I'm glad I braved the cold last night to go to hear a very impressive speaker. He was born into a Jewish family in Baghdad in 1945 and grew up in Israel. After doing his military service in the early 1960s, he came to Britain to study History at Cambridge and began a successful academic career. He is currently a professor of International relations at St Anthony's College Oxford and the author of many books and articles on the history of the Israel-Arab conflict.
His subject last night was very recent history - the war on Gaza. But he brought to bear on it his own research and reading of aspects of the conflict spanning many decades. Debates about the war often generate heat rather than light - but Professor Avi Shlaim is characteristically calm and methodical, carefully backing up any judgement he makes, refuting simple cliches and slogans that get mouthed, and impressively answering every question from the audience directly and sympathetically. He's not evasive enough to be a good politician!
And his verdicts were damning. Of Israel's seven wars, he regards 48, 67 and 73 as "wars of no choice", but 56, 82, 2006 and January 2009 as "wars of choice". He had high hopes for Oslo but believes it was ultimately derailed above all by Israel's continuing settlement programme while it was formally committed to seeking peace.
He believes there is no alternative now in terms of moving forward but for Israel to speak with Hamas - whom he says were freely and fairly elected - and If Israel wants recognition from Hamas it needs to give Hamas an incentive to recognise Israel. He gave a detailed account of the record on ceasefires showing that despite Israeli claims, Hamas has observed every ceasefire while Israel has broken each one. And he warned about the dangerous undercurrent in Israeli society expressed through far-right politicians who recently sought to ban two Israeli Arab parties from contesting the forthcoming elections (a decision overturned in the high court). This undercurrent he described as akin to "classical fascism".
And he reminded the audience, as British citizens, how our government was implicated through arms sales. Britain supplies weaponry dirctly and also components for Apache helicopters and F16 bombers that are sold to Israel from America. And in the recent conflict they were used in Shlaim's words to inflict "one sided carnage".
He remains committed to a two state solution and has hopes that Obama will make a decisive shift in Middle East policy that will bring about a just settlement, noting that unlike previous American presidents, Obama's personal contacts from his earlier career include Palestinian intellectuals as well as Jews and he is very familiar with the real situation of the Palestinians that needs remedying.
It was a pleasure to hear this address from an outstanding Israeli academic. And thanks to Jews for Justice for Palestinians for putting on this very stimulating meeting.
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