Customer Reviews

Conflicts in the Middle East since 1945 (The Making of the Contemporary World)

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This book which covers the main mid east arenas of conflict since World War 2 (Palestine/lebanon/the Gulf/ the Kurds/Iraq/Kuwait) is a very valuable background to the events of September 11th (2001). Usama bin Laden needs to be put into the context of Middle East disputes: especially Arab/Israel to understand his motivations. 'Conflicts' includes studies on Islamic fundamentalism, 'Holy Terror' and big power confrontation.
This is a timely publication. Slim and concise-good maps and bibliography. For both the scholar and the general reader. (...)

Unless you are a zionist or a radical islamist you will appreciate Dr Milton Edward's useful and penetrating analysis of the problems of the Middle East. She has managed to bring academic objectivity to a highly sensitive subject and the chapters on Palestine and Israel are particularly useful for understanding the background to this long standing conflict. Neither the Palestinian Authority nor the State of Israel escape responsibilty for the present impasse and inevitably some of the criticisms of recent actions by the Israeli government have raised hackles in Academe especially in the US where any criticism of the Jewish State arouses ire in certain quarters-the first review above is a classic example of this phenomenon. The section on Iraq is also timely and penetrating and I srtongly recommend this work which, Iam told, is about to go into a third edition.

The region I know most about in the Middle East is Israel. So let me focus on how poorly this book deals with that nation.

It starts by explaining that the Arab-Israeli conflict is the result of competing nationalist agendas. Even this is misleading, given that the Israelis are not trying to get rid of the Arab nations, while the Arab foes of Israel are trying to get rid of Israel. We then are treated to a statement about how sad it is that both Jewish and Arab nationalism appeared at the same time, and that this is why they fought. Well, they did not appear simultaneously. Arabs had been oppressing Jews for centuries. When some Jews became liberated, that annoyed some Arabs, but a desire to get rid of Jewish rights is not the same as nationalism. Israel became a nation in order to defend Jewish rights (and, in particular, to repeal the British White Paper of 1939, which almost completely restricted Jewish immigration to the Levant). If a Levantine Arab nation comes into existence, even now, it will be explicitly to get rid of Israel, not for some positive purpose. That is not true nationalism. It is a bogus claim of nationalism, such as the one made by the Sudeten Germans in the 1930s.

The authors continue by saying that Levantine Arabs stood in the way of Jewish nationalism. That is misleading. In fact, many Arabs happily sold their land to Jews in the region (at very high prices, of course). The presence of Arabs in no way needs to stop Israel from existing, just as the presence of Catholics in no way needs to stop America from existing. There is not an inherent need to expel all Arabs or all Jews from Israel, just as there is not an inherent need to expel all Catholics or all Protestants from the United States. Arabs and Jews can both live in a Hebrew-speaking nation.

The book then gets into the area of "founding myths." Once again, it does poorly. When it deals with Israeli desires for human rights, it tends to group that with "myths" that may serve a purpose. When it deals with Arab claims to be blameless bystanders to a war of aggression that they started, it tends to group these with "myths" that may serve a purpose. Instead, the focus ought to be on truth.

The authors boast that in 1988 Arafat literally delivered an olive branch to the UN General Assembly. So what? His gang was still fighting a war against Jewish rights. If I give an olive branch to the UN General Assembly, do you suppose the authors will support my, um, right to take over the Levant in the name of the Roman Pagans who were displaced from it?

The authors discuss the intifada and the reporting of it, and wonder whether it has brought peace any closer. And they imply that the media did a good job. But in fact, the media happily showed PLO propaganda more often than not, and also gave this propaganda undeserved credibility. I think media dishonesty in fact has made peace more difficult to achieve.

I do not recommend this book.