The Middle East
Voice of Hezbollah: The Statements of Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah edited by Nicholas Noe
With ample (if arguable) justification, George Bush and the U.S. State Department call him a "terrorist" -- as do the UK and Israel. The Washington Post called him "Lebanon's best known politician." Noam Chomsky called on him personally. Even a good cursory exploration of Hezbollah and its secretary general, Hassan Nasrallah, show them to be multifaceted, constantly evolving, and steeped in ambiguity and contradiction. This much, however, is certain: Nasrallah is one of the most popular and influential leaders in the Middle East today -- credited by many as the first Arab leader to have forced Israel out of Arab territory (Lebanon, 2000). A review of the secretary general's pronouncements is therefore crucial to gaining a rudimentary understanding of current Middle Eastern conflicts and dynamics. This first comprehensive collection of English translations of his speeches and interviews is edited by the founder and editor-in-chief of Mideastwire and introduced by the Beirut correspondent for The Times of London, The Christian Science Monitor and Lebanon's Daily Star.
The Voice of Hezbollah ... published August 27, 2007 by Verso
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine by Ilan Pappé
The modern state of Israel was created largely through the extreme criminality of its founders, shows one of that nation's leading historians. Contrary to American and Israeli conventional wisdom, says Pappé, Palestinians did not overwhelmingly abandon their homes by choice or at the urging of Arab leaders in 1948, but were forced out by Israelis executing a long-planned program of ethnic cleansing. The author points specifically to Plan Dalet, which was adopted at a March 10, 1948 Haganah meeting, and which ultimately ensured the creation of a Jewish state by the often very brutal evictions of nearly a million Palestinian Muslims. "In a matter of seven months," says Pappé, "531 villages were destroyed and 11 urban neighborhoods emptied." He shows that the process was not merely conducted at gunpoint, but also that it featured "massacres, rape and imprisonment of men (defined as males a bove the age often) in labor camps for periods over a year."
The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine ... pub'd November 1, 2006 by Oneworld Publications
The Iron Cage: The Story of
The Palestinian Struggle for Statehood by Rashid Khalidi
A distinguished Middle East scholar considers how and why it's come to be that the Palestinians are still a stateless people. With a careful analysis of the history of the British Mandate, Kahlidi emphasizes the need for both Palestinians and Israelis to understand not only their own national narratives, but one another's. Says he,
In a sense, the history of the Palestinians has disappeared under the powerful impact of the painful and amply recounted story of the catastrophic fate of the Jews of Europe in the 20th century. However, achieving any serious understanding of the Middle East conflict requires comprehension of Palestinian history in its own terms, which includes but cannot be subsumed by Jewish and Israeli history. [ ¶ ]
This effort is important for another reason: namely, to ascribe agency to the Palestinians, to avoid seeing them either as no more than helpless victims of forces greater then themselves, or alternatively as driven solely by self-destructive tendencies and uncontrollable dissension.
The Iron Cage ... published October 4, 2006 by Beacon Press
Hidden Iran: Paradox and Power in the Islamic Republic
by Ray Takeyh
A senior CFR fellow shows that the common American caricature of Iran as a backward theocracy itching for a nuclear dust-up is an absurdly dangerous oversimplification. Unfortunately, George "axis of evil" Bush has evoked precisely that caricature again and again. Takeyh provides a nuanced, readable and sorely needed antidote. Says he,
From the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction to terrorism, from human rights to democratization, Iran cuts across a wide range of American concerns ... at a time of the most intense U.S.-Iranian confrontation since the hostage crisis. The American leaders routinely ... [muse about] the necessity of using military force to destroy [Iran's] nuclear infrastructure. ... It is important to demystify the clerical regime and have a better understanding of its factions and debates, its power struggles and rivalries. [O]nly through deciphering the hidden Iran [can we] address the true challenge that the Islamic Republic poses.
Hidden Iran ... published October 3, 2006 by Times Books
Prisoners: A Muslim and a Jew Across the Middle East Divide
by Jeffrey Goldberg
As he grew up American, Goldberg cultivated Zionist sentiments. "I wanted to join the army of the Six-Day War and of the Raid on Entebbe," says the New Yorker reporter, but when he emigrated to Israel and joined the army, "I found an organization that was enforcing an occupation policy I disagreed with in some important ways." Assigned to serve as a guard at the notorious Ketziot prison, Goldberg became friends with Palestinian prisoner Rafiq Hijazi. That friendship is at the core of the book, but Goldberg's wider, often very uncomfortable explorations of both Israeli and Palestinian societies, mind-sets, and recent histories provides fresh insights into that region's circumstances. While Prisoners can be grim reading, it's also surprisingly hopeful. "The problems of the Middle East are nearly insoluble," says Goldberg, but "[T]he opposite of hope is death, and so the only thing we can do is hope."
