Granqvist, ethnograpy and political commitment

[This is the third in a series of articles on Japanese policy toward the Middle East that debates the appropriate framework for unraveling issues of Japan-oil- and the United States in Middle East perspective. See earlier contributions by Raquel Shaoul and John de Boer.]Dr. John de Boer in his article, “Gauging Japan's Role in the Middle East” (Japan Focus Sep. 6, 2005) portrays Japanese involvement in the Middle East, as characterized by a “multidimensional presence”. In his article De Boer claims that “at various points in time, Japan has had a relatively high political profile in the region and its people/institutions have demonstrated an active commitment to a variety of important causes in the Middle East”, illustrated by examples dated from 1904-5 to the present. He concludes, “Gauging Japan's overall involvement in the region makes clear that Japan and the Japanese did not simply become active in the Middle East with the Madrid Peace Process of 1991. Japan has contributed to the “peace process” on a variety of levels since the 1950s and its presence continues to be felt throughout the Middle East”. A major difficulty emerges from this thesis: its failure to differentiate between Japan's political involvement and her political commitment in the Middle East over the years.

A Land of Aching Hearts: The Middle East in the Great War

A Land of Aching Hearts: The Middle East in the Great War

Key elements of HIV/AIDS control in the Arab world

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image size Notes 1. See, for example, Nur Masalha, Expulsion of the Palestinians: the Concept of ‘Transfer’ in Zionist Political Thought, 1882–1948, Washington DC, 1992; Walid Khalidi (ed.), From Haven to Conquest: Readings in Zionism and the Palestine Problem Until 1948, Washington DC, 1971; David Hurst, The Gun and the Olive Branch, London, 1978; Benny Morris, The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem, Cambridge, 1987; Ilan Pappe, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, Oxford, 2006. 2. Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, A History of the Zionist–Arab Conflict, 1881–2001, New York, 2001, pp. 676, 678, 682–683; Palestine Royal Commission, Report. Presented to the Secretary of State for the Colonies in Parliament by Command of his Majesty, July 1937, London, 1937 (reprinted 1946), pp. 291–294 (hereinafter Peel Commission Report). See also: Benny Morris, 1948 and After: Israel and the Palestinians, Oxford, 1994, p. 17. 3. Edward Said, The Question of Palestine, New York, 1980, pp. 8, 12–13, 18–19. 4. http://www.israel-mfa.gov.il/MFA/Peace + Process/Guide + to + the + Peace + Process/Camp + David + Accords.htm (emphasis added). 5. Edward Said, The Pen and the Sword: Conversations with David Barsamian, Edinburgh, 1994, pp. 136–137. 6. Ahad Ha-am, ‘Truth from the Land of Israel’, Kol Kitvei Ahad Ha-am, Jerusalem, 1961, pp. 23–24. 7. Ze'ev Jabotinsky, ‘On the Issue of Territorialism’, Ktavim Zioniim Rishonim, Jerusalem, 1949, p. 151; Max Nordau, Ktavim Zioniim, Tel Aviv, 1930, Vol. 2, p. 120. 8. Arthur Ruppin, Pirkei Hayai, Tel Aviv, 1968, Vol. 2, p. 29. 9. Michael Asaf, Hayhasim bein Arvim Veyuhudim Beeretz Israel 1860–1948, Tel Aviv, 1970, p. 126; Arthur Ruppin, Shloshim Shnot Binyan Beeretz Israel, Jerusalem, 1937, p. 59. 10. David Ben-Gurion, My Talks with Arab Leaders, Jerusalem, 1967, pp. 3–4; Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Ben-Zvi, Eretz Israel Baavar Ubahove, Jerusalem, 1979 (first published in 1916); Ben-Gurion, ‘Toward the Future’ (1915) and ‘The Rights of the Jews and the Non-Jews in the Palestine’ (1918), in his Anahnu Ushkheneinu, Tel Aviv, 1931, pp. 7, 31. 11. Haim Arlosoroff, ‘The May Disturbances’ (1921), in Jacob Steinberg (ed.), Kitvei Haim Arlosoroff, Tel Aviv, 1934, Vol. 1, p. 8. 12. Murray Rosenberg, ‘Scenes from the Holy Land’, Steven Spielberg's Jewish Film Archive, 1911, http://w3.castup.net/jfa/filmsscreen.asp?ai = 148&ar = CMID23194. 13. Ahad Ha-am, ‘Truth’, p. 24. 14. Ussishkin's letter to the Zionist leadership, 21 January 1901, Central Zionist Archives (hereafter CZA), A24/15/6. 