The Middle East and Changing Superpower Relations

The Turkish Republic emerged onto the world stage as a secular and centralized nation state in the early 1920s from the remnants of the multi-ethnic, multi-religious and multi-lingual Ottoman Empir...

Contents: Introduction: engaging China's foreign policy, Emilian Kavalski Part I Historical and Analytical Perspectives on China's Foreign Policy: In quest of independence: an unchanging paradigm of China's foreign policy, Lai-Ha Chan International status: China's pursuit of comprehensive superpower status, Mingjiang Li China's strategic culture and foreign policy, Huiyun Feng China's rise and international relations theory, Dingding Chen. Part II Domestic Sources of China's Foreign Policy: rise of nationalism and China's foreign policy, Kingsley Edney and Baogang He Communist ideology and Chinese foreign policy, Winberg Chai 'new security concept': the role of the military in China's foreign policy, Yee-Kuang Heng Economic development and China's foreign policy, Hongyi Lai and Su-jeong Kang. Part III International Impact of China's Foreign Policy: Soft power in Chinese foreign policy: concepts, policies, and effectiveness, James Reilly Religion, culture and Confucius Institutes in China's foreign policy, Kim-Kwong Chan and Alan Hunter Overseas Chinese and Chinese foreign policy, John Lee China and the global surge for resources, Carrie Liu Currier. Part IV China's Bilateral Interactions: relations between China and the USA, Jian Yang China's bilateral interactions with Russia, Susan Turner Haynes Perspectives on China's relations with the European Union, Reuben Wong Sino-Indian relations: peaceful coexistence or pending rivalry, Jing-dong Yuan. Part V China's Regional Strategies: China's relations with the Middle East: Chinaa (TM)s relations with the Middle East, Niv Horesh Chinaa (TM)s relations with Central Asia (SCO), Russell Ong Chinaa (TM)s relations with Southeast Asia (ASEAN), Ming Te Hung and Mei-Hsien Lee Chinaa (TM)s relations with Northeast Asia, Enyu Zhang Chinaa (TM)s relations with Africa, May Tan-Mullins and Giles Mohan Chinaa (TM)s relations with Latin America, Tung-Chieh Tsai and Tony Tai-Ting Liu Anchoring Chinaa (TM)s oceanic relations: Australia and New Zealand, Nicholas Thomas. Part VI Outstanding Issues in Chinaa (TM)s Foreign Policy: logic and strategies of Beijinga (TM)s policy toward Taiwan, Zhiming Chen China and peacekeeping operations, Chin-Hao Huang Globalization and China, Lui Hebron Chinaa (TM)s climate policy and foreign diplomacy, Bo Miao Tibet, human rights, and Chinese foreign policy, Yuchao Zhu China and transnational social movements, Jie Chen a The Great Firewall of Chinaa (TM): internet censorship and Chinese foreign policy, Sheng Ding China and outer space, Rosita Dellios Epilogue: Whither China and its foreign policy? Future trends, developments, and the logic of relationships of Chinaa (TM)s international interactions, Emilian Kavalski Bibliography Index.

Part 1 Domestic sources of Chinese foreign policy: traditions of centrality, authority, and management in modern China's foreign relations, William C. Kirby ideology in Chinese foreign policy, Steven I. Levine the foreign policy implications of China's economic development strategy, Barry Naughton elite politics and the development of Chinese foreign relations, Carol Lee Hamrin. Part 2 International sources of Chinese foreign policy: China and the international strategic system, William T. Tow international science and technology and Chinese foreign policy, Wendy Frieman. Part 3 China's bilateral and regional relationships: patterns of interaction in Sino-American relations, David Shambaugh nationalism and internationalism - Sino-Soviet relations, Steven M. Goldstein China and Europe - the significance of a secondary relationship, Michael Yahuda China and Africa - consensus and camouflage, Philip Snow myth and reality in China's relations with the Middle East, Lillian Craig Harris China as an Asian power, Harold C. Hinton. Part 4 Patterns of behaviour in Chinese foreign policy: China's cooperative behaviour, Harry Harding China's international organizational behaviour, Samuel Kim China's international economic behaviour, Madelyn C. Ross China's negotiating behaviour, Paul H. Kriesberg. Part 5 International relations theory and the study of Chinese foreign policy: international relations theory and the study of Chinese foreign policy - a Chinese perspective, Wang Jisi forecasting Chinese foreign policy - I.R. Theory vs. the fortune cookie, Allen S. Whiting China in a bifurcated world - competing theoretical perspectives, James N. Rosenau. Part 6 Conclusion: Chinese foreign policy from the 1940s to the 1990s, Thomas W. Robinson. Appendix: A biographical essay on new sources for the study of China's foreign relations and national security, Shambaugh.

