Copyright 2008 Middle East Forum Thu, 08 May 2008 02:00:07 -0400 http://blogs.law.harvard.edu/tech/rss Essays and Articles from the Middle East Quarterly. http://www.meforum.org meq@meforum.org (Judy Goodrobb) webmaster@meforum.org en-us http://www.meforum.org/article/1886 (Seth J. Frantzman) Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:00:00 EST Review Essay: Flunking History Among many Israeli academics and Western revisionists, it has become fashionable to examine Israel's war of independence from an Arab perspective in which Jews were the aggressors and Arabs the victims.[1] This trend began in 1989 with works by Ben-Gurion University professor Benny Morris[2] and Oxford University professor Avi Shlaim,[3] and developed further with the writings of the late Hebrew University anthropologist Baruch Kimmerling,[4] Neve Gordon[5] at Ben- http://www.meforum.org/article/1880 Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:00:00 EST Daniel Nassif is the news director of Alhurra, a U.S.-funded Arabic satellite television news network created in 2004, and has also been news director of its sister network, Radio Sawa, launched in 2002. Nassif was born in Lebanon in 1958. He immigrated to the United States in 1977 and finished his undergraduate and graduate studies in political science and public policy for international affairs at the University of Michigan in 1986. http://www.meforum.org/article/1877 (Diana Muir) Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:00:00 EST "A land without a people for a people without a land" is one of the most oft-cited phrases in the literature of Zionism—and perhaps also the most problematic. Anti-Zionists cite the phrase as a perfect encapsulation of the fundamental injustice of Zionism: that early Zionists believed Palestine was uninhabited,[1] that they denied—and continue to reject—the existence of a distinct Palestinian culture,[2] http://www.meforum.org/article/1875 (Daveed Gartenstein-Ross and Kyle Dabruzzi) Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:00:00 EST Government officials, scholars, and analysts continue to debate the extent to which Al-Qaeda's central leadership remains relevant to today's battle against terrorism. After U.S. forces eliminated the group's safe haven in Afghanistan in late 2001, many argued that Al-Qaeda had transformed into a decentralized organization with little vertical hierarchy, that it had become "more of an ideology than an organization."[1] In the words of one analyst, Al-Qaeda was seen as " http://www.meforum.org/article/1874 (Ido Zelkovitz) Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:00:00 EST Many U.S. and European diplomats contrast Fatah's Palestinian nationalism with Hamas's Islamism. At a November 28, 2007 press conference, U.S. national security advisor Stephen Hadley praised Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and cited President George W. Bush's argument that "Hamas, Hezbollah, and Al-Qaeda [are] different faces of the same evil: a radical ideology seeking to impose its world-view throughout the Middle East and beyond."[1] http://www.meforum.org/article/1870 Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:00:00 EST Mohamed Sifaoui was born on July 4, 1967, and spent most of his childhood in Algeria. He holds a master's degree in political science and studied theology for two years at the University of Algiers and for two additional years at Zeitouna University's Institute of Theology in Tunis. In 1994, he began work for the Algerian daily Le Soir and survived a February 11, 1996 bomb attack at Le Soir's headquarters at the Maison de la Presse. http://www.meforum.org/article/1867 (Irwin J. Mansdorf and Mordechai Kedar) Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:00:00 EST U.S. military lawyers acknowledge that "civilians may not be used … to render an area immune from military operations… [or] to shield a defensive position, to hide military objectives, or to screen an attack. Neither may they be forced to leave their homes or shelters in order to disrupt the movement of an adversary."[1] Such restraint is not unique to the United States but also extends to Europe, Israel, and in the post-World War II era, many Asian countries as well. http://www.meforum.org/article/1863 (Nimrod Raphaeli and Bianca Gersten) Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:00:00 EST Countries have used sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) as instruments through which to buy assets with their surplus foreign exchange since the 1950s when Norway and Singapore, and soon after Kuwait, sought new strategies to insulate themselves from exchange rate fluctuation. Central banks employed SWFs only as buffers for currency stabilization when countries had little or no international debt and large current account surpluses. Today, SWFs have become quite common. http://www.meforum.org/article/1861 (Stephen Schwartz) Sat, 01 Mar 2008 10:00:00 EST The involvement of Muslim physicians in the London and Glasgow airport terror conspiracy on June 29-30, 2007, forced both non-Muslims and moderate Muslims to question how those trained to heal could embrace terrorism. The doctors involved in the attempt to detonate car bombs in London and blow up a passenger terminal at the Glasgow airport did not represent an isolated phenomenon. http://www.meforum.org/article/1847 Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST To the Editor: In reading the article "Culture in Post-Saddam Iraq" by Nimrod Raphaeli (MEQ, Summer 2007), I was saddened to see that the article was so selective in its survey of Iraqi ethnography. This prompts me to surmise that the intent of the article is to demonstrate that Iraqis are essentially more violent than other cultures, rather than to discuss both sides of this debate. http://www.meforum.org/article/1846 (Michael Rubin) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST On April 9, 2007, Iranian security forces arrested Mahmoud Salehi, the former president of the Bakery Workers' Association in Saqez, a town in the Kurdistan province of northwestern Iran. They transferred him to prison in Sanandaj, the provincial capital, where he remains.