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| Volume VIII, June 2001, Number 2 |
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| Book Review Excerpts |
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One Palestine, Complete: Jews and Arabs under the British Mandate, by Tom Segev. New York: Metropolitan Books/Henry Holt & Company, 2000. 612 pages. $28.00, hardcover.
Philip C. Wilcox, Jr.
Former U.S. consul general in Jerusalem; president, Foundation for Middle East Peace
At a time when the Israeli-Palestinian peace process is again in deep crisis, it is useful to revisit the experience of the British, who played a critical role in shaping this conflict. Tom Segev's wonderful book analyzes the central influence of Great Britain and the mandate period in the creation of Israel and the triumph for Jews and tragedy for Palestinians it brought.
Segev weaves a fascinating tale that brings to life the struggle between Jews and Arabs in Palestine under British rule from the perspective of all three parties. Drawing on newly mined archives and personal diaries of major and minor participants, he adds color and human drama to this tragic conflict, and makes some controversial but well-supported judgments. Segev's approach is sometimes acerbic, but it is also compassionate and non-partisan, true to his reputation as one of Israel's leading "post-Zionist" writers.
Segev faults both the British and the Jews for their early assumption that creating a Jewish homeland in Palestine could be reconciled with the interests of the Arabs who regarded the area as their homeland. He attributes this to Eurocentric myopia and colonialist arrogance by both the British and the Jews, who at first believed the Arabs would welcome Jewish immigration as a beneficial, civilizing influence -- or that they could be bought off or intimidated by force if they resisted. But by the 1930s, Arab opposition and growing violence made it clear that Jewish and Palestinian nationalism were fundamentally in conflict. Besides vague promises to protect the interests of both sides, the British had no effective or consistent policy to deal with the dilemma they had done so much to create.
Encyclopedia of the Palestinians, edited by Philip Mattar. New York: Facts on File, 2000. xi + 470 pages. Glossary to 473, chronology to 485, annotated bibliography to 500, list of contributors 501, index to 514. $82.50, hardcover.
Richard B. Parker
Scholar-in-residence, Middle East Institute
This is a "one-volume compendium of knowledge about modern Palestinian history and society" covering the period from the Egyptian occupation of 1831 to the present, but concentrating on the twentieth century. Forty-eight scholars, mostly Americans, Palestinians and Israelis, contributed to the work, with Michael Fischbach being the most prolific single contributor.
In his introduction Dr. Mattar discusses the relative weakness of traditional Palestinian scholarship and the distortions that have resulted from the consequent Israeli domination of the field of historical studies. He notes that "Israeli and Palestinian scholars are so overwhelmed by emotional and ideological considerations, be it antipathy or sympathy, that they are unable to write objectively." In an effort to overcome this problem of bias, intentional or not, he selected most of his contributors from the generation of scholars who have come to the fore since the early 1970s and who have produced pioneering studies that have filled in some of the gaps in our knowledge of the Palestinians and the Palestine problem.
The book is about the Palestinian people, and one-third of the entries are biographies. The reader will find these most useful in providing a deeper insight into the backgrounds of modern Palestinian leaders. There are also detailed studies of economic and social issues -- land, water, population, religion, refugees, art, literature and folklore, among others -- as well as historical episodes and the people and entities that dominated them, from the British Mandate to the PFLP. The reader will find thumbing through these pages a pleasant educational exercise; those who need a reference work on Palestine will find it essential.
Israel's First Fifty Years, edited by Robert O. Freedman. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2000. xix + 272 pages, with bibliography and index. $29.95, paperback.
Michael Rubner
Professor of International Relations, James Madison College & Michigan State University
This volume contains 12 essays that were initially presented at the "Israel at Fifty" conference, held in May 1998 under the auspices of the Center for the Study of Israel and the Contemporary Middle East at Baltimore Hebrew University. Written by American, Israeli and Arab scholars, five of the articles focus on the evolution of Israel's relations since its establishment in 1948 with various external actors, including the former Soviet Union and present-day Russia, the United States, the American Jewish community, the Arab states and the Palestinians. The remaining seven essays analyze changes that have occurred over the past five decades in Israel's domestic politics, economy and civil society.
