A Century in Thirty Years: Sheikh Zayed and The United Arab Emirates

Following are excerpts from an April 20, 1999, conference convened by the Middle East Policy Council. The papers these presentations are drawn from will be published as a book, forthcoming in 1999.     

The Arab Community in the United States: A Review and an Assessment of the State of Research and Writing on Arab Americans

After a review and brief history of the Arab American community, a detailed overview of the research and writings done on Arabs in the United States is presented, which includes references to two early Arab arrivals to the United States: Estevanico and Hadj Ali (Hi Jolly). These two pioneers are mostly ignored by the Arab American community (as well as researchers on that community) but should be embraced and celebrated. An assessment of the writings on Arab Americans finds that few books and dissertations were written before the 1970s when a surge in interest in this topic became obvious. The concluding section includes sixteen observations and recommendations. Among these is the fact that there has been hardly any research done on the rich materials available in the early Arab American press, as both the Arab American community and researchers on this community have focussed on the present, almost completely ignoring the past and/or possible future planning. This has resulted in the undermining of the main goal of Arabs in the United States to feel and to be viewed as full members of American society and body politic.     

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.     

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.