[1] Salehi's labor activity dates to May 1, 1983, when, as a 21-year-old, he organized a labor protest in Mahabad that resulted in a one-day work stoppage at sixty local bakeries. http://www.meforum.org/article/1844 (Matthew Crosston) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Finally a work investigates the larger context hidden inside the Chechen conflict. Even before September 11, 2001, Russians often complained internationally about the Chechen wars being fueled by territorial incursions into southern Russia by Islamic jihadists. Western governments and universities, which were eager to see the conflict as a quasi-imperialist state oppressing an ethnic minority, basically ignored these complaints. http://www.meforum.org/article/1843 (Daveed Gartenstein-Ross) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Prince Bandar bin Sultan of Saudi Arabia is arguably one of the preeminent diplomats of the past fifty years because he was closely involved in a daunting number of major modern political events including the Lebanese civil war, the Iran-Contra affair (at Washington's behest, Bandar donated more than $1 million a month to the Contras), and the 1991 Kuwait war. Bandar displays brilliant diplomatic skills that would make this book an excellent primer for those tasked with international diplomacy. http://www.meforum.org/article/1842 (Fred Gottheil) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Unless there is strong evidence to the contrary, it is wise to assume that the "good ole' days" never existed. Nostalgia, American diplomat George Ball once noted, is a seductive liar. One would think academic historians would know this, but it seems not all do. http://www.meforum.org/article/1841 (A.J. Caschetta) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Dimmock, a lecturer in English at the University of Sussex, examines English conceptions and portrayals of Islam and the Ottomans in the sixteenth century, a period he describes as witnessing a "clash of civilizations." Beginning with the humanist debate between Thomas More and William Tyndale, the author identifies a stereotypical Dantean or medieval conception of the Ottomans as cruel barbarians, of "Mahomet" as a superstitious, epileptic con-man, and of Islam as the heretical product of " http://www.meforum.org/article/1840 (Johannes J.G. Jansen) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Bostom, an associate professor of medicine at Rhode Island Hospital, has compiled a large collection of documents concerning jihad in his voluminous The Legacy of Jihad. Bostom's book amply documents the systematic and destructive character of Islamic jihad, refuting the much-repeated argument that jihad is a "rich" concept that has many meanings and that jihad first of all signifies "inner struggle." Jihad is first of all war, bloodshed, subjugation, and expansion of the faith by violence. http://www.meforum.org/article/1839 (Joseph Morrison Skelly) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Links between Ireland and the Middle East may appear tenuous, but this impressive collection of essays reminds readers of strong ties between them. Miller, senior lecturer in Mediterranean Studies at King's College, University of London, is the author of a previous book on this theme, Ireland and the Palestine Question, 1945-48.[1] http://www.meforum.org/article/1838 (Michael Rubin) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Cordesman prolifically chronicles Middle Eastern military affairs, and Iraqi Security Forces is a typical work for him with much information but little analysis. He does not debate the rationale for the Iraq war—what's past is past—but, with the benefit of hindsight, suggests that strategic mistakes could have been avoided. Included on a long list of bullet- http://www.meforum.org/article/1837 (Ibn Warraq) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST McLoughlin, historian and professor of Arabic at the University of Exeter, defines "Arabist" as "anyone with a knowledge of Arabic, which is relevant to his or her principal activities and which, to a greater or lesser extent, defines that individual's identity." His study ranges over a motley crew of colorful characters from archaeologists, spies, and explorers, to military officers, diplomats, and ministers of the crown. http://www.meforum.org/article/1836 (Kara Flook) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Crews, an assistant professor of history at Stanford University, investigates relations between the Russian state and its Muslim subjects from the late eighteenth century