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Please take a moment to visit and log in at the subscriber area, and submit your city & country location. We will use this information in future to invite you to any events that we organize in your area. Brother Tariqby Caroline Fourest Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/2615/brother-tariq
Fourest, a French journalist, has revealed the real nature of Tariq Ramadan, one of the most effective and threatening Islamist activists in the West. Some Europeans embrace him as a Muslim version of Martin Luther but Fourest shows how Ramadan intends to help make Europe a majority Muslim continent. Fourest has waded through the complex record of his preaching—particularly off-the-record and impromptu speeches to fellow Muslims—and found a sometimes refined and sometimes puerile contempt for the West and an abiding faith in the supremacy and eventual triumph of Islam. This is the "doublespeak" to which the title of the book refers. Among the themes are Islamo-feminism, itself worth a book; integration and national allegiance; and Zionism. Then-interior minister Nicolas Sarkozy brought to French national attention Ramadan's refusal to state categorically that there is no place in any society under any circumstances for the stoning of women; Ramadan would only call for a "moratorium," allowing him to appear moderate to Europeans but protecting his fundamentalist credentials among Muslims. Ramadan has used this rhetorical device in other circumstances, and Fourest points out how typical this is of Ramadan's rhetoric. If Israeli children are murdered in a car bombing, Ramadan can say, "It is condemnable," but he is able to avoid having to say "I condemn it." Ramadan is likewise Janus-faced on the matter of European Muslims integrating themselves into European civilization. He says that Muslims should obey the laws of the countries in which they reside but also that they should resist the contaminants of Western civilization. He supports the laws of countries as long as they do not conflict with Islam. It is not surprising, then, that he advises Muslims not to serve in the army of a European country if it is at war with an Islamic state. And what would serve as a model for Ramadan's new Europe? He sees in Sudan an example of a country that successfully has resisted globalization. College students, often so eager to learn about the suffering of women, would do well to read this book. Their professors would do well to find space on their reading lists between Edward Said and Howard Zinn to place this highly readable and most relevant book in the assigned reading. Related Topics: Muslims in the West, Radical Islam Winter 2010 MEQ Coffee with the Prophetby Mark A. Gabriel Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/2616/coffee-with-the-prophet
Gabriel, a Muslim who converted to Christianity and lives in Salmon Rushdie-like hiding, has written a short story, largely based on his own life as a young Muslim, that captures, in stages, the many internal struggles he encountered with his faith—the same struggles that manifest themselves in daily headlines under the rubric of radical Islam. A quick paced narrative, it recounts a onetime enthusiastic Muslim youth's discussions and experiences with a learned sheikh, and his subsequent disillusionment. Chapter after chapter, the youth confronts any number of troubling issues—from infidels' default status as enemies and the command to execute apostates and subject women, to the arbitrary and totalitarian nature of Shari'a—providing readers with a glimpse of some of Islam's inherent problems. An appendix documenting the commands and assertions attributed to Muhammad in the book, which form the foundation of these issues, makes for a handy reference. While the book is better suited for novices to the field of Islam and makes for light reading, here and there intriguing insights emerge. For instance, though Muhammad offered details on life's minutiae, when it came to avoiding hell, he provided only one sure road, "to die in jihad."
