Publications

This section highlights books, monographs and articles relating to regional cooperation in the Middle East. Publishers and authors are encouraged to submit material for review.

Jon B. Alterman
New Media, New Politics?: From Satellite Television to the Internet in the Arab World
(Washington, DC: Washington Institute for Near East Policy), 80 pages, US$16.95 (paper)

In this policy paper, Jon Alterman, a program officer at the United States Institute for Peace, presents his research on the impact that new forms of media are having on political realities in the Arab World. His paper provides a useful survey of the past and current status of Arabic-language print media published outside the region, satellite broadcasting, and the Internet. In so doing, he analyzes the voices behind these new methods of information dissemination and how available they are (or are not) to the general public.

Alterman reports on the potential consequences of this "information revolution." He points out that the new technologies will yield changes in a number of key areas including the control of information/censorship, freedom of communication, the rise of regional debate and regional identity, public opinion, and the reintegration of Arab diasporas. He believes that the volume and speed of information will result in a lessening of the "gatekeeper" role that Arab governments have generally held in the past (with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia) leading to more critical thinking among citizens about governmental policy decisions.

Alterman also envisions the development of new communities in the region based on common language and interests rather than on geographic proximity. He is, however, generally skeptical about the impact of the Internet in the region, and assigns more importance in the short and intermediate terms to satellite television.

In light of these changes, the author also enumerates several suggestions for U.S. policy. These include engaging the emerging class of internationally attuned Arabs; winning support among the monolingual middle classes; better understanding the changing nature of public opinion in the Arab World; and encouraging public diplomacy.

This overview provides a useful starting point for inquiries into the role of new media in the future of the Arab world. (TL)

Kevin Avruch
Culture and Conflict Resolution
(Washington, DC: United States Institute for Peace Press, 1998), 172 pages, US$14.95 (paper), US$29.95 (cloth)

In this short, but very useful and well-researched volume, Kevin Avruch of George Mason University emphasizes the importance that conflict resolution practitioners must place on culture in their training and interventions. Avruch deals with four major topics: Culture, Conflict Resolution, Frames for Culture and Conflict Resolution, and Discourses of Culture in Conflict Resolution. Though uneven in their intellectual weight, the chapters provide a rational context for the author’s argument, with the last two parts being the most innovative.

The study of culture, especially as applied in conflict resolution, has always been fraught with uncertainties; one is never sure when to start. The plethora of definitions ranging from inclusive to ultra-narrow has made it difficult to postulate the concept of culture as a universal connotation. As reflected in Avruch’s book, the growing body of literature dealing with culture is rich yet conflictual and contradictory; this book summarizes the debate on culture and its usefulness in peacemaking.

In refuting the general assumptions about culture, Avruch states that there are six main inadequate characterizations of culture: it is homogenous; it is a thing; it is uniformly distributed among members of the group; an individual possesses only a single culture; culture is custom; and it is timeless. He counters with his own definition, emphasizing the general and shifting aspect of culture. Avruch laments the absence of culture in international relations and attributes this to deficiencies in an outmoded concept of culture.

Avruch discusses two strategies for understanding conflict: the actor-oriented emic approach and the analyst-oriented etic approach. He draws on examples from the Arab-Israeli conflict, specifically the Egyptian-Israeli negotiations. The emic approach, as he states, utilizes the "native categories, terms, and propositions about the world, culture, or the domain under study." The etic approach, on the other hand, is "to systematize data from different domains in order to construct categories that work transemically." The two approaches are quite interesting and should be tested in negotiations.

This book adds to a growing literature on culture and conflict resolution such as the work of Raymond Cohen, Jean-Paul Lederach and others. Its enduring message is that we have much to learn about cultural differences when trying to resolve, or manage, a conflict. (OS)

Michael N. Barnett
Dialogues in Arab Politics: Negotiations in Regional Order
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1998), 376 pages, US$17.50 (paper)

Michael Barnett’s volume is an instructive effort at explaining the nature of Arab politics and how it relates to the regional order in the Middle East. Eschewing explanations based on theories of international political realism, the author instead describes the regional order as being an effect of Arab states struggling to define and behave according to the sociological and ideological norms of Arabism (or Arab Nationalism).

