Middle East Book Reviews & Entertainment

Ikhras loves the Syrian Dictatorship: Just read their "Twits"

2011-12-09T04:39:00.001-08:00

Ikhras haters Thabit al-Arabi and Qassem Lufti, who have a life-long difficulty with the English language, moderation and accuracy, have laid out (or lied out) a long list of reasons why they think Syrian Dictator Bashar al-Assad shouldn't be attacked and that the pro-Democracy protesters should be blamed and criticized.

But they know that their support for the Syrian government, which has murdered more than 4,000 innocent civilians including hundreds of children, is not an easy one to argue. It makes them look like hypocrites as they assault and slander an array of people including. Their targets include star comedians Dean Obeidallah and Maysoon Zayid (who host the annual New York Arab Comedy Festival), and writers Hussein Ibish, Ray Hanania and Mona eltahawy. These are but a few of the scores of people that Ikhras brutalizes in their online verbal assaults as if they were the Syrian military police attacking civilians seeking freedom in Homs. (I can just see the Ikhras goofs cheering as new statistics surface about innocent Syrian civilians being killed by the Syrian Government that they consistently defend.)

All you have to do is read their Twitter posts, posts that Qassem and Thabet recently referred to as "Twits" in an email. Maybe that's because they are the "twits."

Hussein Ibish has penned a scathing expose of who these sad refugees from truth really are.

(Click here to read that priceless unveiling of the rotten core of Ikhras.)

Here's a direct link to Ibish's article: Click here.

But here are some of their most recent Tweets (Yes Thabet and Qassem, they're called Tweets, not Twits!) that demonstrate and prove their loyalty to the Syrian Dictatorship and why they pick and chose their words carefully to pretend as if they care about, say, the Palestinian refugees (they don't) or the people of Egypt (they don't) or ADC (which upsets them the most because ADC fights for the rights of victims of discrimination including those bullied by cowards like Qassem and Thabet and the Ikhras gaggle of online bullies).

Read how they carefully tiptoe and pretend they do not support the brutality of the Syrian regime, and then use that argument as a means of attacking others. The way they exploit the suffering of the Palestinians as a means of saying, hey, what's happening in Syria isn't that important because Bush is a liar and a murderer, too.

Their theme here is right out of the Little Red Book published by Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian Baath Party dictators.

ikhras Ikhras اخرس

The show is sponsored by Royal Jordanian Airlines. Unlikely RJ would sponsor these clowns w/o involvement of Gov agencyascf.jo/index.html

2 hours ago Favorite Retweet Reply

ikhras Ikhras اخرس

Can anyone provide info on this show in Amman, Jordan?ascf.jo/index.html Interested in role of US Embassy in this event.@Deanofcomedy.

2 hours ago

ikhras Ikhras اخرس

Interesting to contrast Western officials descriptions of Eric Honeker/Gustav Husak/Nicolae Ceaușescu w/descriptions of Qadhafi/Saddam/Assad

4 hours ago

ikhras Ikhras اخرس

Why do some ignore mass murder of 1.5 Million people by Bush & Blair in Iraq & feign humanity over crimes by Arab rulers US Gov opposes?

4 hours ago

ikhras Ikhras اخرس

Arabs must oppose Arab tyranny w/o adopting racist double standards which dehumanize an entire culture and not just a regime or ruler.

4 hours ago

ikhras Ikhras اخرس

Arabs who oppose Arab dictators shouldnt accept the West's dehumanization of Arab rulers because it includes dehumanization of Arab culture

4 hours ago

ikhras Ikhras اخرس

Those who call #Syria n President a "liar" (and lets all assume he is): Would you dare call US officials liars? Dont accept double standards

4 hours ago

ikhras Ikhras اخرس

For those who oppose the #Syria n regime: Its in your interest to not lie. Youre better off trying to preserve your credibility.

4 hours ago

ikhras Ikhras اخرس

It appears some people paid more attention to State Dept's characterization of the Bashar Al-Assad interview than to the interview. #Syria

4 hours ago

ikhras Ikhras اخرس

Arabs deserve better than to have to choose between dictatorship and imperialism.

18 hours ago

ikhras Ikhras اخرس

If you must collaborate with a foreign force, at least collaborate with Sweden or Vietnam or someone without Arab blood on their hands. #snc

18 hours ago

ikhras Ikhras اخرس

just coined a new term. Housism (n): collaboration with the oppressors as a "strategy" to end their subjugation of the oppressed.

Finest writings from the Middle East on contemporary issues "Tablet & Pen" is a literary masterpiece collection

2011-10-19T11:01:00.000-07:00

"Tablet & Pen: Literary Landscapes from the Modern Middle East" is the perfect book to take with you on a vacation and relax and read through the collection of essays, either in order or selectively by title and topic. The book has 139 essays that address a chronological breakdown of Middle Eastern time periods. The 1910 to 1950, 1950 to 1980 and 1980 until today. Each is further broken up in to more selective decades that add real context to the writings.

Some of the essays in the anthology are well known and others are lesser known but powerful. It's an inspirational collection that gives you some real insight into the Middle East, the Arab mind and the Muslim World. It's a mix of Arab and non-Arab writings, mostly Muslim focused.

You could read it straight through as the writing talent is remarkable, of course. Or, you can do as I did and slowly pick and choose through the essays, re-reading many without boredom. The stories and tales are captivating and run the gamut from Palestine to Persia, Pakistan and Turkey. You get a sense of a common thread that rises above the religion, though, offering real insight in to everyday lives in each era.

This is one you will not want to rush through. You can read through it with interest driven by the detail and the eloquent writing styles of many of the essay authors. Much of the writing is translated from the native languages (Arabic, Turkish, Persian). Essays include writings by Khalil Gibran, Muhammad Iqbal, Forugh Farrokhzad, Yasar Kemal, Mahmoud Darwish, Adonis, Ahmad Shmaloo and Orhan Pamuk.

Edited by Reza Aslan, published by Norton & Co. in New York and London. 2011. 658 pp.

-- Ray Hanania
http://RayHanania.wordpress.com

Joe Avesar, Israeli-Palestinian Confederation co-founder releases book

2011-10-19T10:47:00.000-07:00

Joe Avesar has been an activist for peace since his childhood when an Arab fisherman saved his sister from drowning. Avesar is no a co-founder of the Palestinian-Israeli Confederation movement which has a large presence in Israel, Palestine and on Facebook.

Avesar has detailed the principles of confederation in his new book "Peace: A Case for an Israeli Palestinian Confederation" (126 pp, Damasaja Publishing, CA).

The book argues mainly about peace but also how a confederation can make the current Middle East peace failures turn in to a reality.

It's well written and easy to read. And when you are done, it restores your belief that peace is possible; so many Palestinians and Israelis, these days, are fighting against the idea of peace, believing instead of conquest or victory. The idea of compromise has lost much of its luster and many who support peace, tragically, have lost the will to believe.

Avesar's book offers an impetus to believe again and it provides clean, clear and reasoned logic to kickstart a new initiative and get people to think out of the box.

-- Ray Hanania
http://RayHanania.WordPress.com

Lebanese Film to be presented: Stray Bullets

2011-09-09T03:01:00.000-07:00

MEDIAALERT - For Immediate Release
September8, 2011

TPFF presents: Arab World Perspectives
Stray Bullet (Lebanon)
Saturday, October 1,2011, 2:00pm
Jackman Theatre, AGO

TPFF isproud to announce the ArabWorld Perspectives program, a new addition to this year?sfestival line-up. This program shines a light on another part of the Arab worldwith a cutting-edge film from an up-and-coming Arab filmmaker. TPFF hasselected the award-winning Lebanese film StrayBullet by GeorgesHachem and starring acclaimed Lebanese director/actor Nadine Labaki (Caramel; Where do we go now?).
Best Film Muhr Arab Award winner at the DubaiInternational Film Festival (2010), Hachem's debut film is a poignantsocio-politically charged drama that unveils a family in turmoil in the midstof wartime tensions. It's the end of summer 1976 in a northern suburb ofBeirut. Noha (Labaki) is engaged to be married and her overbearing family isrelieved she will not end up an old maid like her sister. Wedding preparationsappear to be going to plan until, on that Sunday, fifteen days before thenuptials, Noha changes her mind. Noha's self-actualization triggers a cascadingset of events that fractures her and her family. Trailer
Thisbeautiful film shot in a 1970s grainy aesthetic captured a best cinematographyaward and will be screened in 35mm format.
Followingthe screening, TPFF will host a panel with director GeorgesHachem and Pomegranates and Myrrh actor AshrafFarah. They will discuss their films, which address themes ofpersonal and national conflicts, as well as, trends, opportunities andobstacles for filmmakers and artists working in the Middle East on projectspresenting a social commentary.
If you likethis film, check out:
· Pomegranatesand Myrrh - A dancer challenges society?s expectations of a wife whosehusband is imprisoned. Sept 30, 7:00pm, Lightbox
· Kingdomof Women - The women of Ein el Hilweh rebuild their refugee camp in Lebanonafter it was destroyed in 1982. Oct 3, 7:00pm, AGO
· Shout- Best friends from the occupied Golan Heights leave home for the first time topursue studies and a new life in Damascus, Syria. Oct 4, 7:00pm, AGO
The 4^thannual TPFF is taking place Sept 30- Oct-7, 2011. Established in 2008,TPFF celebrates film as an art form and means of expression by showcasing thevibrant heritage, resilience, and narratives of the Palestinian people. Tickets and TPFF 10 Pass are on saleonline and at the TIFF Lightbox?s box office. Visit http://tpff.ca/festival-program/for TPFF program or to purchase tickets.
Contact: Dania Majid,programmer/media liaison, media@tpff.ca.

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Gabriella Naseem Akhtar van Rij’s "With All My Might"

2011-08-29T04:16:00.001-07:00

LESSONS ON PRIDE

Gabriella Naseem Akhtar van Rij’s With All My Might chronicles the many instances of racism that she has encountered throughout her life as a woman born in Pakistan and raised by adoptive Dutch parents in the Netherlands. When she was a child, a Frenchwoman asked her why she was dirty and had not washed herself properly because of her brown skin, and as an adult, the ignorance did not improve much, even living in different times, when race relations have ostensibly improved.

At the airport in Brussels, she learns a very important lesson about pride and not being ashamed of who she is. Security personnel told her she was in the wrong line, not bothering to look at her EU passport; she notices a foreign looking man in the EU line who stands his ground in a “dignified” manner against the racist security guards, asking to see a supervisor, showing his army credentials that he is a colonel of the French army, and defends van Rij’s rights, telling them not to give her any trouble.

When he asked her if this happened to her often, he says, “he was ashamed that people would treat others like that and told me to stand up for who I was…And I always did after that!” She describes the experience of being “attacked for something you cannot change at all,” like the color of your skin, which “you cannot even begin to try to change” as a “crippling feeling.” From this negative experience, van Rij gained valuable insight and learned an important lesson, that “we need to stand up for who we are and defend our rights.” She discovers that “my pride is all I had” and that “no human should make us crawl and feel inferior because of race or colour.”

Although the tensions of race relations have superficially loosened, since 9/11, race has again become a heated issue and many Muslims and people of Middle Eastern descent are treated with the same cruelty, ignorance, and prejudice with which blacks were treated before the Civil Rights Movement. With All My Might offers readers important lessons about the value of courage, pride, and not allowing people to make others feel inferior; only in defending rights can the marginalized factions of society gain acceptance and respect and change the attitudes of the prejudiced.

Contact: Gabriella van Rij - gabriellavanrij@gmail.com

The Gaze of the Gazelle by Arash Hejazi

2011-08-25T08:16:00.000-07:00

We talk about the tyranny of the Shah of Iran and the even worse tyranny of the Mullah's that followed. We talk about the politics of Iran today and its role in terrorism, violence and the instability of the Middle East. We talk about the conflict that the United States started using their dictator pal Saddam Hussein, and quickly forget the hardships that were wrought on the people of Iran and also Iraq. And we talk about the Middle East conflict as if it is just another story.

Yet what we don't talk about are the lives that were destroyed and permanently altered, reshaped violently and the many deaths, most of the dead are names and faces we will never know or see.

Iran has been but a political square in a political debate. But it is a nation of enslaved people, enslaved under the pro-Western backed tyrant the Shah Reza Pahlavi and then by the Ayatollah Khomeini and then again by the little dictator President Ahmedinejad.

Arash Hejazi tells the story to the Western World that is so ignorant of the facts of the Middle East and the Persian Gulf and the Islamic World in a way that puts a human face on its cover. "The Gaze of the Gazelle" is a poignant retelling of all the history we have accepted as political rhetoric in a human form. The story of real people who were impacted by our policies and our political viciousness and our stereotyped rhetoric and racism in America.

The story begins from the eyes of a young boy and watches as the world around him collapses following the fall of the Shah and the Rise of the Mullah tyrants. Then there is the war with the US backed Iraq and Saddam Hussein and the destruction in brought on everyone in the country. He tells the story of how he watched the Revolution turn from a people's movement to another vicious dictatorship, this time religious and twisted. And he recounts the day when he was only 17 and watched the Mullah's soldiers pull aside a young Muslim woman who was also only 17 and shoot her in the head in front of a crowd of frightened observers.

He watched as his family life was destroyed and his friends and his father's friends fled or vanished.

No one could speak but Arash managed to launch a publishing company and his struggle to get the true story out about the criminal behaviour of the leaders of Iran is a compelling story that every American should read. It was our tax dollars that paid for the bullets that fired into the brains of young women by the mullahs, that bought the scimitars that were used to cut off the heads of dissidents, and that funded the bombs that rained down on millions of innocent people.

We owe it to the Iranian people to at least try to learn the truth.

"The Gaze of the Gazelle" offers one window into the horrors of the history of Iran under tyrannical oppression over the years.

I couldn't put this book down. It read swiftly and cleanly and with a comprehension that was utterly shocking to me. I urge everyone to read this memoir of a little boy who became a revolutionary for truth.

The Gaze of the Gazelle: The Story of a Generation
Seagull Books
2011
London, New York and Calcutta

With All My Might by Gabriella Naseem Akhtar van Rij - racism in the wake of Sept. 11th

2011-08-22T06:48:00.000-07:00

Finally, a book that addresses the reality of the post-Sept. 11, 2001 racism against anyone who looked Middle Eastern, or who looked like the terrorists, or who was Muslim, dark skinned, spoke or didn't speak Arabic.

POST 9/11 RACISM

Gabriella Naseem Akhtar van Rij’s With All My Might explores the racism that has pervaded the world since 9/11, documenting her own experiences as a woman born in Pakistan and adopted by Dutch parents. Although she had faced racism and pressures to conform throughout her life, after 9/11 van Rij experienced particularly ignorant forms of racism, prejudice, and bias that were not influenced by logic or reasonable thought, rather, by immutable conceptions of Middle Eastern people.

As the media bombarded people with terrible images of Afghanistan, the Taliban, and Bin Laden, van Rij was confronted with ignorance; “Pictures are very powerful and people started to associate the people on the news with people like me, who just happened to look like them.” Although she had experienced a great deal of racism in her life in Brussels, she was unprepared for North American racism, thinking that it was “over and done with.”

Van Rij gave technical seminars on computer programs for multinationals and someone made the comment “about my looks being identical to the people shown on television,” an experience that she calls “surrealistic.” She had watched the same images as her client; however, she in no way connected the images of the terrorists to herself. She finds herself justifying herself to the ignorance of the world, reminding herself that she was brought up in Europe and that the war had nothing to do with her. She calls justifying herself to those with preconceived notions and bias a “bad habit I have” and one that is unnecessary. The woman to whom she unnecessarily justifies herself “could not have cared less and definitely did not listen. All she cared about is that I looked like those people on television and wondered if I could potentially do harm too.”