For all its story-like feel, however, Gabriel's own background—a former Muslim, Al-Azhar scholar, and hafiz (memorizer of the Qur'an)—adds to the book's authority and sincerity. Related Topics: Freethinking & Muslim apostasy Raymond Ibrahim Winter 2010 MEQ Eight Lives Downby Chris Hunter Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/2617/eight-lives-down
Improvised explosive devices (IEDs) are among the most significant threats to coalition forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. During 2004, Hunter, a former British ammunition technical officer, served a four-month tour in Basra defusing IEDs and working to counter Sunni and Shi'i bomb-making networks. Eight Lives Down is his story of the waging of this particular war within a war; an IED incident looks a lot different in his telling than it does in a telegraphic significant activities or clinical after-action report. It is a very personal story of men under real pressure: the threat of physical death or injury, the threat of failing in the eyes of fellow team members, the understanding that failure would likely result in the deaths of other soldiers and innocent civilians, and the strain all this imposes on personal lives. Hunter also provides an insight into the dynamic nature of the threat. He writes directly about the adaptive and evolving nature of the bomb-makers and their weapons, including the tactical and technical differences between the Sunni and Shi'i IED networks. Over the course of his tour, he witnessed the development of increasingly sophisticated bombs and triggering devices and the growing role of bomb-making technology and materials provided by Iranians with expertise and material largely from within Iran. It seems likely that he was one of the first coalition soldiers to encounter IEDs with explosively formed penetrators (EFPs), devices of Iranian origin and among the most effective devices employed in Iraq against the coalition. Hunter depicts a very dynamic environment as both sides innovate to gain technical or tactical advantage. Coevolutionary environments have become the norm for Western forces engaged in irregular or asymmetric wars. The author also opens up the world of what is known as "left of the blast" or "left of boom," the networks and processes that are required to design, produce, and place an IED before it is triggered. This has been one of the most difficult parts of the IED menace for U.S. and coalition forces to penetrate although it is recognized as the key to defeating the threat. Hunter's writing is earthy and filled with British Army slang; for anyone interested in how Iraqis fight and what Allied troops face, this is a useful read. Related Topics: Iraq, Terrorism Jeffrey B. White Winter 2010 MEQ Gender, Modernity and LibertyEdited by Reina Lewis and Nancy Micklewright. New York and London: I.B. Tauris, 2006. 259 pp. $79.95 ($29.50, paper). Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/2618/gender-modernity-and-liberty
Lewis, a professor of cultural studies at the University of East London, publishes in the areas of postcolonialism and sexualities, meaning she avidly criticizes Western Orientalism but equally avidly takes interest in the alleged Western eroticization of "Orientalized" women. Lewis has published other titles in this area including Gendering Orientalism: Race, Femininity and Representation,[1] and Rethinking Orientalism: Women, Travel, and the Ottoman Harem.[2] Lewis, in brief, is an ideologue, committed to Edward Said's highly biased view about how Western travelers, scholars, and memoirists essentially colonized their subject and, in so doing, rendered the Orient passive. But Ibn Warraq has definitively challenged Said's interpretation in Defending the West. A Critique of Edward Said's Orientalism, and I share his views. In Gender, Modernity, and Liberty, Lewis has collaborated with Micklewright, a program officer at the Getty Foundation and author of A Victorian Traveler in the Middle East. The Photography and Travel Writing of Annie Lady Brassey.[3] The material itself is fascinating as is their choice of photographs. The authors provide extracts from selected nineteenth- and twentieth-century writings of British, Turkish, and Egyptian women, including Julia Pardoe, Sophia Lane Poole, Emmeline Lott, Melek Hanum, Annie Lady Brassey, Zeynoub Hanoum, Grace Ellison, Huda Shaarawi, and Halide Edib. They correctly criticize Westerners for confusing the harem with the brothel—although polygamy and the endless waiting that characterized the secluded, indoor life of Muslim women easily lends itself to such confusion. A harem meant that multiple generations of women and children were forbidden, protected, off limits to everyone except other women and male blood relatives. Hence, Western women, but not men, developed a small cottage industry of harem literature. Although the authors approve of travelers such as Julia Pardoe (1806-62), who "struggled against" the male Western eroticization of the Orient and viewed Turkish women as happier than European women, they typically take every opportunity to view Western women travelers and their harem photographs sarcastically, suspiciously, bitterly. There is almost