through the early twentieth century, with a focus on exploiting the wealth of Russian documents available after 1991, including police reports, court records, Muslim petitions, and clerical writings. Contrary to general opinion, Crews argues, the two have not always been in conflict. http://www.meforum.org/article/1835 (Lorenzo Vidino) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Pryce-Jones has written a painful reminder for anyone still clinging to the notion that the West, defined by common history and values, exists and that Israel is a full-fledged member. Analyzing more than 200 years of French-Jewish relations and having scoured the archives of the Quai d'Orsay, the French foreign ministry, he tells the story of France's not-so-subtle antipathy for Jews and Israel. http://www.meforum.org/article/1834 (Hilal Khashan) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Allen's book is a compilation of frivolous statements and untenable aims, with reasoning and assertions that expired in the nineteenth century. He states his objective is to find the "unmistakable character" of the Arabs whose "powerful personality… comes of a deeply held respect for the individual and for the moral ideas which define the person in community." http://www.meforum.org/article/1833 (Stephen Schwartz) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Neither of these two books delivers what it advertises. Barrett, a Business Week reporter, has produced a volume with a subtitle regurgitating the increasingly vapid cliché about conflict over the soul of Islam. Such a contest indeed exists and is quite serious, but Barrett appears bereft of knowledge of the sharpness of its ideological expressions today, or even what the "soul of Islam" might be. (To be fair, few others who use this nostrum have any idea of its meaning. http://www.meforum.org/article/1832 (Owen Sirrs and Julie Sirrs) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST U.S. troops are losing Afghanistan because they are fighting a conventional war against an unconventional opponent. Rothstein, a Naval Postgraduate School professor, explains in this timely critique that the "American way of war" has produced an "operational quagmire" with disturbing consequences for global security. http://www.meforum.org/article/1830 (Melvin E. Lee) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST The fundamental premise of much scholarly examination and public discourse is that grievances with U.S. policies in the Middle East motivate Islamist terrorism. Such assumptions, though, misunderstand the enemy and its nature. In reality, the conflict is sparked not by grievance but rather by incompatibility between Islamist ideology and the natural rights articulated during the European Enlightenment and incorporated into U.S. political culture. http://www.meforum.org/article/1826 (Jonathan Fine) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Since Iran's 1979 Islamic revolution, there has been a steady rise in Islamist terrorism. Too many analysts underestimate the ideological basis of terrorism and argue instead that rational-strategic rather than ideological principles motivate Islamist terror groups. http://www.meforum.org/article/1824 (William Wunderle and Andre Briere) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Every president since Lyndon Johnson has reiterated the U.S. commitment to maintain Israel's qualitative military edge (QME). The principle behind this commitment is simple: Israel is a bastion of liberal, representative government in the Middle East and, as such, its survival is a vital U.S. national interest.[1] To ensure the continued existence of this longtime U.S. http://www.meforum.org/article/1821 (P. R. Kumaraswamy) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST As the U.S.-Iranian dispute escalates, both Washington and Tehran seek friends and allies. New Delhi is caught in the middle. While the U.S.-Indian partnership has grown closer in recent years, New Delhi's approach toward Iran's suspected nuclear program causes concern in Washington. Overshadowing the debate is India's own nuclear program. With the July 2005 U.S.-Indian civilian nuclear deal yet to win U.S. Senate ratification, is India seeking to strengthen its energy security through Iran? http://www.meforum.org/article/1819 (Eyal Zisser) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST On May 27, 2007, Syrians elected Bashar al-Assad to a second 7-year term as president in a referendum in which, according to results published two days later by the Ministry of Interior, Assad received the support of 97.62 percent of the voters, a slight improvement upon the 97.24 percent support he received in the first referendum.[1] Such results, though, have little significance. Syrian referendums are a government-orchestrated show and have nothing in common with normal democratic procedure. http://www.meforum.org/article/1813 (Philip Carl Salzman) Tue, 01 Jan 2008 10:00:00 EST Conflicts within the Middle East cannot be separated from its peoples' culture. Seventh-century Arab tribal culture influenced Islam and its adherents' attitudes toward non-Muslims. Today, the embodiment of Arab culture and tribalism within Islam impacts everything from family relations, to governance, to conflict. While many diplomats and analysts view the Arab-Israeli dispute and conflicts between Muslim and non-