Van Rij’s account of the racism that she has experienced since 9/11 highlights a gross inequity in today’s society, in which many ignorantly hold Muslim and Middle Eastern people in general responsible for the terrorism and radicals, no matter what their religious alignment, beliefs, or personal history, even holding biases against some second generation Americans of Middle Eastern descent. We are confronted with these issues continually through such programs as CNN’s Unwanted: The Muslims Next Door and the resistance to the building of mosques on American soil. With All My Might stimulates deep thought and reflection within readers, encouraging them to reexamine their attitudes and the manner in which they have unfairly treated people in the last decade.

# # #

Arab Detroit 9/11: Life in the terror decade, edited by Nabeel Abraham, Sally Howell and Andrew Shryock

2011-08-11T17:53:00.000-07:00

This is a fascinating book that looks back at the 10 years since Arab Muslim extremists hijacked four airplanes and crashed three into the World Trade Center's Twin Towers and the Pentagon, a decade that changed perceptions of Arabs and Muslims dramatically.

The book is a collection of 17 essays, many of them brilliantly written and insightful, but a few that are truly worthless and typical of the kind of political rhetoric that has fed not hindered the growing anti-Arabism and Islamaphobia that has risen in the West and the United States. But the good news is you can skip the few and focus on the many.

The collection of essays focuses on the challenges that Detroit's Arab population has faced as a consequence of the hysteria that has emerged from the basic American lack of knowledge of the Arab and Muslim Worlds with eassyists addressing various aspects.

Rachel Yezick offers an overview of one of the only major positive institutional by-products of the post-Sept. 11 era, the construction of the Arab National Museum on Michigan Avenue in downtown Dearborn. The museum is brilliant and wonderful, a collection of everything Arab Americana. Yezbick gives an overview of how it came about and what is there. (In 2004, I penned a lengthy feature on the opening of the Arab National Museum for ARAMCO Magazine.)

Authors Howell and Shryock offer a detailed look at the backlash against the American Arab community in Detroit and the so-called "War on Terror." This essay is a memorable look back published in Anthropological Quarterly in 2003. It's not updated -- it has been so well read already -- but it provides an aspect of the bigger picture the book seeks to paint. The essay examines the growth of how the government has examined economic ties between American Arab and Muslim organizations and Middle East connections, with an eye to the terror.

The book contains a heavy weight of perspective on the impact on Muslims, but essayist Matthew Stiffler looks at the impact of Sept. 11 on Christian Arabs, an often ignored and misdiagnosed community. In fact, so much focus is on Muslims and Arab Christians are often viewed as being a Christian Muslim anomaly by many Americans who can't tell the difference between either and simply put Christian Arabs into the box with Muslims as one religious identity.

Yasmeen Hanoosh offers a valuable look at Detroit's important and often ignored or misidentified Chaldean Community, Christians from the Middle East many of whom do not consider themselves Arabs. The Chaldeans are actually the bedrock of the "Arab" community in Detroit, all Christian and all misunderstood, stereotyped and misportrayed.

The worst essay of course is written by Will Youmans, one of the creators of the Jew-bashing web site KabobFest, which partners with the Jew-hating website Ikhras to libel, slander and defame anyone who criticizes Hamas and the growing extremist movement in the Middle East. (Youmans is also a failed "rapper" whose work seemed to borrow liberally from the cadence of Eminem, a Detroit native.)

Naturally, Youman's poorly written essay tries to stitch together some kind of ridiculous argument that connects his personal extremist political views with an "analysis" of the impact of Sept. 11. The only cargo in his writing that is of any value is his awkward attempt to detail the viciousness of Debbie Schlussel who repeatedly libeled Imad Hamad, the director of the Detroit Chapter of the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The inclusion of the story is rather ironic considering that Youmans is involved in helping to destroy ADC today to advance his own political agenda, pushing the organization to extremism. Of course, the real irony is that there is little difference between Schlussel and Youmans or even Michele Malkin who Youman's also cites for her Islamophobic writings.

You'll quickly bore of Youman's clumsy writing style, but you should ump to the many other essays which actually offer some true insight and deep perspective.

The best essay is saved for last, written by the editors, Howell, Shryock and Abraham examining the consequences and lessons of the nation;s misguided, uneducated and misinformed approach to American Arabs, American Muslims, Islam and the intricacies of the Middle East community.

Published by Wayne State University
Great Lakes Books Series
Detroit, 2011
413 pages.

Rimal Publications releases two new books Aviation in Middle East and Libya

2011-07-27T09:55:00.001-07:00

At Rimal Publications we are proud to announce that with two of the latest books on our list we are breaking new ground. Countless books have been published on the recent history of the Middle East and North Africa, but none with the perspectives offered by our latest publications, which are due to be published this summer.

History in the Arab Skies: Aviation’s Impact on the Middle East – the latest book by Gerald Butt – is a smooth blend of political history, the story of aviation’s rapid development and personal observations. Above all, it chronicles the region’s association of more than a century with the expansion of flying and how the use of air power proved critical in shaping the modern Middle East. It also relates the role that the region played during the early years of commercial flight when taking to the air was a romantic and luxurious adventure.

Libya’s Hidden Pages of History: A Memoir (Arabic Ed), Mustafa Ben-Halim’s autobiography, provides a personal and graphic view of politics in Libya in the early years of independence. As only the second prime minister in the young monarchy, Mr Ben-Halim tells of his country’s struggles – to combat economic difficulties in the days before oil and to fight off the intrigues of the British and French governments. He also talks frankly about his meetings with international figures of the day, like Anthony Eden and Gamal Abdel Nasser. While a number of books have been written about Libya by outsiders, this is an insider’s account of political life in that country.

Sincerely,

Nora Shawwa
Publisher

NEW YORK BOOK LAUNCH: SANDSTROM: A Leaderless Revolution in the Digital Age

2011-07-14T04:34:00.001-07:00

NEW YORK BOOK LAUNCH: SANDSTROM: A Leaderless Revolution in the Digital Age

NEW YORK (July 2011) – Authors, Adeel A. Shah and Sheheryar T. Sardar, Esq. will host the launch celebration of their new book: Sandstorm: a leaderless revolution in the digital age on July 30th from 7-9pm at luxury fashion outlet Misha Nicole. The reception will feature a conversation with the authors and will raise funds for Project Peanut Butter, on organization that helps feed children in Africa.

Sandstorm examines Arab Spring and the role that social media and the Global Generation played in supporting the revolution in Egypt. The authors have, in a very short time, analyzed how the digital age has changed the dynamics of revolution.

"This was not a Twitter Revolution, that was an over-simplified statement made by media pundits. We wanted to delve deeper, to understand how something could rise with such fervor across the globe. The answer was more complex than just social media: it was a Global Generation that found its voice." - Adeel A. Shah

Global Generationers in Egypt and the US were predicted to be the apathetic generation, addicted to the internet and lacking drive. This book analyzes how that was a fallacy; not only is this generation one that creates change, its also a generation of socially responsible individuals that have broken down global barriers through social and digital media." – Sheheryar T. Sardar

Sandstorm can be purchased at the book launch event for $14.99 (20% of all proceeds will go to Project Peanut Butter to help feed children in Africa) and is available from Nook for $9.99 and on Kindle for $8.99.

For interviews with Adeel A. Shah and Sheheryar T. Sardar, please contact Rohan Sheth. Media is invited to the book launch and may RSVP on Eventbrite.

About Adeel A. Shah

Adeel A. Shah is the Chairman and CEO of TelniaSoft Inc. Adeel has consulted with governmental institutions, dignitaries political action committees, former preidents of developing nations and NGOs – to name a few. He is co-founder of US-Pakistan Business Council and is currently the Vice Chairman in Washington, DC. Adeel has been part of and led several business delegations to Thailand, Hungary, South Korea, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, UK, Romania and UAE. He frequently writes on business and geo-political issues for major newspapers and has been interviewed by Bloomberg, Washington Times, CNN, and Geo TV. Adeel’s work primarily involves private equity and venture capital in South Asia and the Middle East. Adeel holds a Masters in International Public Policy from SAIS, John Hopkins and MBA from Carey Business School of John Hopkins.

About Sheheryar T. Sardar, Esq.

Sheheryar T. Sardar, Esq. is a founding Partner at Sardar Law Firm LLC, a New York based corporate and commercial litigation firm. A thought leader on social media and international business, Sheheryar is a nominated board member of the International Trade Committee of the New York Bar Association and an editorial member of Social Media Legal. He has been interviewed by Voice of America on social media law and stock trading and has published numerous articles on international law, social media and venture capital. Sheheryar received his J.D. from Emory University and studied at the University of Paris.

# # #

textfield4 = Rohan.sheth86@gmail.com

Jeremy Ben Ami releases new book on the rise of Jewish moderation: A New Voice for Israel

2011-07-06T09:23:00.000-07:00

Jeremy Ben Ami releases new book on the rise of Jewish moderation: A New Voice for Israel

I’m very excited to let you know that the book I’ve written about the journey that led me to J Street – A New Voice for Israel – goes on sale July 19th.

The book tells a personal story – how the son of a leader of Menachem Begin’s Irgun came to help found the American political lobby pressing for a two-state solution.

It also takes a critical look at the traditional rules governing American politics and the Jewish community when it comes to Israel – and suggests significant changes to both.

Finally, it makes an urgent plea to Israel’s supporters to change course now before it is too late to ensure a secure and democratic future for Israel.

To pre-order the book, please click here. Proceeds from the sale of the book go to J Street, and strong early orders will help the book and our work to gain more publicity.

Over the course of the coming months, I’ll be traveling the country, giving talks about the book and using it as a springboard to spark important communal conversations about how best to secure Israel’s future, its democratic nature and its Jewish character.

You can find out more about those events here.

In the book, I write, “My hope is that this book contributes in some small way to opening up minds and conversation in the American Jewish community and beyond about the need not just for such action but for a whole new approach to Israel advocacy in the United States.”

I’m grateful that such magnificent writers as Peter Beinart, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Ayelet Waldman, Bernard Avishai and Janine Zacharia were kind enough to recommend the book. You can read their comments here.
If you would be interested in reading more, please do consider pre-ordering the book. You can also look for it on sale after July 19th.

Thank you so much for your interest and for all that you do for the cause of peace and security for Israel, its neighbors and the whole Middle East.

Jeremy Ben-Ami
President, J Street
July 6, 2011

REVIEW: The Transparent Cabal by Stephen Sniegoski

2011-05-06T09:11:00.001-07:00

Review of Transparent Cabal by David Lutz

There are still a few reviews of and references to my book “The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel.”

http://www.amazon.com/Transparent-Cabal-Neoconservative-National-Interest/dp/1932528172

A favorable and informative review was written by Dr. David W. Lutz, Senior Lecturer at The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya, which came out in the journal “Critical Studies on Terrorism,” Vol. 3, No. 3 (December 2010).

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t780786797~tab=issueslist

David W. Lutz, Ph.D., graduated from the U.S. Military Academy in 1978 and served in the U.S. Army until 1983. In 1994 he received his Ph.D. in moral philosophy from the University of Notre Dame. He has held post-doctoral research positions at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota and the Hanover Institute of Philosophical Research in Germany. Dr. Lutz currently teaches philosophy and management at The Catholic University of Eastern Africa in Nairobi, Kenya. He is the author of the article “UnJust War Theory: Christian Zionism and the Road to Jerusalem,” in the book “Neo-Conned! Again.”

http://www.amazon.com/Neo-Conned-Again-Hypocrisy-Lawlessness-Rape/dp/1932528059

Review of The Transparent Cabal, “Critical Studies on Terrorism,” Vol. 3, No. 3 (December 2010), pp. 467-470.

http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/review16.html

http://www.informaworld.com/smpp/title~db=all~content=t780786797~tab=issueslist

Stephen J. Sniegoski, The Transparent Cabal: The Neoconservative Agenda, War in the Middle East, and the National Interest of Israel, Foreword by Paul Findley, Introduction by Paul Gottfried, Norfolk, Virginia: Enigma Editions, 2008, xvi + 447 pages

By David W. Lutz, The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya

The thesis of Stephen J. Sniegoski’s carefully-researched and persuasively-argued book is that the primary aim of the calamitous invasion of Iraq in 2003 was not to avenge an assassination plot against the President’s father, to liberate the Iraqi people, to combat terrorist threats to US security, to enhance US global power, to spread democracy, nor to control oil reserves, but rather to improve the strategic position of Israel: “The origins of the American war on Iraq revolve around the United States’ adoption of a war agenda whose basic format was conceived in Israel to advance Israeli interests and was ardently pushed by the influential pro-Israeli American neoconservatives, both inside and outside the Bush administration” (p. 351). Sniegoski’s assertion is not that the “neocons” deliberately promoted Israel’s interest at the expense of the United States, but rather that they “viewed American foreign policy in the Middle East through the lens of Israeli interest, as Israeli interest was perceived by the Likudniks” (p. 5).

Sniegoski explains: “The aim of the neoconservative/Likudnik foreign policy strategy was to weaken and fragment Israel’s Middle East adversaries and concomitantly increase Israel’s relative strength, both externally and internally. A key objective was to eliminate the demographic threat posed by the Palestinians to the Jewish state, which the destabilization of Israel’s external enemies would achieve, since the Palestinian resistance depended upon external support, both moral and material” (p. 5). Although the neocons saw an identity of interests between the United States and Israel, the countries’ respective interests did not in fact coincide. The United States stood to benefit from stability in the Middle East, so that the flow of oil would not be interrupted; Israel would gain relative strength from instability.

The neoconservatives are a group of Americans (some with strong ties to Israel) who became dissatisfied with socialism and moved to the “right”. One of the founding fathers of neoconservatism, Irving Kristol, who was a self-described “Trotskyist” during his student days at the City College of New York, explains: “Karl Marx once wrote that the human race would eventually face the choice between socialism and barbarism. Well, we have seen enough of socialism in our time to realize that, in actuality as distinct from ideality, it can offer neither stability nor justice, and that in many of its versions it seems perfectly compatible with barbarism. So most neoconservatives believe that the last, best hope of humanity at this time is an intellectually and morally reinvigorated liberal capitalism” (Reflections of a Neoconservative, p. 77). In other words, neocons are “conservative” in the sense that they are conserving liberalism.

Among the more important neocons are Irving Kristol and his wife Gertrude Himmelfarb and their son William Kristol, Norman Podhoretz and his wife Midge Decter and their son John Podhoretz, Elliott Abrams, Kenneth Adelman, John Bolton, Max Boot, David Brooks, Stephen Bryen, Stephen Cambone, Mona Charen, Eliot Cohen, Eric Edelman, Douglas Feith, David Frum, Frank Gaffney, Reuel Marc Gerecht, Jonah Goldberg, John Hannah, Robert and Frederick Kagan, Max Kampelman, Jeane Kirkpatrick, Charles Krauthammer, Michael Ledeen, Lewis Libby, William Luti, Edward Luttwak, Joshua Muravchik, Laurie Mylroie, Richard Perle, Richard and Daniel Pipes, Danielle Pletka, Michael Rubin, Randy Scheunemann, Gary Schmitt, Stephen Schwartz, Abram Shulsky, Max Singer, Kenneth Timmerman, Paul Wolfowitz, James Woolsey, David and Meyrav Wurmser, and Dov Zakheim. They have worked within an interlocking network of think tanks (including the American Enterprise Institute, the Center for Security Policy, the Hudson Institute, the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, the Middle East Forum, the Middle East Media Research Institute, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy), as writers for neocon publications such as Commentary and The Weekly Standard, as syndicated columnists, in academe and/or in government.

