Middle East Quarterly articles from June 2000

Middle East Quarterly archives from June 2000

Egypt--Still America's Partner?
June 1, 2000... "Spokesman for the White House: Mubarak Performs an Important Leadership Role in the Middle East" --Headline in Al-Abram (Cairo) March 28, 2000 In one sense, White House spokesman Joe Lockhardt's flattery of Egyptian president Muhammad...

Murder on the Bosporus.
June 1, 2000... Just when a long era of civil conflict, terrorism, and economic hardship in Turkey seemed to come to an end in 1999, the country encountered the frightening face of militant Islamism with the revelations of Hizbullah atrocities in January 2000....

Taliban Reopens Afghan Art Gallery.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... KABUL, Afghanistan--Four years after seizing the Afghan capital, the ruling Taliban militia reopened the National Art Gallery on Thursday. Thirty paintings were on display, none with human figures--according to the Taliban's strict...

Israel's Religious Right--Not a Monolith.
June 1, 2000... Does the sacred significance of the territory that lies at the center of the Israeli-Palestinian negotiations automatically mean opposition by religious Jews to its concession? While Israel's religious elements are often seen as monolithically...

Saudis Jail, Whip Filipino for Liquor-laced Chocolates.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... MANILA--A Filipino man was jailed for four months and will receive 75 lashes from the Saudi Arabian authorities after they found liquor-flavored chocolates in his luggage, the Philippine Foreign Department said Tuesday. Faustino Salazar, a...

After Saddam Is Gone.
June 1, 2000... The most immediate issue concerning Iraq today, as it has been for nearly a decade, is how to rid the country of Saddam Husayn and the odious Ba`th regime. But even the most ruthless dictators do not live forever and their regimes seldom...

Fit for a Prince.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... CAIRO--Visiting Saudi crown prince `Abdallah ibn `Abd al-`Aziz--more used to traveling by limousine or executive jet--made an impromptu trip on Cairo's metro on Saturday. Prince `Abdallah, the half-brother of King Fahd, and his host, President...

Continue U.S. Aid to Israel? A Debate.(Panel Discussion)
June 1, 2000... American financial aid to Israel began in 1949 with a $100,000 trade loan and peaked in the mid-1990s at over $5 billion a year in grants and loans. Over fifty),ears, the total in grants and loans has amounted to $79 billion. Is the...

$15,000 a Night?(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... DUBAI--The world's tallest hotel--where suites cost up to $15,000 a night--has officially opened in the Gulf emirate of Dubai. The 202-suite Burj al-Arab---or Tower of the Arabs--stands 1,060 feet high and floats on its own man-made island. Not...

Wet Blanket in Singapore.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... SINGAPORE--Muslims in Singapore have been advised by their religious leaders not to celebrate Valentine's Day because of its non-Islamic origins, a newspaper has reported. Murat Mohammed Aris, manager of the office of Singapore's mufti,...

Frenzy in Turkey.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... ANKARA--Shop windows in Turkey are adorned with red hearts and gold cupids these days and restaurants are urging lovers to book early to guarantee a table for a big romantic night out. Some restaurants have even organized a singles' night. ...

Conor Cruise O'Brien: The State of the Zionist State.(Interview)
June 1, 2000... Conor Cruise O'Brien, born in 1917, is an acclaimed author, public intellectual, international statesman, and former government minister in Ireland. He was a member of the Irish delegation to the United Nations from 1956 to 1961 and represented...

Saddam Statue Blossoms.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... BAGHDAD--A bronze statue of Saddam Husayn, standing in the middle of a flower, was unveiled in the Iraqi capital on Sunday as part of celebrations for the president's 62nd birthday. The 18-foot monument in the commercial district of Shurja...

Muhammad Hisham Kabbani: "The Muslim Experience in America Is Unprecedented".(Interview)
June 1, 2000... Muhammad Hisham Kabbani is the chairman of the Islamic Supreme Council of America, a religious organization founded in 1997 with offices in Washington, D.C., and Michigan. A scholar and Sufi sheikh of the Naqshbandi order, he was born in 1945...

The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul.(Review)
June 1, 2000... The Jewish State: The Struggle for Israel's Soul. By Yoram Hazony. New York: Basic/New Republic Books, 2000. 417 pp. $28. Yoram Hazony, president of the Shalem Center in Jerusalem, has written one of the first serious attempts to describe...

