The 1967 Arab–Israeli war: Soviet policy by other means?

This paper considers two aspects of historiography about the 1967 Arab–Israeli war – American and Soviet foreign policy in the region – to better appreciate the Soviet role in the outbreak of hostilities, as well as how the war concretized the USA–Israel ‘special relationship’ and weakened American–Arab relations. Relying especially on research from the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library and Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS), this paper argues that Soviet officials had little interest in pursuing measures to prevent war during the prewar crisis because the situation promised to undermine American interests in the region.     

Arab Nationalism and the Arab Union of 1958

The late 1950s was a turbulent period in the history of Arab nationalism. It saw the birth and demise of unity states (the United Arab Republic and the Arab Union), civil war, revolution and Western intervention. Despite its short five-month lifespan, the Iraqi–Jordanian Hashemite Arab Union contributed to the intensification of the traditional Egyptian–Iraqi rivalry, the overthrow of the Iraqi monarchy in 1958 and the American intervention in Lebanon the same year. It was the result of Arab nationalism, lingering British imperial dreams, the East–West conflict, economic considerations and an inter-Arab cold war. The Arab Union had obvious advantages over the United Arab Republic. Two such advantages were the greater number of cabinet posts granted to Jordan by the Arab Union than were granted to Syria by the United Arab Republic, and the fact that Amman retained its status as capital (one of two union capitals), whereas Damascus was downgraded to the status of provincial capital. These advantages, however, failed to prevent the premature demise of the union, which was caused by a combination of negative domestic and regional perceptions, economic constraint and military commitments.     

Mohamed Hassanein Heikal on the United States: The Critical Discourse of a Leading Arab Intellectual

The renowned Egyptian journalist and commentator Mohamed Hassanein Heikal (b. 1923) is arguably the doyen of Arab writers critical of the United States. Heikal's career as an author spans more than half a century and his access to regional and international audiences has been greatly enhanced in recent years by his regular appearances on the al-Jazeera television station. Drawing on Heikal's extensive published work, this paper offers a detailed treatment of his views on US politics, society and especially foreign policy in order to highlight the elements constituting the image of the United States that he projects. The article argues that Heikal’'s critical representation of the United States has been central to the discourse of Arab nationalists since the late 1950s and their reconstruction of Arab nationalist ideology along anti-American lines. It further argues that Arab nationalists and Islamists subscribe to essentially the same critical reading of the United States and its foreign policy, especially towards the Middle East. Because intellectuals help shape public opinion, this convergence of views between nationalists and Islamists represents a principal source of the negative image of the United States among Arab publics. Understanding the discourse of Arab intellectuals is thus instrumental for comprehending Arab views of the United States. The Arab Spring, with its tribulations and promises of change, brings an urgent need to properly understand and contextualize the discourse of Arab intellectuals, both nationalists and Islamists.     

Negotiating the caliphate: British responses to pan-Islamic appeals, 1914–1924

This paper considers two aspects of historiography about the 1967 Arab–Israeli War – American and Soviet foreign policy in the region – to better appreciate the Soviet role in the outbreak of hostilities, as well as how the war concretized the US–Israeli ‘special relationship’ and weakened American–Arab relations. Relying especially on research from the Lyndon Johnson Presidential Library and Foreign Relations of the United States, this paper argues that Soviet officials had little interest in pursuing measures to prevent war during the pre-war crisis because the situation promised to undermine American interests in the region.     

The destruction of old Jaffa in 1936 and the question of the Arab refugees

Abstract

One outcome of the Jewish–Arab conflict at the time of the British Mandate was the Arab refugee problem. It usually accompanied any escalation in hostilities and was evident at foci of the friction between Arabs and Jews. Reprisals by the authorities against the Arab population was an additional cause. At the time of the Arab Revolt the refugee issue assumed for the first time significant proportions as a result of destructive actions by the British army, the greatest being the home demolition operations unleashed in Jaffa. As a result many families became refugees inside and outside their city. For the first time in the Mandate period the British government was obliged to contend with the problem of Arab refugees that it itself had created, and resolve it. The article aims to shed light on a unique operation by the Mandatory government intended to establish a locality to house Arab refugees, which was implemented and completed in the Mandate period. The article shows that for the authorities the establishment of a quarter for refugees was the required and most appropriate solution to the problem that had arisen.     