Sniegoski examines the origins of the strategy of destabilizing Israel’s neighbors within the history of Zionism, including the Revisionist Zionism of Ze’ev (Vladimir) Jabotinsky. In 1982, Oded Yinon wrote in “A Strategy for Israel in the 1980s”, which was published in Kivunim, the journal of the World Zionist Organisation: “Lebanon’s total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precedent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track.” But one of the lessons learned from Menachem Begin’s disastrous 1982 invasion of Lebanon was that future campaigns to strengthen Israel’s strategic position would have to be viewed by Americans as in US national interest. Therefore, one of the challenges of the Israeli right and their neoconservative allies was to persuade Americans that Israeli and American interests coincide.

The Iraq war “cabal” was “transparent”, because the neocons’ strategy was laid out in publicly-available documents. In 1996, a study group headed by Perle and including other neoconservatives produced a paper entitled “A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm”, which was published by the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, an Israeli think tank. Sniegoski comments: “The ‘realm’ that the study group sought to secure was that of Israel. The purpose of the policy paper was to provide a political blueprint for the incoming Israeli Likud government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The paper stated that Netanyahu should ‘make a clean break’ with the Oslo peace process and reassert Israel’s claim to the West Bank and Gaza. It presented a plan by which Israel would ‘shape its strategic environment,’ beginning with the removal of Saddam Hussein and the installation of a Hashemite monarchy in Baghdad.... It should be emphasized that the same people – Feith, Wurmser, Perle – who advised the Israeli government on issues of national security would later advise the George W. Bush administration to pursue virtually the same policy regarding the Middle East” (p. 90).

The neocons came to power with the election of President George W. Bush. Although Bush himself was remarkably weak in the area of foreign policy, the neocons’ agenda agreed with his Evangelical Protestant and Christian Zionist beliefs. Vice President Cheney, although not himself a neoconservative, had strong connections with the neocons and brought many of them into the new administration. The attacks of September 2001 offered the neocons an opportunity to implement their war agenda: “Traumatized as they were by the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the American people were ready to believe stories of the most extreme nature” (p. 172). The neocons then shifted the aim from Afghanistan to Iraq, because the former was not and the latter was part of their pre-9/11 agenda. The “war on terrorism” focused on the “axis of evil” – Iraq, Iran, North Korea, and especially the first two – not on those responsible for the 2001 attacks. One of the tactics used by the neocons to persuade the American government and people to focus on Iraq was blurring the distinction between intelligence and propaganda.

Sniegoski does not make the obviously false claim that a small group of neocons launched a war against the will of the American people: “The neocons were the driving force for war, but they could not have achieved success if their agenda did not in some way or other resonate with a significant number of Americans” (p. 331). President Bush was receptive to the neocons’ propaganda, because it gave him a personal mission: to stand firm against an evil enemy. Among other supporters of the invasion of Iraq were Christian Zionists, war profiteers, former Cold Warriors, Republican partisans, some members of the liberal elite, and many ordinary Americans who wanted action to be taken in response to the 11 September 2001 attacks (and who, in many cases, could not distinguish between Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein).

Writing this book was an act of courage, because observing that “the entire neocon Middle East agenda originated in Israel as a means of advancing Israel’s geostrategic interests” (p. 331) leads inevitably to accusations of anti-Semitic conspiracy-mongering. Sniegoski anticipates and meets the accusation: “The ‘anti-Semitic’ charge is often an effort, and usually a very effective effort, to silence public discourse on issues displeasing to some influential Jews. But it is necessary to move away from the question as to whether the argument (in fact, any argument) is ‘anti-Semitic,’ to the question of whether it is true” (p. 372). This book has, in fact, nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Although most neocons are Jews, most Jews are not neocons. Many Zionists are not Jews and many Jews are not Zionists. To equate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is irrational. Sniegoski cites polls indicating that the percentage of American Jews that supported the war was less than the percentage of the entire American population that supported it. It would be appropriate for those who disagree with Sniegoski not to hurl the charge of anti-Semitism against him, but instead to engage his argument and examine the evidence.

A theme recurring throughout the book is that the neocons maintained the identity of American and Israeli interests, when those interests were in fact far from identical. Sniegoski writes, near the conclusion of the book: “Individuals with close ties to foreign states should not be shaping American policy in areas dealing with those foreign states’ interests. This is a clear conflict of interest. None of this is intended to mean that the United States should not be concerned about international morality – with identical standards applied to all countries – but the United States cannot be expected to pursue policies which might increase the security of particular foreign states at the expense of the interests of the United States” (p. 373). One noteworthy characteristic of the debate about the war against Iraq is the almost total absence of considerations of international morality. Although Plato and Aristotle understood politics as ethics writ large, American foreign policy has more to do with Machiavelli and Bismarck than with the philosophia perennis.

One might make a decision about whether to invade another country in terms of the just war tradition, with its criteria of jus ad bellum (justice in going to war) and jus in bello (justice in fighting a war). Instead, the United States usually makes such decisions in terms of the criterion of Realpolitik: Is it in the national interest? The war against Iraq was an exception, however, because it was fought in the interest of a foreign country. Sniegoski explains how the neocons supplanted the traditional foreign policy and national security elite, including James Baker, Brent Scowcroft and Colin Powell. But it is unfortunate that the only viable alternative to the neocons’ agenda was “realism”.

Promoting the national interest would be consistent with moral foreign policy, if the national interest were not reduced to economic interest. Just as it is in no one’s true personal interest to kill an innocent person for financial gain, it is in no nation’s true interest to promote its economic growth by fighting an unjust war. The true national interest of the United States includes promoting justice in international relations, which involves opposing the false belief that nations are justified in starting wars whenever it is in their economic interest to do so. Sniegoski’s book shows how wrong the United States can be when international morality is disregarded.

Sniegoski points out that, in addition to the old foreign policy establishment: “Many American military leaders also opposed the U.S. attack on Iraq. Even members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff initially expressed their opposition to initiating war” (p. 346). These military professionals were right to oppose the war, because it violated the ethics of their profession. But why did not a single senior officer refuse the order to participate in this immoral war? Although there is no question but that the President is Commander-in-Chief of the nation’s armed forces, there is also no question that members of the armed forces are obligated not to obey unethical orders. If this was true in My Lai, Vietnam in 1968 when the unethical order was given by a lieutenant to sergeants and privates, then it was also true in Washington and Iraq in 2003 when the unethical order was given by a president to generals and admirals.

Because the officers were obedient, the United States and a few allies fought a war that was extremely costly to the United States. Thousands of American soldiers were killed and tens of thousands wounded. A colossal sum of money was spent by a government already suffering from huge, chronic budget deficits. And the threat of terrorism was increased, not decreased. The cost to the Iraqi people was far greater, with several hundred thousand casualties. But from the perspective of the Israeli right, the war was a success. The objective of weakening and fragmenting Iraq was accomplished – with the blood of American and British soldiers.

Although the neocons’ preferred candidate, John McCain, was not elected in 2008, with the consequence that the neocons no longer hold key government positions, they are still alive and quite active. As Sniegoski makes the point, “One thing that definitely can be said is that while there is a long history behind neocons’ Middle East policy, that policy – and the neocons themselves – are far from becoming history” (p. 382). In the May 2009 issue of Commentary, Norman Podhoretz criticized President Obama for being soft on Iran: “In making the ridiculous boast during his presidential campaign that he could talk Iran into giving up its quest for nuclear weapons (and the missiles to deliver them), Obama was careful to add that the military option remained available in case all else failed. But everyone, and especially the Iranians and the Israelis, had to know that this was pro forma, and that if elected Obama would pursue the same carrot-and-stick approach of the Europeans who had been negotiating with Iran for the past five years. He would do this in spite of the fact that the only accomplishment of the European diplomatic dance had been to buy the Iranians more time.... Admit it or not, then, the awesome choice of bombing Iran or letting Iran get the bomb is hard upon us.” We need to decide whether we should let the neocons talk us into another unjust war, or whether the time has come to fight terrorism by working for justice in the Middle East.

David W. Lutz, The Catholic University of Eastern Africa, Nairobi, Kenya

Website:

http://home.comcast.net/~transparentcabal/

Amazon Link for The Transparent Cabal:

http://tiny.cc/zNV06

Best,

Stephen Sniegoski

Thirteen Departures From the Moon by Deema K. Shehabi

2011-04-15T08:42:00.001-07:00

Inaugural Collection from Palstinian-American Poet Deema Shehabi

(Winston-Salem, NC) March 8, 2011—Press 53 announces the publication of Thirteen Departures From the Moon by Deema K. Shehabi, an award-winning Palestinian-American poet from California. This extraordinary volume comprises lyric poems that are searching explorations of a poet’s place in the world. Narrating from a unique angle of perception, Ms. Shehabi reflects on the exiled spaces of her youth and adulthood. Her poems are aesthetic responses to straddling varying cultures.

"This first book of poems, Thirteen Departures from the Moon, is a culmination of 20 years of exile," Ms. Shehabi told Huffington Post in an interview. "It's about finding home in a seemingly impermanent situation---both in the metaphysical and literal sense.

It was only when I turned to poetry that I found comfort because it anchored me in my exile. It provided me with respite from that gnawing feeling of loss."

Deema K. Shehabi's poems root themselves in Gaza and travel through the entire breadth of the Palestinian diaspora. Herein are the stories of a displaced family—a metaphor for a displaced nation—passed down, passed down, passed down and told through the lush imagery of the Arab streets, the Gaza orchards, the fertile streams, all witnessed by the moon.

"Deema Shehabi's map is huge and deep as she weaves the threads of landscape, earth and sky, into a cloth wide enough to cover everyone," says poet Naomi Shihab Nye.

"With a stunning lyrical gift of seeing and knowing, she walks the wide world through language that redeems and blesses. Her poems are crucial, passionate, magnificent.

"Each poem in this collection is a clear, honest yet intensely transformed communication, dripping with a honey-like sweetness of literary gifts," says poet Annie Finch of Thirteen Departures From the Moon.

Thirteen Departures From the Moon

Poems by Deema K. Shehabi

Publication date: March 8, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-935708-23-0

Size: 8.5 x 5.5 inch paperback, 92 pages

Price: US $12.00

Press 53 books are distributed throughout the United States by Ingram and are available wherever fine books are sold, including www.Press53.com. Kevin Watson is Publisher. Tom Lombardo is Poetry Series Editor.

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Arab Americans in Toledo: Cultural Assimilation and Community Involvement

2011-03-04T14:07:00.000-08:00

Go to any library and check out the Middle East Section and you will find that 99 percent of the books stocked are politically focused, usually written by professors for academic audiences. Approaching two centuries of existence in America from the mid-19th Century on, American Arabs have done a poor job of documenting that existence, from their contributions to their experiences. Visit the Ethnic and Cultural sections of libraries and book stores and it is the same thing. As if American Arabs don't exist.

But we do exist.

A few authors have attempted to begin the process of documenting their own experiences. I've done two books, a personal memoir (I'm Glad I Look Like a Terrorist: Growing up Arab in America, renamed Ya Habibi in 2006) and a history of Arabs of Chicagoland (Arabs of Chicagoland). Other authors have detailed the experience of Arabs in Detroit, and Gregory Orfalea has written three on American Arab experiences including my favorite, Arab Americans: A History.

The late professor Michael Suleiman, my friend, did much research on American Arabs also. Yet, these books are few and far between in comparison to the vast library of books by Arabs and on the topic of Arabs and the Middle East.

A publisher once told me when I tried to sell my humor book that there is no market for history of Arabs in America. So publishers are not inclined to publish the stories and tales of American Arabs. One of my all time favorite books that talks about Arab settlement in Chicago is a book not written about the Arabs at all but rather the story of a serial killer who was operating at the time of the World Columbian Exposition of 1893 called Devil in the White City by Erik Larson. In detailing the grisly work of the serial killer, Larson spent many pages discussing the activities of the Arabs who arrived on Chicago's shores in preparation for the World's Fair.

That's' why I am so excited by another entry in to the realm of documenting the American Arab experience, Arab Americans in Toledo: Cultural Assimilation and Community Involvement. Although this is not a memoir in the sense of one author's experiences in this country, it is a collection of essays by many authors.

If I have any criticism, is too many of the authors spent their valuable space writing what has already been written, about the Arabic language and about Islam and the Middle East. I'd rather have seen more details about the experiences, trials and tribulations of the Arab families and activists themselves. It's one reason why I have spent so many years in journalism, believing as do mainstream journalists at mainstream publications that a primary role of a good newspaper is to serve as the "newspaper of record."

The American Arab community has no newspaper of record at all, that's why books like Arab Americans in Toledo is so important.

The stories are inspirational and fun to read. In the end, we discover, as we do in all books about the ethnic experience in America that the Arab experience is parallel to the experience of nearly every other ethnic group in America. The experiences are the same and they are different. That's the joy about reading what our ancestors went through in settling in this country, serving as a foundation to not only document their own lives but to also document the circumstances of the nation at a time in which they lived.

The book is edited by Samir Abu-Absi.
298 pages
Available at www.UToledoPress.com.
Published by the University of Toledo, in Ohio

-- Ray Hanania
www.TheMediaOasis.com

Book of sins by Nidaa Khoury

2011-01-03T14:39:00.000-08:00

Book of Sins by Palestinian/Israeli poet Nidaa Khoury published in the Caribbean

ST. MARTIN, Caribbean (January 3, 2011)—Book of Sins by Nidaa Khoury, a leading Palestinian poet in Israel, has been released here by House of Nehesi Publishers (HNP), said publisher Lasana M. Sekou.
        The new poetry collection is the eight book by Khoury but her first full English translation with the full Arabic and Hebrew texts in the same book, said Sekou.
        Nidaa Khoury is “One of the major exponents of modernist Arab women writing,” said Israeli professor Yair Huri.
In Book of Sins, Khoury’s poetry “is fired by belief in the human and the spiritual at a time when many of us feel unreal and often spiritually hollow,” said Huri.
Khoury’s poems “are burning off the pages—with a rhythm embedded in fury and a beauty embedded in the ancient,” said the South African novelist Antjie Krog.
       Betsy Rosenberg translated what Huri calls “The exquisite purity of Khoury’s style” in Book of Sins from the original Arabic into English and Hebrew.
       With Book of Sins HNP is further introducing the Middle Eastern poet to the Caribbean and the Americas www.Amazon.com, said Sekou.
       This is HNP’s third multilingual poetry book in less than one year. The press, based on the island of St. Martin in the Caribbean, has published literary giants such as George Lamming, Kamau Brathwaite, Amiri Baraka, Chiqui Vicioso, and Shake Keane.
       Nidaa Khoury was born in the Galilee village of Fassuta in 1959. Her books include The Barefoot River, The Prettiest of Gods Cry, and The Bitter Crown. The latter was censored in Jordan. Her previous titles were published in Israel, Lebanon, and Egypt.
According to the Turkish author Karin Karakaşlı, Book of Sins is “Written in water and ink, in between the shed blood. Nidaa Khoury’s poems take us to the bosom of an ancient woman… an archetype revived.”
Khoury is studied in Israeli universities and widely reviewed by the Arab press. She is the founder of the Association of Survival, an NGO for minorities in Israel.
       The poet has participated in over 30 international conferences such as the Conference of Arab Poets (Amsterdam), the Conference of Human Rights and Solidarity with the Third World (Paris), Poetry Africa, the Poetry Festival of Jordan, the International Poetry Festival of Medellin, the St. Martin Book Fair, and the Napoli Conference on Human Rights.
       Khoury, a senior lecturer at Ben-Gurion University, is the subject of the recent award-winning film, Nidaa Through Silence. Sarab for Dance is also producing Khoury’s poem “Portal to the Orient,” which is in Book of Sins, for performance in Palestine.
       Book of Sins is available at www.Amazon.com, www.spdbooks.org, and www.houseofnehesipublish.com. Ask for this new title at your favorite bookstore.