15. Max Nordau, ‘The Arabs and Us’ (1918), in his Ktavim Zioniim, Jerusalem, 1962, Vol. 4, pp. 49–55; Nordau, ‘Jews and Arabs in Palestine’ (1920), ibid., p. 108. 16. ‘The Yishuv's Security: the Basic Zionist Question’, in Ze'ev Jabotinsky, Neumim, 1905–1926, Jerusalem, 1947, pp. 191, 198–199. 17. Originally published in Russian under the title ‘O Zheleznoi Stene’, in Rassvyet, 4 November 1923, the ‘Iron Wall’ was reprinted several times, including in the Jewish Herald, 26 November 1937 (internet edition http://www.mideastweb.org/ironwall.htm; emphasis original). 18. Jabotinsky's address to the Institute for the Resolution of National Problems (Warsaw), in his Neumim 1927–1940, Jerusalem, 1948, p. 216; Palestine Royal Commission, Notes of Evidence taken in London on Thursday, 11 February 1937, Sixty-Sixth Meeting (Public), London, 1937, p. 370. 19. Jabotinsky, Neumim 1927–1940, p. 278. 20. Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Jewish War Front, London, 1940, p. 212. 21. Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Jewish War Front, London, 1940, p. 216. 22. Ze'ev Jabotinsky, ‘What is to be Done?’ (1905), in his Ktavim Zioniim Rishonim, pp. 209–210. 23. ‘The Iron Wall’. 24. Jabotinsky, The Jewish War Front, pp. 216–220. 25. Palestine Royal Commission, ‘Notes of Evidence’, p. 379. 26. ‘Palestine, as I Saw It’, interview for The Jewish Chronicle (London) With Mr. M. Grossman, 22 May 1925. 27. Ben-Gurion, ‘Toward the Future’ (1915) and ‘The Rights of the Jews and the Non-Jews in Palestine’ (1918), in his Anahnu Ushkheneinu, pp. 8, 31–32. 28. Ben-Gurion, ‘The Hebrew Worker and the Arab Worker’ (1926), Anahnu Ushkheneinu, p. 105. 29. ‘The Congress as a Political Committee’, Third Meeting, Saturday Night, 7 August 1937, CZA, S25/1543, pp. 109–110. 30. ‘Memorandum on the Treatment of Minorities’, submitted by M. Shertok, Executive of the Jewish Agency, to the Secretary, Palestine Partition Commission, Jerusalem, on 31 July 1938, CZA, S25/8929. 31. Arlosoroff, ‘The May Disturbances’, p. 9. 32. Peel Commission Report, p. 57; Frederick H. Kisch, Palestine Diary, London, 1938, p. 95. 33. Haim Arlosoroff, ‘Stocktaking’ (1929) and ‘Address to the 17th Zionist Congress’ (1931), in Steinberg (ed.), Haim Arlosoroff, Vol. 1, pp. 101–114 and Vol. 6, pp. 75–76. See also Arlosoroff, ‘A Press Conference’ (1931), ibid., Vol. 6, pp. 96–97. 34. Theodor Herzl, Altneuland, New York, 1941, Book III, Part 2 (internet edition: http://www.wzo.org.il/en/resources/view.asp?id = 1602). 35. Ruppin, Shloshim, p. 60. 36. David Ben-Gurion, ‘Toward the Future’ (1915), in his Anahnu Ushkheneinu, pp. 8–9; Ben-Gurion, Bama'araha, Tel Aviv, 1949, Vol. 4, Part 2, pp. 260–266. 37. See, for example, David Ben-Gurion's Diary (Sde Boker), 24 November 1929 (hereinafter BGD); Z. Abramowitz and Y. Galpat, Hameshek Haarvi Beeretz Israel Uveartzot Hamizrah Hatichon, Tel Aviv, 1944, pp. 5–7. The decline in Arab emigration from Palestine was particularly marked in comparison with the neighbouring Arab states. While over 103,000 people left Syria and Lebanon from 1920 to 1931, only 9,272 non-Jews left Palestine during the same period: less than half the Syrian/Lebanese rate given that their population was five times as large as the Palestinian Arab population. Aharon Cohen, Israel and the Arab World, London, 1970, p. 225. 38. Peel Commission Report, p. 93 (vii). 39. Peel Commission Report, pp. 94, 157–158; Abramowitz and Galpat, Hameshek Haarvi, pp. 48–50. 40. A Survey of Palestine. Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the information of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry (reprinted in 1991 in full with permission from Her Majesty's Stationary Office by the Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington DC), Vol. 2, pp. 708–715. 41. A Survey of Palestine. Prepared in December 1945 and January 1946 for the information of the Anglo-American Committee of Enquiry (reprinted 1991 in full with permission from Her Majesty's Stationary Office by the Institute for Palestine Studies, Washington DC), Vol. 2, pp. 570–580; Peel Commission Report, p. 94; Cohen, Israel, p. 228. 42. A Survey of Palestine, pp. 699–700, 710–714, 719–720; Peel Commission Report, pp. 93 (vi), 231. 