Papal Mass Stops for Muslim Call to Prayer.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... BETHLEHEM--The Muslim call to prayer briefly interrupted Pope John Paul II's open-air mass in the birthplace of Jesus on Wednesday [Mar. 22]. The muezzin's call to noon prayer sounded out from a mosque at one end of Manger Square just...

Ataturk.(Review)
June 1, 2000... Ataturk. By Andrew Mango. Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook, 2000. 666 pp. $40. Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (1881-1938), one of the great political figures of the twentieth century, has not been the subject of a full-scale biography in English since one...

Being Modern in Iran.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Being Modern in Iran. By Fariba Adelkhah. Trans. from French by Jonathan Derrick. Columbia University Press, 2000. 190 pp. $25. Adelkhah, a researcher at the Centre d'Etudes et de Recherches Internationales in Paris, has written a...

Comparing Religions through Law: Judaism and Islam.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Comparing Religions through Law: Judaism and Islam. By Jacob Neusner and Tamara Sonn. London: Routledge, 2000. $85 (paper, $27.99). It's a wonder that this book was not written many decades early, for it takes up a hugely important and...

The Complete National Geographic, 1888-1997.(Review)
June 1, 2000... The Complete National Geographic, 1888-1997. 4 DVD-ROM disks. 24 gigabytes. $119. The National Geographic Society has packed 109 years onto four slips of plastic. Over 1,300 of those heavy magazines, complete with every word of text, every...

Compromising Palestine: A Guide to the Final Status Negotiations.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Compromising Palestine: A Guide to the Final Status Negotiations. By Aharon Klieman. New York: Columbia University Press, 2000. 284 pp. $39.50 (paper, $17.50). Declaring his intention "to goad" the negotiators "into confronting the endgame...

The Cyprus Conspiracy: America, Espionage and the Turkish Invasion.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... The Cyprus Conspiracy: America, Espionage and the Turkish Invasion. By Brendan O'Malley and Ian Craig. London: I. B. Tauris, 1999. 268 pp. $29.95. In the long tradition of conspiracy theorists, O'Malley and Craig (both British journalists...

The Encyclopaedia of Islam, CD-ROM Edition.(Review)
June 1, 2000... The Encyclopaedia of Islam, CD-ROM Edition. v. 1.0. Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1999. 626 megabytes. $375 (for individuals--far more for institutions). The Encyclopaedia of Islam is the grand reference book of its subject. The Encyclopaedia's...

Iran's Military Forces in Transition: Conventional Threats and Weapons of Mass Destruction.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Iran's Military Forces in Transition: Conventional Threats and Weapons of Mass Destruction. By Anthony H. Cordesman. Westport, CT: Praeger Publishers, 1999. 432 pp. $69.50. In early 2000, the Central Intelligence Agency was said to have...

The Israeli-Syrian Dialogue: A One-Way Ticket to Peace?(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... The Israeli-Syrian Dialogue: A One-Way Ticket to Peace? By Uri Sagie. Houston: James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy, 1999. 85 pp. $12. "It may certainly be assumed that the [Baker] institute sent the [Sagie] paper to both the...

The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... The Last Great Revolution: Turmoil and Transformation in Iran. By Robin Wright. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000. 339 pp. $27.95. The Islamic Republic has lost its hold on the hearts and minds of Iranians, who have little patience with its...

Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Lords of the Horizons: A History of the Ottoman Empire. By Jason Goodwin. New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1998. 352 pp. $32.50. The Ottoman Empire finally came to an end in the aftermath of World War I, after ruling over a vast territory...

Middle East Contemporary Survey--CD-ROM Version: Egypt, Volumes I-XX (1976-1996).(Review)
June 1, 2000... Middle East Contemporary Survey--CD-ROM Version: Egypt, Volumes I-XX (1976-1996). Edited by Ami Ayalon. Tel Aviv: The Moshe Dayan Center, Tel Aviv University, 1999. 351 million bytes. $35. Drawing on its annual publication, the Middle East...

A Middle East Mosaic: Fragments of Life, Letters and History.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... A Middle East Mosaic: Fragments of Life, Letters and History. Selected and edited by Bernard Lewis. New York: Random House, 2000. 470 pp. $35. Lewis, whose first published article appeared in 1936 and who still reigns today as the great...

The Multiple Identities of the Middle East.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... The Multiple Identities of the Middle East. By Bernard Lewis. (New York: Schocken Books, 1999), 176 pp. $21. As a historian, Bernard Lewis is first and foremost a chemist. No matter the subject, he quickly boils the inquiry down to its...

