Best Of Enemies: A History of US and Middle East Relations, 1953-1984
by Jean Pierre Filiu and David B
(SelfMadeHero £14.99)

TWO weeks ago Israel’s president Reuven Rivlin called Israel “a sick society in need of treatment ” and, last week, while attending the annual memorial to 56 Palestinians murdered by Israeli police in Kafr Qasim in 1956, described the massacre as a “terrible crime.”

Bold and no doubt sincere words but still only words, of which the region must be rather weary by now.

This book goes some way to explaining why. Best of Enemies charts the crucial 50 years of US imperial, belligerent meddling that bordered on the insane and which would continue unimpeded to this day.

The schizophrenia stretching from the Maghreb to Kandahar is costing and ruining the lives of millions. Not that the US will be inclined any day soon to dwell on such a minor issue when its access to oil supplies is at stake.

The authors favour a linear “let the facts speak for themselves” narrative, delivered in a staccato style reminiscent of automatic weapons fire. It makes for a blood-curdling though rather debilitating read.

From the ’50s to the ’80s, as today, political alliances in the Middle East shifted like desert sands at times in a matter of days and the Palestinians, already demonised by Israel, bore the brunt of every single such shift. Just as they do today.

The facts can sometimes be salutary, France acting as midwife at the birth of Israel’s nuclear bomb being only one example. But the absence of analytical insights hinders overall comprehension and characterising the Grenadian revolution as simply a pro-Cuban regime change surely cannot be deliberate.

But this book’s certainly worth attention, not least for David B’s strips, which provide expressive support for the text.

The page-wide tableaux are akin to an intriguing arabesque, with each as complex as the events they depict.

Surprisingly — or maybe not — Best of Enemies is a compulsory read for political science students at MIT in the US.