Middle East Quarterly articles from March 2008

Middle East Quarterly archives from March 2008

Scientific training and radical Islam.(Focus on Radical Islam)(Essay)
March 22, 2008... The involvement of Muslim physicians in the London and Glasgow airport terror conspiracy on June 29-30, 2007, forced both non-Muslims and moderate Muslims to question how those trained to heal could embrace terrorism. The doctors involved in...

Mohamed Sifaoui: "I consider Islamism to be fascism".(Focus on Radical Islam)(Interview)
March 22, 2008... Mohamed Sifaoui was born on July 4, 1967, and spent most of his childhood in Algeria. He holds a master's degree in political science and studied theology for two years at the University of Algiers and for two additional years at Zeitouna...

Fatah's embrace of Islamism.(Terrorist Groups Evolve)(Essay)
March 22, 2008... Many U.S. and European diplomats contrast Fatah's Palestinian national-* with Hamas's Islamism. At a November 28, 2007 press conference, U.S. national security advisor Stephen Hadley praised Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas and cited President George...

Is Al-Qaeda's central leadership still relevant?(Terrorist Groups Evolve)(Essay)
March 22, 2008... Government officials, scholars, and analysts continue to debate the extent to which Al-Qaeda's central leadership remains relevant to today s battle against terrorism. After U.S. forces eliminated the group s safe haven in Afghanistan in late...

The psychological asymmetry of Islamist warfare.(Essay)
March 22, 2008... U.S. military lawyers acknowledge that "civilians may not be used.., to render an area immune from military operations... [or] to shield a defensive position, to hide military objectives, or to screen an attack. Neither may they be forced to...

Sovereign wealth funds: investment vehicles for the Persian Gulf countries.
March 22, 2008... Countries have used sovereign wealth funds (SWFs) as instruments through which to buy assets with their surplus foreign exchange since the 1950s when Norway and Singapore, and soon after Kuwait, sought new strategies to insulate themselves from...

"A land without a people for a people without a land".
March 22, 2008... "A land without a people for a people without a land" is one of the most oft cited phrases in the literature of Zionism--and perhaps also the most problematic. Anti-Zionists cite the phrase as a perfect encapsulation of the fundamental...

Daniel Nassif: "we do not spread propaganda for the United States".(Interview)
March 22, 2008... Daniel Nassif is the news director of Alhurra, a U.S.-funded Arabic satellite television news network created in 2004, and has also been news director of its sister network, Radio Sawa, launched in 2002. Nassif was born in Lebanon in 1958. He...

Flunking history: Ilan Pappe's The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine.(Critical essay)
March 22, 2008... Among many Israeli academics and Western revisionists, it has become fashionable to examine Israel's war of independence from an Arab perspective in which Jews were the aggressors and Arabs the victims. (1) This trend began in 1989 with works...

Beyond al-Qaeda. Part 1: The Global Jihadist Movement.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Beyond al-Qaeda. Part 1: The Global Jihadist Movement. By Angel Rabasa, et al. Santa Monica: RAND Corp., 2006. 186 pp. $30, paper. Beyond al-Qaeda. Part 2: The Outer Rings of the Terrorist Universe. By Angel Rabasa, et al. Santa Monica: RAND...

Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S., and the Twisted Path to Confrontation. By Barbara Slavin. New York: St. Martin's Press, 2007. 246 pp. $24.95. The fine line between reporting and analysis has blurred in the age of the 24-hour...

Cradle of Conflict: Iraq and the Birth of Modern U.S. Military Power.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Cradle of Conflict: Iraq and the Birth of the Modern U.S. Military. By Michael Knights. Annapolis: Naval Institute Press, 2005. 496 pp. $40. Many recent books about Iraq address only the current conflict while earlier studies limit...

Crusader Castles and Modern Histories.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Crusader Castles and Modern Histories. By Ronnie Ellenblum. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 374 pp. $99. Ellenblum, associate professor of geography at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, presents an archaeologically-based view of...

Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam among Palestinians in Lebanon.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Everyday Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam among Palestinians in Lebanon. By Bernard Rougier. Trans. by Pascale Ghazaleh. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 2007.333 pp. $28.95. The weeks-long battle in...

Good Neighbourly Relations: Jordan, Israel, and the 1994-2004 Peace Process.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Good Neighbourly Relations: Jordan, Israel, and the 1994-2004 Peace Process. By Dona Stewart. London: Tauris Academic Studies, 2007. 215 pp. $74.95. When the Jordanian and Israeli governments signed their peace treaty in 1994, both aimed...