Chinese foreign policy towards the Middle East is undergoing geopolitical and geostrategic transformation. In spite of the fact that there are constant determinants in China’s policy toward the Middle East and its major issues such as the Arab-Israeli conflict, new rules are being applied with regard to Chinese relations with the major powers that have interests in the region. This is understood to be a fundamental development and major change in determining the future and balance of power in the region, and perhaps in the world order. This study uses a ‘national interest’ approach to clarify the strategy that China has pursued in protecting its national interests in the Middle East, and in particular in the wake of the political developments that the region has been undergoing since 2010. The study gives a background history of Chinese foreign policy on the Arab–Israeli conflict, the recent changes in Chinese foreign policy regarding the Arab–Israeli conflict and the expected future of Chinese foreign policy on the Arab–Israeli conflict. Finally the study gives recommendations pertaining to Arab–Chinese relations.

Brief Report| December 01 2022 Brief Synopses of New Arabic-Language Publications: Annotated Arabic Bibliography: Brief English Reviews of New Arabic-Language Releases in Critical Arab Scholarship Gabi El-Khoury Gabi El-Khoury Librarian and Head of Documentation, Centre for Arab Unity Studies, Beirut. Email: gaby@caus.org.lb Search for other works by this author on: This Site PubMed Google Scholar Contemporary Arab Affairs (2022) 15 (3-4): 94–101. https://doi.org/10.1525/caa.2022.15.3-4.94 Views Icon Views Article contents Figures & tables Video Audio Supplementary Data Peer Review Share Icon Share Facebook Twitter LinkedIn MailTo Tools Icon Tools Get Permissions Cite Icon Cite Search Site Citation Gabi El-Khoury; Brief Synopses of New Arabic-Language Publications: Annotated Arabic Bibliography: Brief English Reviews of New Arabic-Language Releases in Critical Arab Scholarship. Contemporary Arab Affairs 1 December 2022; 15 (3-4): 94–101. doi: https://doi.org/10.1525/caa.2022.15.3-4.94 Download citation file: Ris (Zotero) Reference Manager EasyBib Bookends Mendeley Papers EndNote RefWorks BibTex toolbar search Search Dropdown Menu toolbar search search input Search input auto suggest filter your search All ContentContemporary Arab Affairs Search Labib W. Kamhawi, The Palestinian Cause and the Israeli Problem: A New Vision (Beirut: Center for Arab Unity Studies, 2022). 128 pp. ISBN 978-9953-82-992-0 There is an Arab consensus or almost complete unanimity that the Zionist presence in the Arab region is the basis of all the problems that plague the area and threaten international stability and peace. Thus, the prosperity and stability of the Arab world depends on changing this racist state and freeing occupied Palestinian and Arab land. This Arab position has always been consistent in viewing the Zionist occupation as an existential threat to Palestinians and Arabs alike. However, this unified Arab position on the Israeli occupation has been shaken, if not considerably undermined, by several key events. These include the signing of the Camp David Accords between Egypt and Israel in 1978 and the disengagement of Egypt from the Arab–Israeli conflict; the signing of the Oslo... You do not currently have access to this content.