nothing Westerners can do to avoid their scorn. For example, the fact that indigenous cultures did not educate even elite women in their native languages—while foreign colonial powers did—led to elite Muslim women writing in English and French and not in Arabic or Turkish. The authors condemn this. Lewis and Micklewright reserve their ire primarily for Orientalists and expend no scorn on the indigenous cultures for failing to educate women nor do they critique patriarchy with its concubine-sex slaves and multiple wives. The authors' mission is to rescue Oriental women from other Western writers who are not sufficiently postcolonial, i.e., anti-Western, pro-noble savage in outlook. This means that they savage most of the extraordinary writers and photographs that they have carefully and lovingly excerpted for this volume. Contrast this volume with Barbara Hodgson's graceful and beautifully written work, Dreaming of East. Western Women and the Exotic Allure of the Orient.[4] Hodgson is no ideologue and in her text, photographs, and drawings, she captures the complexities and charm of Western women traveling eastward. Yes, many heavily-corseted, Victorian-era women did appreciate Muslim women's loose clothing, the charm and politeness of Eastern hospitality, and the fact that, as travelers, they were themselves far freer than they were back home. However, this does not mean that Western descriptions of the Orient are necessarily biased and racist or that the lives of indolent, bored, and illiterate home-bound women were anything to envy. [1] London and New York: Routledge, 1995. Related Topics: Sex and gender relations Phyllis Chesler Winter 2010 MEQ Identity and Religionby Loren D. Lybarger Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/2619/identity-and-religion
Lybarger's worthy book ties together rich ethnographic material and interviews during the 1990s with individuals in three locales—Bethlehem, a neighboring refugee camp, and a refugee camp in Gaza. The interviews reveal the perpetual fluidity of individuals in crisis situations in identifying who they are and where they are going. Lybarger, assistant professor of classics and world religions at Ohio University-Athens, captures much of the complexity of social and political life, even given the small size of his sample. He is a master of prose with true insight. We meet the leftist activist turned nongovernmental organization professional worried about the rise of Islamism; the Palestine Liberation Organization bureaucratic type who is convinced that nationalist and fundamentalist revolutionaries are both derailing Palestinian state-building; two unmarried women, one clinging to a relatively liberal life, the other moving with the wave into a life of Islamic piety; an Islamist and his wife in the Gaza refugee camp increasingly and mutually estranged from his older brother who belongs to one of the Palestinian Authority's security services; and other less decisive and sure-footed souls who are trying to make the most of the quicksand reality around them. Perhaps the best compliment to make to such an author is that one finishes the book with a burning desire to know what happened to these people in the decade that followed. Will he write Identity and Religion II? Yet, this question also reveals to the political scientist the weakness of his anthropological approach. For all the fluidity and soul-searching among rank and file individuals and the interest their lives arouse, they do not make history. It was the committed elements that propelled their forces to fight a losing war against Israel in 2000 and then engage in an even more destructive internal war, which has divided the Palestinians. One wonders, then, whether tying the micro-story to macro events is like squaring the circle, and whether it is better, though more prosaic, to focus on those leaders of organizations who clearly know what they want yet fail to comprehend the unintended, often dire, consequences of their desires. Related Topics: Palestinians Hillel Frisch Winter 2010 MEQ Iranophobiaby Haggai Ram Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/2620/iranophobia
Ram, a professor of Middle Eastern history at Ben Gurion University, seeks to enlighten readers on how the cultural values and foundations of Israeli society have affected its perception of Iran. Unfortunately, he is very much influenced by post-Zionist, Saidian, and leftist philosophies. The book focuses primarily on perceived inequalities within Israel and its domination by an ethnocentric elite. From the opening, Ram argues that Israel's fears about Iran are based upon "phobias" and prejudices. Israel is portrayed as a country with an identity crisis, in which the elite, eschewing a traditional Jewish or Middle Eastern identity, aspires to be "like Europe." He provides a myriad of examples in examining different reactions to the Iranian revolution within the Israeli elite. It is impossible, the author argues, to look at the Israeli elite's or society's responses as monolithic in tone. Academics who do not share Ram's opinions are categorized as close-minded, misinformed, or bigoted. The author's account neglects a realistic portrayal of what