist or they do not. Egypt or &lovakia are not 3ustified in international law "y virtue of some theory of deep _Egyptianness` or _&lovakness`. &uch states are recognised as international actors, with rights and status, simply "y virtue of their e0istence and their capacity to maintain and protect themselves. &o IsraelWs survival does not rest on the credi"ility of the story it tells a"out its ethnic origins. If we accept this, we can "egin to understand that the countryWs insistence upon its e0clusive claim upon Jewish identity is a significant handicap. In the first place, such an insistence reduces all non/Jewish Israeli citi5ens and residents to second/class status. This would "e true even if the distinction were purely formal. !ut of course it is not( "eing a ,uslim or a =hristian # or even a Jew who does not meet the increasingly rigid specification for _Jewishness` in todayWs Israel # carries a price. Implicit in -rof &andWs "ook is the conclusion that Israel would do "etter to identify itself and learn to think of itself as Israel. The perverse insistence upon identifying a universal Jewishness with one small piece of territory is dysfunctional in many ways. It is the single most important factor accounting for the failure to solve the Israel/-alestine im"roglio. It is "ad for Israel and, I would suggest, "ad for Jews elsewhere who are identified with its actions. &o what is to "e doneC -rof &and certainly does not tell us # and in his defence we should acknowledge that the pro"lem may "e intracta"le. I suspect that he favours a one/state solution( if only "ecause it is the logical upshot of his arguments. I, too, would favour such an outcome # if I were not so sure that "oth sides would oppose it vigorously and with force. A two/state solution might still "e the "est compromise, even though it would leave Israel intact in its ethno/ delusions. !ut it is hard to "e optimistic a"out the prospects for such a resolution, in the light of the developments of the past two years. ,y own inclination, then, would "e to focus elsewhere. If the Jews of Europe and North America took their distance from Israel $as many have "egun to do', the assertion that Israel was _their` state would take on an a"surd air. 6ver time, even .ashington might come to see the futility of attaching American foreign policy to the delusions of one small ,iddle Eastern state. This, I "elieve, is the "est thing that could possi"ly happen to Israel itself. It would "e o"liged to acknowledge its limits. It would have to make other friends, prefera"ly among its neigh"ours. .e could thus hope, in time, to esta"lish a natural distinction "etween people who happen to "e Jews "ut are citi5ens of other countries2 and people who are Israeli citi5ens and happen to "e Jews. This could prove very helpful. There are many precedents( the )reek, Armenian, @krainian and Irish diasporas have all played an unhealthy role in perpetuating ethnic e0clusivism and nationalist pre3udice in the countries of their fore"ears. The civil war in Northern Ireland came to an end in part "ecause an American president instructed the Irish emigrant community in the @& to stop sending arms and cash to the -rovisional I A. If American Jews stopped associating their fate with Israel and used their charita"le cheques for "etter purposes, something similar might happen in the ,iddle East. The writer is @niversity -rofessor at New York @niversity and director of the emarque Institute