Even though China extracts oil more than any other country in the Asia-Pacific region, the country is still hugely dependent on imports, and this dependence increases with each passing year. In recent years, the need for import of oil in China had risen from 35% in 2000 to 70% in 2017. Today, the People’s Republic of China mainly buys crude oil in the Middle East and political change in the region directly influence on Chinese foreign policy. In this study, we examined four critical factors that influence china’s oil diplomacy in the Middle East. Accordingly, Arab spring events, OPEC, China foreign policies and strategies, and influence of the U.S. in the region have direct or indirect effects on china’s oil diplomacy. China’s historical reaction to these factors is remarkable and made its energy security strategies in the Middle east. This study shows that the events of the Arab Spring hurt China’s oil diplomacy with the middle East countries. The developments taking place in the Middle East from the beginning of the Arab Spring have led to an increase in world oil prices. For China, this meant higher import bills and a reduction in the trade surplus, as well as slower economic growth, as the contribution of net exports decreased. OPEC market controlling strategies let China thinks to other oil producers, and oil exports from the Middle East reduced in front of increasing imports from other regions. U.S. as hegemon of the area somehow made steady pressure on China alliance, especially after making sanctions on Iran due to its nuclear programs. During the trade war between the two countries, the influence of the U.S. on China oil diplomacy more appeared.

Turkey’s State Crisis: Institutions, Reform and Conflict

THE MESS THEY MADE The Middle East After Gwynne Dyer Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 2007. 267pp, $21.99 paper (ISBN 0771029802)Gwynne Dyer, a journalist and columnist, attempts to analyze all prominent issues and actors in current state of affairs in Middle East and makes future predictions about (Iraq in particular). More than half of Dyer's book is dedicated to an analysis of in one way or another. The reasons that George W. Bush administration invaded Iraq, political and security situation in Iraq, future of Iraq, and impact of war on Iran's policy are discussed in separate chapters that are short but free of repetition. The remaining chapters address other major issues in Middle East, including radical Islamist terrorism, Iran's nuclear policy, Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and post-Taliban Afghanistan. These latter chapters are more informative than former ones, although experts on Middle East will find little original analysis and many debatable points.The basic premise of book on is that Bush administration (they) has created a mess in country and lost war. The surge (a pathetic escalation) is not working and is unlikely to work (87). As a result, author predicts that United States will leave immediately after end of Bushs term because of the implosion of public opposition to war. In author's view, a US withdrawal from will be largely a positive development for Iraq-in long term at least-because presence of America is root cause of postwar difficulties in country.What this implies for larger Middle East is not clear in book. Dyer argues that declining US influence in Middle East following its anticipated withdrawal from coupled with the by destruction of Iraq will upset status quo in (2). Nowhere in book, however, are the unleashed by war specified. It is not Shi'ite because author argues that such a revival is largely exaggerated. It is not Islamist extremism and terrorism it breeds because they are not immediate consequences of war but responses to a century of foreign domination and manipulation of region (3). It is certainly not democratic forces in Arab countries which are either weak or virtually absent.Equally problematic is fact that author does not substantiate his alarmist description of Middle East since US invasion of Iraq. He writes in introduction that Everything is now up for grabs [in Middle East]: regimes, ethnic pecking orders within states, even 1918 borders themselves might change (2). In fact, in rest of book, such a picture does not emerge. Aside from prospect of an independent Iraqi Kurdistan and an Islamicized Iraq, author fails to tell us which regimes and pecking orders are likely to change. …

What causes a disaster's aftermath? Scholars have increasingly turned to historical approaches that link outcomes to pre-disaster sociopolitical dynamics. Disasters lead to 'critical junctures' that 'trigger' events that unfold in the wake of the initial phenomenon. This paper argues that the 'critical junctures' paradigm shares limitations with 'path dependency' theory from which it is derived, namely a tendency towards historicism-a functionalist teleology better able to explain continuity than change. As an alternative, this analysis draws on Michel Foucault's understanding of 'conditions of possibility' as a way of rethinking agency/causation, moving away from individual subjects, events, or even historical conditions towards, instead, the new, radically destabilised 'epistemological field' emerging in the disaster's aftermath. This paper examines a series of devastating earthquakes in Nepal to consider how post-disaster 'epistemological fields' present new 'conditions of possibility' within which new ideas, actions, and outcomes become thinkable and possible in ways that pre-disaster historical conditions could not have predicted.