The lead essay by Robert Freedman highlights the dramatic fluctuations that have characterized relations between Moscow and Jerusalem from 1948 to 1999. Initially the Jewish state's strongest diplomatic and military supporter, the USSR severed relations with Israel in 1953, restored them after Stalin's death, cut them off again during the 1967 War, and resumed them again toward the end of Gorbachev's leadership in November 1991. The warm relationship that was cultivated in the early and mid-1990s by Boris Yeltsin was eventually replaced by yet another chill after Yevgeny Primakov's appointment as Russia's foreign minister in January 1996.
The Breakdown of the State in Lebanon 1967-1976, by Farid El-Khazen. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000. 432 pages, including index, bibliography and 25 tables. $49.95, hardcover.
Robert Brenton Betts
Visiting professor, University of Balamand, Lebanon
This is the first scholarly study in over two decades to deal at length and in detail with the years immediately preceding the outbreak in April 1975 of the Lebanese Civil War, along with the first stage of this conflict, which the author terms "the Palestinian-Syrian War." It is also the first to be written from the benefit of hindsight ten years after the Taif accords brought the war to a close. The book focuses in particular on the importance of the PLO and the Palestinian military presence in Lebanon as the major disruptive force and catalyst of governmental breakdown.
In retrospect there is little doubt that the armed Palestinian militias played a central destabilizing role in the disintegration of the fragile sectarian balance of pre-war Lebanese society. Professor Khazen presents a convincing and well-documented argument for his thesis. However sympathetic one may be for the cause of Palestinian irredentism, it is difficult to challenge the fact that Lebanon paid an inordinately high price for the ruthless ethnic cleansing by the Israeli army in those areas that came under their control in 1948-49. How the Palestinians were able to become such a powerful armed presence inside a theoretically sovereign state makes for fascinating reading.
China and the Middle East: The Quest for Influence, edited by P. R. Kumaraswamy. Thousand Oaks, California: Sage Publications, 1999. 228 pages, with index. $49.95, hardcover.
Chris Boucek
Former managing editor, Middle East Times (Cairo)
Since the creation of the People's Republic of China (PRC), the nature of the relationship between Beijing and the states of the Middle East has always drawn considerable attention. Recent memory recalls such divergent issues as Israeli arms transfers (including the recently cancelled Phalcon airborne early-warning system), the PRC's resistance to sanctions on Iraq, and Beijing's active role in the development of the region's hydrocarbon resources -- all often invoking the ire of the West's decision makers. Without question, China and the Middle East represent a very enigmatic interaction, one that has unfortunately been the focus of little accessible scholarship to date.
P. R. Kumaraswamy, however, does a fine job in exploring this very intriguing and little-understood facet in the study of the modern Middle East. The twenty-first century will certainly witness the rise of China in the international community, and its influence is certain to extend into the Middle East. China's quest for energy sources to fuel its expanding economy, its drive for military sales, and its diplomatic overtures are all explored in this collection of essays. As a result, this study provides a good introduction to many of the issues involved in China's relations with the states of the modern Middle East.
The Origins of the Eisenhower Doctrine, by Ray Takeyh. New York, NY: St. Martin's Press, 2000. 216 pages. $65.00, hardcover.
Lawrence Davidson
Professor of History, West Chester University, West Chester, PA
Ray Takeyh was a fellow at the University of California at Berkeley when he wrote this book, but his real calling is as a teacher of object lessons. He teaches us an important one in this short but illuminating study of America's Middle East foreign-policy formulation and the ideological blinkers that beset it throughout the Cold War.
