Harvard International Review articles from March 1998

Harvard International Review archives from March 1998

Israel at 50: achievements and challenges.
March 22, 1998... As Israel's fiftieth anniversary of independence approaches, the mood there is less than euphoric. The Likud government is losing the support of its coalition partners, the Arab-Israeli peace process is stagnant, and Israeli civilians live in...

Expansion to what end? (proponents of NATO membership expansion lack compelling arguments).
March 22, 1998... While resolving the issues of qualification for entry into NATO for potential member countries is important to the future of the alliance (page 22), the purpose of expanding the alliance must be addressed as well. As the commitment to the...

Bi-national Palestine? (the creation of a Palestinian state within Israel would jeopardize Jews' security).
March 22, 1998... Israel is rife with contradictions, and Nadim Rouhana (page 74) correctly calls attention to one of the most pressing: that Israel cannot claim democracy if it treats its Arab citizens as second-class. Indeed, Israel must go further in...

ASEAN's engagement (the Association of Southeast Asian Nations rightly considers engagement with Myanmar the best way to effect liberal reform).
March 22, 1998... As the shockwaves over Myanmar's admittance into ASEAN dissipate (page 8), the West has an opportunity to reassess its policies towards "rogue states." Instead of criticizing ASEAN for accommodating a repressive and corrupt regime, the West...

Good neighbours: ASEAN and Burma's human rights record.
March 22, 1998... By opening its doors to Burma on July 29, 1997, the Association of South-East Asian Nations (ASEAN) granted unmerited political legitimacy to a rogue state with an egregious human rights record. ASEAN justified its policy as an attempt at...

Still waiting: land reform in Zimbabwe.
March 22, 1998... Since independence in 1980, the 600,000 black Zimbabwean peasant families confined to marginal and overcrowded land have been eagerly awaiting President Mugabe's long-standing promise of land redistribution. In November 1997, Mugabe finally...

Handle with care: China and the Hong Kong stock market crash.
March 22, 1998... The return of Hong Kong to the People's Republic of China as a Special Administrative Region on July 1, 1997, marked the first time since the 1945 Yalta Conference that a territory was reverted to a communist regime whose economic might and...

Unsinkable: economic development in Subic Bay.
March 22, 1998... Subic Bay was once the site of one of the largest US naval bases in foreign territory. Today, as a significant economic center, the Subic Bay Metropolitan Authority (SBMA) promises genuine development for the Filipino economy. Long dubbed "the...

Russian roulette: Ukraine and NATO membership.
March 22, 1998... In the summer of 1997, a Russian official warned that the West was playing a game of "Russian roulette" by considering the expansion of NATO into the Commonwealth of Independent States. He was especially concerned about the possibility that...

Walking the line: Turkey's struggle with Islamism.
March 22, 1998... On December 10, 1997, Turkish President Suleyman Demirel withdrew from the Organization of Islamic Conference summit in Tehran. Many suspect that he did so to avoid facing criticism for Turkey's increasingly close ties to Israel. Turkey's...

Just settlement: the return of eastern Slavonia to Croatia.
March 22, 1998... MIOMIR ZUZUL is Croatian Ambassador to the United States. In January of 1998, the area known as Eastern Slavonia was restored to full Croatian authority after an arduous two-year process. The successful conclusion to the peaceful...

Expanding alliance: the impact of the NATO Madrid summit.
March 22, 1998... SEBESTYEN L. v. GORKA is an International Research Fellow at the NATO Defense College. With a decisiveness uncommon in international politics, the Clinton administration publicly committed NATO to expand by "one or more" countries in the...

Globalizing justice: NGOs and the need for an international criminal court.
March 22, 1998... WILLIAM R. PACE is Executive Director of the World Federalist Movement-Institute for Global Policy and is the Convenor of the NGO Coalition for an International Criminal Court. Behind the daily headlines of world crises and UN failures,...

Applied idealism: a Buddhist perspective on the necessity of government.
March 22, 1998... The Venerable SHENG-YEN, Ph.D., is President and Founder of the International Cultural And Educational Foundation of Dharma Drum Mountain. While Western views on the relationship between church and state have been studied and debated...

System in flux: the future of Japanese main bank relationships.
March 22, 1998... GOPAL GARUDA, Staff Writer, Harvard International Review Skeptics who question whether East Asia's rapid growth will continue indefinitely often cite Japan's banking crisis and prolonged recession as proof that the "Asian miracle" was...

