The best thing about After Words, the book interview show, is that it pairs an author with someone who knows the subject and often comes at it from a different point of view. The best example of this was David Frum's superb interview of Victor Navasky a year ago, for Navasky's book, A Matter of Opinion. Frum was both respectful and sharp, and the polished Navasky humored him for a while before he grew impatient with Frum's description of the errors of the left, and defenestrated him. I forget the specific exchange, though I do recall that Frum tried to grill Navasky over the alleged anti-Semitism of Nation magazine writers. (Frum and I share a hobbyhorse; he just rides it backwards).

This is Bernard Lewis regurgitated by a new generation, and some of it is true. I have commented often on the lack of reading I observed in Syria. The problem is that it is purely materialistic. The statistics are economic ones, and they often seek to valorize Israel, because it is so modern. Those of us on the left who are concerned with Muslim hearts and minds are not talking strictly about their pocketbooks. Other things beside western progress puncture the spirit of Arabs. Like, injustice.