Herf at TNR Online

Over at The New Republic online, a friend and mentor of dcat, Jeff Herf, who knows a bit about European missile issues, has a piece titled "Memory Loss" in which he excoriates European nations for their hypocrisy on Israel's possession of nuclear weapons. On the offending clause in the International Atomic Energy Agency resolution regarding Iran's nuclear program, Herf writes:

But the clause is not merely bad geopolitical strategy; it is also the height of hypocrisy. Two of the governments that backed the language were Britain and France; and it was only a quarter of a century ago, during the battle over missile deployments in Europe, that those countries found themselves in a situation almost exactly analogous to Israel's role in the Iran debate. The stance taken by London and Paris then was the correct one--and the exact opposite of the position they have forced on Israel now.

This is a good and important argument. Please go read it.

By the way, Jeff's long awaited new book, The Jewish Enemy : Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust will be out this fall. When I last visited Professor Herf, he had just gotten his first glimpse at the cover. There is no doubt that this will be an outstanding, vital book. Why not pre-order it?