occurred within Iran during the revolution when there were a multitude of political philosophies and figures at work. The view of Iran as a threat derives from 1979, according to the author, as a replacement for the threat from the Arabs. Ram explains that Israel's view of Iran was obscured by "Orientalism." In its haste to be considered part of Europe, Israel imported prejudiced and caricatured views of the Middle East and of Islam. Israel's fear of Iran is seen as one that has been manufactured and cultivated by its elite in order to maintain the status quo. Ram even implies that Iranian Jews find as much or more freedom in Iran than in Israel. The Israeli public in turn accepts Iran's bogeyman status because what it abhors in its vision of Iran is a mirror-image of what may become of Israel. Despite the misplaced fears of secularists about Iranian Shi'i political designs, they were looking for influence over, not the overthrow of the state. Ram argues that Israeli leaders used hysteria about the dangers of Iran to create a diversion and to present their country as a trusted ally in the war on terrorism. That the Iranian regime has fought a proxy war against Israel on multiple fronts, most notably via Hezbollah and Hamas, undermines Ram's accusations of Israeli paranoia and opportunism. The Ram thesis borders on the disingenuous and his book has more utility to understand the mindset of post-Zionist writers and intellectuals than the nature of Israel's perceptions of Iran. Related Topics: Iran, Israel Winter 2010 MEQ An Iraq of Its RegionsEdited by Reidar Visser and Gareth Stansfield. New York: Columbia University Press, 2008. 274 pp. $27.50 Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/2621/an-iraq-of-its-regions
Federalism remains a dominant political debate in post-Saddam Iraq, and while Western commentators often focus on Iraqi Kurdistan, in reality, Iraqi discussions are broader. Visser, a research fellow at the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs, explains, "Villages, towns, and regions have shaped identities: the people of southern Iraq, for instance, often think of themselves as 'Qurnawis' or 'Basrawis' or just 'Southerners' rather than as 'Shiites' or 'Sunnis.'" Indeed, Visser persuades us that the conventional wisdom that Iraq is an amalgam of three Ottoman provinces—one Sunni, one Shi'i, and one Kurdish—is wrong for that identity is more complex and disparate. Sorbonne historian Alastair Northedge fleshes out this point more with the definitive essay tracing the development of Iraqi identity prior to the Ottoman trifurcation of the region while Richard Schofield of King's College London sketches a useful outline of the drawing of modern Iraqi boundaries. Visser's introduction to An Iraq of Its Regions is detailed and well-grounded in historiography. So, too, is his contribution on the two regions of southern Iraq. He argues persuasively that much of the Western media misinterpreted Iraqi Shi'i leader 'Abdul 'Aziz Hakim's demand for a single southern, federal region, and that discussion in southern Iraq revolves around two regions: the Basra-Amara-Nasiriya triangle and another in the Middle Euphrates region although he also describes minor variations that arise from time to time. Exeter University scholars Fanar Haddad and Sajjad Rizvi's contribution on fitting Baghdad into the federalist discourse pales next to Visser's work, but after a somewhat disjointed discussion of federalism in other countries and federalism "from above" as opposed to "from below," they persuasively show through interviews the fears that many Baghdadis have that federalism might lead to the dissolution of the state. University of Haifa historian Ronen Zeidel reprises his thesis on regionalism around Iraqi president Saddam Hussein's home town of Tikrit in a separate chapter. Utilizing several Arabic histories and other sources, Zeidel writes a definitive, local history of Tikrit from the sixteenth century through the present day with a special emphasis on the rise of the Tikritis in the Iraqi military and power structure in the second half of the twentieth century. Zeidal shows that the primacy of Tikriti regional identity did not survive Saddam's overthrow since Tikriti refusal to fight advancing coalition forces shattered regional solidarity. De-Baathification hit Tikrit hard. To cope, many residents subordinated the regional identity about which they had been so proud to a broader Sunni identity. An essay by James Denselow, a doctoral candidate at King's College, London, is the only true disappointment in the collection. Rather than provide a survey of Mosul equivalent in depth to Visser's or Zeidel's contributions, Denselow substitutes historical background for a survey of secondary sources by authors like Avi Shlaim, Rashid Khalidi, and Juan Cole, none of whom ever visited Iraq and whose writing accordingly tends toward the polemical. Denselow's failure to address the consolidation of Mosul's identity after Saddam's fall, the struggles to reverse gerrymandering around Sinjar, Tel Afar's unique identity, and issues surrounding the resurgence across the border of Kurdish nationalism in Qamishli, the largest town in eastern Syria, are