Customer Reviews

Dictionary of the Middle East

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Commentary on this book has been that it is not biased and that it is balanced and impartial.
In fact, when one looks at the words used and the facts that the author chooses to highlight, it becomes clear that this is not so.

If one reads this book, one has to be quite clear on this. In fact, the author of this work frequently lies by omission.
There is no way, that in this review, I could highlight, even the majority of the cases of this being done, I can merely give a few examples, of what permeates this entire work.

In the article on Menachem Begin, Hiro refers to `the terrorist activities of the Irgun', despite the fact that the Irgun always took the greatest care to avoid civilian casualties.
And yet he never uses the word `terrorist' or `terrorism' to refer to organizations such as the PLO, PFLP, Hamas, Hizbollah etc, organizations whose main function has been to [destroy] Israeli men, women and children.

Under the article on the Irgun Zvai Leumi (the Jewish self-defence and liberation army) he refers to the Battle of Deir Yassin and claims that Jewish fighters `killed 254 men , women and children , two thirds of all inhabitants. They dynamited houses, looted and raped'. This tactic was effective, in the five weeks leading up to the establishment of Israel, some 300 000 Arabs fled from the areas included in the United Nations plan for a Jewish State'.
This is all totally untrue, and is nothing other than a blood libel.
The truth is that Deir Yassin was used by Arab forces to [destroy] Jews on the roads and in neighboring areas.
The Irgun and Lehi Jewish self defence forces, in capturing the village of strategic importance did what they could to avoid civilian casualties, at considerable risk to their own men.
Arab civillians where killed in the shelling between the two sides, because they had ignored the Irgun's warnings to leave the area.
There where no [pyhsical abuse]or looting, or any intentional killing of civilians.
These facts have been established.

Hiro also makes much reference to the massacre of Palestinians at Sabra and Shatilla, omitting the fact that this was a response to years of terror by the Palestinians against the Christians of Lebanon, including the 1975 massacre of the Christian village of Damour by PLO terrorists, in which thousands of Christian men , women and children where butchered.
Hiro does not refer to these events.

He also does not refer to the countless massacres of Israeli women and children by Arab terrorists such as the massacre of school children at Ma'alot in 1974.

He also ignores the fact that all Arab-Israeli wars where a direct result Arab attempts to destroy Israel and annihilate the Jews of Israel.
In the entry under Israel he refers to `an immediate war between Israel and its neighbors' as if the war just happened, not pointing out the fact that 5 Arab armies descended on Israel with the express purpose of wiping out the Jewish population there.

Similarly he ignores the fact that Israel only fought the Six Day War to stall advanced Arab attempts at another war of annihilation against Israel.

Hiro refers to the Yom Kippur War as an Arab bid to `regain lost territories', once again ignoring the truth that it was another Arab campaign of genocide against the Israeli people.

He also writes of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, as if it where an arbitrary act of aggression by Israel, when the truth is that Israel invaded Lebanon in response to years of Arab attacks into Israel from that country, in which hundreds of Jewish men, women and children where murdered.

The slanting of the truth in this book permeates the entire work, and the danger is that anyone not aware of the facts will be given a totally false picture.

Hiro has successfully managed to create this wonderful dictionary of the Middle East, which students can turn to for reference and important information when needed. It has excellent explanations of important figures, concepts, and countries...excellent, excellent, excellent!!!

This book is great. It's not absolutely comprehensive. However, most things such as names and places that are easy to forget will be contained in this book for quick reference.

Examples: Irgun, Stern Gang, Haganah , ...PLO, PFLP, DFLP, Hamas as well as other Palestinian liberation organizations, ...World Zionist Organization, Revisionism, Zionism, Labor Zionism as well as other ... ideologies and organizations.

If you're like me and you like to always have the facts straight in your mind, which is impossible, this book will certainly serve as a great help in those moments of forgetfulness. Rather than having to go back through all the books you've read previously, what your looking for, the basic essentials, will most likely be contained in Dilip Hiro's Dictionary of the Middle East.

Great reference book. It is not biased....