Palestinian Democracy and Governance: An Appraisal of the Legislative Council.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Palestinian Democracy and Governance: An Appraisal of the Legislative Council. By David Schenker. Washington: Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2000. 140 pp. $19.95. As Schenker points out in his fine and sober study, expectations...

Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Sacred Landscape: The Buried History of the Holy Land since 1948. By Meron Benvenisti. Trans. from Hebrew by Maxine Kaufman-Lacusta. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. 366 pp. $35. Going where no post-Zionist has gone before,...

Sanctioning Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Sanctioning Saddam: The Politics of Intervention in Iraq. By Sarah Graham-Brown. London: I.B. Tauris and Co., 1999.380 pp. $26.25. United Nations (U.N.) restrictions on Iraq are the longest lasting and most comprehensive multilateral...

The Schools of Ba`athism: A Study of Syrian Textbooks.(Review)
June 1, 2000... The Schools of Ba`athism: A Study of Syrian Textbooks. By Meyrav Wurmser. Washington: Middle East Media Research Institute, 2000. 122 pp. $16.95. Noting that "a long-lasting peace between Israel and Syria will require more than just a...

Sovereign Intervention.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Sovereign Intervention. Edited by Anthony McDermott. Oslo: International Peace Research Institute, 1999. 193 pp. 135 Norwegian Kroner (paper). McDermott, author of Egypt from Nasser to Mubarak: A Flawed Revolution, has edited a unique and...

Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran.(Review)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... Staging a Revolution: The Art of Persuasion in the Islamic Republic of Iran. By Peter Chelkowski and Hamid Dabashi. Designed by Jason Beard and Jonathan Barnbrook. New York: New York University Press, 1999. 312 pp. 308 illus. $75. Like all...

State and Market: The Political Economy of Turkey in Comparative Perspective.(Review)
June 1, 2000... State and Market: The Political Economy of Turkey in Comparative Perspective. By Ziya Onis. Istanbul: Bogazici University Press, 1999 (2nd ed.). 529 pp. (paper). In addition to the many political barriers ahead in Turkey's bid to join the...

What about His Mustache?
June 1, 2000... BEIRUT--A fake Islamic militant who attacked a Lebanese army soldier revealed his true face when he shed his beard as he ran away, Lebanese state television reported Wednesday. He was one of a gang of three who set upon the soldier in the...

Barak's Dilemma.(Ehud Barak)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... [Israel's prime minister Ehud] Barak took a break in his dramatic peace negotiations with Syria and the Palestinians to attend the forum [held in Stockholm on education about the Holocaust]. Just before leaving for Stockholm he reiterated his...

Saved by the Clock.(daylight savings time disparities in Israel)(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... JERUSALEM--The switch from daylight-saving time to standard time is usually an excuse to sleep an extra hour. In the Middle East, it's a political act. Israelis switched early to promote religious redemption. Palestinians decided to wait two...

"Sunni Extremists".(Excerpt)(Transcript)
June 1, 2000... George J. Tenet delivered testimony to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about "The Worldwide Threat in 2000: Global Realities of Our National Security" on February 2, 2000. This, the formal annual statement of the director of Central...

A New Type of Dial-a-thon.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... DUBAI--Residents in Saudi Arabia are rushing to donate money to spare the life of a Saudi man who faces execution for murder after killing a friend during a traditional dance, a newspaper reported on Wednesday. The English-language Arab...

"We Are Not a Syrian Province".(Editorial)(Excerpt)
June 1, 2000... Despite its being a satellite state of Syria, Lebanon enjoys considerable freedom of press. There are, however, some things which never get said, such as criticism of Syria's President Hafiz al-Asad or a call for the end of the Syrian...

A Leftist Fur-Fight.(Transcript)
June 1, 2000... Edward W. Said and Milton Viorst, two left-wing American writers, skillfully deflate each other's pretensions to knowing about the Middle East in two acerbic exchanges, first in The Nation of March 22, 1999, and then in Al-Ahram Weekly of May...

Wild Boars as "Number-One Enemy".(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... TEHRAN--Iranian officials are seeking permission of the country's clergy to hunt and export the meat of wild boar, saying the religiously impure animals were destroying crops and contaminating livestock. Wild boars and pigs are considered...

Land for Peace: The French Solution.(Brief Article)
June 1, 2000... On a recent trip to Israel, French prime minister Lionel Jospin urged Israel to make concessions for peace. More interesting yet, in documents relating to his visit, Jerusalem was called the "capital of the Palestinian Authority." And what does...