Prisoners ... published October 3, 2006 by Knopf
The Shia Revival:
How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future by Vali Nasr
A top Middle East and South Asian scholar delivers a fine, timely primer on Shia Islam, the faith of large majorities of Iranians and Iraqis, and nearly half of the Lebanese. Though much of Nasr's previous work was written for other academics, this one's aimed at a general audience. He shows that prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, there had been something approaching a balance of power between Shia and Sunni in the Middle East. That had been effected in part by a Sunni "wall" around Shia Iran. But since America's disabled Iran's Sunni neighbors, Afghanistan and Iraq, Iran's been free to flex its political muscles in ways that might not previously have been possible. Vasr makes a persuasive case that despite the aggressiveness of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, responsible U.S. engagement with Middle Eastern Shia in general and Iran in particular is not only possible but necessary.
Nasr's a regular on NPR; He spoke with Terry Gross about his book.
The Shia Revival ... published August 5, 2006 by W. W. Norton
Democracy in Iran by Ali Gheissari and Vali Nasr
Two scholars who've written extensively about Iran show that the potential for stable democracy there may be stronger than elsewhere in the Middle East. Iran's democratic roots go back at least 100 years, to the Persian Constitutional Revolution, which began in earnest in 1906. Today, such forces as relatively high literacy rates and readily available education (for men and women) bolster Iran's democratic tendencies.
A democratic Iran is by no means inevitable, however. Insufficient U.S. responsiveness to the initiatives of Iranian moderates has strengthened the positions of those less interested in cooperating with America. Gheissari and Nasr examine the election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and show that he's generally outside the nation's political mainstream. It's clear, though, that an U.S. military strike at Iran would be far more likely to foster further (and possibly worse) authoritarianism than it would be to trigger the kind of mythical, violence-induced "spontaneous democratic uprising" about which American neocons love to fantasize.
Democracy in Iran ... published June 2, 2006 by Oxford University Press, USA
Journey of the Jihadist: Inside Muslim Militancy by Fawaz A. Gerges
Muslim jihadist perspectives vary widely, says Fawaz A. Gerges, an academic who frequently doubles as a news analyst for ABC, NPR, CNN, etc. And as he traces the development of Muslim extremist thought since the 1970s, he shows that while Osama bin Laden et. al. may dominate the headlines, they're in a jihadist minority. By 2001, says Gerges, many conflict-weary jihadists had begun to abandon violence in favor of defending ummah through more peaceful, political means. But particularly with the American invasion of Iraq, jihadist resolve to fight and destroy the occupiers has come full circle. "As long as America occupies Muslim territories, there will be conflict," declares one of the main jihadists Gerges profiles. The man continues, "The new crusade put us in a corner and left us no choice but to defend our values and religious icons. War is forced on us. What do you expect us to do in the face of aggression against the ummah?" This volume's an extension of a work Gerges published last year: The Far Enemy: Why Jihad Went Global.
Journey of the Jihadist ... published May 8, 2006 by Harcourt
The Lemon Tree: An Arab, a Jew, and
The Heart of the Middle East by Sandy Tolan
In this deeply compelling, beautifully told story of two families -- one, Palestinian Arab; the other, Bulgarian Jewish Holocaust survivors -- Tolan's captured a microcosm of Palestinian-Israeli history spanning the last 70 years. In the process, he's won wide, effusive praise for the evenhandedness and literary skill he's lent to this enterprise. The title's lemon tree grew at what was until 1948 the family home of Bashir Al-Khairi, whose father had in 1936 built their stone house Ramla, a community in which their family had lived for hundreds of years. During the 1948 Arab-Israeli war, however, Bashir's family was forced into exile and a Bulgarian refugee family occupied their "vacant" house. The Bulgarian daughter, Dalia, and Bashir met after the 1967 War; Tolan's book chronicles their complicated and difficult friendship. The families' home is now Open House; even the bare elements of its story are powerful.
*Also available, unabridged, on Audio CD
The Lemon Tree ... published May 2, 2006 by Bloomsbury
The Accidental Empire: Israel and the
Birth of the Settlements, 1967-1977 by Gershom Gorenberg
An Israeli journalist traces the development of his nation's settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank in the decade following 1967's Six-Day War. Gorenberg explains that forces far more complex and diverse than merely ultra-Orthodox extremists created the settlements, and he animates his history with a taut, vivid narrative style. The author shows that there have always been clear understandings at the highest levels of Israeli government that the settlements were illegal and unwise in the extreme. He cites a once secret 1967 memo from Israel's Foreign Ministry counsel Theodor Meron stating that "civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention"; in a NY Times column last Friday he said, "[T]he warnings were there from the start and were ignored, kept secret or explained away. Leaders deceived not only the country's citizens, but themselves. So begin national tragedies."
Terry Gross interviewed Gorenberg on NPR's Fresh Air.
