Peretz has taken the opportunity to express his position in editorials, arguing against Israel's returning to its pre-1967 war boundaries and, according to Newsweek, suggesting invasion as an option to protect U.S. oil interests in the Middle East.

An item count shows appreciably greater number of Middle East stories since Peretz took over, something managing editor David Sanford, says can be justified by the increasing importance of the Middle East in international politics.

In one of the more salient examples of Peretz's sense of priorities, he gave Theodore Draper six pages in one issue to attack Noam Chomsky's book, "Peace in the Middle East," which was critical of Israel. Peretz allowed Chomsky to defend himself in a subsequent issue.

Peretz does not feel he has to offer any apologies for the magazine's increased focus on the Middle East. He is irritated by questions about how his Zionism is affecting his magazine or how his readers react to the new emphasis. He recognizes what he calls "the truculence in my voice," when he addresses himself to the issue, and adds that he feels neither "hesitant nor defensive," about stressing the importance of the Middle East.

Peretz was an active protestor of the Vietnam War at a very early period, when, he recalls, he heard that President Kennedy was sending 15,000 troops to Vietnam. He sees a similarity between his involvement then and his strong pro-Israel commitment now. He says that on the "scale of history," his ideological preoccupation with the Middle East will prove to be justified. "I don't want to hide how important I think the Middle East situation is both for America and people of conscience," he says.

Besides, The New Republic has historically been pro-Zionist, Peretz says, even when Israel was "a wild gleam in the eye of some madman."

Michael Walzer, professor of Government and a friend of Peretz since their undergraduate Brandeis days together, has a similar view of the Middle East. Peretz has made him a contributing editor. Walzer says that the change in The New Republic's position on Israel policy is measurable, but only in "small units."

Marty isn't miles away from where The New Republic used to be he's inches and feet away," Walzer says. "Israel right now is in the very center of international politics. The Middle East is one of the major areas of American commitment...Marty is allowing that importance to be reflected in the magazine without a kind of Jewish anxiety about doing it."

Doris Grumbach, former literary editor of The New Republic, whom Peretz fired in June, says that her dispute with Peretz was not political but literary. She adds, however, that Peretz's heavy insistence on books of his ideology and ethnic origins was a little onerous."

In a telephone interview with Peretz, it was pointed out to him that a recent issue of The New Republic had two book reviews on Israel. One was on the Israeli army and the other on women in the kibbutz. Peretz replied angrily that he had previously noticed this and his explanation is that the same issue contained two reviews pertaining to Africa. Sure enough the issue contained a review of a Nigerian author's book and another on art from Zaire.

But the second article made conspicuous mention that "Americans too will recognize a gesture of amity by one of the 21 African nations that did not vote yes to the anti-Zionist resolution at the UN."

In addition, a review of Christopher Rand's book, Making Democracy Safe for Oil, spoke of U.S. collaboration with the oil cartel. In 1970, the review said, the United States could have stopped the cartel on its way to power, and collaboration went on through the oil embargo of 1973, "which received encouragement from the State Department."

The same issue also contained a three and a half page article by Daniel Yergin, research fellow at Harvard's Center for International Affairs, entitled "OPEC Imperium."

Peretz's first year at The New Republic was also marked by conflict with his editor-in-chief Gilbert Harrison, ending with Harrison's resignation in January. It is not unusual that the new owner of a magazine should change the masthead. What is unusual is that Peretz and Harrison agreed to sell Peretz The New Republic for $380,000. Then they drew up an ill-conceived and ambiguous contract that allowed the former owner to stay on as editor-in-chief and that caused immediate quarrels over who would control the magazine.

Richard L. Strout '19, who writes under the column-head TRB for The New Republic (Strout says the title is the reverse of the initials of the Brooklyn Rapid Transit, hastily improvised under deadline years ago) says of the Peretz-Harrison arrangement, "I don't see how any same person would have thought it would last." The arrangement for Peretz to be Harrison's apprentice but also owner of the magazine was an "artificial situation with a built-in conflict," Strout says.