Limits of pressure: US policy failures in the international war on drugs.
March 22, 1998... HAL JONES, Editor-in-Chief, Harvard International Review Many policymakers in Washington believe that the United States can use its role as the hegemonic power in the hemisphere to induce its neighbors to launch extensive campaigns against...

Certifiable? (the certification of a country as an US ally in the war on narcotics carries rewards; decertification brings penalties).
March 22, 1998... Under US law, the president is required to determine which nations are "major illicit drug-producing and/or drug transit countries," and he must report his findings to the Congress. Additionally, by March I of each year, he must "certify...

Private space: a free-market approach to space exploration.
March 22, 1998... JEFF ZINSMEISTER, Global Notebook Editor, Harvard International Review Since Sputnik was first placed into Earth orbit in 1957, space exploration has remained almost exclusively under the auspices of government. The tremendous costs and...

Overcoming adversity: fifty years of Israeli independence.
March 22, 1998... Author's Note: This material has been reviewed by the CIA. That review neither constitutes CIA authentication of information nor implies CIA endorsement of the author's views. BERNARD REICH is Professor of Political Science and...

On the right track: reflections on the achievements of the past half-century.
March 22, 1998... EZER WEIZMAN is President of the State of Israel. The day on which Israel's independence was proclaimed found me at an air force base in Ceske Budjovice, Czechoslovakia. On that day, May 15, 1948, I was dressed in a German Air Force flight...

Presidents (unlike the prime minister, Israel's president is not elected by popular vote but by the Knesset).
March 22, 1998... Israel has no written constitution. Instead, its structures of government are laid out in a set of Basic Laws. According to these legislative acts, the administration of the country is entrusted to a directly elected prime minister, while...

In search of security: defending Israel into the next century.
March 22, 1998... ITZCHAK MORDECHAI is Defense Minister of the State of Israel. A look back at Israel's 50 years of independence and sovereignty reveals both extraordinary accomplishments and still-daunting challenges. History knows no instance comparable to...

Vision for the future: realizing the promise of the promised land.
March 22, 1998... EHUD BARAK is Chairman of the Israel Labor Party. This article is adapted from a speech given by Mr. Barak to the General Assembly of the Council of Jewish Federations in Indianapolis, Indiana, on November 17, 1997. Israel is not just...

Zionism.
March 22, 1998... The history of the State of Israel can easily be traced back to a time fifty years before independence was declared in 1948. In the 1890s, a movement calling for the establishment of a state for the Jewish people was born. Those who backed the...

Creating a new society: immigration, nation-building, and ethnicity in Israel.
March 22, 1998... CALVIN GOLDSCHEIDER is Professor of Sociology and Dorot Professor of Judaic Studies at Brown University. More than most countries, Israel has been shaped by immigration. The large number of immigrants to Israel relative to the native-born...

Synagogue and state: religion and politics in modern Israel.
March 22, 1998... CHARLES S. LIEBMAN is Avner Professor of Religion and Politics, and ASHER COHEN lectures in the Department of Political Studies at Bar-Ilan University. Jews constitute about 80 percent of the Israeli population. Roughly one-fifth define...

Test of equal citizenship: Israel between Jewish ethnocracy and bi-national democracy.
March 22, 1998... NADIM N. ROUHANA is Associate Professor in the Graduate Program in Dispute Resolution at the University of Massachusetts-Boston and an Associate at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University. The view that...

Special partnership: US-Israeli relations and the peace process.
March 22, 1998... Martin Indyk is US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs. As US Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs since October 1997, Martin Indyk assists Secretary of State Madeline Albright in providing overall...

Puerto Rico: the trials of the oldest colony in the world.
March 22, 1998... by Jose Trias Monge Reviewed by HIRAM A. RAMIREZ Ph.D. Candidate in Government, Harvard University Jose Trias Monge, former Chief Justice of Puerto Rico's Supreme Court and author of a five-volume constitutional history of the...

Second republic: politics in Israel.
March 22, 1998... by Asher Arian Reviewed by BARAK KALFUSS Ph.D. Candidate in the Program of Middle Eastern Studies and History, Harvard University Over the past three decades, Professor Asher Arian of the City University of New York and Tel Aviv...

Politics of denial: Israel, the United Nations, and the anniversary that should have been.
March 22, 1998... BY RUTH WISSE Professor of Yiddish and Comparative Literature, Harvard University November 29, 1997, should have been celebrated as an international milestone. On that date a half century ago, the General Assembly of the...