Credit line: Offshore Editing Services

Bethlehem, Peace and Christmas

2010-12-09T14:49:00.001-08:00

Bethlehem, Peace and Christmas

Film director Jim Hanon discusses the volatile topic of peace in the Middle East this holiday season. His recent film release Little Town of Bethlehem stirs hearts and minds towards a common goal.

O little town of Bethlehem,
How still we see thee lie.
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The everlasting Light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.

Oh, but how peace and stillness do not reign an area torn apart by fighting before and sense the birth of Jesus, about whom the song “Little Town of Bethlehem” was written.

This Christmas, as at any time of the year, there seems to be no shortage of opinions, emotions, and actions regarding finding “peace in the Middle East.” While we sing the familiar songs and carols about the Holy city where the Christ-child was born, some are familiar with the issue and others are personally impacted by the conflict, many more are unaware, uninformed, and unconcerned about this critical global issue. Little Town of Bethlehem is a groundbreaking new documentary that shares the gripping story of three men—a Palestinian Muslim, a Palestinian Christian, and an Israeli Jew—born into violence and willing to risk everything to bring an end to violence in their lifetime.

Sami Awad is a Palestinian Christian whose grandfather was killed in Jerusalem in 1948. Today he is the executive director of Holy Land Trust, a non-profit organization that promotes Palestinian independence through peaceful means. Yonatan Shapira is an Israeli Jew whose grandparents were Zionist settlers who witnessed the birth of the Israeli nation. Today he is an outspoken advocate for the nonviolent peace movement, both in his homeland and abroad. Ahmad Al'Azzeh is a Palestinian Muslim who has lived his entire life in the Azzeh refugee camp in Bethlehem. Today, Ahmad heads the nonviolence program at Holy Land Trust, where he trains others in the methods of peaceful activism.

Little Town of Bethlehem was produced by EthnoGraphic Media (EGM), an educational non-profit organization exploring the critical issues of our time. Watch the trailer at http://littletownofbethlehem.org/

Telling a good story is hard work. Telling a story that matters to history is even harder. "Little Town of Bethlehem" is both, and deserves a wide viewing in the parliaments and congresses of the world, in universities and colleges, in churches, synagogues and mosques. The film is a passionate account of three people who have decided differently, and are laying down their lives for peace-- and therefore for a future.

Dr. Steven Garber

The Washington Institute www.washingtoninst.org

… engaging and lively ….
Dr. Barbara Stowasser

Director, Professor of Arabic & Islamic Studies, Center for Contemporary Arab Studies www.explore.georgetown.edu

Remarkable! Stories of transformation are very powerful. … it humanizes a conflict that the media has dehumanized. …provides a counter narrative to the popular storyline of violence.

Dr. Varun Soni

Dean of USC Office of Religious Life www.sowkweb.usc.edu

…thumbs up.

Habeeb Awad

Professor and International Student Advisor, Hope College www.Hope.edu

Director Jim Hanon is available for interviews. Review and giveaway copies are available upon requests.

CHRISTINA GOES TO THE HOLY LAND

2010-11-15T07:00:00.000-08:00

CHRISTINA GOES TO THE HOLY LAND
By Maria C. Khoury
31 pp, Jerusalem
CDK Publications, 2003

Book Review by Marilyn Rouvelas

Since 1992, Maria Khoury has given our families wonderful children's books written from an Orthodox perspective. Her latest book,

Christiana Goes to the Holy Land (the sixth in her Christina series) is another invaluable contribution to our children's religious education. It is important for our children to know that the place where Christ lived can be visited today and that a living Christian community still exists there. The Holy Land is not a mythical place. Christians from all over the world have the privilege of making the pilgrimage of a lifetime and walking in the footsteps of our Savior Jesus Christ.

Christina Goes to the Holy Land tells the fictional story of Christina and her family seeing the sites Christian pilgrims have visited for centuries. Through the sites, Christina learns about the life of Christ. The sites are generally presented in chronological order of Christ's life: The Church of Annunciation in Nazareth , the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem , the Jordan River (Theophany/Epiphany), the Mount of Temptation near Jericho where Christ fasted, Cana where Christ performed the miracle of turning water into wine, and the Galilee area. In the Jerusalem vicinity the family visits the Tomb of Lazarus, Bethpage where Christ mounted the donkey for Palm Sunday, Mt. Zion the location of the Last Supper, the Garden of Gethsemane , the Church of the Holy Sepulchre where Christ's Crucifixion and Resurrection are commemorated and the Mt. of Olives where he ascended into heaven.

At each site, Maria explains its relevance to Christ's life. Thus the book is an excellent way to learn about Christ's life, and Bible quotations support the text. With the Church of the Nativity, for example, the Christmas story of Christ's birth is related along with such information as the word " Bethlehem " means "house of bread" because there were so many wheat fields around the town and that the church was built by two of the greatest Orthodox saints, Saints Constantine and Helen. This sentence could lead to a special spiritual conversation with the parent and child that Christ is our bread of life and God specifically had a plan for our salvation because He loves us.

The colorful illustrations by Fotini Dedousi help the reader feel present at the sites. The original artist of the Christina character, Antonia Marshall, lives in the Boston area and was not able to travel to the Holy Land. Fotini Dedousi and Maria Khoury live in the Holy Land and have visited these sites. The appendix includes "Vocabulary," "Map," and "Chronology" for parents.

The last page of the story tells about Christina's family visiting the only remaining all-Christian village in the Holy Land , Taybeh (north of Jerusalem ). This is the village where Maria has lived with her family since 1995. In Christina's story, this understated sentence appears, "Many Christian people have left the Holy Land because of the terrible wars." Of course Maria does not want to frighten her young readers, but the facts about the Christian community living in the Holy Land today are frightening.

There are approximately 32,000 Christians left in the West Bank today that is less than two per cent of the entire Palestinian population. There is 60-70 per cent unemployment and life is extremely difficult because of the occupation, roadblocks, land confiscation and now the Apartheid Wall being built by Israel . This dire situation has been reported by Maria in email articles that have appeared in the Greek-American press. The chronicles written during the current Uprising since 2000 have been collected in her book, Witness in the Holy Land .

The need for housing for Orthodox Christians is tremendous, and Maria has started a fundraising campaign to build houses in the village of Taybeh . If each Christian in America would give $1, the houses could be built. The One Dollar Campaign will be in effect until Pascha 2006. If one million dollars in not raised through the fundraising efforts to build all thirty homes needed for St. George Greek Orthodox Church of Taybeh at least one home will be build with net profits from the Christina Book series. Furthermore, Maria is selling her rights to her new books! for a direct donation to the housing for publication in other languages to bring greater awareness of the Christian presence in the Holy Land . The new Christina Book has been translated to Greek, Spanish and French.

Christina Goes to the Holy Land is dedicated to her late father-in-law, Canaan David Khoury, who began the project, and I personally witnessed the pledge Maria made to him about completing the housing as he was dying in a hospital in Boston . Helping with Taybeh housing and raising awareness about the plight of Christians in the Holy Land has become Maria's life's work in addition to writing wonderful books for our children.

Donations to help Orthodox Christians build homes may be made to the "Metropolis of Boston Holy Land Housing," 162 Goddard Avenue , Brookline , MA 02445

Christina Goes to the Holy Land by Maria Khoury (for ages pres-school and up) may be purchased through Light and Life Publishing, 4808 Park Glen Road , Minneapolis MN 55416 , 952-925-3888 info@light-n-life.com or from the children's books directly from Palestine www.paltime.com

Marilyn Rouvelas is the author of A Guide to Greek Traditions and Customs in America

The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict

2010-10-16T11:53:00.000-07:00

Nation Books has published The Goldstone Report, which was already published by the United States. So why would they do that? Well, the UN document which details in unbiased straightforward documentation and eyewitness reports, details the crimes of both the Israeli military and Hamas in the Gaza Strip following Israel's decision to break the lull agreement of non-belligerency it signed with Hamas only months before. (Hamas had stopped its attacks against Israel and almost ended all rocket attacks by militants who were responding to Israel's murder of Palestinians in the West Bank during the lull. On the US election day, Israel viciously assaulted the Gaza Strip murdering scores of Palestinian civilians and engaging in a hi-tech strategy of one-sided and biased public relations and communications, ending it only on the day Barack Obama was finally sworn in as president many weeks later.)

The tragedy of the Goldstone Repport is that the extremist activists on both sides have exploited its findings to suit their own PR goals. Israeli fanatics challenged the report and even called its author, international Jewish jurist Richard Goldstone, an "anti-Semite" for daring to expose Israel's atrocities Palestinian fanatics ignored the report's conclusions that Hamas engaged in war crimes by striking out intentionally at civilian targets, too. The difference between the two terrorist assaults and the extremists is that Israel is better at achieving its goals while Hamas is basically driven by suicide and wanton assaults targeting civilians.

So the authors have decided to give the Palestinians some leverage by not only presenting the Goldstone Report in its entirety, but by backing it up with essays, some of which are enlightening and others that are the typical kind of radical expressions of anger and rantings driven by a hatred for Jews. It's troubling how no one can seem to present the report in an objective manner and this collection of typically hateful anti-Israeli and even viciously hateful assaults against the secular Palestinian government of the Palestine National Authority.

Writers like Laila el-Haddad, the extremist who closes her eyes to the violence when it is committed by her own people and screams to exaggerated heights when the victims are Palestinian. Yes, Israel's army did commit atrocities, but so did Hamas, something that el-Haddad, a strident hateful voice barks out loud. El-Haddad's only real talent is to spout hatred from her blogs, attacking other Palestinians who disagree with her extremist agenda and blindness to the terrorism of the Hamas organization.

Ali Abunimeh, the son of Palestinian aristocracy and privilege, wails about the Israelis also ignoring the actions of the Hamas terrorist organization. And in usual, ineffective narrative, rails through a history of the Palestine conflict asserting almost ridiculously that the Goldstone Report has opened up eyes of Americans to Israel's violations of human rights. Unlike el-Haddad, Abunimeh is a talented and gifted writer, though misguided and somewhat contradictory in his off and on expressions of support for compromise and support for the creation of "one state." A frequent critic whose voice helped to undermine the peace process, Abunimeh cannot see past his dislike of Israelis or recognize the failure of the Palestinian leadership, which he is a part. That leadership is as much responsible for the Palestinian tragedy giving Israel opportunities to steal more Palestinian lands, expel more innocent Palestinians, kill Palestinian civilians (men, women, children and the elderly). Under their failed leadership, Israel has continued to annex more and more Palestinian lands, erased more and more of the Palestinian presence in historic Palestine including in the parts that are now Israel, They embrace failure but they continue to see in that failure a bastardized hope for the future that is not so much a dream but a living nightmare for the Palestinian refugees and Palestinians throughout the Diaspora who can only complain but not act to change one thing in their favor.

So they pretend they have made a difference in their self-delusions, claiming that Americans are changing their attitudes and are supporting the Palestinian cause. In fact, Americans more and more oppose Palestinian rights even though those rights are written int he stone of International Laws.

Tragically, with "champions" like Abunimeh and el-Haddad on the side of the Palestinians, the Palestinians continue to step backwards in their just struggle against the brutal and illegal Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, not to even mention of the Golan Heights.

The book would have done much to enlighten the public had it offered a balance in its interpretation. Instead, Adam Horowitz, co-editor of the extremist web site Mondoweiss which regularly attacks Palestinians who seek to embrace balance and compromise, has brought together some great writers and some of the usual rabble that has undermined Palestinian civil rights through their illogical rantings and screams.

Maybe there will be a book that takes the Goldstone Report and offer it up in a balanced and accurate analysis that reinforces, not undermines, the just cause of the Palestinian people. But some of the essays are so biased that any typical American reader -- and most Americans won't even waste their time reading it -- would close it up and give it away.

Some of the essays worth reading include Raji Sourani, the human rights lawyer based in Gaza City and the director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), Henry Siegman, a Jewish American and director of the US/Middle East Project, Rashid Khalidi the distinguished Edward Said Professor of Arab Studies at Columbia University who occasionally allows his emotions to get the better of his writings, former Congressman Brian Baird who visited the Gaza Strip often and is one of the few members of Congress who understand the true dynamics of the conflict, and the most distinguished archbishop emeritus of Cape Town, South Africa and Nobel Peace Prize winner whose reasoned perspectives on the Palestine-Israel conflict have given the Palestinians their only toe-to-toe equilibrium with the Israelis.

The book is worth reading but take a black marker and x-out the propaganda from Abunimeh and el-Haddad, two misguided writers whose emotions always overcome reason.

The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict
Nation Books
Edited by Adam Horowitz, Lizzy Ratner, and Philip Weiss
2011
425 pages

Behind the Veil of Vice: The Business and Culture of Sex in the Middle East by John R. Bradley

2010-10-16T07:10:00.000-07:00

"Behind the Veil of Vice: The Business and Culture of Sex in the Middle East" is not a salacious examination of the sexual hypocrisies of the Islamic World, but rather a first person exploration o the topic by an author who has spent many years in the Arab and Asian Islamic communities.

Author John R. Bradley offers a context for the book detailing a history of sexual activity in the Arab World from the prophet Mohammed's many wives, to the Ottoman Empire which pushed non-Muslims in to sexual service (prostitution) to help confront political upheaval in their society. A fascinating observation in that history comes from an Arab dictator who once told local mullahs who demanded an end to all entertainment (night clubs, dance halls and bars) as a means of ending all forms of sexual activity outside of marriage that creating Heaven on Earth would make the promise by God of the reward of Heaven irrelevant.

Bradley takes us through his real-time experience traveling through Syria, Bahrain, Egypt, Iran and more as he talks with selected individuals about the taboo topic.

The irony is that prostitution has been a part of Arab and Islamic life, despite the public claims to the contrary. Not just the Kings and the wealthy, but the common people also engaged in prostitution when it suited their needs. The contradictions in Islamic society notwithstanding did not prevent anything.

Bradley also touches on common practices including the temporary marriage of young women by usually older men purely for the purpose of having sex, and on the marriage by older men with young children, where sex is delayed until the child reaches puberty. The entire topic is disgusting, but Bradley doesn't engage in that details nor does he offer any personal experiences in the realm of his book, only the interviews with subjects of knowledge he encounters and seeks out.

Everyone knows that the Islamic World is replete with hypocrisy, but then, so is the Western World. Human beings will always create excuses to separate their own failings from the failings of those they judge. It's a Middle East where you can hate Israel or the West and even debate dicy issues publicly as long as you never criticize the powers that be. Don't criticize the King, the dictator, the president-for-life, and your opinion has a modest level of free speech protections. Is that any different than in the West? Of course not. The only difference is that you are allowed to hate Muslims instead of Israelis in the West without being punished or subjected to hate crimes laws.

It's impossible for any Arab or Muslim to read Bradley's book without sensing a subterranean view that the Muslim and Arab Worlds are hypocritical. But you must read past the speed bumps of "hot button issues," something very few Arabs and Muslims are willing to do in order to accurately understand complex issues like freedoms, sex and political hypocrisies.

