Middle East Quarterly articles from January 2002

Middle East Quarterly archives from January 2002

How to free Iraq.
January 1, 2002... On September 11, the world changed--or at least some of it did. Iraq did not. While the rest of the world mourned, or at least nominally condemned the terrorist attack, Iraqi president Saddam Husayn gloated. It is no surprise that Saddam would...

Saddam Husayn's novel of fear.
January 1, 2002... At the end of the year 2000, a publishing sensation left Baghdad abuzz with rumor. The excitement surrounded a torrid novel of romance published under the title Zabiba and the King. (1) This was not the usual kind of literary splash. The...

Jalal Talabani: ;No grounds for relations with Baghdad'.(president of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, Iraq)(Interview)
January 1, 2002... Jalal Talabani has been president of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) since the organization's founding in 1977. Born in Kelkan in 1933, he actively participated in the Iraqi Kurdish opposition from the age of 13, eventually becoming a...

The United States government: Islam's patron?
January 1, 2002... Islam has dominated American public life on two occasions, once during the period of the Iranian hostage crisis from 1979 to 1981, and more recently since the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on September 11, 2001. In both...

How CAIR put my life in peril.(Council on American-Islamic Relations)(author Khalid Duran)
January 1, 2002... On April 4, 2001, a self-described advocacy group based in Washington, D.C. by the name of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), issued a press release (1) attacking my forthcoming book, Children of Abraham: An Introduction to Islam...

My drive to Israel.(Egyptian playwright Ali Salem)
January 1, 2002... On May 24, 2001, the Union of Egyptian Writers expelled from its ranks the renowned Egyptian playwright Ali Salem. According to the union's statement, Salem had "visited Israel several times and published a book on those visits, in addition to...

The Lockerbie endgame: Qadhdhafi slips the noose.(Muammar Qadhafi)(bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, Lockerbie, Scotland)
January 1, 2002... In January 2001, more than twelve years after the explosion of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, the case against its perpetrators reached a turning point. A Scottish-led court, convened in the Netherlands, sentenced a Libyan national,...

Turkey and Israel strategize.
January 1, 2002... In 1996, Israel and Turkey signed an agreement for military cooperation. Since then, much has been said and written about this evolving relationship, and political analysts have differed over how to define it. Depending on their assumptions,...

Ismail Cem: 'The EU train cannot be missed'.(Turkey's Minister of Foreign Affairs)(Interview)
January 1, 2002... Middle East Quarterly: You were quoted earlier this year as saying that unless the coalition partners reach an accord, they will "miss the train to Europe." Are the coalition partners meeting their responsibilities, and if not, where do you put...

PBS presents: Islam for viewers like you.(Public Broadcasting program 'Islam: Empire of Faith')(Critical Essay)
January 1, 2002... It hardly needs saying that the United States and the Muslim world are locked in an embrace. There are more than a billion Muslims in the world, and there are millions of Americans who are Muslim. American relations with the believers in Islam...

Economic Development and Political Reform: The Impact of External Capital on the Middle East.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Economic Development and Political Reform: The Impact of External Capital on the Middle East. By Bradley Louis Glasser. Cheltenham, U.K. and Northampton, Mass.: Edward Elgar, 2001. 147 pp. $70. The partisans of engagement with problematic...

The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... The End of Days: Fundamentalism and the Struggle for the Temple Mount. By Gershom Gorenberg. New York: Free Press, 2000. 288 pp. $25.00. Gorenberg, senior editor at The Jerusalem Report, calls the Temple Mount--that site in Jerusalem where two...

Ghosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Ghosts of Manila: The Fateful Blood Feud between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. By Mark Kram. New York: HarperCollins, 2001. 232 pp. $25. Kram, a longtime writer for Sports Illustrated, is interested primarily in two subjects. One is boxing...

Historical Dictionary of Lebanon.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Historical Dictionary of Lebanon. By As'ad AbuKhalil. Lanham, Md.: The Scarecrow Press, 1998. 294 pp. $65. AbuKhalil explains his goal: to "provide essential information in order to grasp the realities of an exceedingly complex country and, in...

House of Sand and Fog.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... House of Sand and Fog. By Andre Dubus III. New York: Vintage, 1999. 365 pp. $25.95 ($14, paper). Dubus has written probably the first best-selling novel about the experience of an immigrant Muslim in the United States. The tight story concerns...

Invisible Enemy: Israel, Politics, Media, and American Culture.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Invisible Enemy: Israel, Politics, Media, and American Culture. By Edward Abboud. Reston, Va.: Vox, 2001. 284 pp. $29.95 (paper). For an example of the utter debasement of the anti-Israel argument in the United States, go no further than...