omissions that raise questions about why the editors did not seek revision before inclusion. Meanwhile, Denselow's discussion of the artificiality and porousness of the Syria-Iraq border is nothing new; his conclusion that "informed quarters" recognize that the Syrians have done their utmost to secure the border reads more like an academic's attempt to secure Syrian good will than a work of scholarly integrity. University of Exeter historian Gareth Stansfield and his colleague Hashem Ahmadzadeh show a mastery of Iraqi Kurdish issues in a chapter that examines Kurdish and Kurdistani identities. The authors look both at the political debate in Iraqi Kurdistan—where the former term refers to ethnic identity and the latter is a way to signal equality in Iraqi Kurdistan for non-Kurdish residents, be they Turkmen, Chaldean, Assyrian, or Arab—and at the Kurdistani term's original pan-Kurdish overtones. Kurdish historical writing is notorious for unsourced claims and a retroactive imposition of nationalism. Both authors avoid this pitfall and provide a well-researched narrative although Stansfield's penchant for vanity footnotes distracts. Still, "Kurdish or Kurdistanis? Conceptualizing Regionalism in the North of Iraq" should be required reading for anyone seeking to understand Iraqi Kurdish politics. Few edited collections have value greater than a single constituent essay. An Iraq of Its Regions is an exception—Visser and Stansfield have assembled a unique work that should become the handbook for any serious discussion of Iraqi regionalism. Related Topics: Iraq Michael Rubin Winter 2010 MEQ King Hussein of Jordanby Nigel Ashton Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/2622/king-hussein-of-jordan
Ashton, a senior lecturer in the department of international history at the London School of Economics, has previously written on the political dimensions of U.S and U.K. dealings with Gamal Abdel Nasser's brand of Arab nationalism. Now, to write an original biography of Jordan's Hussein (1935-99), he received special permission for "unfettered" access to the king's correspondence. Given the pace of the narrative, which details the high-speed world of Hussein and the Middle East maelstrom he lived in, events and arguments beg further attention and analysis. The king reigned for forty-seven years, married four times, flew airplanes, and enjoyed driving fast cars in between fighting one war against Israel (1967) and another against Yasser Arafat's Palestine Liberation Organization (1970), having already dealt with other threats such as the Nasserite crises of 1958. The king made peace with Israel in 1994 and proved a reasonably stable ally to the West, transforming the kingdom from a land of Bedouins and Palestinian refugees to a stable and moderate Arab monarchy. Ashton weaves the narrative through these stories in an acceptable but not dazzling manner, leaving the reader to wish for a little more color. One of the high points of the book is the description of Hussein's role in the Gulf crises and war between 1990 and 1991. Of interest is the correspondence between the king and President George H.W. Bush. The story of how Hussein embraced an increasingly nationalist, Arab-Muslim view is interesting in the light of his meeting with Israeli prime minister Yitzhak Shamir before the conflict broke out. In a speech on February 6, 1991, he spoke of his "Palestinian brothers" and the "crime" against the Muslim religion and the Arab nation. This is but one example of the provocative way he spoke to the Arab street even while he was perceived in the West as peaceful, moderate and modern. Related Topics: Jordan Winter 2010 MEQ A Political Economy of the Middle Eastby Alan Richards and John Waterbury Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/2623/a-political-economy-of-the-middle-east
The role of economics in the Middle East's many troubles is often exaggerated by outsiders. No peoples in the world are as ideologically driven as Middle Easterners; they were not born to shop. That said, it is worth considering what the region has been able to accomplish with its ample resources. From the first 1992 edition, A Political Economy of the Middle East has been the most influential book on the issue. Not long after the second edition (1996), Waterbury became president of the American University in Beirut. Richards, a professor at the University of California, Santa Cruz, is therefore the sole author of the extensive revisions in this edition. He has ably incorporated data that bring the story up to the present. As before, the analysis is largely done by topic, such as demographic change, regional economic integration, urban life, and food and water. The chapters on types of economic policy—state-led growth, market-led growth, military control, and Islamism—are also structured primarily around grand themes although they inevitably have substantial sections about the experiences of particular states. Like earlier editions, the 2008 revision sees the region as a glass half full, which is a much more positive evaluation than that of many Middle Easterners themselves. Richards is quite correct in writing, "What is astonishing is that despite the investment