The book is a good basis to begin to understand some of the mondernday realities of the Arab and Islamic Worlds, but doesn't engage in out right judgmentalism. Bradley is not casting any judgments about the countries or peoples he explores in his casual travels through the region. It offers a good understanding of what most of us already know that the Arab World and Islamic World have their vices and people are willing to live with them rather than expose them and themselves as hypocrites on the subject. But it also puts it in a needed historical context that challenges the popular myths that women are free anywhere in this world be it in the confines of the West or Islam.

It is an easy read. And you just might learn something about a topic that is too often throw around in debates with little knowledge and too much stereotyping and political biases or racial or religious prejudices.

Behind the Veil of Vice: The Business and Culture of Sex in the Middle East.
John R. Bradley
Palgrave, MacMillan publishing
2010
278 pages
Hardcover
$27

-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com

New Book Chronicles the Whistle Blower of Israel’s WMD Program, Mordechai Vanunu’s Freedom of Speech Trial and how an American novelist became the reporter who followed it

2010-10-11T05:54:00.001-07:00

New Book Chronicles the Whistle Blower of Israel’s WMD Program, Mordechai Vanunu’s Freedom of Speech Trial and how an American novelist became the reporter who followed it

[Clermont, Fl.] October 11, 2010—“BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu's FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010” by Eileen Fleming also documents the Whistle Blower of Israel’s weapons of mass destruction program's childhood in Morocco, multiple crises of faith, 18 years in jail, and 6 ½ years under restrictions that have denied him the right to leave Israel and speak to foreigners.

In 1985, Vanunu shot two rolls of film in top-secret locations in the Dimona, Israel’s seven-story underground nuclear weapons facility in the Negev and he served 18 years in jail for treason and espionage.

According to Fleming, “I was not a reporter when I met Vanunu in June 2005, but I was inspired to become one to tell his story and my experiences with hundreds of nonviolent Palestinian, Israeli and international human rights activists who are seeking security for Israel through justice for Palestine: an end to the military occupation.”

On January 25, 2006, Vanunu’s freedom of speech trial began for speaking to foreign media in 2004. In 2010, he served a sentence of 78 days in solitary confinement.

On October 4, 2010, the International League for Human Rights-FIDH/AEDH Germany, announced Vanunu was awarded the 2010 Carl-von-Ossietzky-Medal and an international campaign was launched to assure he be at the Award Ceremony, in Berlin on December 12, 2010.

On October 11, 2010, at 1 PM, Vanunu returns to the Supreme Court seeking to rescind the restrictions that have denied him the right to leave Israel since he was released from jail on April 21, 2004.

Fleming ends his saga with Vanunu waiting in Tel Aviv, for Israel to release him to full freedom.

About the Author:

Eileen Fleming is a registered nurse by education and writer by vocation. She is the Founder and Editor of WeAreWideAwake.org, a feature correspondent for Arabisto.com, a staff member of Salem-News.com and published by dozens of Internet sites. She produced “30 Minutes with Vanunu” and “13 Minutes with Vanunu” which are streaming on her site. Fleming is also the author of KEEP HOPE ALIVE and THIRD INTIFADA/UPRISING: NONVIOLENT but with Words Sharper than a Two-Edged Sword.

MEDIA CONTACT:

Eileen Fleming
E-mail: <BeyondNuclear2010@gmail.com>
Phone: 352-242-1919
Web: http://www.wearewideawake.org

PDF COPIES of BEYOND NUCLEAR: Mordechai Vanunu's FREEDOM of SPEECH Trial and My Life as a Muckraker: 2005-2010 are available to the Media and Book Reviewer’s via <BeyondNuclear2010@gmail.com>

Eileen Fleming will be in Tehran, Iran from 5-20^th of November 2010, researching her fourth book, but will be available for INTERVIEWS before and after she returns.

###

Just when I was ready to give up on peace, along comes Gregory Levey and his new book

2010-10-10T18:55:00.000-07:00

Hopes for peace in the Middle East rise and fall like a thrill ride at an amusement park. Yet most people seem convinced the rollercoaster ride is going to end badly. When you are on the hill and zipping down so fast your stomach moves into your throat, it might feel like the end of the world, as it does these days in the Middle East, but then reality sets in and you slow down as you approach another rise.

It's so easy to lose hope and so hard to keep it, but along comes a new book by my friend Gregory Levey, believe it or not a former speech writer for a bunch of Israeli prime ministers I might never say I admired. Yet Levey was so encouraging in his optimistic search for peace, rambling from one Israeli or Palestinian activist or organization like a pinball slamming against rubber bumpers and screaming excitement and hope.

Level, the author of a book on his former speech-writing career for some of Israel's rightwing leaders called "Shut up, I'm Talking: And Other Diplomact Lessons I Learned in the Israeli Government," has published a new book, one that is lighter and more serious in its lightness.

It's called "How to Make Peace in the Middle East in Six months or Less Without Leaving Your Apartment ." Talk about fatalistic optimism. Yet the book takes you through the highs and lows of the Middle East peace. He talks to everyone (including me) about peace and anti-peace. Sometimes, understanding anti-peace can help you understand peace.

Levey's book is encouraging in its determination to reach out to everyone he can possibly meet, something uncommon in Middle East journalism. Many Arab journalists won't interview Israeli Prime Minister Bejamin Netanyahu and especially refused to interview Ariel Sharon, who many Arabs view as a mass murderer and criminal terrorist. Yet, many Israeli journalists would not interview Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. And if they did, the Israeli government would put them in jail, anyway, just in case.

It's a terrible world to navigate that peace adventure, but Levey does it with skill, wit and stubbornness that is mandatory for anyone who hopes to one day see peace int he Middle East.

I loved the book and its easy writing style. His speech writing skills come out in full force in his narrative of his travels and encounters.

"How to Make Peace in the Middle East in Six months or Less Without Leaving Your Apartment ."
Gregory Levey
Free Press, hardcover, Sept. 7, 2010
ISBN 9-7814-3915-415-1
$25
288 pp

Book Signing: “Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean.”

2010-10-05T11:49:00.001-07:00

“Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean.”

Book Signing and Discussion

By Professor Basem L. Ra’ad

October 18, 2010 6:00 PM

ADC Heritage Center
1732 Wisconsin Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20007

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) Invites you to a book signing on Monday, October 18, 2010 at the ADC Heritage Center. Professor Basem L. Ra’ad will be discussing and signing his new book “Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean.”

For thousands of years, the region of Palestine and the East Mediterranean has been denied an indigenous voice to narrate an inclusive history. Three major religions ascribe their origins to this part of the world, appropriating and re-appropriating the “Holy Land” time and again. This book offers a powerful corrective to common understandings. It emphasizes the long history of a region called “the cradle of civilization,” and dispels many old and new mythscovering issues related to constructs, claims and terminologies, regional mythologies and religions, invention and exploitation of sacred sites, the alphabet, ancient languages and place names, identity construction, appropriation, self-colonization, and retrieval of ancient heritage. The book shows that ignorance is not always bliss. It is intended for general readership and for students and academics interested in history, religion, biblical studies, politics, archaeology, anthropology, literature, and cultural studies.

Copies of “Hidden Histories: Palestine and the Eastern Mediterranean” will be available for purchase.

Basem L. Ra’ad is a Professor at Al-Quds University in Jerusalem. Born in Jerusalem, he received his education in Jordan, Lebanon, the U.S. and Canada, earning a Ph.D. at the University of Toronto in 1978. He has been an editor and community organizer, and has taught in Canada, Bahrain, Lebanon and Palestine.

Space is limited

RSVP is required by October 17, 2010

Please email your confirmation to

RSVP@ADC.ORG

Inside the Kingdom, By Robert Lacey

2010-10-03T06:37:00.000-07:00

When it comes to Saudi Arabia and the Arabian Peninsula, no one knows the history and politics better than Robert Lacey.

In 2009, he published "Inside the Kingdom"and it was a big book in hardcover. Now, the book is available in paperback and easier to carry and read.

This is a fascinating and detailed look into the evolution of the Saudi people, from the royalty to the rebels. Saudi Arabia is so important to the world and yet it is misunderstood often to play in to domestic politics.

Lacey's book offers an insight that even Arabs should read and understand. The future of the Middle East starts and ends in this desert sand kingdom. The future of America is in its winds.

Robert Lacey is the author of Majesty, the classic biography of Queen Elizabeth II. A distinguished journalist with a love of history, he wrote the series Great Tales from English History, and was co-author of the best-selling Year 1000. In 1979, he moved with his family to Saudi Arabia for eighteen months to research The Kingdom, his penetrating study of the country’s complex and often paradoxical culture, which was banned in Saudi Arabia. For the past three years, Robert has been based in Jeddah and Riyadh, gathering material for this sequel -- a completely new book which relates the Saudi role in the years of terror.

www.InsidetheKingdom.net
www.RobertLacey.com
Penguin Books, now available
ISBN: 978-0-14-311827-5
$17, 404 pp

THE PEACE PROCESS: From Breakthrough to Breakdown, By Afif Safieh

2010-09-10T08:08:00.000-07:00

THE PEACE PROCESS: From Breakthrough to Breakdown

Afif Safieh,

former Palestinian Ambassador in London, Washington and Moscow

OUT NOW IN HARDBACK - £16.99

“The Palestinian struggle for independence embodies a noble idea and a just cause. In Afif Safieh it found one if its most intellectually powerful, articulate and eloquent spokesmen. His book makes a vital contribution to our understanding of the cause that he has served with dignity and distinction for over three decades. It deserves the widest possible readership.” Avi Shlaim

"Afif Safieh's book makes both depressing and inspiring reading - these pages demonstrate Afif's commitment, his deep knowledge of history, his frustrations and his sparkling good humour." Lord David Steel

"A welcome addition to the literature written on the Peace Process. It is formidable in its eloquence, humanity and the description of his hopes for a just peace for all Palestinians." Judge Eugene Cotran

Afif Safieh served as Palestinian Ambassador in London, Washington and Moscow from 1990 to 2009. During this time he met and interacted with the leading politicians of our times: from Yasser Arafat, John Major and Tony Blair; to Jimmy Carter and George W. Bush, and Pope John Paul II.

The Peace Process: From Breakthrough to Breakdown brings together Afif Safieh's articles, lectures and interviews from when he was a staff member in Yasser Arafat's Beirut office, to 2005, at the end of his mission in London, revealing the political and intellectual journey of one of Palestine's most skilled and distinguished diplomats.

His writings, which centre on the Palestinian struggle for independence, are a testament to his vision and humanity provide a unique map of Palestinian diplomacy over the last three decades.

Born in Jerusalem in 1950, Afif Safieh is Roving Ambassador for Special Missions for the PLO and the Fatah Deputy Commissioner for International Relations. He served as Head of Mission in London, Washington and Moscow, as well as the Holy See and The Netherlands. During his service in The Netherlands from 1987 to 1990, he was involved in the Stockholm negotiations which led to the first official and direct American-Palestinian dialogue. From 1976 to 1978, her served as Deputy Director of the PLO Observer Mission to the United Nations Office at Geneva. He later worked as a staff member in Yasser Arafat's office in Beirut from 1978 to 1981, in charge of European Affairs and UN institutions. He lives in London with his wife and daughters.

To contact Afif Safieh please email: AFIFPLO@aol.com

To order copies of The Peace Process by Afif Safieh please visit the Al Saqi website http://www.alsaqibookshop.com/ or call the Al Saqi Bookshop on +44 (0) 207 229 8543 (Books - £16.99)

For publicity enquiries please contact Charlotte Allen at Saqi Books:
Email: charlotte@telegrambooks.com
end

Arab American Almanac, the most comprehensive reference on Arab Americans

2010-06-22T19:37:00.001-07:00

Arab American Almanac, the most comprehensive reference on Arab Americans

By Ray Hanania

One of the pioneers of American Arab journalism is Joseph Haeik who is a member of the Arab Journalism Society in Los Angeles and also a founder of the Arab American Historical Foundation. He is publisher of the immensely popular “News Circle Magazine” one of the most professionally written publications in the community and founded in 1972. His most important work, however is the publication of the Arab American Almanac, a detailed compilation of American Arab achievements, leaders and achievers.

This month, Haiek released the 6^th Edition of the Arab American Almanac and it far exceeds the heights he has already reached from his previous five editions.

The Arab American Almanac, published by The News Circle Publishing House (www.Arab-American-Affairs.net), offers a detailed history of every aspect of Arabs in America compiled in 608 tightly packed and informative pages. The writing is compelling and accurate, built upon more than a half century of professional writing and journalism.

The book offers a list of the most important books written about Arab and Middle East topics. It offers endless lists including one detailing the achievements of American Arabs in Hollywood and film, in government and politics, and in business.

It provides a comprehensive listing of the most important American Arab organizations in the country with thumbnail histories that put the existence of Arabs in America in full perspective. It lists Arabs in the military and includes stories of Arabs in America that give a context to their existence in a way most other books about the community have failed to achieve.

You cannot understand the depth and substance of the Arabs in America without this Almanac and it is essential to any research or future documentation of American Arabs and their role in American society.

This is an important work of literature. It is mandatory for research on American Arabs. Every American organization and scholar should have a copy on their shelves in order to add depth to the shallow understanding that many Americans have of the rich culture of the Arab World and people and the contributions of Arabs to America’s greatness.

This is not a dissertation nor a political argument over issues of Middle East conflict, but rather a fair, complete and accurate account of who American Arabs were, are and will continue to be.

Arab American Almanac, 6^th Edition

Arab American Historical Foundation

PO Box 291159

Los Angeles, CA 90029

Email: newscircle@yahoo.com

For more information

- Ray Hanania

www.RadioChicagoland.com

New Book Assesses the Middle East’s Growing “Knowledge Economy”

2010-06-15T13:05:00.000-07:00

New Book Assesses the Middle East’s Growing “Knowledge Economy”

Research Report Investigates the Region’s Capacity to Speed Development Through International Higher Education

For Immediate Release

June 15, 2010

NEW YORK, NY– A new book from the Institute of International Education (IIE), a world leader in the international exchange of students and scholars, examines the focus of the governments of several Middle Eastern countries on education as a central feature of national development policies. Innovation Through Education: Building the Knowledge Economy in the Middle East contains chapters written by thought leaders from the United States and the Middle East. It comes at a time when many new exciting initiatives are taking place in region, such as the opening of King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST), the development of NYU Abu Dhabi, and the convening of major new global gatherings such as Qatar Foundation's World Innovation Summit for Education and the Education Without Borders Forum produced by the UAE’s Higher Colleges of Technology. The book looks at aspirations within the region to build human capacity through increased access to higher education, and examines new models for higher education opportunities. The new book is the latest in a series of timely reports published through a partnership between IIE and the American Institute For Foreign Study (AIFS) Foundation.
Authors from a wide range of organizations describe and analyze current innovations, trends, and issues that countries and institutions in the Middle East are facing as they move toward educational reform and development in both Gulf and non-Gulf states. The book addresses institutional planning in the region, branch campuses in the UAE and Qatar, women's education, youth exchange, Arabic language education, and more, and offers a contemporary examination of role of global education in building the knowledge economy in the Middle East. It also provides an overview of exchange projects between Middle Eastern countries and the

United States

.

Innovation Through Education is the fourth book in the Global Education Research Reports series from IIE and the AIFS Foundation. Previous books have examined higher education initiatives and exchanges in China and

India

, as well as new developments in global mobility.