The Middle East holds a critical strategic position in global politics, economy, and military affairs, serving as a pivotal hub for the advancement of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) through both land and sea routes. Since the proposal of BRI, China's cooperation with Middle Eastern countries has steadily deepened. Consequently, examining the evolution of China's interaction with Middle Eastern nations over the past decade is of paramount significance for future development. This study utilizes the GDELT database to construct formulas for measuring event impact and bilateral relationship intensity. It analyzes the temporal development and spatial patterns of China's interaction with Middle Eastern countries while also examining the types of interactive relationships between China and individual countries in the Middle East under the principle of reciprocity. The findings indicate that the overall interaction between China and Middle Eastern countries remains stable. Cooperative relationships have transitioned from a "single cooperation" approach to a "dual cooperation" model involving Iran and Saudi Arabia. Moreover, the development trajectory has shifted from an imbalanced "north-high, south-low" pattern towards equilibrium, resulting in a general decline in conflict relations and a decrease in inter-country disparities. The prevalent type of interaction between countries is characterized by balance.

This article challenges the common assumption that the external actors involved in the Middle East Peace Process (MEPP) are driven either by neo-realist strategic competition or by the constraining power of domestic lobbies, or by a mixture of both. Such implicit assumptions are evident in the controversial argument of the power of the ‘Israel lobby’ as promoted by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. This article argues that approaches based on such assumptions fail to explain adequately the policies adopted not only by the United States, but also by other key external actors who have been historically engaged in the MEPP — the Soviet Union and the European Union. A better explanatory framework is provided by treating the MEPP as an institution and by applying a historical institutionalist approach to the development of the MEPP, using such concepts as critical junctures, path dependence and positive feedback to analyse how the main external actors involved in the MEPP came to adopt their distinctive national approaches to the peace process. In particular, it is the responses of these actors to certain critical junctures, most notably but not exclusively to the period of the 1967 and 1973 Arab–Israeli wars, that has had a particularly strong influence on policy formulation. For the US case, the creative policymaking of Henry Kissinger during the period after the 1973 war, which was subsequently incorporated into the US conceptualization of the MEPP, provides powerful and generally unrecognized insights into the initial puzzle identified by Walt and Mearsheimer — the consistent and almost unconditional support given to Israel by the United States despite the strategic problems this creates for broader US Middle East policy.