The Eisenhower doctrine in early 1957 pledged the United States to "secure and protect the territorial integrity and political independence of nations requesting . . . aid against covert armed aggression from any nations controlled by international Communism." This pledge was testimony to the all-pervasive obsession the United States had with the Soviet Union, an obsession that led America to institute just those sorts of covert armed aggressions that it assigned to its Cold War adversary. Takeyh takes us through this sad story as it applies to the Middle East in general and Nasser's Egypt in particular. In a clear and well-organized fashion, he shows us the thinking of not only the American government, but the British and Egyptian governments as well.
The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran, by Robin Wright. New York: Knopf, 2000. xxi + 339 pages, with notes and index. $27.50, hardcover.
Guilain P. Denoeux
Associate professor of government, Colby College
Eleven years ago, in her In the Name of God: The Khomeini Decade (Simon and Schuster, 1989), Robin Wright examined the momentous events that transformed Iran between Ayatollah Khomeini's triumphant return to Tehran on February 1, 1979, and his death on June 3, 1989. That period saw the establishment and consolidation of the institutions of the Islamic Republic, the devastating war with Iraq, economic decline, revolutionary excesses, and an ultimately futile attempt to export the revolution to other countries. In The Last Great Revolution, Wright picks up the story a decade later, as Iran finds itself in the midst of a new social, political and cultural upheaval.
Outside Iran, we hear mostly about one single aspect of this "revolution within the revolution": the tug-of-war between reformers and conservatives since the election of President Khatami in 1997. Wright appropriately devotes much attention to this protracted political battle over the future of the Islamic Republic. She meticulously details how virtually every single initiative by the reformers to expand personal freedoms, loosen cultural restrictions, and end Iran's international isolation has been followed by a powerful conservative counteroffensive. She identifies several phases in the conservatives' increasingly virulent effort to intimidate and silence the reformers.
Religion and State: The Muslim Approach to Politics, by L. Carl Brown. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. 256 pages, with notes, bibliographical essay, works cited and index. $27.50, hardback.
David Nalle
Washington editor, Central Asia Monitor
The author of this compact book has a long and distinguished academic association with the Middle East and North Africa. Following Arabic language study and early tours with the State Department in Lebanon and Sudan, Carl Brown earned a Ph.D. in history and Middle Eastern studies from Harvard, and taught there for a time. Since 1966, he has been teaching at Princeton, where he is now Garrett professor in foreign affairs, emeritus.
As the book's bibliographical essay makes clear, the subject of "the Muslim approach to politics" has not exactly been neglected by scholars, especially those responding to the stimuli of recent events in the Muslim world. In his introduction, Brown lays out his particular purpose in addressing the subject:
It is the argument of this book that both the radical Islamist spokesmen and . . . disparate non-Muslim observers have it wrong. Yes, they are strange bedfellows, but they converge in positing an Islam existing outside of history, an unchanging Islam. They are conflating theology and history. . . . No serious person maintains that the this-worldly manifestation of, say, Christianity is the same today as it was in the time of Luther or Aquinas or Augustine or Paul. One accepts Christianity's diversity throughout time and space. Isn't it plausible to expect roughly the same of Islam in history (p. 3)?
Accepting this, he imposes upon himself "the task of seeking out the distinctive strands of Muslim experience throughout the centuries that have produced an identifiable civilization," and to this end he concludes it will be useful to "compare this religion with its two Semitic sisters, Judaism and Christianity"(p. 3). Some of the doctrinal similarities between Islam and Judaism, as opposed to Christianity, are rehearsed: the transcendent deity, the emphasis on the law, and the limited role of a "clergy." There is also a "communal solidarity (among Muslims) much more like that of Judaism" (p. 59).
Out in the Blue: Letters from Arabia -- 1937 to 1940, by Thomas C. Barger. 320 pages. $34.95, hardcover.