Hezbollah: A Short History.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Hezbollah: A Short History. By Augustus Richard Norton. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007. 187 pp. $16.95. Norton, a professor at Boston University, disdains the "simplistic stereotypes" about Hezbollah and promises in his book a...

Iran, Islam, and Democracy: The Politics of Managing Change.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Iran, Islam, and Democracy: The Politics of Managing Change, 2nd ed. By Ali M. Ansari. London: Chatham House, 2006.327 pp. 19.95 [pounds sterling]/ $26.95. When Ansari, a lecturer in history at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland,...

Iraq: People, History, Politics.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Iraq: People, History, Politics. By Gareth Stansfield. Malden, Mass.: Polity Press, 2007. 262 pp. $22.95. Stansfield, an associate professor of Middle East Politics, is a prolific writer about Iraq and Iraqi...

Iraq in Fragments: The Occupation and Its Legacy.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Iraq in Fragments: The Occupation and Its Legacy. By Eric Herring and Glen Rangwala. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2006.354 pp. $27.95. Herring and Rangwala, political scientists at the universities of Bristol and Cambridge...

Iraq: Preventing a New Generation of Conflict.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Iraq: Preventing a New Generation of Conflict. Edited by Markus E. Bouillon, David M. Malone, and Ben Rowswell. Boulder: Rienner Press, 2007. 351 pp. $24.50. The International Peace Academy (IPA), an organization run by former U.N. Middle...

Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Islam and Democracy in Iran: Eshkevari and the Quest for Reform. By Ziba Mir-Hosseini and Richard Tapper. London: I.B. Tauris, 2006.198 pp. $26.95, paper. In an age when democrats have been successful at opening up so many societies, one...

Islamic Terror Abductions in the Middle East.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Islamic Terror Abductions in the Middle East. By Shaul Shay. Portland, Ore.: Sussex Academic Press, 2007. 197 pp. $67.50. Kidnapping has become a tactic of choice among Middle Eastern terrorists. Shay, a research...

The Palestinian Peasant Economy under the Mandate: A Story of Colonial Bungling.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The Palestinian Peasant Economy under the Mandate: A Story of Colonial Bungling. By Amos Nadan. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2006. 370 pp. $19.95, paper. Conventional wisdom has it that foreign, direct investment will increase the...

A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... A Poisonous Affair: America, Iraq, and the Gassing of Halabja. By Joost R. Hiltermann. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 314 pp. $29. In the course of a few minutes on March 16, 1988, Saddam Hussein's regime murdered thousands of...

A Quest in the Middle East: Gertrude Bell and the Making of Modern Iraq.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... A Quest in the Middle East: Gertrude Bell and the Making of Modern Iraq. By Liora Lukitz. New York: I.B. Tauris, 2006. 306 pp. $45. Lukitz, a research fellow at Hebrew University's Truman Institute, weaves together a masterful biography of...

Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Religion of Peace? Why Christianity Is and Islam Isn't. By Robert Spencer. Washington: Regnery Publishing Inc., 2007. 264 pp. $27.95. Spencer, director of JihadWatch.org, is not a man to recoil from difficulties. In his most recent, solid...

Treacherous Alliance. The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the U.S.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Treacherous Alliance. The Secret Dealings of Israel, Iran, and the U.S. By Trita Parsi. New York: Yale University Press, 2007. 361 pp. $28. The trilateral relationship between Israel, Iran, and the United States is complex. Alas,...

The United Arab Emirates: A Study in Survival.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... The United Arab Emirates: A Study in Survival. By Christophe Davidson. Boulder: Lynne Rienner Publishers, 2005. 333 pp. $59.95. The United Arab Emirates (UAE) not only has more than 10 percent of the world's oil reserves, but it is also the...

Water Resources in Jordan: Evolving Policies for Development, the Environment, and Conflict Resolution.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... Water Resources in Jordan: Evolving Policies for Development, the Environment, and Conflict Resolution. Edited by Munther J. Haddadin. Washington, D.C.: Resource for the Future [RFF] Press, 2006.208 pp. $65. Few issues are more emotional to...

World War IV: The Long Struggle against Islamofascism.(Book review)
March 22, 2008... World War IV: The Long Struggle against Islamofascism. By Norman Podhoretz. New York: Doubleday, 2007.230 pp. $24.95. In World War IV, Podhoretz, a doyen of the neoconservative intellectual movement, places the struggle against Islamism in...

Abdul Rahman al-Lahim.(Dissident Watch)
March 22, 2008... [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] A Saudi court's sentence of 200 lashes and six months' imprisonment for a 19-year-old victim of gang rape, known only as the "Qatifgirl," recently made headlines across the United States. Her story would never have...