of colossal resources and energies in the destruction of enemies, the region is more prosperous, its citizens better educated, and its nations more firmly rooted than forty years ago." That is quite a "despite": During those forty years, the Middle East's many conflicts and internal battles have not only absorbed hundreds of billions of dollars but also resulted in millions of deaths. Over those four decades, the region has enjoyed oil windfalls totaling at least three trillion dollars, and yet its economic performance has been about average for developing countries: worse than East Asia, better than Africa, and about the same as Latin America. That is an impressive waste of an opportunity. Analyzing why the region has performed as it has, Richards argues that the market-oriented policies about which he and Waterbury were enthusiastic in 1996 have turned in mediocre performance. That is unfair. In the face of oil prices well below what prevailed before and after, the more market-oriented policies of the 1990s did about as well as the socialist industrialization of the 1960s or the newly resurgent state-driven policies of recent years. The flip side of Richards' harsh words about market-oriented policies is his kid-glove treatment of Islamist economics. He writes that the Islamist record in Sudan and Iran has been mixed, which is highly charitable. In short, the volume presents a wealth of information, solid analysis of strictly economic developments, and not much insight about political economy. Related Topics: Middle East patterns, Middle East politics Patrick Clawson Winter 2010 MEQ Turkish Migration to the United StatesEdited by A. Deniz Balgamis and Kemal H. Karpat. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 2008. 238 pp. $39.95, paper Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/2624/turkish-migration-to-the-united-states
Very little is known about the history of migration from the Ottoman Empire and Turkey to the United States. Authors who contribute to this book provide rich insight into this topic through examination of historical archives in the United States as well as in Turkey and from the personal accounts of immigrants. As such, their valuable work provides an important contribution to the subject. Readers learn that there have been three stages of immigration to the United States by Turkish speakers: 1820-1921, 1950-70, and post-1970s. The motives behind each phase are complex and were led by economic considerations and the search for a better life in a new world. Two factors served as vehicles in this process: missionary schools in the Ottoman Empire where American teachers and preachers provided support for bright students to pursue further education in the United States and connections among those born in the same township or village who often followed neighbors to America. Moreover, the early immigrants represented a mix of ethnicities of the Ottoman Empire with the smallest numbers being from among ethnic Turks (only 20,000 out of a half million). Most of these others were Greeks, Sephardic Jews, and Armenians. And most of the ethnic Turks, who worked mostly in unskilled jobs, eventually returned to Turkey; those who remained in the United States married Christian women and were assimilated into the local society. The second phase immigrants consisted of those who defined themselves as Turks; they were few in numbers and were professionals with Western social values who assimilated into American society. It was not until the post-1970 period that significant numbers of Turks, roughly 200,000, representing the complex social mosaic of Turkish society, emigrated for the United States. Today's Turkish-Americans represent these newcomers as well as the second and third generation of descendents of professionals who emigrated in the second phase. Descendants of the first phase, however, have no link to these new Turkish-Americans due to the assimilation into American society of their grandfathers or great-grandfathers. These newer immigrants have organized a new network of American-Turkish associations and provide social support for their kin as well as a political lobbying network that has started to challenge the Greek and Armenian lobbies. Related Topics: History, Immigration, Muslims in the United States, Turkey and Turks Winter 2010 MEQ United in Hateby Jamie Glazov Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/2625/united-in-hate
