Customer Reviews

Mirror of the Arab World: Lebanon in Conflict

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4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

McKay does a great job breaking down the complexities of the Arab World and explaining the challenges that await it in the future. She does this by exploring the great trajedy that has befallen Lebanon in the last century and analyzing the roots of the conflict. The book is clear in its style and easy to understand and enjoyable to read. Excellent for both those who have little knowledge of the region and for those who studied the region in detail.

"Mirror of the Arab World: Lebanon in Conflict" by Sandra Mackey is a journalistic rehash of repetitive accounts of what goes on in Lebanon. The book scandalously borrows from other standard works without substantiation or referecing even when statistics and important details are stated in the book. Entire passages seem to have been taken liberally from other books without footnoting that. It is full of factual and historical errors (pre-war Lebanese election was in 1972 not 1974, Hafez Assad died in 2000 not 2002, Syria's president is Bashar not Bashir, etc.). The attempt to collapse complex issues about religion and community and the narratives of Iraq and other Middle East countries is anything but professional. The choice of the photo on the cover is ill-advised. It is about the destruction of Beirut's downtown in 1975 but this risks giving the reader the feeling that this is happening now.
On the bright side, those trying to learn something about Lebanon and the Middle East for the first time will get an easy-going read. Also I grant the author her good intentions towards the people of the Middle East.

As someone who lived in Beirut in the early sixties and has lost touch with the country, I found Mackey extremely helpful in putting all subsequent events into perspective without taking sides except against the selfish elites who have ruined the country over and over again.

I found this book very good at pointing to the complexities in dealing with the "identity" question that is very active in both East and West. I am a Lebanese-American from south Lebanon and serve in the US Armed Forces. In reading this book I couldn't help but laugh (in a good way) at the similarities between what the author describes in it and the personalities I am force to accept. Her ability to dissect the shades of chemistry in culture, politics, and economics is Eye-POPING!!! Any one interested in culture and conflict management in; or the recent history of, the Middle East must read this book.

To read this book is to come to beleive that everything that has taken place in Lebanon has something to do with Israel. While this may be the propoganda of Hizbullah it hardly meets with reality. The author begins by claiming the American invasion of Iraq was designed to 'protest Israel without forcing Tel Aviv to address Palestinian rights.' Unfortunatly there is no evidence for this in scholarly form or from media or government broadcasts in 2003. It is a claim out of the mouth of a conspiracy theorist. The obsession with Israel takes away from any context in the book. In desscribing the rise of the Phalange the book seeks to see it entirely from the viewpoint of Israel, whereas the Phalange and its heritage in Peirre Gemayel go back to the 1930s, long before Israel. The author attributes the Israeli invasion in 1982 entirely to an alliance between Bashir Gemayel and Israel which was only slightly true. Begin indeed wanted to save the only non-Muslim neighbor Israel had and he enjoyed the idea of helping beleagured Christians but the author seems to ignore that Palestinian rocket attacks on Israel preceeded the invasion, as did the killing of an Israeli diplomat. The author seems to have forgotten the mini-state Arafat created in Lebanon.

These blatent omissions make the rest of the material in the book suspect. How can one know what to trust. The history of Lebanon is interesting and there are nuggets of interest in this book, but the strange political interpretations and selective memory of the author and the failure to focus on Lebanese culture, for instance the Druze and Greek-Orthodox and Armenians, and instead to make this book about Israel's role in Lebanon weakens it. Lebanon is not really a mirror of the Arab world either. It is entirely unique.

Seth J. Frantzman

Sandra shows in this book a comand in Lebanese affairs, so this is a great read for people traying to understand the actual Lebanon.