The Anti-Imperialism of Fools

The following remarks were delivered at the Socialist Scholars Conference in New York City in April 1986, at the panel on Israel and the U.S. Left.” The participants were Noam Chomsky, Ellen Willis of the Village Voice, and myself.—P.B.

The Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis recently contributed to the New York Review of Books some comments on what he calls “The New Anti- Semitism.” I have discussed his comments in the Voice and wish to expand and elaborate on those points here.

We must ask ourselves: why is it that Israel arouses, around the world, such ferocious hostility? Is it because Israel has been engaged in a very nasty border dispute with its neighbors, which has gone on for a long ...