Authors of the chapters in Innovation Through Education represent the diverse perspectives of leaders in higher education, government, and the corporate sector in both the United States and Middle East. IIE CEO Allan Goodman and AIFS CEO Bill Gertz wrote forewords to the book. Chapter authors include: Jamil Salmi, World Bank; Daniel Kirk, Gulf Comparative Education Society, Spencer Witte, Ishtirak; Robert G. Ayan Jr., Cambridge Advisors LLC; Hana A. El-Ghali, Qianyi Chen, and John L. Yeager, University of Pittsburgh; Haifa Reda Jamal Al-Lail, Effat University; Sherifa M.B.E. Fayez, AFS Egypt, and Dan Prinzing, Idaho Human Rights Education Center; Jerome Bookin-Weiner, AMIDEAST, and Ahmad Majdoubeh, University of Jordan; and Norman J. Peterson and Yvonne M. Rudman, Montana State University. The book was edited by Daniel Obst, Deputy Vice President for International Partnerships at IIE, and Daniel Kirk, Founding President of the Gulf Comparative Education Society. (Table of contents following release.)
Innovation Through Education has been produced by IIE’s new Center for International Partnerships in Higher Education, with funding from the AIFS Foundation. It is one of several IIE initiatives targeted at strengthening higher education bonds between the U.S. and Middle East. IIE delivers programs in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region that reach more than 7,000 students, scholars, and professionals. As a result of the Institute’s partnerships with corporations, governments, ministries, foundations, and the

U.S.

government, thousands of students, scholars, and professionals from the region have gained access to the world’s leading higher education and training programs.

In academic year 2008/09, more than 29,000 international students from the Middle East were studying in the

United States

, an increase of more than 17% over the previous year, according to IIE’s 2009 Open Door Report on International Educational Exchange, supported by the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs of the U.S. Department of State. More than 3,300 students from the U.S. received credit for studying abroad in the Middle East in academic year 2007/08, an increase of more than 21% over the previous year.

IIE-administered programs in the MENA region have wide-ranging and tangible impact. They help to build capacity through training in science and technology, youth leadership development projects and women’s empowerment initiatives. IIE partners with the U.S. Department of State, and with universities such as KAUST and NYU Abu Dhabi, energy companies like Exxon Mobil, and technology companies like Microsoft to serve the region’s need for international education and training.

# # #

The Institute of International Education is a world leader in the international exchange of people and ideas. An independent, nonprofit organization founded in 1919, IIE has network of over 20 offices worldwide and over 1,000 member institutions. IIE designs and implements programs of study and training for students, educators, young professionals and trainees from all sectors with funding from government agencies, foundations, and corporations. IIE also conducts policy research and program evaluations, and provides advising and counseling on international education and opportunities abroad. www.iie.org

The American Institute For Foreign Study (AIFS) Foundation, an independent, not-for-profit, 501(c)(3) tax exempt public charity, was established in 1967 to help young people from many nations and diverse cultures to better understand one another. The AIFS Foundation provides grants to high schools and institutions to encourage international and educational travel. The AIFS Foundation also sponsors the Academic Year in America (AYA) program, which enables international teenage students to live with an American host family while attending the local high school. www.aifsfoundation.org

Review Essay: Lessons from Lebanon’s chronic encounters with violence

2010-06-13T05:11:00.000-07:00

Review Essay: Lessons from Lebanon’s chronic encounters with violence

Libanisation (Lebanization/Lebanonization): the process of fragmentation of a state, as a result of confrontation between diverse communities.

By Maurice Obeid
(Submitted review)

Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon: A History of the Internationalization of Communal Conflict. By Samir Khalaf. New York, NY: Columbia University Press, 2002. 368 pp. ISBN: 0-231-12476-7. US $27.50.

A lot has been studied about Lebanon’s 1975-1990 civil war—identifying perpetrators, determining the “Sarajevo” that ignited the conflict, or ascribing responsibility to a web of local, regional, and international stakeholders. Little has been said, however, about the peculiarity of this civil war—what sets Lebanon apart from other violent contexts. It turns out that the forces that sustained the conflict were distinct from those that ignited it in the first place, and, in Lebanon’s case, much more important in delineating the country’s tortuous trajectory. These forces defined the paradigm of Lebanese sociopolitical life and destiny. Even more obscure to many observers is that Lebanon’s modern history has been one of intermittent violence whose patterns have remained largely consistent for two centuries. This discovery serves as both the premise and the conclusion of Samir Khalaf’s Civil and Uncivil Violence in Lebanon.

Khalaf’s examination of Lebanon’s conflicts since the 19^th century uncovers three recurring themes that investigations of communal strife tend to overlook:

1. The incongruence between instigators of violence and forces that sustain conflict. The circumstances that propelled oppressed groups to resort to social or political violence are not necessary those which sustained the violence or defined the direction and character of the conflict.

2. The distinction between civil and uncivil violence. When communal discord replaces socioeconomic or purely political grievances as the face of a conflict, quelling violence becomes a herculean task. In Khalaf’s words, violence is transformed from a dependent variable to an independent variable inflicting its own vicious cycle of violence.

3. Certain wars are futile. As Kaplan suggests, for wars to be productive, they must produce a victor and a vanquished. In Lebanon, successive conflicts have primarily embodied zero-sum rivalries. Much to the interests and efforts of foreign powers, conflicts always ended in suspension.

Lebanon’s major episodes of unrest reveal painstaking similarities in their pattern of violence. Conflicts that started as ordinary socioeconomic or political protest quickly turned into sectarian confrontation. Once conflicts took on a sectarian edge, and they almost always did, they acquired a life of their own and spiraled out of control as self-definition became threatened. Essentially, as Hanf explains, conflicts that were initially over divisible goods became struggles over indivisible principles. Finally, and most painfully, these conflicts have been largely futile, at best restoring status quo.

Today, coexistence is ever so distant. In short, Lebanon’s history with violence is especially vexing as hostilities never revolved around a set of causes nor have they resolved core issues that ignited unrest.

Familiar pattern: a donkey is a donkey

Against this conceptual backdrop, Khalaf revisits three distinct conflicts—the recurrent uprisings of the 1800s, the turmoil of 1958, and the 1975-1990 war. He links his analysis of the Lebanese context to a rich exposé of relevant work by revered Western historians and social scientists. His intent here is to demonstrate two salient features. First, the (non-confessional) circumstances that propelled groups to violence were not those which sustained and defined the direction of the conflict. Second, geopolitical forces and regional and global rivalries consistently amplified communal fissures.

The calm of feudal Mount Lebanon—which had historically exhibited harmonious Maronite-Druze coexistence—was disrupted in the early 1800s by peasant protest over increased taxation and conscription by Ottoman and Egyptian rulers. These uprisings rarely remained in their pure socioeconomic and political forms, and were quickly deflected into confessional hostilities, often times by international spoilers—France, England, and the Ottomans—who pitted one confession against the other. The Maronite-Druze relations were irreparably damaged when Ottoman Ibrahim Pasha conscribed Maronites to help quell Druze rebellion. Ensuing massacres—socioeconomic grievances turned into sectarian conflicts—ended with foreign imposition of the Règlement Organique of 1861 that, for the first time, institutionalized confessionalism in Lebanon’s political system. In Khalaf’s words:

“[These events] initiated the transition from the traditional ties of kinship, status, and personal allegiance to a more communal form of social cohesion where sources of political legitimacy were defined in terms of ethnicity and confessional allegiance. In short, [they] substituted one form of primordial loyalty for another.”

A century later in 1958, significant regional developments and Palestinian belligerence in Lebanese territory transformed socioeconomic grievances and feelings of political underrepresentation, primarily by Muslims, into a confessional battle. Pan-Arab nationalism attracted the disenfranchised and those opposed to the government’s staunch pro-Western foreign policy. Early stages of protest reflected no intentions of violence, but Syrian and Egyptian efforts in propping up the opposition against the Chamoun government, along with the creation of the United Arab Republic in 1958 and the Maronites’ perennial fears of being engulfed by Arab nationalism and Palestinian presence, quickly transformed the situation into a vengeful conflict defined along confessional lines. Once again, fear of loss of identity and heritage, one’s very existence, motivated “out-of-control” violence—including banditry, kidnappings, and torture. And again, the violence subsided, much as it had started, with foreign intervention—in this case through The Cairo Accord.

By the early 1970s, however, regional ideologies—Baathist, Socialist, Arabist, and Islamist—had fundamentally changed the nature of the discourse in Lebanon. By then, Maronites felt dangerously threatened by Palestinian militancy. Internal tensions coupled with outside pressures—the Arab nakba in 1967 and intensified Israeli reprisals in the South—led to severe fissures in the government of President Franjieh. Khalaf reflects:

“Increasingly, Lebanon found itself caught between two treacherous operations: Destroy the armed presence of PLO and risk the grim prospects of Christian-Muslim confrontations. Entrust the army with the task of defending the South and suffer the inevitable humiliations of a military showdown with Israel. Typically, Lebanon opted for inaction and played for time.”

Time, however, was not on Lebanon’s side and events deteriorated into the familiar spiral of violence, this time to last 15 years. This conflict saw the most bizarre permutations of intra- and inter-communal alliances and violence. “The bewildering plurality of adversaries and shifting targets of hostility has rendered the Lebanese experience all the more gripping and pathological.” As with previous conflicts, hostilities ended when foreign interests necessitated a quiet Lebanon. This came in the form of the Taif Accord, which hypocritically clinched to the consociative nature of Lebanese society and “the [déjà vu] ethos of no victor and no vanquished.”

An Ominous future?

Khalaf delivers a somber message: Lebanon’s major episodes of violence have been uncivil. As long as conflicts revolved around socioeconomic and political disparities, they remained fairly civil. When they were given a confessional nature, and they almost always were, Lebanon turned into a bloody circus.

To great effectiveness, in analyzing the latest civil war, Khalaf goes beyond depicting the chronology of events to providing a rich glimpse of the country’s social psyche that sustained violence and the resulting psychological scars. He explains how ordinary citizens get entrapped in aggression and how traumatized groups come to cope with chronic fear and hostility. He addresses the impact of war on collective memory, group loyalties, and attitudes towards the “other.” His exposé explains how violence continued for 15 years: “the ecology of violence, reinforced by the demonization of the ‘other,’ provided the sources for heightened vengeance and entrapment into relentless cycles of retributive in-fighting.” Religion and the vilification of the “other” sanctified violence to the extent that “fighters involved in …purifying bloodbaths [were] not only purged of their guilt,” but were “also glorified into patriots and national heroes.” It simply became routine: groups engaged in such cruelties believed they were morally justified, and observers morally distanced themselves to the extent of desensitization. In essence, citizens became frenzied spectators morbidly fascinated by a Spanish bullfight (Marvin 1986: 133-34).

Perhaps most ominously, Khalaf paints a bleak picture for post-war Lebanon. Perhaps the most important impact of the war is what he calls the “retribalization” and “reteritorialization of identities.” The war has reinforced kinship and confessional loyalties. It has destroyed public spaces that provided venues for intercommunity interaction and has caused people to retreat to homogenous spaces. The density of social interaction and intensified intracommunal loyalties are foreboding for the nation. Boundaries between communities, once physical, have become psychological, cultural, and ideological barriers. In contrast to theories of Modernization and Marxism, which predict the demise of religious and community fealty, such primordial ties have strengthened in Lebanon.

Khalaf raises another disheartening, less salient and empirically counterintuitive consequence of the war, which he labels “postwar barbarism.” He persuasively elaborates how in contrast to the constraint that people generally exhibit in postwar situations, the Lebanese show “no self-control in directing their future options.” Instead they reveal “insatiable desires for acquisitiveness, lawlessness, and unearned privileges,” ranging from the negligence of laws to the destruction of the environment to increased wickedness to the obsession with kitsch and vulgar trends. Khalaf laments the proliferation of kitsch—propagated by the desire to escape the memories of the past—that have vulgarized folk art and architecture in the process of providing cheap distractions to the wounded Lebanese souls.

The reader may take solace in Khalaf’s moderate voice throughout this work. While providing a sobering account of a violent nation, Khalaf reminds us that Lebanon knew periods of calm that rendered the country an avant-garde paradise in the region. On several occasions, however, Khalaf is quick to refute Lebanon’s detractors who say that the state is an artificial creation without offering much evidence to the contrary. This is an important argument for him to make, especially as he seems to be implying just the opposite when he describes the recommendation of the King Crane Commission to create an autonomous Lebanon within a larger Syrian entity based on a plebiscite conducted in 1919.

Most significantly, the reader would have benefited from further exploration of the two periods of relative calm—1860-1958 and 1959-1975. To better understand the factors that propagated violence in Lebanon, it is instrumental to also explore the main factors behind periods of sustained calm. Perhaps Khalaf presumes it to be obvious that regional and international conditions provide the best explanation, but in assessing whether Lebanon could ever again experience such prosperity, a retrospective analysis is essential.

On this basis, the chapter on Lebanon’s “golden/gilded age” (1959-1975) is at once Khalaf’s strongest and weakest. Strongest because Khalaf, a sociologist, is at his best. He explores in exquisite detail the social and cultural forces that made Lebanon a cultural paradise. Few have provided such a comprehensive exposé of Lebanese society during that time. Weakest because the work does not explain the variables behind the lack of violence during that epoch. He briefly mentions that economic prosperity was not equally distributed and that disparities widened. It may again be too obvious for him that international interests were aligned with stability in Lebanon. But with a civil war was on the horizon, the reader would benefit from a deeper analysis of the economic and political grievances stirring beneath the surface and how society managed to keep them at bay.

Structurally, the first three chapters, which set up an ingenious framework with which to analyze Lebanon’s violent history, get seemingly repetitive and could use some more structure. On some occasions, the obvious is stated, which is out of character for a work so strong. The tone is academic, and Khalaf investigates conceptual principles set by Western intellectuals only to end up with rather obvious conclusion. For the practical user, a more succinct version of the first three chapters would be helpful.

Breathe fresh air, pick fresh roses

Perhaps most interesting in this work is the absence of policy recommendations related to political reform. Khalaf must have given up on the role of politicians in bridging the gap between communities. Perhaps the author knows too well that such alternatives have been proven naïve, imaginary solutions. In fact, inspired by Herbert Spencer’s analogy of the bent iron plate—one should hammer around, and not directly on, the buckled area—Khalaf explicitly encourages focusing on strategies that transcend conflict resolution and political reforms.

Khalaf emphasizes the role of restoring social spaces in reconnecting “denationalized” Lebanese with each other and with their country, in the hopes of forming a collective memory. He focuses on the importance of what Paul Rabinow refers to as the “social technologies of pacification” in bringing back meaningful life to society. He calls on urban designers, architects, and intellectuals to play a much needed role in Lebanon—connecting the citizenry through public space. “By mobilizing aesthetic sensibilities… and cultural expressions…, they can prod the Lebanese to…transcend the parochial identities to connect with others.” Khalaf also calls for increased opportunities for intercommunal socialization through productive social networks, such as environmental campaigns, pro-local agriculture produce campaigns, and activities promoting women rights. The alternative he points out is bleak:

“Consider what happens when a country’s most precious heritage either is maligned or becomes beyond the reach of its citizens…their country’s scenic geography, is pluralistic and open institutions, which were once sources of national pride…have either become inaccessible to them, or worse, are being redefined as worthless.”

Ultimately, Khalaf believes that group loyalties can be resocialized, but it is a very long process.

--
SUBMITTED REVIEW: from Maurice Obeid

Harvard Business School, M.B.A.
Harvard Kennedy School, M.P.P.