The Accidental Empire ... published March 7, 2006 by Times Books
The Kurds: A People in Search of Their Homeland by Kevin McKiernan
The Kurds, at 25 million, are the world's most populous people with no nation of their own, and given their precarious straddling of Turkey, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Armenia, Kurdish nationhood can seem unattainable. One of the world's leading journalists to focus substantially on the Kurds here traces their plight of the last several decades. McKiernan first came to prominence in 1973 when he covered the Wounded Knee standoff, and he makes the case that the abuses inflicted on Native Americans are similar to those visited on the Kurds. He notes that while Saddam Hussein's genocidal barbarities against Iraq's Kurds have been covered by the American media, Turkey's systematic atrocities against its Kurds -- committed with American weapons, funding, and at least tacit approval -- have been largely ignored by America. McKiernan now thinks that Iraq's Kurds are likely to split off from the rest of the country, and that a deepening Iraqi civil war may prompt Turkish intervention.
The Kurds ... published March 7, 2006 by St. Martin's Press
Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy
by Shlomo Ben-Ami
A veteran Israeli statesman has gotten high marks from most critics and readers for the evenhandedness of this history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Ben-Ami begins with the birth of Zionism over a century ago and carries his narrative to a point shortly prior to Sharon's stroke and Hamas's electoral victory. The author was integral to the Camp David negotiations in the waning days of the Clinton administration, and like many (but by no means all) people on both sides of the issue, he sees Arafat's refusal to agree to what was widely seen as a good offer -- including 100 percent of Gaza, 97 percent of the West Bank, and sovereignty over the Temple Mount -- as a devastating blow to both the Palestinians and the region. Ben-Ami's apparently sincere effort to see matters through the eyes of those with whom he might tend to disagree profoundly is also in evidence in two recent radio appearances: with Kathleen Dunn on Wisconsin Public Radio (Feb. 6) and in debate against Norman Finkelstein on Democracy Now!
Scars of War, Wounds of Peace ... published Feb. 1, 2006 by Oxford University Press
Reaching for Power: The Shi'a in the Modern Arab World
by Yitzhak Nakash
While only about 11 percent of the world's Muslims are Shi'a, a Brandeis Middle Eastern studies prof observes that they comprise 80 percent of the population in the Persian Gulf region. Since that's where America goes to gets its oil, it would seem that the fates of the Shi'a and the United States are now inextricably linked. Fortunately, says Nakash, Shi'a animosity toward America has softened considerably since the days of Ayatollah Khomeini. As some Sunni Muslims have grown dramatically more confrontational and violent toward the West, many Shi'ites have shown increasing willingness to reach accommodations. Nakash traces the history of Shi'a from its 7th-century origins, through its resurgence in the Iranian Revolution to the Iraqi elections of 2005, and explores some of the risks and opportunities that lie ahead.
Reaching for Power ... published January 2, 2006 by Princeton University Press
The Great War for Civilisation by Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk is one of the West's most senior and award-laden foreign correspondents in the Middle East. He's lived and worked there for nearly 30 years, covering the Iranian Revolution, the Iran-Iraq War, the Gulf War, and America's wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He's also interviewed Osama bin Laden three times. Now comes his massive chronicle of the region's tumults and carnage, present and past.
While Fisk is one of Britain's best-known journalists, he's also one of its most widely and deeply hated scribes, a distinction he carries as a result of what some perceive as his anti-American, -British, and -Israeli attitudes. But the atrocities and suffering he's seen and reported and his voluminous knowledge of the West's long history of criminality in the region would obviously impair his ability to cheerlead for those depredations. Instead, Fisk is a passionate critic of them -- and after 1,000 pages of seeing the Middle East as he's seen it, I'd think it would be difficult for any fair-minded reader to fault that passion.
The Great War for Civilisation ... first published November 8, 2005 by Knopf
Even After All This Time by Afschineh Latifi
This bittersweet memoir chronicles the life of an Iranian woman who, at the age of 10, found herself on the wrong side of the Islamic revolution that replaced the Shah of Iran with Ayatollah Khomeini. Her father, an officer in the Shah's army, was executed during the revolution, shortly after which the author's family fled the country. Central to the story is her mother, who doggedly keeps the family going after being widowed.
Some reviewers have savaged this book as the sob story of a dethroned princess, but I think that's a bit unfair. One certainly wonders how it was that her father was so well off if he was simply the kindly military engineer Latifi claims, and she makes little mention of SAVAK or the other horrors the Shah -- a brutal, cowardly U.S. puppet -- inflicted on his people. But the fact is that she was 10 when her father was executed. Despite the wrenching loss at the story's core, it's a charming, breezy read, and while the author spends little time reflecting on the revolution, she offers an interesting perspective on it and subsequent Iranian history.
Even After All This Time ... first published March 29, 2005 by Regan Books
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