Israel and the Politics of Jewish Identity: The Secular-Religious Impasse.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Israel and the Politics of Jewish Identity: The Secular-Religious Impasse. By Asher Cohen and Bernard Susser. Baltimore and London: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2000. 167 pp. $36. It's a thin volume but it contains a thorough expose of...

The Many Faces of Islam: Perspectives on a Resurgent Civilization.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... The Many Faces of Islam: Perspectives on a Resurgent Civilization. By Nissim Rejwan. Gainesville, Fla.: University Press of Florida, 2000. 260 pp. $55. At first glance, it appears that Rejwan, of the Hebrew University's Truman Institute, is in...

Palestine 1948: War, Escape and the Emergence of the Palestinian Refugee Problem.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Palestine 1948: War, Escape and the Emergence of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. By Yoav Gelber. Brighton, England: Sussex Academic Press, 2001. 399 pp. $75. There have been flashier histories of Israel's war of independence and longer ones,...

Palestine: A Twice-Promised Land? The British, the Arabs and Zionism, 1915-1920, Vol. 1.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Palestine: A Twice Promised Land? The British, the Arabs & Zionism 1915-1920, Vol. 1. By Isaiah Friedman. New Brunswick, N.J.: Transaction Publishers, 2000. pp. 376. $49.95. Did London promise Palestine to both the Arabs and the Jews during...

The Palestinian Regime: A Partial Democracy.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... The Palestinian Regime: A Partial Democracy. By As'ad Ghanem. Sussex: Academic Press, 2001. 252 pp. $69. Ghanem's study chronicles the repugnant nature of Yasir Arafat's Palestinian Authority (PA). The author agrees with the widely-accepted...

The Poet Game: A Novel.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... The Poet Game: A Novel. By Salar Abdoh. New York: Picador USA, 2000. 228 pp. $12. Abdoh, born in Iran and now teaching English at the City College of New York, has written what may be the first-ever novel about militant Islamic terrorism in...

A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey Through the World of Militant Islam.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... A Portrait of Egypt: A Journey Through the World of Militant Islam. By Mary Anne Weaver. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux, 2000). pp. 306. $14.00 (paper). Weaver, a staff writer for The New Yorker, has a credibility based on her...

Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Saddam's Bombmaker: The Terrifying Inside Story of the Iraqi Nuclear and Biological Weapons Agenda. By Khidhir Hamza with Jeff Stein. New York: Scribner's, 2000. 352 pp. $26. Most physicists lead hum-drum lives, but not if they were born in...

The Sheik.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... The Sheik. By E. M. Hull [pseud. of Edith Maude Winstanley]. London: E. Nash & Grayson, 1919. (Reprinted Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001. 296 pp. $14.95) The book behind the famed 1922 movie starring Rudolph Valentino was...

Succession in Saudi Arabia.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Succession in Saudi Arabia. By Joseph A. Kechichian. New York: Palgrave, 2001. 297 pp. $55. Kechichian asserts that the very appearance of his book indicates the Saudi family has "reached a very high level of political maturity," but reading...

Unfolding the Orient: Travellers in Egypty and the Near East.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Unfolding the Orient: Travellers in Egypt and the Near East. Edited by Paul and Janet Starkey. Reading, U.K.: Ithaca, 2001. 318 pp. 35 [pounds sterling]. Interpreting the Orient: Travellers in Egypt and the Near East. Edited by Paul and Janet...

Vietnam, Jews and the Middle East: Unintended Consequences.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... Vietnam, Jews, and the Middle East: Unintended Consequences. By Judith A. Klinghoffer. New York: St. Martin's, 1999. 232 pp. $45. Klinghoffer offers a very useful resource for anyone interested in how Vietnam affected U.S. Middle East policy in...

The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948.(Brief Article)
January 1, 2002... The War for Palestine: Rewriting the History of 1948. Edited by Eugene L. Rogan and Avi Shlaim. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001. pp. 234. $54.95. "Rewriting the history of 1948" is rather misleading, for the essays in question do...

Professors of Palestine.(Professors and pundits: an occasional column devoted to makers and brokers of ideas)(Editorial)
January 1, 2002... Professors and Pundits: An occasional column devoted to makers and brokers of ideas Falk pas. It was amusing to see British Broadcasting Corporation's (BBC) "Panorama" trot out Princeton University's Richard Falk to declare Israeli prime...