The Political Economy of Investment in Syria (Studies in the Political Economy of Public Policy)
by Linda Matar
Linda Matar examines Syria's failure to promote employment-generating investment prior to the uprising. Tackling the thorny issue of the inapplicability of modern investment theory to a developing country, she situates the analysis of investment in Syria in its historical context and examines the socioeconomic structure and political preconditions that set the course of capital accumulation. Matar argues that the class in charge of development, which oversaw the allocation of resources during th...
A memoir both bittersweet and inspiring by an American pediatric oncologist who spent seven years in Jerusalem taking care of Israeli and Palestinian children with one tragic thing in common--a diagnosis of pediatric cancer In 2007, Elisha Waldman, a New York-based pediatric oncologist and palliative-care specialist in his mid-thirties, was offered his dream job: attending physician at Jerusalem's Hadassah Medical Center. He had gone to medical school in Israel and spent time there as a t...
Islamophobia in America
Islamophobia in America offers new perspectives on prejudice against Muslims, which has become increasingly widespread in the USA in the past decade. The contributors document the history of anti-Islamic sentiment in American culture, the scope of organized anti-Muslim propaganda, and the institutionalization of this kind of intolerance.
Translated from the Arabic, intifada means the shivering caused by fever. In political terms it means an explosion. The Palestinian uprising erupted in the Gaza strip in December 1987 after 20 years of Israeli military occupation. It quickly spread to the West Bank and Jerusalem. What the world saw of the intifada were the photographs of Israeli soldiers breaking Palstinians' bones, Palestinians hurling Molotov cocktails at Jewish housewives or rocks at soldiers. The author writes about the real...
Egyptian Revolution 2.0 (The Palgrave Macmillan Series in International Political Communication)
by M. el-Nawawy and S. Khamis
This book sheds light on the growing phenomenon of cyberactivism in the Arab world, with a special focus on the Egyptian political blogosphere and its role in paving the way to democratization and socio-political change in Egypt, which culminated in Egypt's historical popular revolution.
This is the true story of what life is like for a Saudi Arabian Princess. Told to the author by a member of the Saudi Arabian Royal Family who wishes to remain anonymous, it describes a life of oppression and human rights violations.
Turkey's Transformation and American Policy
Turkey has emerged during the past decade as an important player on the world scene. It is involved in many issues and areas of great interest to the United States -NATO, the Caucasus and Central Asia, the Middle East, the Balkans, and Greece -and U.S.-Turkish relations grew very close in the past decade. This book analyzes the nature of Turkey's major internal problems, such as the Kurds and the rise of political Islam, and the impact of these issues on U.S. policymaking.
China's Relations with the Gulf Monarchies (Rethinking Asia and International Relations)
by Jonathan Fulton
As China’s international political role grows, its relations with states outside of its traditional sphere of interests is evolving. This is certainly the case of the Gulf monarchies of Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates, which together comprise the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC). China’s levels of interdependence with these states has increased dramatically in recent years, spanning a wide range of interests. What motivating factors explain the Chinese lead...
Westerners tend to be shocked that any women would willingly play an active role in jihadist organizations such as ISIS and Boko Haram, since subjugating women appears to be a primary tactic of these groups. But the fierce debate over gender and terrorism has missed key points regarding the role of women and, instead, resulted in the proliferation of stereotypes, misinformation, and profound misunderstandings. Looking behind the scenes at the women of ISIS and Boko Haram, Veiled Threats is the...
“The age of transnational humanities has arrived.” According to Steven Salaita, the seemingly disparate fields of Palestinian Studses and American Indian studies have more in common than one may think. In Inter/Nationalism, Salaita argues that American Indian and Indigenous studies must be more central to the scholarship and activism focusing on Palestine. Salaita offers a fascinating inside account of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement—which, among other things, aims to end...
Syria's Terrorist War on Lebanon and the Peace Process
This study demonstrates that Syria's role in the Middle East has been, since 1974, an unabated terrorist war against all attempts to resolve peacefully the Arab-Israeli conflict. Marius Deeb provides evidence that Syria's role in Lebanon, since 1975, has been to perpetuate the conflict among the various Lebanese communities in order to keep its domination of Lebanon.
In the wake of its creation in 1948, the state of Israel was confronted with the challenge of establishing foreign relations with key players in the region, in the face of opposition from most of the Arab states. Howard Patten explores the genesis and development of Israel's foreign relations with Iran, Turkey and Ethiopia, known as the 'Policy of the Periphery'. Highlighting the pragmatism and Realpolitik at the heart of this policy, Israel and the Cold War analyses the national interests and m...
The Politics of Nihilism (Political Theory and Contemporary Philosophy)
Contemporary politics is faced, on the one hand, with political stagnation and lack of a progressive vision on the side of formal, institutional politics, and, on the other, with various social movements that venture to challenge modern understandings of representation, participation,and democracy. Interestingly, both institutional and anti-institutional sides of this antagonism tend to accuse each other of "nihilism", namely, of mere oppositional destructiveness and failure to offer a construct...
Over much of its rule, the regime of Hafez al-Asad and his successor Bashar al-Asad deployed violence on a massive scale to maintain its grip on political power. In this book, Salwa Ismail examines the rationalities and mechanisms of governing through violence. In a detailed and compelling account, Ismail shows how the political prison and the massacre, in particular, developed as apparatuses of government, shaping Syrians' political subjectivities, defining their understanding of the terms of r...
Two major influences have drawn the British people to the Holy Land over the centuries - the translation of the Bible into English and the imperial need to control the routes to India and, more recently, to the oil of the Middle East. These two magnets - the Bible and the sword - have drawn countless pilgrims, crusaders, missionaries, merchants and explorers to the land of the ancient Hebrews. Barbara Tuchman, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of The Zimmermann Telegram and The Guns of August, s...
Global Security (HC, Session 2008-09, 261)
The Islamic State is one of the most lethal and successful jihadist groups in modern history, surpassing even al-Qaeda. Thousands of its followers have marched across Syria and Iraq, subjugating millions, enslaving women, beheading captives, and daring anyone to stop them. Thousands more have spread terror beyond the Middle East under the Islamic State's black flag. How did the Islamic State attract so many followers and conquer so much land? By being more ruthless, more apocalyptic, and more de...
Even as the view of America as a rogue state consolidates internationally, Americans appear largely bystanders at the spectacle of their government running amok. People forget the myriad instances of their government's flouting of the Constitution and international legal norms - if ever they were aware of them in the first place - accepting to live in the increasingly pernicious "new normal" with little protest. This remarkable anthology of columns documents and reminds us of the extraordinary d...
The Elections In Israel--1988
In this book, the author supplies the first account of the military and security concerns arising out of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and the recent assassination of Prime Minister Rabin, considering a number of possible futures for the region and their effects on the peace process.