“Only connect,” was the advice that the novelist E. M. Forster gave to anyone who wishes to understand the world. He wasn’t a very forceful personality, but the advice remains sound. And recent events have provided a rather startling illustration.

In September 1933, Josef Goebbels, the Nazi Minister of Propaganda, arrived in Geneva to address the League of Nations. He stayed in a smart hotel and gave a press conference to admiring journalists. His purpose was to claim that Nazi persecution of Jews was justified. Jews had too much power and influence, and, besides, they weren’t German and had no right to be in the country. (I owe this information to Flight from the Reich. Refugee Jews, 1933-1946, a thoughtful study just published by the historians Debórah Dwork and Robert Jan van Pelt.)

In April 2009, Mahmud Ahmedinejad, the Iranian president, arrived in Geneva to address the United Nations, the successor to the League of Nations. He too stayed in a smart hotel and gave a press conference to admiring journalists. His purpose was to claim that Muslim aggression against Jews was justified. Jews have too much power and influence, and besides they have no right to be in a country of their own.

Only connect, eh?