Diary

A surprising amount of autobiography, as much as one needs, in the essays in Promises Promises

A very useful summary of the political currents in Anglo-Jewish society around 1880: “The Board of Deputies maintained that British Jews constituted a distinct entity; the Zionists contended that they were a distinct nation; but the AJA argued that British Jews were Britons who happened also to be Jewish. One AJA leader went so far as to found a Reform synagogue whose outward forms of worship differed little from Anglican forms.” Excerpt From: Jonathan Schneer. “The Balfour Declaration.”

Reading Ian Black's account of the Balfour declaration with heart sinking. The basis for sharing the land disappeared a hundred years ago: Weeks after the Paris peace conference [of 1919] ... Zionist officials met to discuss relations with ‘our neighbours’. Ben-Gurion, by now the leader of the Ahdut haAvoda (Labour Unity) movement, was the most eloquent and clear-sighted of the pessimists: ‘Everybody sees a difficulty in the question of relations between Arabs and Jews,’ he said. 'But not everybody sees that there is no solution to this question. No solution! There is a gulf and nothing can fill this gulf. It is not possible to resolve the conflict between Jewish and Arab interests [only] by sophistry. I do not know what Arab will agree that Palestine should belong to the Jews – even if the Jews learn Arabic. And we must recognise this situation. If we do not acknowledge this and try to come up with ‘remedies’ then we risk demoralisation … We, as a nation, want this country...

The trip to the bakery for bread ( pan ) is still part of the daily ritual in Chelva, as it probably is in most of Spain. It provides at least three things simultaneously - cheap nutrition, employment (Chelva has 5 bakeries), and sociability, gregariousness. Life pulses in and out of the shops in the morning, none of it especially easy, but fluid and fluent, creating the beauty of ordinary daily life. A meal without bread is almost unthinkable, as in ' como, you don't have bread? '

Reading Adam Phillips' essay about the historian Christopher Hill I came across this, which concerns criticism of Hill's The English Revolution 1640 by Jonathan Clark: 'What could be more 'astonishing' [a key term in Clark's critique] in the context of this particular debate, than Clark's claim to superior knowledge? Fantasies of rigour can always be used to occlude value, or belittle specific political commitments.'  He goes on 'one of the things Hill has always been showing is that criteria of accuracy (or evidence) are always forms of vested interest: the question being accurate for who? Accurate to what end? (Promises, Promises p333)

An early start. A good thing, that little gap between waking and when the day begins. Last night's music was difficult to sit through.  A singer and a pianist, a few classical arias, but then Frank Sinatra, Police's Walking on the Moon, all accompanied by 4 revolving disco lights. The words in the English songs impossible to hear because of the phrasing and emphasis which was pure Spanish - walkinonymyuon . This must be what Spaniards hear when I open my mouth - a polite English man struggling to get past buenos dias . Who is this diary for? For me, for you, for the voice in my head? For what purpose? I don't know, anyway, it's going to be fragmentary. I just thought to write down the date - Friday - but it's Saturday - dia del mercado . Learning a language is so painful, I would say pitiful, with no adult there to repeat the words over and over. Instead, I have a course, un curso , courses being masculine. It's very good  http://www.bbc.co.uk/languages/span...

has been on my mind lately, a foundational document for the State of Israel, maybe the foundational document. With the little I know about the workings of the British civil service and Government, the account in Haaretz  of the document seems about right: its main purpose was to bring the US into the First World War. More broadly, other commentators have described the purpose of the Balfour declaration as being about securing British interests in the middle east. Which is not to say that the Balfour Declaration didn't intend the establishment of a Jewish homeland, or that the injustice visited on the Palestinian people was intended. But it isn't difficult to see that injustice against the resident population was the more or less inevitable result of the endorsement in the letter, and so in historical terms, Britain can be seen as a key actor in the genesis of lasting geopolitical damage through the pursuit of its interests. Balfour is credited with saying that 'not...