43. See, for example, Colonial Office, Palestine. Report on Palestine Administration, 1923, London, 1924, p. 26; Colonial Office, Palestine. Report on Palestine Administration, 1924, London, 1925, pp. 28, 32, 50; Colonial Office, Palestine. Report on Palestine Administration, 1926, London, 1927, p. 33; Chaim Weizmann, ‘Progress and Problems’, Confidential Report to Colonial Office, 15 February 1922, The Letters and Papers of Chaim Weizmann, Vol. I, Series B, August 1898–July 1931, New Brunswick and Jerusalem, 1983, p. 366. 44. Kisch, Palestine Diary, pp. 48–49, 54, 73. See also Cohen, Israel, pp. 249–250. 45. J.H. Kann, Some Observations on the Policy of the Mandatory Government of Palestine with Regard to the Arab Attacks on the Jewish Population in August 1929 and the Jewish and the Arab Sections of the Population, Hague, 1930, p. 10. 46. Kenneth W. Stein, The Land Question in Palestine, 1917–1939, Chapel Hill, 1984, pp. 182, 228–239. 47. Gad Frumkin, Derekh Shofet Beyerushalaim, Tel Aviv, 1956, pp. 216, 280–290; Eliyahu Elath, Shivat Zion Vearav, Tel Aviv, 1974, p. 245; Yehuda Taggar, The Mufti of Jerusalem and Palestine Arab Politics, 1930–1937, New York, 1986, p. 83. In January 1935, the Mufti told a Jerusalem conference of ulama that ‘he used only Arab manufactured goods’. 48. Dov Joseph, The Faithful City: The Siege of Jerusalem 1948, New York, 1960, p. 194. 49. While in 1936, according to official British statistics, 195 Arabs were killed by their Arab brothers, compared with 37 Brits and 80 Jews, two years later these figures rose to 503 Arab fatalities, compared with 255 and 77 Jewish and British deaths respectively. Fatalities in 1939 remained on a similar level: 414 Palestinian Arabs murdered by Arab gangs, as opposed to 94 Jews and 37 Brits. Palestinian Arab sources put the number of Arabs murdered by the gangs at a staggering 3,000–4,500. See A Survey of Palestine, Vol. 1, pp. 38, 46, 49; Yuval Arnon-Ohana, Herev Mibait: Hamaavak Hapnimi Betnuah Haleumit Hafalestinit, Tel Aviv, 1981, p. 286. 50. Thus, for example, Arab purchase of Jewish wheat dropped dramatically in 1937 but rose sharply the following year owing to particularly poor crops, with some 70% of the Jewish wheat sold to the Arab sector. Conversely, prior to the 1936–39 violence, about a third of the Palestinian Arab agricultural output was sold to the Jewish sector. See Abramowitz and Galpat, Hameshek Haarvi, pp. 99–105; Stein, The Land Question, p. 182; Protocols of the Meeting of the Jewish Agency's Executive, 1 January 1939, David Ben-Gurion Archive, Sde Boker. 51. Colonial Office, Palestine: Report of the High Commissioner on the Administration of Palestine 1920–1925, London, 1925, pp. 40–41. 52. Ben-Gurion, My Talks, pp. 15–16. 53. Peel Commission Report, pp. 63, 271. 54. Walter Laqueur (ed.), The Israel–Arab Reader, Harmondsworth, 1970, p. 37. 55. ‘Conversation with Awni Abdel Hadi’, 3 June 1920, Hagana Archives (HA), 80/145/11. 56. ‘Notes from an interview accorded to members of the Arab Higher Committee by His Excellency the High Commissioner on the 7th November, 1936’, CZA, S25/22704, pp. 15–16. 57. Ben-Gurion, Bama'araha, Vol. 4, Part 2, p. 260; Hebrew translation of Amin Husseini's interview with Le Journal d'Egypt on 10 November 1947, HA, 105/105a, p. 47; Radio Beirut, 12 November 1947, in Foreign Broadcasts Information Service (FBIS), European Section: Near and Middle East and North African Transmitters, 13 November 1947, II2. 58. See, for example, protocol of the Situation Committee's meetings on 24 November and 22 December 1947, Ben-Gurion Archives; protocol of the Subordinate Committee C meetings on 1, 2 and 22 December 1947, ibid.; Secretariat of Subordinate Committee B, ‘Proposal for the Establishment of a Police in the Hebrew State’, 31 December 1947, ibid. 59. Rama to brigade commanders, ‘Arabs Residing in the Enclaves’, 24 March 1948, HA 46/109/5; ‘Fortnightly Intelligence Newsletter No. 64’, issued by HQ British Troops in Palestine (for the period 2359 hrs 10 Mar–2359 hrs 23 Jan 48), WO 275/64, p. 4; Arab Press Service (Cairo), FBIS, European Section: Near and Middle East and North African Transmitters, 16 December 1947, II1; ‘Weekly Summary for the Alexandroni Brigade, 2 March 1948’, HA 105/143, p. 105; ‘In the Arab Public’, 30 March 1948, HA 105/100, p. 14.

