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a binational state based on full equality. But few young people, and not a
single Arab, attended. The Arab League had been founded the year be–
fore: the Arab leaders expected the Jews to "return to where they had
come from," to allow only those who had lived in Palestine before 1917
to remain.
Quotations from Laqueur's day-by-day dispatches give the flavor of
the increasing crescendo that culminated in war. These dispatches are
interspersed with descriptions of the consequences of the polarization for
citizens who had to move frequcntly and put up with ever-worsening
living conditions. His own wedding to his wife Naomi took place "in the
middle of an air raid, with rings that had been borrowed, and with build–
ing workers from a nearby site as witnesses." But such hardship was taken
in stride in view of the fate of thc surviving Jews from Europe who were
not allowed to land on the shores of Palestine, who were turned back un–
der British pressure, and those who had landed illegally and were de–
ported to overcrowded camps in Cyprus. Most of the Jewish community
dissociated itself from the terrorist bombing of the King David Hotel and
knew little about l3ritish anti-terrorist tactics. As we know, the increas–
ingly deteriorating situation eventually led the British to ask the United
Nations to establish a commission that would recommend partition,
which, when instituted, ensued in the siege ofJerusalem.
Even before Jerusalem was divided, Laqueur, in his capacity as a jour–
nalist, had come to to know the individuals who would subsequently rise
in Israeli politics, and all of the dignitaries who visited from abroad. After
the
1948
war, the Jerusalem newspaper Laqucur wrote for,
Hamishmar,
focused more on local events and municipal concerns than international
politics. Because "daily journalism provided instant but not lasting gratifi–
cation," and Laqueur "still had much to learn," he turned to freelance
writing, gave weekly radio talks on world politics, and developed his
knowledge of Western Europe, the Soviet cmpire and the Arab world.
In
1951
he went to Europe for the first time since emigrating in 1938.
Eventually he spent more and more timc in Paris and London, before
settling in the Unitcd States.
Despite the gencrally pro-Soviet mood among intellectuals, Laqueur
had few illusions about impending liberalization: he distrusted the cult of
Stalin, was troubled by information about concentration camps and the
ecret police, and thus was not surprised by the new wave of show trials
and the Cold War. Becausc his wifc had relatives in Essentuki, in the
northern Caucasus, Laqueur could visit Russia regularly - always being
careful to behave as an apolitical foreigner - and got to understand
Russian culture.
It
seems to me that living in Germany between 1932 and
1938
had sensitized Laqueur to the dangers of creeping totalitarianism and
