Via the excellent Point of No Return, an astonishing interview with Nathan Weinstock, once the doyen of the Jewish anti-Zionist left, these days one of their more considered opponents.

Back in the 1970s, Weinstock authored Zionism: False Messiah, a tome which adorned the bookshelves of any self-respecting Trotskyist. Serious reflection about the nature of antisemitism and its enduring presence in the Arab world led Weinstock to jettison these earlier views; now, in his native French, he’s about to publish a new book focused upon the fate of the Jewish communities in Arab countries, Une si longue presence.

Lyn from Point of No Return has very considerately translated a just-published interview which Weinstock gave to information juive. Click on the above link and read it in full. All I will do here is point out this particularly resonant passage:

The exodus of the Jews from Arab lands was perceived by progressives as a ’settling of scores’ with the effects of colonialism. Add to this the unwritten law that only the West can embody evil. Everything coming from the Third Word must necessarily escape criticism. The exiled Jews would therefore be ill-advised to muddy the waters of the simplistic ideology of the onward march to progress. Sympathy with the Palestinians has only reinforced this tendency.