If the late 1940s and early 1950s were a period of close and friendly relations between the United States and Egypt, the late 1950s and early 1960s mark the deterioration in those relations. US-Egyptian relations from the 1952 revolution to the Suez crisis resembled to some extent a game of chess between Nasser of Egypt, and Secretary John Foster Dulles of the US. The Free Officers' rise to power in Egypt in July 1952, raised the hope of the American policy-makers in the establishing of closer and, moreover, cordial relations with Egypt. They felt that it was to their advantage to deal with the military officers who were not associated with the corrupt ancien regime of politicians. Moreover, the Free Officers did not have any political commitment nor a predetermined position in foreign policy. Therefore the Eisenhower administration, especially Secretary of State John Foster Dulles, expected that Egypt under Nasser and his military colleagues would help achieve objectives of American strategy in the area, such as the containment of Soviet penetration, and peace between the Arab states and Israel. These hopes or aspirations, however, could not be easily translated into practical policy. Dulles looked to Nasser for support of US initiatives, without appreciating problems Nasser might face. Nasser's policy was soon to clash with American strategy in the Middle East and Egypt's foreign policy would be marked to a great extent by recurrent clashes with the US, especially from 1955 onwards. Nasser saw US policy becoming reflexively pro-Israel and he felt that Washington was jeopardising his leadership of the Arab world, especially after the formation of the Baghdad Pact in February 1955. The honeymoon between the Free Officers' regime in Egypt and the US was now over. Nasser felt he had to confront the US and the Western powers on their own terms, in a more forceful and radical way. Nasser found the Soviet Union a willing partner in furthering his aims, even though he still left his options open regarding his relations with the US. As for the Eisenhower administration, the turning-point came in mid-March 1956 when Secretary of the Navy Robert Anderson returned from his mission to promote peace between Egypt and Israel empty-handed. Dulles was determined to show Nasser how tough he could be. Events then moved rapidly to the Suez crisis. The documentary and other evidence proved that Nasser's ambitions for a regional leadership of the Arab Middle East were in conflict with those of the US as a global power in the Middle East, The Eisenhower administration, for its part, had hoped and intended to contain Nasser's influence in the area and not to promote him into a major Third World leader, but in vain. The American policy turned Nasser from a local Arab leader of Egypt into the charismatic leader of the Arab world and a major political figure in the Third World. This research mainly depends on American documents which were declassified during the past two years.