Maurice Obeid is a graduate student at the John F. Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University) and the Harvard Business School. At Harvard, Maurice sits on the Student Advisory Board of the Center Public Leadership and works with the Middle East Initiative at the Kennedy School of Government. He previously worked with Lebanon’s Ambassador at the Permanent Mission of Lebanon to the United Nations in New York, and as a management consultant with McKinsey & Company in New York and Dubai. Originally from Lebanon, Maurice received his undergraduate degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) where he studied Chemical-Biological Engineering and Economics.

Arab American National Museum announces 2010 Book Awards

2010-06-01T07:07:00.000-07:00

*Contact:*	Kim Silarski	Kristin Lalonde
	313.624.0206	313.624.0223
	ksilarski@accesscommunity.org	klalonde@accesscommunity.org

ARAB MUSEUM ANNOUNCES WINNERS OF 2010 ARAB AMERICAN BOOK AWARD

Gala award ceremony to be held in Washington, D.C.

Dearborn, MI (June 1, 2010) – Established American literary luminaries and compelling new voices inspired by global events are represented among the winners of the 2010 Arab American Book Award presented by the Arab American National Museum.

This national literary competition, the only one of its kind in the U.S., is designed to draw attention to books and authors dealing with the Arab American experience. The program has attracted increasing numbers of submissions in its four-year history.

This year, the Arab American Book Award ceremony will be held on Monday, October 4 at the Carnegie Institution, 1530 P Street NW in Washington, D.C. Further details on the invitation-only event will be released this summer.

Three winners emerged from the 30 books published during 2009 that were submitted for consideration; two honorable mentions were also selected, all by genre-specific review committees:

Winner - Fiction

Master of the Eclipse by Etel Adnan

Winner - Non-Fiction

Angeleno Days: An Arab American Writer on Family, Place, and Politics by Gregory Orfalea

Winner - Poetry

Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea: Poetry and Stories from Iraq by Dunya Mikhail

Honorable Mentions (Non-Fiction)

Amreeka: Arab Voices, American Stories by Alia Malek

AND

Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11 by Louise A. Cainkar

Submissions are currently being accepted for the 2011 Arab American Book Award. Authors and publishers may call 313.624.0223 or email klalonde@accesscommunity.org for nomination forms and criteria. Submission deadline is February 1, 2011.

The Arab American Book Award program encourages the publication and excellence of books that preserve and advance the understanding, knowledge and resources of the Arab American community by celebrating the thoughts and lives of Arab Americans. The purpose of the Award is to inspire authors, educate readers and foster a respect and understanding of the Arab American culture.

The winning titles are chosen by groups of selected readers including respected authors, university professors, artists and AANM staff. The AANM first gave these awards in 2007 for books published in 2006.

*****************************

2010 Arab American Book Award Winners

(for books published in 2009)

Fiction

Master of the Eclipse

By Etel Adnan

Interlink Publishing Group

From its title story, a meditation on history and war, power and poetry, to its concluding tale, a strangely human vision of a tree floating in a Damascus stream, Adnan’s painterly vision, poetic phrasing, cosmopolitan flexibility and philosophical approach are on full display. Most of the stories in Part One deal with the lives of exiles taking place in the great urban centers of the world, where crowding and loneliness shove up against one another. Part Two centers on homeland – its meaning, memories and realities. Inhabited by lovers, artists, filmmakers, poets, professors, madmen, prostitutes, murderers, recovering addicts, the young and the old, the stories in Master of the Eclipse are universal and intimate, as current as they are poetic.

Etel Adnan, the Lebanese American poet, artist, feminist and public intellectual, is the author of more than one dozen books. She was born in Lebanon to a Christian Greek mother and Muslim Syrian father, brought up speaking Greek and Turkish and French in an Arabic-speaking society, educated in a French convent school, and, as a student and an adult lived all over the world, including Paris and the East and West coasts of the U.S. Trained in philosophy at the Sorbonne, Harvard, and the University of California at Berkeley, Adnan was first a painter, then a poet. Her flexibility with language and style has allowed her to write poetry, plays, novels, short stories, essays and non-fiction. Her groundbreaking novel Sitt Marie Rose is one of the defining narratives of the Lebanese civil war. She lives in the Bay Area of California.

Non-Fiction

Angeleno Days: An Arab American Writer on Family, Place, and Politics

By Gregory Orfalea

University of Arizona Press

Populated with fascinating characters, these essays tell the story of the author’s trials. He returns to Los Angeles to teach, trying to reconcile the L.A. of his childhood with the city he now faces. He takes on progressively more difficult and painful subjects, finally confronting the memories of the shocking tragedy that took the lives of his father and sister. With more than 400,000 Arab Americans in Los Angeles, Orfalea also explores his own community and its political and social concerns.

Gregory Orfalea is the author of Arab Americans: A History as well as Messengers of the Lost Battalion, two books of poetry, and memoir pieces for the Los Angeles Times Magazine, many of which appear here for the first time in book form. He divides his time between Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.

Poetry

Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea: Poetry and Stories from Iraq

By Dunya Mikhail

New Directions

Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea transcends genres and crosses borders to present a deeply moving narrative of life in, and exile from, Baghdad. Through acute and vivid recollection of her 30 years in Iraq, Dunya Mikhail delivers her readers to a world much imagined yet rarely so intimately seen by Western eyes. Diary of a Wave Outside the Sea captivates not merely as it speaks to its present political moment, but as it tells a larger tale of cross-cultural struggle and individual perseverance.

Dunya Mikhail was born in Baghdad in 1965. She served as the literary editor of the Baghdad Observer throughout the 1990s, until harassment from Iraqi authorities forced her to flee the country. In 2001, she was awarded the United Nations Human Rights Award for Freedom of Writing. She currently lives in Michigan and works as an Arabic resource coordinator for a public school system. Her first collection of poetry in English, The War Works Hard, was a finalist for the 2006 Griffin Poetry Prize and was chosen by the New York Public Library as one of 25 Books to Remember from 2005.

2009 Honorable Mentions

Honorable Mention: Non-Fiction

Amreeka: Arab Voices, American Stories

By Alia Malek

Free Press

What does American history look and feel like in the experiences of Arab Americans? In A Country Called Amreeka: Arab Roots, American Stories, Syrian American civil rights lawyer Alia Malek weaves the stories of the Arab American community into the story of America, using lively and moving narratives of real people who have lived history all around the country. Each chapter of the book corresponds to one historical event as it occurred in the life of one Arab American, allowing readers to live that moment in history in the skin of an individual Arab American.

Alia Malek is an author and civil rights lawyer. Born in Baltimore to Syrian immigrant parents, she began her legal career as a trial attorney at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Civil Rights Division. After working in the legal field in the U.S., Lebanon and the West Bank, Malek, who has degrees from Johns Hopkins and Georgetown Universities, earned her master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University. Her reportage has appeared in Salon, The Columbia Journalism Review, and The New York Times. A Country Called Amreeka is her first book.

Honorable Mention: Non-Fiction

Homeland Insecurity: The Arab American and Muslim American Experience After 9/11

By Louise A. Cainkar

Russell Sage Foundation

In the aftermath of 9/11, many Arab and Muslim Americans came under intense scrutiny by federal and local authorities, as well as their own neighbors, on the chance that they might know, support, or actually be terrorists. As Louise Cainkar observes, even U.S.-born Arabs and Muslims were portrayed as outsiders, an image that was amplified in the months after the attacks. She argues that 9/11 did not create anti-Arab and anti-Muslim suspicion; rather, their socially constructed images and social and political exclusion long before these attacks created an environment in which misunderstanding and hostility could thrive and the government could defend its use of profiling. Combining analysis and ethnography, Homeland Insecurity provides an intimate view of what it means to be an Arab or a Muslim in a country set on edge by the worst terrorist attack in its history.

Louise A. Cainkar is assistant professor of sociology and social justice at Marquette University.

**************

The Arab American National Museum documents, preserves, celebrates, and educates the public on the history, life, culture, and contributions of Arab Americans. It serves as a resource to enhance knowledge and understanding about Arab Americans and their presence in this country. The Arab American National Museum is a project of ACCESS, a Dearborn, Michigan-based nonprofit human services and cultural organization. Learn more at www.arabamericanmuseum.org and www.accesscommunity.org.

The Arab American National Museum is a proud Affiliate of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Read about the Affiliations program at http://affiliations.si.edu.

The Museum is located at 13624 Michigan Avenue, Dearborn, MI, 48126. Museum hours: 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday; noon-5 p.m. Sunday. Closed Monday, Tuesday; Thanksgiving, Christmas Day and New Year’s Day. Admission is $6 for adults; $3 for students, seniors and children 6-12; ages 5 and under, free. Call 313.582.2266 for further information.

###

Book Review: The Alexandria Letter by George R. Honig

2010-04-19T13:00:00.000-07:00

What is Jesus was not only a Rabbi but a doctor with medical skills? Might that have explained the many miracles? Dr. George Honig explores that possibility in a new novel called "The Alexandria Letter." It's the story of a letter written by one of the Disciples about Jesus and John the Baptist. The central figure of the novel, which tests the Christian faith, is a cambridge professor who explores the letter and its meaning but quickly becomes the target of the Christian Church.

Honig, a doctor himself, uses the novel as a means of exploring a theory he has that maybe Jesus had medical skills far advanced than others that may explain the great miracles.

It's a fascinating read and intriguing. Although we don't know much about the life of Jesus except that which was written many years later by his disciples and re-written by the Christian Church, it is very possible that Jesus was merely the most proficient doctor of his time.

An enjoyable thriller and well worth your read.

-- Ray Hanania
www.RadioChicagoland.com

"Beware of Small States" by David Hirst

2010-03-05T16:30:00.000-08:00

"Beware of Small States" by author David Hirst is an intense narrative of the challenges facing Lebanon and its history of conflict. Hirst puts Lebanon in the bigger context of the Arab-Israeli war and details Israel's fixation of Lebanon, a country it has fought to dominate many times.

Banned in six Arab countries, and kidnapped twice during Lebanon's civil wars, Hirst is also a former Middle East correspondent for the prestigious Guardian Newspaper.

A lengthy book and easy to read, Hirst offers a detailed understanding of Lebanon and explores the rise of Hizbollah and the Israeli assault on the Gaza Strip. If you can understand Lebanon's history and challenges, you can understand the larger regional conflicts in the Middle East, Hirst argues. He does a good job of bringing history together and exploring its impact on today.

The Middle East has been overwritten but Hirst's book helps bring understanding to a complex region.

Beware of Small States: Lebanon, Battleground of the Middle East
By David Hirst
Nation Books, April 1, 2010
www.NationBooks.org
428 Pages

Jewish American seeks justice for Palestinians New book encourages shift in interfaith dialogue to reach peace in the Holy Land

2010-02-24T09:18:00.001-08:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

CONTACT: Amy Currie (512) 478-2028 ext. 211

Jewish American seeks justice for Palestinians New book encourages shift in interfaith dialogue to reach peace in the Holy Land

WASHINGTON, D.C. – There are few topics in the world as divisive as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. For years, the American viewpoint has largely portrayed Israelis as victims and Palestinians as aggressors — just look at the U.S. government’s unconditional support of Israel. But in a world where matters aren’t always what they seem, author and peace activist Mark Braverman, Ph.D., says it’s time we reframed the conversation on Israel and Palestine to bring about a peaceful resolution to the conflict.

In his new book, Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land (SynergyBooks | February 2010 |

978-0-9840760-7-9 | Paperback | $16.95), Dr. Braverman delivers a controversial message to Jews and Christians alike: it is not anti-Semitic to stand up for justice for the Palestinian people.

“I am frequently placed in the ‘pro-Palestinian’ camp because I criticize Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians,” Braverman says. “I reject this designation. I lived in Israel and have family there. I want Israel’s people to live in peace. I fear for Israel’s future and seek to preserve its accomplishments, culture, security and, most of all, its people. This is not a struggle between good guys and bad guys, with one side as villain and the other side as blameless victim.

The issue is that short of full recognition of the ongoing abridgement of Palestinian rights, no political settlement will bring a lasting peace.”

Raised in the Jewish tradition, Braverman has strong familial ties to Israel, frequently visiting throughout his life and living on a kibbutz there for a year as a young man. However, after a life-changing trip to the West Bank in 2006, what was once a nagging suspicion that something was amiss in the Holy Land became a heartbreaking certainty that the Israeli government was violating the human rights of Palestinians.

“It’s acceptable for us to criticize every other government in the world, including the U.S., but not Israel. Why is that?” asks Dr.

Braverman. “To an increasing number of Jews, here and in Israel, it has become clear that Israel’s present course is tragically self-destructive and must change if Israeli society is to continue and prosper.”

Fatal Embrace looks to American society to change the political wind.

Braverman contends that the Jewish quest for safety and empowerment and Christian guilt for centuries of anti-Semitism play a major role in suppressing the dialogue needed to end the conflict. By challenging Jews to turn a critical eye on themselves and helping Christians overcome their fear of questioning Israel’s actions, Braverman hopes to advance a social movement that will result in lasting peace in the Holy Land.

Dr. Braverman holds a bachelor’s degree from Columbia University, a master’s degree in education from Harvard and a Ph.D. from Boston University. He is a cofounder of Friends of Tent of Nations North America, a nonprofit dedicated to supporting Palestinian land rights and peaceful coexistence in historic Palestine. He serves on the board of directors of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions-USA, the advisory committee of Friends of Sabeel North America and the advisory council of the Washington Interfaith Alliance for Middle East Peace. Braverman currently lives in Bethesda, Md., with his wife, Susan. Visit http://markbraverman.org for more information.

###

To schedule an interview with Braverman, or to receive a review copy of Fatal Embrace, please contact Amy Currie at (512) 478-2028 ext. 211 or acurrie@phenixpublicity.com.

Mornings in Jenin: a novel by Susan Abulhawa

2010-02-13T16:36:00.000-08:00

I have read almost every book published on the Arab-Israeli conflict. In part, I've read them all because I live in the United States where, as a Palestinian, I hunger for the truth about the Arab Israeli conflict. Here in the United States, the book publishing industry has been biased. Those few books that manage to make it into print under small usually left-wing book labels, have never satisfied my contempt for the bias in this country.

I've read all the books -- or, maybe to be more precise, I have tried to read all of them and have read most -- also because I continue to look for the Palestinian version of "Exodus," the propaganda novel penned by Leon Uris at the urging of a publicist hired by the Israeli government that recognized the power of compelling literature, something that has for far too long been missing from Arab literature in English.

Exodus was the benchmark of American understanding of Palestine, a story of poor victims of the Holocaust (victimized not by Arabs but by European Nazis and anti-Semitic Western countries like the United States). It told a great story even though much of it was false.

A lifetime of searching for one book that might have a shot at grabbing the heartstrings of American audiences in the same way that Uris' compelling and well-written propaganda moved Americans to embrace injustice against Christian and Muslim Arabs in Palestine, the original homeland of Christianity.

I may have finally found that book, although after a half century of seeking, I may not be able to stop myself from continuing a hunt for the perfect Palestinian literary novel that has become my second avocation in life. That book is "Mornings in Jenin."

"Mornings in Jenin" has everything I have found in Exodus and that has been missing in most literature written by Arabs about the tragedy of Palestine. Human compassion. A compelling human story. A believable narrative that is written not only from the perspective of a trouble Palestinian writer, and refugee from the second Nakba, 1967, but from the perspective of wanting to tell Americans and the West a story that by its nature would easily mesh into what Americans want.

I have always said in hundreds of speeches around the world that the real battle for justice in Palestine is not on some hate-driven web site or in an emotion-driven protest in the streets of Chicago or the Middle East, but in the pages of a book that is so compelling it will grab the heart strings of its readers. A book that is so compelling that the story rises above the politics and the message is delivered not with a sledgehammer, typical of most Palestinian and Arab narrative, but with a style and grace that flows like a creek through the American Dream.

