Customer Reviews

Seeing Arabs Through An American School

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At first sight, Ober's book might seem only relevant to alumni, faculty and students of the International College (IC), an American school in Beirut, Lebanon.
The book, however, goes far beyond that. It highlights the culture barrier between an American who was assigned to help recover the American character of this school, which throughout Lebanon's long civil war was dominated by local officers who brought with them their "Arab way" of doing things at the time it was too risky for Americans to maintain any presence in war-shattered Lebanon.
As the chapters of this very-well researched book unfold, the experience of a school president in his failed mission to modernize the school tells a lot about why the United States was rarely successful in most of its endeavors in the Arab world, on top of them its war in Iraq and its effort to democratize it.
Consequently, this book appeals to several audiences. Naturally, the first one of these audiences would be the International College's community and its graduates in addition to the community of the American University of Beirut (AUB) and a third American school in Beirut, the American Community School (ACS) as Ober tells the story of American missionaries and produces the history of the establishment of both IC and AUB, their affiliation and their later separation that resulted in their disagreement over real estate issues.
The second kind of audience would be students of the Middle East in the West and, to an extent, Western governments. After all, this 19th century missionary activity survived more than a century and its experience should be studied should the West decide to embark on such missions of modernization in the Arab world.

This book is chock full of biases from page one. The author asserts that the school is "non-sectarian" and allows all "Arabs" to attend. Perhaps he has missed the point here. Jews are not permitted to attend. Armenians, who do attend, are not Arab. He supports Hizbullah, describing there attacks on Israel as part of their 'resistance'. It is always interesting to see the President of an American University, even if it is in the Middle East, condoning terrorism and supporting Islamism.

But thats only the tip of the iceberg. The author lets the readers learn how previous American academics at AUB actually spread anti-semitic lies by telling their students that many of the Young Turks were actually 'hidden' Jews. Once again it is interesting to learn the degree to which the AUB actually helped foster hatred of Jews in Beirut and helped encoruage Islamic fundamentalism and nationalism. It is interesting to read about how an academic institution supposedly based on the American collegiate model is used to for nationalist-fascist goals.

The author also is either ill informed or intentionally biased when it comes to Lebanon's history. He claims that the Maronite began the civil war, which is a complete fabrication. The attempted assasination of Sheikh Pierre Gemeyal was the opening shot of the Lebanese Civil war and the subsequent ethnic-cleansing and mass murder of Maronite Christians was the result of the war. The book insinuates the opposite, even while bombs go off daily in the Maronite sections of Beirut to this day.

A biased book which at long last reveals the truth behind the AUB.
Seth J. Frantzman