This study aimed to assess the priority of HIV/AIDS in the Middle East and North Africa region and compare it with other regions. This review examines the social, cultural and religious features of HIV in the region, and considers their influence on perception of risk and approaches to control, such as condom use and antiretroviral therapy. We screened a wide range of sources for comprehensive and reliable data; the search of PubMed, ISI Web of Science, ScienceDirect, and grey literature databases were unrestricted by language and year of publication. Studies of HIV/AIDS in the region are limited, especially studies of social aspects of HIV/AIDS and their relevance for control. Findings suggest low condom use across the region among high-risk groups, and the general population, and low antiretroviral therapy uptake among people with HIV/AIDS. The review indicates gaps in the literature and needs for more academic engagement and political commitment. Cultural norms have notable implications for HIV control, which are discussed, considering implications for the priority, prevention, treatment, and control of HIV/AIDS.

With wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the greater Middle East must top President Barack Obama's foreign policy agenda. He will also face critical challenges with Iran and Israeli–Palestinian peacemaking. To deal successfully with any one he must deal effectively with all. Further, he must decide soon how much permanent US military presence to retain in and near the Persian Gulf and assess how much the American people will support open-ended US engagements in the Greater Middle East. Obama will clearly press for more European support, especially in Afghanistan. He should also foster a new regional security structure, in time involving all Middle East states. It should include confidence-building measures, Standing Military and Political Commissions, incidents at sea and freedom of navigation agreements, ‘open skies’, and OSCE-like cooperation. NATO and the EU can play supporting roles in training and counseling; and outsiders such as the United States should be prepared to intervene military if need be to keep the peace.

The Middle East offers perhaps the ideal site from which to consider the political and aesthetic commitments of Naomi Wallace's theatre. As the critic Shannon Baley has argued, one of the signal characteristics of Wallace's work has been its engagement with "apocalypses [that appear] … on the edge of utopia … [places] where death and desire coexist, where bodies can be expanded, become fluid, and new horizons can be seen from what is possible" (Baley 2004, 238-9). Coupled with the ambitions of empire, fantasies of apocalypse and utopia have played an inordinate part in the history of the modern Middle East, from the crusader ambitions of Napoleon's armies to the missionary work of Protestant reformers and the 'modernizing' projects of Zionist colonialism. Imperial designs upon the greater Middle East have been long underwritten by an explicit sense of millennial purpose, one that identifies the greater Middle East—and Palestine, in particular—as the physical site upon which humanity will meet its eschatological reckoning (Boyer 1994).1 This dream locates utopia as that which emerges only at the end of secular history, the negation of which intervention in the Middle East is ultimately meant to hasten.KeywordsMiddle EastCreative DestructionCreative PotentialitySanction RegimeImperial DesignThese keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.

John Lewis Burckhardt (1784–1817) was a Swiss explorer who is best remembered for his rediscovery of the ancient city of Petra, in Jordan. In 1809 he was commissioned by the African Association to discover the source of the River Niger. In preparation for this journey, for which he needed to pass as a Muslim, Burckhardt spent two years exploring and studying Arabic in Aleppo, before travelling widely in Arabia and Egypt. These volumes, first published in 1830, contain Burckhardt's description of Bedouin society and his history of the Wahhabi sect of Islam. He describes the different Bedouin tribes of Arabia and the Middle East and their political allegiances, and recounts in fascinating detail aspects of their society. He also narrates the history of the Wahhabi sect from its founding, and discusses its effect on the contemporary politics of the region. Volume 1 contains his description of the Bedouin.