This Oxford Handbook on the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) is an extensive high-quality scholarly enterprise covering much of the essential ground on the modern history of the region by a team of well-informed scholars. It is, however, unfortunate that this collection of essays is tainted by an ideological predisposition that tends to undermine its overall credibility with a mission of academic activism and political advocacy. In the epilogue concluding this encyclopedic compendium the editors spell out their objective noting that “it is incumbent on MENA scholars to act on their better knowledge and keep breaking the epistemic injustice that still shrouds Palestine and the region as a whole” (694).This, therefore, is a collective work explicitly designed to explain and analyze the MENA region in terms dedicated to the re-education of the reading public, who have ostensibly been misled by scholars and pundits (the “international commentariat,” in the words of the editors [xxiii]) who misinform and disinform to create the “epistemic injustice that still shrouds … the region.” This writing of history does not necessarily serve the pursuit of knowledge and truth. This is a brand of “academic activism” that does not seek to enrich human knowledge for knowledge's sake but to effect political change. That, of course, may be a noble cause in its own right, but it is only partly related to scholarship.Between the introduction, “Toward a History of the Present,” and the epilogue, “Revolutionary Times in Contemporary History,” there are seven sections, each including between three to six essays. “Foundations” begins with the environmental history of the region moving on through the nineteenth century of economic change, religious reform, and cultural revival, and culminating with the constitutional reforms in Turkey and Iran in the early twentieth century. “Formations” addresses the MENA region after World War I, focusing on the European mandates, nationalism, and sectarianism, Kemalism in Turkey, and fascist movements in other parts of the region in the interwar years. “Legacies of War and Revolution” is devoted to the emergence of the post–World War II MENA region with studies on Communism in the region, the emergence of Nasserism, the Algerian struggle for independence, the Arab-Israeli conflict, and Iran and its revolutions.Sections on “Neoliberal Authoritarianisms” and “State, Law, and Gender” cover the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries and delve into issues such as rethinking the political economy of oil, media as method in the age of revolution, Syria's economic history, gender in post-invasion Iraq, “sextarianism” in Lebanon, current affairs in Israel/Palestine, and new approaches to the anthropology of Islamic movements. The last two sections, “From Protest Movements to the Arab uprisings” and “Crisis and Collapse” engage in subjects such as the uprisings in historical perspective, Tunisia's history between liberation and renewal, the Arab youth of the twenty-first century, the “New Turkey,” the Kurdish quest for democratic self-governmentin Syria, and, finally, Libya's path to collapse.All in all, thirty-three essays on well-chosen subjects provide an inclusive and comprehensive view of the modern and contemporary history of the region. There are, of course, other topics that were not included. Needless to say, no compendium could possibly be all-inclusive. One subject that could have and should have been addressed is refugees, and not only the Palestinian refugees from 1948, but especially the more recent waves of refugees. These have arisen from crises, civil wars, and collapse in various parts of the region. The region is home to 5.4 percent of the world's population but is the original abode of 37.5 percent of the world's refugees, who pose an extremely difficult social and political challenge to the affluent countries of Western Europe.European countries have become the havens of desire for many millions of these destitute migrants, with far-reaching implications for the political, social, and economic future of Western Europe. Another subject that should have been addressed in depth is that of demographic trends and the linkage between population growth and domestic crisis and upheaval.The introduction, crafted in the Marxist analytical straightjacket of the editors, places regional developments almost entirely in the hands of extraneous factors. The editors accuse the UN Arab Human Development Reports of paternalism toward the people of the region, but are guilty of it themselves. The local peoples are reduced to the role of hapless victims in a grand design composed by the forces of international capitalism in which they have virtually no agency, other than for the masses to take to the streets in rebellion.The more neoliberal economists, multinational companies and pliant national governments have moulded international law and the nation state form in order to “encase [and] inoculate capitalism against the threat of democracy,” the less people trusted their political systems and the rule of law. (xvii–xviii) Surely demographic trends and unmanageable population growth are more directly responsible for regional developments than the machinations of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank.When it wasn't the multinational companies and their allies it was the great powers, who determined the regional course of events. “The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 destroyed a fledgling secular republic while the US-orchestrated and co-funded Mujahidin resistance against Soviet occupation planted terrorist seeds for 9/11” (xvii). The United States, therefore, essentially brought the attack on the Twin Towers upon itself by planting its terrorist seeds, while the Soviets engaged in the destruction of “a fledgling secular republic.” Secular liberation movements in the region, like the PLO or the FLN, have been in decline for decades. There are no secular republics anywhere in the MENA region and it strains the imagination to believe that the one that was just about to emerge in Afghanistan, of all places, was nipped in the bud by the Soviet invasion. As the Taliban almost effortlessly took over Afghanistan in August 2021, within just days after the withdrawal of US and other foreign forces, one can only wonder whatever happened to the secular republicans of Afghanistan since the departure of the Russians over thirty years ago.Elections in the West, according to the “extraneous forces” school, have a greater impact on the Middle East than centuries of domestic historical, social, cultural, and religious developments. Thus, the “elections of British prime minister Margaret Thatcher in 1979 and US President Ronald Reagan in 1980 paved the way for violent economic, political, military, and cultural ‘rollback’ at home and abroad” (xviii). These events were followed by the demise of the Soviet