Curtis W. Brand
Retired executive, Mobil Oil Corporation
Out in the Blue is an interesting book for students of Saudi Arabia and ARAMCO. The book was written by Thomas Barger, whose career with the Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO) spanned 32 years, 1937-69. Mr. Barger retired from ARAMCO in 1969 as chairman of the Board of Directors. By the time of his death in 1984, he had compiled this book containing letters he wrote to his young bride, Kathleen, during his first assignment in Saudi Arabia. He was working as a field geologist for the California Arabian Standard Oil Company (CASOC), which would eventually become ARAMCO.
A native of North Dakota with a degree in Mining and Metallurgy from the state university, Mr. Barger found few opportunities for employment, as a result of the Depression. Finally he obtained a three-year assignment in Saudi Arabia with CASOC, which had a concession for exploring and drilling for oil (no commercial quantities had yet been found). Mr. Barger went off to New York City, his departure point for Saudi Arabia, and married Kathleen. After their honeymoon, he departed for the kingdom, and she went back to North Dakota.
Mr. Barger spent most of his early days in Saudi Arabia away from headquarters in Dhahran exploring the Rub Al Khali and other areas of the CASOC concession. Although there wasn't much in the way of headquarters in Dhahran in 1937, Mr. Barger displays a typical field person's frustrations with bureaucracy and decision making. Mr. Barger worked for the legendary Max Steineke, CASOC's chief geologist in the early days of the concession. He was sent by Steineke to the field to do geological mapping of the concession area. The field parties that he led or co-led consisted of guides, cooks, drivers and soldiers assigned by the king and emir of the Eastern Province. These areas had had very few, if any, visitors from the West, and the soldiers were there to protect them and facilitate their interactions with the local tribes they met along the way. The numbers of soldiers were often greater than necessary, but CASOC paid their salaries as part of the field parties.
Holier Than Thou: Saudi Arabia's Islamic Opposition, by Joshua Teitelbaum. Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000. xx + 123 pages, including executive summary. $19.95, paperback.
Brooks Wrampelmeier
Retired U.S. Foreign Service officer; consul-general in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, 1987-89
Serious Islamic fundamentalist opposition to the Al Saud regime reappeared ten years later in the wake of the Gulf War. Joshua Teitelbaum, a specialist in Arabian history at the Moshe Dayan center for Middle Eastern and African Studies and a former fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, has produced a brief, well-documented, and highly readable study of the origins, pronouncements and effectiveness of the Saudi radical Islamic opposition in the 1990s. After tracing the history of successive Al Saud efforts to control and marginalize the Wahhabi religious establishment, Teitelbaum identifies the factors leading to this reappearance of religious opposition as (1) the decline in oil prices after 1982 which caused the kingdom to cut back on social services, subsidies and government employment; (2) the rising number of young Saudis with traditional religious educations ill-equipped to find jobs in the government and the modern sector of the economy; and (3) a growing debate around the issue of modernity and Islam between Saudi liberals and a new generation of younger ulema who deplored what they saw as the increasing secularization and Westernization of Saudi society.
The precipitating factor, however, was the presence in Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War of hundreds of thousands of American and other non-Muslim troops. Religious fundamentalists denounced the Saudi government for relying on non-Muslims to protect the kingdom, despite heavy Saudi expenditures on modern arms. They took particular exception to the fatwa, issued by the Council of Senior Ulema under Saudi government pressure, permitting the foreign troops' arrival. As Teitelbaum explains, "For many radical Sunni fundamentalist shaykhs, the fatwa that allowed Christian troops into the Kingdom crossed a red line. In their minds, it was unfathomable how a leading alim (Islamic scholar) could issue a ruling so blatantly at odds with the sharia . . . ." (p. 28). One fundamentalist religious shaikh warned that the Americans and the West were far more serious threats to Saudi Arabia than even the secular Baathist rulers of Iraq. Others alleged that the United States deliberately engineered the Iraqi threat in order to justify establishing its hegemony in the Gulf and suggested that the West's real objective was to facilitate the propagation of Christianity in the Islamic heartland.
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