Comparative studies of the influence of identity-based cleavages on conflict, GDP per capita or democratic quality usually depend upon some form of measurement of ethnic divisions. The index of fractionalization is the most frequently used method, but this reports group demographic sizes rather than the extent of politicization of cleavages. For this paper, we assembled a dataset covering 132 countries that draws on individual-level survey data cross-tabulating ethnic, religious or linguistic identity with party affiliation. We use a Gallagher disproportionality index to measure the degree of ethnicization of party systems. We find that communal identity exerts a stronger influence over political allegiances in the competitive party systems of Africa, the Middle East, North America and Eastern Europe than it does in Western Europe, Asia and Latin America; that most of the world’s highly diverse polities do not have strongly ethnicized party systems; and that country party ethnicization is negatively correlated with cross-cutting cleavages.

What we call the ‘Eastern frontier’ of the Roman Empire was a thing of shadows, which reflected the diplomatic convenience of a given moment, and dictated the positioning of some soldiers and customs officials, but hardly affected the attitudes or the movements of the people on either side. Nothing more than the raids of desert nomads, for instance, hindered the endless movement of persons and ideas between Judaea and the Babylonian Jewish community. Similarly, as Lucian testifies, offerings came to the temple of Atargatis at Hierapolis-Bambyce from a wide area of the Near and Middle East, including Babylonia. The actual movement to and fro of individuals was reflected, as we have recently been reminded, in a close interrelation of artistic and architectural styles. Moreover, whatever qualifications have to be made in regard to specific places, it is incontestable that Semitic languages, primarily Aramaic in its various dialects, remained in active use, in a varying relationship to Greek, from the Tigris through the Fertile Crescent to the Phoenician coast. This region remained, we must now realize, a cultural unity, substantially unaffected by the empires of Rome or of Parthia or Sassanid Persia.

John Lewis Burckhardt (1784–1817) was a Swiss explorer who is best remembered for his rediscovery of the ancient city of Petra, in Jordan. In 1809 he was commissioned by the African Association to discover the source of the River Niger. In preparation for this journey, for which he needed to pass as a Muslim, Burckhardt spent two years exploring and studying Arabic in Aleppo, before travelling widely in Arabia and Egypt. These volumes, first published in 1830, contain Burckhardt's description of Bedouin society and his history of the Wahhabi sect of Islam. He describes the different Bedouin tribes of Arabia and the Middle East and their political allegiances, and recounts in fascinating detail aspects of their society. He also narrates the history of the Wahhabi sect from its founding, and discusses its effect on the politics of the region. Volume 2 contains his history of the Wahhabi sect.

In thinking about the prompt for this forum—on the ways in which Armenia and Armenians sit within Middle East studies and the ways in which they are often occluded from the sights of Middle East studies—what comes to mind is the critical necessity for internationalism and solidarity. This might at first seem only tangentially or indirectly relevant to the object of investigation here; after all, we are talking about geography, history, and facts. However, I think that it is relevant to how (as in with what sense, orientation, and from what perspective) we approach the question of scholarly regional belonging. Like any topic of intellectual inquiry, how we imagine and define regions has implications on what we find in those regions: the sites of importance and focus; the connections between different groups, persons, and events; and the scope of investigations. Internationalism and solidarity as frameworks for understanding Armenia and Armenians as a part of the Middle East orient us to the region by way of connections to the various peoples of that region with a political and ideological commitment to the well-being of all peoples there and everywhere. Many of the commentaries in this forum focus on the marginalization of particular minorities in Middle East Studies (Armenians, Copts, and Assyrians in this forum, and we also could think about the marginalization of Kurds and other minoritized populations in the region).1 This in itself is a critical and necessary point of departure. I would like to approach the question from another angle, however. How might we think about this problem from the other side? How does Armenian studies see itself in connection with Middle East studies? Here, although I recognize that Armenian studies is a changing field and is not monolithic, with various differences between the field as it developed in Europe and the United States and that which developed in the Republic of Armenia, there are a few continuities that I would like to problematize and imagine differently. What might the future of Armenian studies be if it were made through politically committed questions, articulations, and collaborations? How might this produce a (different) sense of belonging to Middle East studies?

Ending cholera for all