The League of Arab States and Regional Security: Towards an Arab Security Community?

This article examines the historical role of the League of Arab States in regional security through the prism of order and sovereignty in the Arab states system. It argues that the League is a product of the dilemma between state sovereignty and Arab nationalism that beset the Arab regional order for decades. Strained by role conflict, Arab rulers opted for a weak inter-regional organisation that they subsequently undermined, exploited or promoted for statist purposes. However over time, the consolidation of state sovereignty and the decline of pan-Arabism have led to the emergence of a more stable regional order. This creates more opportunities for the development of a collective security framework, in which the Arab League could play an important role.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
Arabs at the Crossroads: Political Identity and Nationalism , by Hilal Khashan.
Legislative Politics in the Arab World: the Resurgence of Democratic Institutions , by Abdo Baaklini, Guilain Denoeux and Robert Springborg.
Israel and the Bomb , by Avner Cohen.
Forcing God's Hand: Why Millions Pray for a Quick Rapture-and Destruction of Planet Earth , by Grace Halsell.
Scattered Like Seeds , by Shaw J. Dallal.
Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism , by John D. Cooley.
Historical Dictionary of Islamic Fundamentalist Movements in the Arab World, Iran, and Turkey , by Ahmad S. Moussalli.
The Making of the Modern Gulf States: Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman , by Rosemarie Said Zahlan.     

The Martyrs' Revolutions: The Role of Martyrs in the Arab Spring

This article examines popular representations of modern martyrs in the Arab world, comparing national models of martyrdom representations prior to the Arab Spring, namely those from Iran, Palestine and Hizbullah in Lebanon, to portrayals of martyrs during and after the Arab Spring. It argues that the Arab Spring brought forth a new model for the martyr in the Arab world, which (a) moves the production of martyrs' images from the state to the citizen; (b) personalises portrayals of martyrs through stories of their personal lives; and, (c) transitions from portrayals of victimisation to empowerment and agency. In the Arab Spring model, the martyr is both a symbol and narrative framework used to galvanise opposition to state regimes. Unlike the pre-Arab Spring models, which portrayed the martyr's death as an honourable sacrifice for the larger national or religious community, the Arab Spring martyr is portrayed as a needless victim in the fight for the universal values of dignity and human rights, as both a product and producer of meaning associated with agency. As the meaning of the ‘martyr’ continues to evolve in the post-Arab Spring era, it has come to represent the power of the people more broadly.     

Things that matter: nostalgic objects in Palestinian Arab homes in Israel

This article addresses the complex identity of Israel's Palestinian Arab citizens from an atypical perspective: through manifestations of their material culture. The cultural expressions that will be examined are objects from the past and objects that relate to the past, particularly to the rustic Palestinian life profoundly destabilized by the 1948 Arab–Israeli war. These objects, displayed in the homes of some of Israel's Arab citizens, are interpreted by contemplating their design, the design of their environment, their relationship to other objects, and their placement within the domestic sphere. Our study is animated by the desire to sketch a cultural portrait of Palestinian Arab Israelis, as well as by a methodological interest in interpretations based on a socio-architectural reading of objects.

This article reveals the various layers of meaning within these nostalgic displays in all their diversity, and will discuss at length their uniqueness, which is linked to the past traumas and present difficulties of Israel's Arabs. Our main purpose is to develop a line of thought whereby objects that express nostalgia are understood as the embodiment of a consciousness that is characteristic of the present.     

The Second World War as a turning point in Arab–Jewish relations: the case of Jaffa and Tel Aviv

One of the gravest outcomes of the period of the Arab revolt was the heavy economic damage caused to the Arab community. Jaffa, which suffered greatly in the years 1936–1939, sought to rebuild and restore the city to its status as a leading economic center in Palestine. This need intensified still more with the outbreak of the Second World War. Hence, it was in Jaffa's evident interest to bring about an improvement in relations with Tel Aviv and with Jews generally. Problems regarding the proper management of economic life in wartime exercised the Jewish settlement also; therefore, Jewish–Arab cooperation steadily grew in this period. The article gauges the measure of this cooperation and the nature of the ties that consolidated between Arabs and Jews during the war. The situation of Jaffa and Tel Aviv serves as a test case well exemplifying the force of the subsequent change in relations between Jews and Arabs in Palestine.     

