People wait in line outside a bakery to buy bread in the centre of Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip. Photograph: Samar Abu Elouf/The New York Times The British-Israeli historian and emeritus professor of International Relations at Oxford University Avi Shlaim has made studying the Arab-Israeli conflict his life’s work. He is the author of eight books, including the seminal The Iron Wall: Israel and the Arab World. Prof Shlaim (78) is a severe critic of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but he has never questioned the legitimacy of the Israeli state within its legal, 1949 armistice borders. “The current...