John Rose

Rosa Luxemburg's First World War Junius pamphlet, written in prison and so vividly described by Sally Campbell in February's Socialist Review, was arguably the greatest anti-war statement of the last century.

Its haunting theme, socialism or barbarism, prophetically cast its shadow over the 20th century and continues to do so now.

"Any shot fired in the Middle East echoes around the world. Any conflict registers within minutes on the oil market."

Western democratic capitalism's last chance is really what the author means in this excellent book by a senior Financial Times expert. He's panicking that the West will screw it up - as they always seem to do. This book is peppered with insights that - up to a point - readers of this magazine will enthusiastically endorse.

"I want to show a city of continuity and co-existence, a hybrid metropolis of hybrid buildings and hybrid people," writes the author, surprisingly perhaps for a scion of one of Britain's most famous Jewish families with strong ties to Jerusalem over generations.

It's a successful challenge to the Zionist claim that Jerusalem has been the undivided capital of the Jewish people for 3,000 years.

The foundations of modern scientific method were laid by the Islamic Arab empire over a thousand years ago. By making such a powerful case for this proposition, the author, an Arab-British scientist of Iraqi descent, deepens our grasp of this woefully misunderstood period.

For far too long the left ignored this subject. Now we have a standard reference for years to come. Scrupulous in its scholarship, firm in political principle, ruthless in exposure, it sometimes makes uncomfortable reading. Only an Arab intellectual confident enough to reunite Marxism with the humanist values of the Enlightenment, combined with a thorough grasp of modern Arab and Jewish history, could drive this argument, line after line, page after page.

Leon Trotsky is an occasional surprise witness in this book. His masterpiece, the book 1905, is used as a powerful testimony to anti-Semitism's irrationality as well as its capacity to turn Jew-hatred into an epidemic, both pogromist and murderous.

His organisational tool kit was simple: his mobile phone. After an hour's worth of hurried conversations from the corner of a cafe, several hundred flag waving demonstrators would be cursing Israel outside its embassy.

Khaled's politics were and remain the politics of honour: to be true to the pledge of his father and his father's famous iconic cartoon character, Hanthala, the refugee boy who cannot grow up. In a macabre way Hanthala was also a witness at the assassination of Naji al-Ali in London in 1987.

This followed days of deliberately engineered interfactional violence.

Karma Nablusi, a former leading Fatah activist, has incisively attacked her former party on the authoritative Palestinian website, Electronic Intifada, for allowing themselves to become a Western puppet.

Your book The Myths of Zionism charges that the ideology behind Israel is based on a whole series of myths, going all the way back to ancient Israel. Can you tell me what those myths are?

In the book each chapter heading is based on a myth. The first two myths are based on ancient Jewish history, the next two myths are based on medieval Jewish history, and the last six myths are based on the modern period starting roughly in the 19th century.

Socialists don't usually like to use the word 'charisma'. It pays too much attention to the individual and not enough to the circumstances that create those individuals who compel the attention of others. But it is tempting to make an exception for Edward Said.

Powerful