Barnett’s primary aim is to convince the reader of the inherently sociological nature of inter-state relations among the Arab people in the Middle East. That is, given the porous nature of the Arab states, along with the centripetal forces of Arab nationalism, Arab leaders have had to perform a delicate dance in their inter-state relations in order to maintain their domestic political power. Thus, Barnett views true regional power as residing in a state’s accumulation and use of symbolic capital associated with Arabism, rather than being based on military might or geostrategic leverage.

In order to clarify his analysis, Barnett grounds his work in the rhythms of various historical events and periods that have illustrated inter-state relations among the Arab peoples since 1920. For example, the ill-fated 1958 political merger between Syria and Egypt, the United Arab Republic (UAR), was feared by the royalist regimes in Jordan and Iraq not because of the UAR’s military power but because of the potency of the UAR’s meaning and message in a region whose masses were mobilizing around the call for Arab unity.

Similarly, Barnett links this dynamic of a state possessing and employing such symbolic power in the region to domestic politics by claiming that states wielded notions of Arabism not only to influence their neighbors but also to quell internal political unrest and to consolidate regime authority. Thus, in the UAR example, Syrian Ba’athists advocated unity with Nasser’s Egypt not only out of ideological necessity but also out of an effort to calm Syrian domestic political waters and, more specifically, check the growing power of the rival Communist Party.

Throughout his volume, Barnett highlights the region’s political history and charts the evolution of Arabism’s meaning, from one consistent with unity, to one more accepting of individual state sovereignty, to ultimately, fragmentation. In so doing, he offers a compelling and insightful account of Arab inter-state relations. (DK)

Joseph Ginat and Onn Winckler, editors
The Jordanian-Palestinian-Israeli Triangle: Smoothing the Path to Peace
(Brighton, UK: Sussex Academic Press, 1998), 220 pages, US$54.95 (cloth)

This volume is based on conferences held in Amman and Haifa in 1995 and includes 16 (updated) essays by Israeli, Palestinian, Norwegian and American scholars. Jordanian perspectives are notably absent, although former Crown Prince Hassan contributed one of the two forewords (the other was written by former Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Peres).

The essays are grouped into three broad subject areas: Political Aspects of the Triangle; the Cultural-Sociopsycho-logical Aspects of Making Peace; and the Economic Factor of the Peace Process. Under the first subject area, Steven Spiegel of UCLA has contributed a chapter entitled "The Triangle Relationship: Three is not Better than Two" in which he uses an international relations systems analysis to examine how the three communities interact. He suggests that, in such a construct, all the states seek to become the balancer or pivot state in order to avoid the position of pariah or outsider.

Of the three communities, Spiegel believes Jordan is the "most natural balancer and pivot" while the Palestinians are the least likely to play such a role since they must rely on the outside influence of such states as Egypt and Syria to compensate for their weakness and the "natural affinity" between Jordan and Israel. Israel, on the other hand, rarely becomes the pivot because it has so often been alienated from the other two parties. Spiegel sees continued tensions in this triangle unless its members can agree among themselves either through some sort of economic unity or confederation between two of the parties (most likely the Jordanians and Palestinians).

In her essay entitled "Regional Economic Cooperation in the Middle East," Mary Morris (formerly at the RAND Corporation) sees promising opportunities for joint activities among the three parties if there is progress on the political front. The question mark in such cooperation, she believes, is the West Bank and Gaza. Major West Bank towns such as Nablus and Ramallah have the potential to become commercial centers given their proximity to Jordan; however, Gaza’s isolation from the rest of Palestinian territory and Israeli restrictions on the movement of people and goods in and out of Gaza remain significant obstacles.

The essays on the human dimensions of this triangle contribute other valuable perspectives as well, and reflect the overall usefulness of this volume as a basis for discussion of an increasingly important topic. (TW)

Nicholas Guyatt
The Absence of Peace: Understanding the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
(London: Zed Books, 1998), 188 pages, $37.95 (cloth), $13.95 (paper)

Nicholas Guyatt, a research fellow in history at Princeton University, has written this concise work on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for experts on the subject as well as for anyone seeking a better understanding of this complex issue. By carefully detailing both historical and political contexts surrounding the conflict, the book provides a thorough background and interesting insights.

