My father, a working-class man of impeccable left-wing instincts who nevertheless gloried in calling a spade a spade when faced with “sensitive” issues, put it well, if not wisely, when as a child I asked him why the feudal/fascistic Arab nations seemed to get away with shockingly shabby behavior, both at home and abroad, while tiny democratic Israel was criticized for everything it did.
“They’m white,’ he explained patiently, “and because they’m white, people expects more of ’em. They don’t expect nothing of the Arabs.”