Politics and Culture: Toward an Arab Agenda for the 21st Century

The author o/Bitter Legacy: Ideology and Politics in the Arab World (Syracuse University Press, 1994), the editor of Conflict Resolution in the Arab World: Selected Essays (American University of Beirut 1997), and numerous articles on Lebanon and the Arab world.     

What Drove Syria Back into the Arab Fold?

After more than a decade of brutal civil war, which is still not resolved and has left Syria divided in thirds, regional states welcomed President Bashar al-Assad back into the fold in May 2023. The Arab League's decision to reinstate Damascus's membership was the culmination of a slow and fitful process that accelerated when Saudi Arabia took the lead. Still, it is too soon to know whether and how Syrian normalization will evolve beyond its Arab core, especially due to the West's continued sanctions regime. This article analyzes how the evolution of the Syrian crisis, the changing calculus of Arab powers, and American inaction have contributed to Assad's rehabilitation. In conclusion, we consider four areas that will determine the next phase of the normalization process.     

Transnational Migrants,Globalization Processes,and Regimes of Power and Knowledge

This article situates the Bush administration's new strategy in the historical context of the international capitalist order established by the United States at the end of the 1940s and argues that this order, though extraordinarily successful for some decades, is now in crisis. The unique capitalist international community that the United States established under its primacy revived international capitalism while preventing geopolitical rivalries between the main capitalist centers. The leading sectors of U.S. business have become dependent on the preservation of the unipolar primacy order for its own economic security and expansion while the American domestic political economy has failed to revive as an industrial economy meeting the rules of international economics, exhibiting growing problems with current account deficits and rising levels of debt. To manage the resulting tensions between the orientation of American transnational sectors and problems in the domestic American political economy, the United States has developed an international monetary and financial regime that is destabilizing and dependent upon the preservation of American political primacy over the capitalist world. But the Soviet collapse has destabilized the primacy system, while the dominant sections of American capitalism are committed to rebuilding it. The Bush administration is seeking to rebuild U.S. primacy, using U.S. military dominance. But this carries very high risks.     

Fighting the Spectres of the Past: Dilemmas of Ottoman Legacy in the Balkans and the Middle East

The object of this article is to introduce a careful reading of Arab/Islamic anti-Semitism in view of the conflicting approaches to its assessment. Three aspects are covered: the origins of this anti-Semitism and its relation to the Arab–Israeli conflict; the impact of Nazism on Arab/Islamic anti-Semitism; and the place of anti-Semitism in the ideology of Islamist movements, highlighting a much neglected feature – the Arab discourse on Arab/Islamic anti-Semitism. It contends that the image of the Jew as an irredeemably destructive, conspiratorial agent, hostile not only to Arabs and Muslims but to humanity at large, is a relatively new phenomenon, gradually striking roots especially among Islamists.     

‘Their Blood is Eastern’: Shahin Makaryus and Fin de Siècle Arab Pride in the Jewish ‘Race’

This article studies the origins and functions of a belief in Jewish race in the Arab fin de siècle through a case study of the writings of Shahin Makaryus and al-Muqta?af, the influential journal he co-edited. The article begins by examining the racial definition of the Jews proffered by Makaryus and al-Muqta?af. It situates this view, first, within the then-recent controversy surrounding Darwinism and the problem of secularism within the Arab renaissance of the fin de siècle and, second, within the contemporary Egyptian discourse about race concerning Egypt's rule over the Sudan. It then studies the presumed implications of this categorization of the Jews for their supposed racial relatives, the Arabs. It argues that it was precisely the imagined racial link between Jews and Arabs that made race an attractive category for understanding the Jews in the minds of certain Nahda thinkers. Next, it examines Makaryus's approach to Jewish nationalism and Zionism and contends that his apparent sympathy toward the movement may be understood, at least in part, in relation to his racial definition of the Jews. Finally, it concludes with some reflections on the implications of this study for our understanding of secularism in the world of the Nahda.     

The Relations of the Central Asian Republics of Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan with Israel

Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan became independent upon the breakup of the Soviet Union. Neither of these republics developed strong nationalist identities and it has been the task of their former communist leaders who are still in power to develop such identities while suppressing internal divisions. Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan have had a history of tolerance toward their respective Jewish populations, from which many have immigrated to Israel (and the United States) in recent years to unite with family or for economic reasons. Those republics view Israel Diaspora Jews as a source of investment and technological know-how as well as an avenue for better relations with the United States. Conversely, Israel, while considering Russian sensitivities in its relations with Central Asia, values the region as a market for Israeli products, a source for hydrocarbon resources and a way to counteract Iran as well as to seek a more favourable attitude in disputes with the Arabs.     