Glazov, editor of FrontPageMag.com, exposes the hypocrisy of leftists and liberals who claim to champion the principles of freedom, democracy, liberalism, and feminism yet support both communist and Islamist dictatorships, which implement none of these principles. David Horowitz, Glazov's boss, also wrote a book in 2004, Unholy Alliance[1] on this subject, but Glazov digs deeper. The author, who fled the Soviet Union as a child and earned a Ph.D. from the University of Toronto in Soviet studies, points in the first 100 pages of the book to a nucleus of American apologists in the 1930s who heaped praise on communist strongman Joseph Stalin, including Walter Duranty of The New York Times and author Upton Sinclair. In the generation that followed, intellectuals including novelist Normal Mailer and feminist activist Simone de Beauvoir continued to apologize for communist regimes in Cuba, China, Nicaragua, and Vietnam. With the decline of communism, the Left began to support Islamism. Whereas journalists, novelists, and activists led the charge in the first wave, Glazov explains in the second half of the book that the most vociferous defenders of Islamism now come from the Ivory Tower. After the Iranian revolution in 1979, French philosopher Michel Foucault, who enjoyed stints at the University of Buffalo and University of California Berkeley, lauded Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini as a "saint." The late English professor Edward Said, famous for his anti-Western philosophy, Orientalism, became a popular apologist for Palestinian Islamist violence in the 1990s. In 2001, Rutgers University English professor Barbara Foley called the 9/11 attacks a legitimate response to the "fascism" of U.S. foreign policy. In 2006, Noam Chomsky, an M.I.T. linguistics professor, lauded Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah, whose group calls for the destruction of America and Israel. What Glazov does not explicitly note is that the foremost apologists for Islamism in the universities are the specialists in Middle Eastern Studies. From Columbia's Rashid Khalidi to Georgetown's John Esposito, the field has become overwrought with professor-activists who now rationalize Islamism to new generations of students. But, Glazov provides ample proof that the professors are not alone. Filmmaker Michael Moore likened Iraqi terrorists to "minutemen." Media mogul Ted Turner reportedly lauded the 9/11 hijackers as "brave." And, of course, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter met Hamas leader Khaled Meshal, against the wishes of the U.S. State Department, and now seeks to engage in diplomacy with the group best known for suicide bombing. Glazov's lucid and compelling book would be strengthened by distinguishing more clearly between liberal-Left and far-Left. Indeed, not everyone who identifies with the former supports the ideals of the latter. Still, United in Hate highlights an important and disturbing trend that has made the battle of ideas against Islamists and despots that much harder to win. [1] Unholy Alliance: Radical Islam and the American Left (Washington, D.C.: Regnery Publishing, Inc., 2004). Related Topics: Jonathan Schanzer Winter 2010 MEQ Will Terrorists Go Nuclear?by Brian Michael Jenkins Middle East Quarterly http://www.meforum.org/2626/will-terrorists-go-nuclear
Jenkins, who has written extensively on terrorism and transportation security, poses an important question in the title of his ambitious book. There is perhaps no greater physical threat to the American homeland than a potential nuclear detonation by a terrorist organization. And while Jenkins frames his analysis around the notion of an amorphous terrorist organization launching a nuclear attack, Al-Qaeda figures prominently. Indeed, as Jenkins reminds us, its leaders have explicitly stated their intentions to employ nuclear weapons against the United States to create an "American Hiroshima." Jenkins's purpose is less to address the likelihood of a terrorist nuclear attack than to argue that Americans have already succumbed to nuclear terror. He blames this phenomenon largely on media-hype, sensationalist popular fiction, and the opportunistic utterances of some government officials, notably in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. While Jenkins painstakingly seeks to dispel many of the myths propagated by these outlets regarding the inevitability, if not the imminence, of an actual nuclear disaster—and in this way attempts to calm American fears—he surprisingly points out that "some measure of fear is rational." Herein lies a problem: When does Jenkins's notion of irrational fear become his idea of rational fear? In other words, how do we identify that tipping point? Jenkins offers no insight here. In an interesting interlude, Jenkins presents the reader with an imagined scenario of a nuclear attack of unknown origin on New York city. However much he plays upon that unknown, Al-Qaeda is lurking everywhere. In fact, Jenkins boldly states that "Al-Qaeda must be utterly destroyed to prevent it from ever acquiring any weapons of mass destruction." But on the issue of motives (which Jenkins emphasizes), and if "religious imperatives" are at work and Al-Qaeda's "approach to war" is "derived from the Koran and Hadith" (as he suggests may very well be the case), then could we not expect new Al-Qaedas to emerge? And if so, does this not effectively amount to a sustained war on the Muslim world itself? But that does not seem to be what Jenkins has in mind. Related Topics: Terrorism Winter 2010 MEQ To receive the full, printed version of the Middle East Quarterly, please see details about an affordable subscription. This text may be reposted or forwarded so long as it is presented as an integral whole with complete information provided about its author, date, place of publication, and original URL. | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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