The author begins this exploration with a brief examination of the roots and history of Zionism from the Roman destruction of Jerusalem in the first century to the tumultuous years immediately after the creation of the state of Israel. Guyatt then details the effects of Arab-Israeli wars in both geopolitical and psychological terms for all sides involved.

The Intifada, the author writes, was the immediate precursor to the Oslo Peace Accords, the creation of which he also explores. Guyatt then states that those accords, even if fully implemented, are contrary to the spirit of peacemaking and optimism with which they were brokered. By concentrating on specific aspects of the agreement and its direct, day-to-day impact on the lives of Palestinians and Israelis, the author expresses his view that "under Oslo, [peace] has been conspicuous only in its absence." Guyatt does not suggest that peace is unworkable, but rather that a much more introspective and frank dialogue is needed in order to achieve it.

The most original insights of the book come from the author’s efforts to debunk several ‘myths’ surrounding the peace process. For example, Guyatt states that the collapse of Oslo cannot be blamed solely on the election of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in the wake of Yitzak Rabin’s assassination because the original framework and vision for the agreement designed by Rabin were largely unworkable to begin with. The final chapter cites the need for a new approach towards ending the conflict. (DC)

Herbert C. Kelman
"Building a Sustainable Peace: The Limits of Pragmatism in the Israeli-Palestinian Negotiations"
Journal of Palestine Studies XXVII, no. 1 (Autumn 1998), pp. 36-50, University of California Press

In his prescriptive attempt to provide a policy-relevant framework with which to salvage the deadlocked Oslo agreement, Harvard University Professor Herbert Kelman traces the changes in Israel’s approach to implementation of the accords, and outlines four basic tenets to be incorporated in future peace negotiations.

Offering his analysis of the nature of Israeli-Palestinian relations under both Rabin and Netanyahu, Kelman argues that Rabin’s essentially pragmatic, step-by-step brand of peacemaking can no longer succeed under current Israeli leadership. Today, he claims, an acute lack of confidence between Israeli and Palestinian leaders necessitates a principled solution that involves mutual recognition of nationhood and humanity as a point of departure rather than as a progressive end result. Kelman’s proposition thus emerges as a paradoxical one: mutual distrust and unwillingness to make concessions call for reconciliation as a precondition for successful negotiations, instead of a result of them.

The "principled peace" that Kelman describes must rest on the following key ideas: (1) mutual commitment to a two-state solution as a condition to negotiations, (2) mutual commitment to the creation of a sovereign, secure and viable Palestinian state, (3) recognition that such a state is the only acceptable means to providing bona fide citizenship to the Palestinian people, and (4) mutual acknowledgment of nationhood and humanity among Israelis and Palestinians. The internalization of these points within the peace process, according to the author, may be the only way to transcend the impasse that has emerged from the current political climate.

Despite the alarming failure of the Oslo Accord that prompted this article, Kelman nevertheless expresses optimism that, given the right leadership, a principled peace agreement is indeed feasible. Furthermore, he suggests that two conceptual breakthroughs that have occurred in recent years cannot be easily undone, regardless of the changing tides of Israeli and Palestinian leadership. These are Israel’s recognition of the PLO as a negotiating partner – and an implicit acceptance of the notion of territorial compromise – as well as Palestinian recognition of Israel’s legitimacy – and the ripple effects it has sent throughout the Arab world. (TD)

The MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies (MIT EJMES)

The first issue of the MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies (MIT EJMES) will be published in summer 1999. Established and run primarily by graduate students, MIT EJMES is committed to publishing scholarly writing on the modern Middle East from a non-partisan perspective. It is founded on the belief that clearly articulated and informed positions are vital to constructive discussion on the complex and often contentious issues that characterize the Middle East. Although the editors especially encourage submissions from graduate students, all authors may submit articles for consideration.

As an Internet magazine, the editors believe MIT EJMES will be able to take advantage of the benefits of computer communication to reach a wide and diverse audience of Middle East observers and researchers. The journal is based at the website of the Center for International Studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The address is:

For additional information, contact the MIT Electronic Journal of Middle East Studies, c/o Center for International Studies, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 292 Main Street, E38-600, Cambridge MA 02139, USA; e-mail dmetz@mit.edu.