Israel and the Lure of History

The pogrom of October 7th signalled the end of an illusion: that of the possibility of ignoring Palestine. This fated illusion first rose and then collapsed not only in Tel Aviv, but throughout the globe. Israel appears variously as the only possible refuge for a persecuted people, as brutal colonial enterprise, or as devastatingly vulnerable and traumatised. But what’s certain is that no other state today provokes such mental fixity and intransigent polarity across the West.

Gérard Araud, former French Ambassador to Israel and to the United States, seeks to bypass the declarative, black-and-white 'for or against' trap. Recounting his encounters with political figures, including Arafat, Obama, and Jared Kushner, he describes how they navigated fears and ambitions under the immovable constraints imposed by power dynamics. He also shows that historical narrative has been integrated into the extremist war machines of Netanyahu's state and Hamas: history becomes one more vehicle for unrestrained emotion, one more ideological tool, and something which undermines perception. This use of history seeks not to bring reality into view, but to disqualify the legitimacy of the other. Without a change of course, the future of Israel is at stake.

This even-handed and scrupulously fair book will renew the quality of debate surrounding a status quo which must be abandoned in favour of an empathy which extends to all innocent victims.