Oxford Press has just published a new volume of 100 letters by Hugh Trevor-Roper (1914-2003), a historian and public intellectual (who slipped on the banana peel of the bogus Hitler Diaries). This is an excerpt of a letter from Trevor-Roper to Max Perutz, December 23, 1989. Perutz was a British-Austrian scientist who escaped the Nazis.



It seems to me that Israel is driven, by ‘reason of state’, to behave in the Middle East, politically, as Prussia behaved in Europe. I was last in Israel soon after the war of 1967–when Sinai, the Gaza strip and the West Bank were secured. I was taken to all the conquered areas and was deeply shocked by the aggressive chauvinism of the Israeli officials whom I met: they boasted, uninhibitedly, about their brutal methods of keeping the Arab population in awe. I recalled my experiences in Nazi Germany in 1935, after which I did not revisit Germany until 1945; and I have not wanted to revisit Israel since. I was also very struck by the defiant militarism of the national day celebrations in Jerusalem; a country the size of Wales advertising its armed strength in tanks, armoured cars, war-planes sufficient for a great power: a great militarist power.

Note, the actual letter says 1968 for 1967, and editors Richard Davenport-Hines and Adam Sisman corrected it in a footnote. (And, thanks to an anonymous friend. We depend on anonymous friends.)