Author Susan Abulhawa has written that book, one that takes the reader through a believable and captivating story of drama, tragedy and human life. For the first time, a palestinian has actually set aside the politics and with a literary finesse, has embedded that tragedy in the pages of an inspirational story that demands that you read it through the end, even if at times it challenges the stereotypes and false notions that have been spoon fed by a propaganda machine and a media bias in America and the West.

The 330 pages is more importantly an easy read. It flows with cries that force you to want to finish the book, and distracts you from the hot buttons that are ingrained in Western brainwashing that they can't even think for themselves.

This is the book I hope one day is made into a movie. The book that Americans can easily pack away in their luggage and carry with them to the battlefield for the minds and hearts of the Palestine-Israel conflict, vacation beaches where more novels that have damaged the Arab image have been absorbed and swallowed and believed by hundreds of millions of Americans who have never had their false notions and beliefs challenged by truth. I always run in to tourists readings books like Exodus that tell the Israeli story or cast Arabs as the villain. But I have never come across one tourist carrying the great literary political works by Edward Said, Ibrahim Abu-Lughod, my mentor in Palestinian identity, nor any of the other thousands of authors who have told and retold the tragedy of Palestine in the same clinically boring politics and academic rhetoric that has rendered or heart wrenching story into one that could so easily be brushed aside. That is not to say that Edward Said is not one of our great writers. But his writings have never appealed to the masses of Western audiences, an audience we as Arabs have failed to properly address.

Susan Abulhawa's novel will put its readers in a headlock they will not be able to escape until they finish every last word in this compelling drama taken from the pages of history and presented as a human story rather than some political argument or narrative.

This is the book I hope to one day see in the hands of tourists as they lazily lounge on the world's simmering beaches, absorbing truth in the ultimate moment of exposure to truth. This is the book I hope to one day watch on the big screen, in a theater filled with American audiences waiting for the next word.

Mornings in Jenin
Susan Abulhawa
Bloomsbury Books, New York
Paperback edition
2010
Formerly titled "The Scar of David."

end

Ray Hanania interviewed by satire web site criticizing fanatics

2010-01-09T19:32:00.001-08:00

Here's the link to Ray Hanania's interview on the satire site taking on extremists and fanatics in the American Arab community at "KabobFest."

Click here to read story?

www.RadioChicagoland.com

It's Easier to Reach Heaven than the End of the Street; A Jerusalem Memoir

2009-12-21T10:59:00.001-08:00

It’s Easier to Reach Heaven than the End of the Street:

A Jerusalem Memoir

by Emma Williams

“This book must be one of the most honest accounts of those terrible years. It's proportionate, subtle and comprehensive… biased towards nobody but the voices of moderation and hope.” —The Guardian

“This intelligent, incisive account…and Williams’ cool analysis of the humanity and hypocrisy at the heart of the Israeli/Palestinian fighting is striking.” —The Times

“A reader only vaguely aware of the reality behind the headlines will find much that is observant and saddening in her vivid portrait of this tribal dispute.”—The Independent

“…notable for the depth of observation and insight and for the vividness of the descriptions of particular events and people… a moving and beautifully written book... It will certainly help outsiders to better understand both sides and their struggle.”—Brian Urquhart, New York Review of Books

In August 2000, Emma Williams arrived with her three small children in Jerusalem to join her husband and to work as a doctor. A month later, the second Palestinian Intifada erupted. For the next three years, she was to witness an astonishing series of events in which hundreds of thousands of lives, including her own, were turned upside down.

Williams lived on the very border of East and West Jerusalem, working with Palestinians in Ramallah during the day and spending evenings with Israelis in Tel Aviv. Weaving personal stories and conversations with friends and colleagues into the long and fraught political background, Williams’s powerful memoir brings to life the realities of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. She vividly recalls giving birth to her fourth child during the siege of Bethlehem, and her horror when a suicide bomber blew his own head into the schoolyard where her children played each day.

Understanding in her judgment, yet unsparing in her honesty, Williams exposes the humanity, as well as the hypocrisy, of both sides. Anyone wanting to understand this complex and seemingly intractable dispute will find her unique account a refreshing and illuminating read.

Emma Williams studied history at Oxford, and medicine at London University. She has worked as a doctor in Britain, Pakistan, Afghanistan, New York, South Africa, and Jerusalem. She wrote for several newspapers and magazines about Palestinian-Israeli affairs and was a correspondent for the Spectator from 2000–2003. She now lives in New York.

It’s Easier to Reach Heaven than the End of the Street: A Jerusalem Memoir

by Emma Williams

Olive Branch Press, an imprint of Interlink Publishing Group, Inc.

Memoir/Middle East • 6” x 9” • 448 pages • maps

ISBN 978-1-56656-789-3 • paperback • $16.00

Praise for the British Edition of

It’s Easier to Reach Heaven than the End of the Street:

A Jerusalem Memoir

by Emma Williams

“One of three books ‘You Really Must Read.’ Our choice of the best recent books... Williams is an excellent recorder of dialogue on both sides of the political divide. Her purpose is to illuminate the plight of each community… It makes grim reading, but it is all true.” —Sunday Times

“Notable for the depth of observation and insight and for the vividness of the descriptions of particular events and people… Emma Williams’s affection and feeling for those people and her doctor’s dedication to healing has caused her to produce a moving and beautifully written book which I hope will find a US publisher soon. It will certainly help outsiders to better understand both sides and their struggle.”—Brian Urquhart, New York Review of Books

“Brilliant and moving... one of the best of recent books about Israel and Palestine… [U]nusual mixture of memoir and journalism, [Williams’] experience … will be welcomed by anyone who wants to understand the complexities of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict…, Williams’s own voice seeks truth, moderation and dialogue.”—New Statesman

“…brilliant memoir…she succeeds like few others in her ability to view the situation through the eyes of Jew and Arab… sensitive, compassionate and superbly written. …more illuminating and instructive than many a pundit’s tome.”—Theo Richmond, The Spectator

“Superb memoir… If Williams is as fine a physician as she is a memoirist, I would entrust my own innards to her any day of the week. Splendidly crafted and passionately engaged, this is the most artistically delectable way of boning up on the politics of the Israeli-Palestinian struggle that one could wish for.” —Terry Eagleton, Times Literary Supplement

“I recommend Emma Williams’s expatriate memoir of Jerusalem in the second intifada as an initial exposure to the dispiriting reality behind the propaganda, theirs and ours… an engrossing exploration of what that means.” —Eric Silver, The Jewish Chronicle

“One of the most honest accounts of those terrible years. It's proportionate, subtle and comprehensive… biased towards nobody but the voices of moderation and hope.”—The Guardian

“A clever book, in the best sense of the word… a valuable, highly readable contribution.”—The Australian

“Many books have been written about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict… What makes Emma Williams’ memoir unique is the honesty of her observations on ordinary life: what it is like to live with occupation and suicide bombers…The beauty of this book is that, as the author’s political awareness grows, so does that of the reader. She explains the conflict in simple terms, without getting bogged down by the tedious chronology that weighs down other Jerusalem memoirs…I plan on giving this book to people who ask me: ‘what is going on over there?’ Williams answers that question, and so much more.”—Daily Telegraph

“This intelligent, incisive account…and her cool analysis of the humanity and hypocrisy at the heart of the Israeli/Palestinian fighting is striking.” —The Times

“Compelling… extraordinary and insightful account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”—Harpers Bazaar

“On one level, it is a personal memoir… On another level, it strikes in a more profound way, keeping at front and centre the people afflicted by the conflict and making tangible the fear to which many are condemned.”—Financial Times

“A careful and accessible explanation of the background to ‘the situation’…Williams manages to be scrupulously even-handed about one of the most contentious situations in the world.” —The Scotsman

Ordinary Lives by Rania Matar

2009-12-03T18:36:00.000-08:00

Lebanese Photographer Rania Matar takes us through the tragedy of the Palestinians in Lebanon and the tragedy of Lebanon itself in a array of brilliant black and white photographs. The gallery of images are offered with only a very brief explanation of context, very general context devoid of the political narratives that so often cloud conflict and tragedy. The reader is left to appreciate the message of the images themselves, the faces of the subjects from young to old. With some poetry and writings from Palestinian Lisa Suhair Majaj, the book features, at the end, a moving and compelling essay by Pulitzer Prize winning Lebanese American journalist Anthony Shadid.

In an interesting format, at the end of the collection, Matar offers details and thumbnails of the photographs at the end of the book allowing you to appreciate the images and later learn about those that might strike you with impression.

It's a beautiful presentation of tragedy and hope.

For more information, visit www.QuantuckLanePress.com
Distributed by W.W. Norton & Company
$39.95

Fatal Embrace by author Mark Braverman

2009-12-03T18:03:00.000-08:00

Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land
By Mark Braverman

This is a fascinating perspective on the Middle East conflict by a Jewish American author with much experience in the Middle East. Braverman has the courage to argue that it is not anti-Semitism to criticize Israel nor is it anti-Semitism to defend the rights of the Palestinian people.

Braverman articulates his perspective eloquently and in an easy-to-read writing style. Although he suggests support for the "one state" agenda, which supporters argue is the only just solution and many moderates view as the longterm imprisonment of Palestinians in an occupation-apartheid purgatory, his book addresses American Christians to break free from their limited understanding of the Middle East conflict and see past the propaganda to understand the truth of Palestinian justice.

I enjoyed reading it although I may disagree with some of the notions offered. It certainly engages your understanding or the lack of understanding of this very complex conflict.

-- Ray Hanania

Fatal Embrace: Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land

By Mark Braverman

Synergy Books

Austin, Texas

$16.95, 416 pages

www.SynergyBooks.net

Here is some information on the book from the author's web page at www.MarkBraverman.org.

The State of Israel was established as a safe haven for the Jewish people, but its expansionism and treatment of the Palestinians have made the prospects for peace in the Holy Land recede further and further. In Fatal Embrace, author Mark Braverman shows how the Jewish quest for safety and empowerment and the Christian endeavor to atone for centuries of anti-Semitism have united to suppress the conversations needed to bring peace. Tracing his own journey as a Jew struggling with the difficult realities of modern Israel, Braverman delivers a strong message to Jews and Christians alike: it is not anti-Semitic to stand up for justice for the Palestinian people. Describing the spiritual and psychological forces driving the discourse in America, in Israel, within the Jewish community, and within the church, Braverman turns to the prophets’ cry for justice and to Jesus’ transformative ministry to show the way forward.

BOOK SUMMARY

Fatal Embrace:

Christians, Jews, and the Search for Peace in the Holy Land

Mark Braverman

Israel-Palestine is the longest-running problem on the world stage. The conflict pulls all who try to solve it into a quicksand of contradiction and enmity. A civil war has broken out between those American Jews who staunchly defend the Jewish State against all critics and those who fear for its very soul. A powerful, well-organized system of American Jewish institutions — synagogues, Jewish Philanthropic Federations, political lobbying organizations — move quickly to suppress or neutralize any possible criticism or threat to that support. The Pastor who opens his or her church to a conference on Palestinian human rights faces protests and editorials from Jewish organizations charging anti-Semitism. Powerful Christian Zionist organizations join with the pro-Israel Lobby to support the U.S. administration’s unconditional support of the Jewish State.

Meanwhile, sputtering efforts at a “peace process” to resolve the conflict between Israel and its Palestinian subjects appears increasingly futile to a growing number of stakeholders on all sides. Indeed, the entire effort to achieve a “settlement” appears to be based on a massive, collective self-deception: While appearing to hold Israel to account, the world powers actually give Israel free rein to pursue policies that breed popular resistance among Palestinians and promise only to prolong the conflict.

This book presents the struggle of an American Jew to come to terms with the dilemma of modern Israel. It presents an approach to solving the conflict through an understanding of the origins of Zionism and the contemporary Christian reaction to its own anti-Jewish past. Through a discussion of issues of faith deeply embedded in our Western culture, the book addresses two fundamental questions: (1) Why are Jews pursuing a course in Israel which, far from fulfilling the goals of the Zionist movement, is actually heightening the threat to Israel’s security and serving to isolate us in the world? and (2) Why is the Christian world enabling Israel’s tragically flawed policies rather than holding us to a faithfulness to our shared tradition of justice? In addressing the first question, I explore the tension in Judaism between the universalism inherent in our monotheistic creed and ethical code, and the particularism so deeply embedded in our cultural identity and history. I argue that the Jewish quality of exclusivism enshrined in the concept of election is being enacted in the current self-defeating policies of the modern State of Israel. In taking up the second question, I review post-Holocaust revisionist Christian theology. I discuss the attempts by contemporary Christian theologians to rehabilitate Judaism through a revised Christian theology and world view in order to atone for the horrors of anti-Semitism. I show how this effort, although courageous and commendable, has now resulted in the uncritical legitimization of Zionist strivings as well as a suppression of any honest interfaith dialogue on the issue of the State of Israel. It has and continues to give Jews license to establish and pursue a nationalist, colonial political agenda in Israel that violates principles of justice as well as international law, and which presents a formidable obstacle to peace. I show how even those Christian thinkers most committed to a social justice agenda struggle with a profound ambivalence toward the Jewish people’s right to a tragically flawed political project. This ambivalence runs counter to their principles and continues to lend support to those political elements that would block holding Israel to account and that impede progress toward peace.

It’s a fatal embrace: together, these two powerful, deep-seated forces combine to keep us stuck in Israel-Palestine. I argue that the persistence and power of these beliefs – the more powerful because they are unrecognized, unexamined and even denied – play a major role in thwarting progress toward a peaceful settlement of the political conflict. I believe the key to a political resolution lies in the initiation and strengthening of a broad-based movement within the major Christian denominations in the U.S., and my book will include a call to action directed at them, as well as to other groups.

Fatal Embrace should be at home on both the Religion and Current Affairs shelves of the bookstores. A deep exploration of the religious issues is fundamental to understanding the political situation in the Holy Land as well as the social and political forces in the U.S. that exert such a profound influence on Israel’s politics. There is an excellent literature that covers Zionism from historical, philosophical, and sociological perspectives, and the book reviews some of these writers. However, the topic has not been approached from the perspective outlined here. The literature on the question of Zionism and Israel, from Christian and Jewish writers alike, in the fields of politics, history, sociology and religion, are devoted either to defenses of or critiques of Zionism. Furthermore, I do not believe that anyone has yet addressed the phenomenon of the Zionism – implicit and explicit – to be found in mainstream Christian thought and practice.

In the course of the book I return again and again to my personal journey. I have deep family roots in Israel, grew up as a religious Jew in the U.S., and in the past several years have become deeply involved in social and political activism with various Jewish and interfaith organizations working for peace and justice for all peoples of the region. My family background, my experiences growing up Jewish in postwar America, and my encounters with Israelis, Palestinians and Americans since my first visit to the West Bank in 2006 form the scaffolding for the book’s chapters.
I have written the book primarily in order to influence the minds, hearts and actions of Christians in the West today and to lend support to those Jews who are working to salvage our people’s moral standing in the world. I believe that only in this way can we create a future for the people of the State of Israel as well as for the Palestinian people. My hope is that by exposing the unexamined assumptions and unacknowledged strivings that are in part responsible for the failure to resolve the conflict, and by helping Christians overcome their fear of being perceived or labeled as anti-Semitic, the book will enable a more open, productive dialogue within the Christian community as well as between the faiths. I also directly appeal to the church to embrace and pursue actions that will advance the cause of peace in the Holy Land based on justice. I present specific actions that will advance the emerging broad social movement needed to change Israeli and US policy in the region.