‘A Pioneer in the Struggle for Social Justice’: Manuel Larraín and Transnational Catholic Activism in Latin America in the 1950s and 1960s

This article explores the development of inter-American Catholicism during the 1950s and 1960s. It analyses the role of the Chilean Catholic bishop Manuel Larraín (1900–1966) in his efforts to disseminate his diagnosis of underdevelopment in Latin America and to establish links with the Catholic world in the United States. Based on a review of his writings, the American press and documentation from Catholic organisations, it is suggested that the Chilean bishop advocated the implementation of social reforms and American collaboration to prevent the advance of communism and strengthen Catholicism on the continent.     

Indian is the New Black? The Rise of Indian-Americans on American Television

This article argues that the growing use of Indian-American characters in American television programming results from a combination of societal shifts in the United States as well as changes in the international system—specifically, the increasing ethnic diversity in America as well as the rise of non-western nations as important players in a globalized world that has led to a growing global market for American television programs. Further, the portrayal of such characters also ranges from what the British Broadcasting Corporation calls ‘color-blind casting’ (where the race and ethnicity of characters do not determine or limit the roles they portray) to more stereotypical renderings of the Indian-American community. It concludes by suggesting that changes in demography, as well as market forces within the United States and abroad, will probably lead not only to more Indian-Americans on television but also to their portraying roles that fit into the reality of the Indian-American status and experience in American society.     

Book Reviews

Book reviewed in this article:
REVIEW ESSAY: JERUSALEM DAZE: Fima , by Amos Oz, trans. Nicholas de Lange.
REVIEW ESSAY: JERUSALEM DAZE: Operation Shylock, A Confession , by Philip Roth.
REVIEW ESSAY: JERUSALEM DAZE: Unsettled States, Disputed Lands: Britain and Ireland, France and Algeria, Israel and the West Bank-Gaza , by Ian S. Lustick.
REVIEW ESSAY: JERUSALEM DAZE: Palestinians: The Making of a People , by Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. Migdal.
REVIEW ESSAY: JERUSALEM DAZE: Arabs and Israel for Beginners , by Ron David. Illustrated by Susan David.
REVIEW ESSAY: JERUSALEM DAZE: Egypt during the Nasser Years: Ideology, Politics, and Civil Society , by Kirk J. Beattie.
REVIEW ESSAY: JERUSALEM DAZE: The Middle East and Problems of Democracy , by Heather Deegan.
REVIEW ESSAY: JERUSALEM DAZE: Islam and Arabs in Early American Thought: The Roots of Orientalism in America , by Fuad Shaban.
REVIEW ESSAY: JERUSALEM DAZE: Oil Monarchies: Domestic and Security Challenges in the Arab Gulf States , by F. Gregory Gause III.
REVIEW ESSAY: JERUSALEM DAZE: The Destruction of Yugoslavia: Tracking the Break-Up, 1980-92 , by Branka Magas.     

Critics and Rebels: Older Arab Intellectuals Reflect on the Uprisings

Most Arabs, including intellectuals, agree that the recent uprisings have profoundly changed the realities they have known for decades since the independence of their states. The historical character of the moment, and the emergence of a youth capable of producing unprecedented changes, have together forced an older generation of Arab intellectuals, born roughly between the 1930s and the 1950s, to acknowledge the coming of a new generation of critics and rebels. This article looks at how thinkers of the older generation have written about the uprisings and its actors, by examining their public statements in the form of articles or interviews on television channels, in newspapers and journals, some of them newly launched. I focus on Lebanese poet Abbas Baydoun, Syrian philosopher Sadeq Jalal al-Azm, Lebanese novelist Elias Khoury, Egyptian novelist Baha' Taher, Bahraini thinker Muhammad Jaber al-Ansari, Syrian poet Adonis and Tunisian sociologist Taher Labib. While most of them value the importance of intellectual work in the struggle for human dignity and freedom, they also admit its limitations. They reflect on the significance of the popular and youth participation in advancing the causes they militated for in previous decades.