Union, which gave free rein to the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank to implement austerity measures. Their policies … dismantled the social fabric and gutted the welfare state the world over. With organized labor and trade unions curtailed, the most destructive forms of organized resistance to globalization have come from xenophobic and identitarian movements, exacerbated by spectacular acts of non-state and state terrorism. (xviii) Islamic radicalism, therefore, like everything else in the region is mainly the work of foreign powers and their collaborators in the institutions of global finance.The credibility of the UN Arab Human Development Reports, which over the years placed much more responsibility for the Arab predicament on local causes such as the chronic deficits in political freedom, in first world education systems and in gender equality, is undermined by citing the “harsh criticism in Western academic circles of the reports' developmentalist underpinnings, paternalist attitude, and for providing intellectual ammunition for foreign intervention” (xx).Developments in the region, in the minds of the editors of this volume, were not, at least in major part, a consequence of the actions and inactions of the peoples of the region, demographic trends, and rapid population growth, declining standards of living, radical politics, gender inequalities, Islamism and sectarianism, a general failure to modernize successfully, and so on and so forth, ad infinitum, but almost solely the influence of extraneous forces like the great powers, the World Bank, the IMF, the multinationals, and Israel.Only marginally to the impact of the extraneous forces is there mention of a rather cryptic, incidental, and almost insignificant “alliance between some oppressive regimes and certain types [my emphases, A.S.] of conservative religious scholars [which] led to interpretations of Islam, which serve the government, but are unamicable to human development” (xix). But religion and the Islamic and Islamist phenomena, in their various forms, are ubiquitous in the public domain, in the schools, and in politics, and not just incidentally in some isolated instances of repressive regimes and certain types of conservatives.Bernard Lewis, reduced and discredited by the editors as “the late orientalist and neocon consultant” (xxiii), noted half a century ago that to “understand anything at all about what is happening in the Muslim world at the present time and what has happened in the past, there are two essential points which need to be grasped. One is the universality of religion as a factor in the lives of the Muslim peoples, and the other is its centrality.”1Indeed, there can be no substitute for the knowledge of the historical, linguistic, and cultural background of the peoples of the MENA region, to truly understand and appreciate the Middle East of our times and its profound political and social undercurrents. This is not about Middle Eastern exceptionalism. Exactly the same would apply to all of the peoples in all regions of the world. ISIS, the editors maintain very correctly, “is the product of dictatorial regimes, failed economies, broken educational systems, and extreme hopelessness, out of which a search for an Islamist utopia was born” (xxiv).But where does the historical responsibility for these developments lie? Centuries of history matter for the MENA region, just as centuries of history matter for everywhere else. They offer a wealth of analytical and explanatory value far more than the incidental elections of Margaret Thatcher and Ronald Reagan or the malevolent machinations of international finance.Editors accuse “right wing pundits and born-again atheists” (whoever they may be) of taking their cues from Lewis to cast ISIS as “the true face of modern Islam and, indeed, Islam as a whole” (xxiii). Lewis made no such presumptuous attempt to define any “true face.” Indeed, there is none and it is not for Lewis, pundits of whatever stripe, nor the editors to define this “true face.” It is for Muslims to define the “true faces” of Islam, just as Jews and Christians define their respective multiple faces. Needless to say, there are no precise definitions of the true faces of Islam, Judaism, or Christianity. They are imagined by their various sages, clerics, political activists, and believers in general, and there are almost as many versions as there are interpreters.Fortunately, not all the essays are in lockstep with the paternalistic “extraneous forces” model set out by the editors. The article by Nader Sohrabi on the “Constitutional Revolutions and State Formations in Comparison: Iran and Turkey” is a case in point. It compares the two Middle Eastern cases with constitutional settings outside the Middle East, it discusses the shared religio-political traditions in other Middle Eastern countries and the common geopolitical threat of European imperialism, and analyzes the divergent political features of the Ottoman Empire and Iran. Though in both countries there are critical inputs of outside forces it is the local players who dominate the narrative and it is clearly the Turks, on the one hand, and the Iranians, on the other, who are the key actors. Even though there is the Public Debt Administration in Turkey and the Russian and British intrusion in Iran, it is the locals who are the leading players and not the foreigners.Two military strongmen rose from the ashes of these constitutional revolutions: Atatürk and Reza Shah. Though identified officially and popularly as the founders of modern Turkey and Iran, they were very different personalities. As Sohrabi concludes: The “respective state-building programs of Atatürk and Reza Shah were part of the agendas of the preceding constitutional movements and their rise could be understood only in that light.” But the two leaders differed considerably. While Ataturk was an enlightened dictator in a republican setting, Reza Shah was more of a despot, according to Sohrabi (87).Raz on “Dodging the Peril of Peace: Israel and the Arabs in the Aftermath of the June 1967 War” is at the other end of the spectrum. Raz outdoes the editors. In their introduction, they note that Palestine is at the core of the “epistemic injustice” in the MENA region. It is at the epicenter of regional developments and the cause of the region's chronic instability. As we learn from the introduction, “Israel expanded its territory after the June 1967 war, blocked Palestinian national aspirations, and destabilized the region” (xxvii). Thus, unprovoked and out of the blue, Israel expanded its territory in 1967 and destabilized the region.As Raz shows, it is invariably all about Israel, with the Arabs as victims at the hands of their belligerent neighbor. The Israelis have no saving grace. They are duplicitous, deceptive, mean, aggressive and are possessed by an insatiable territorial appetite. For them, land for peace is a peril to be dodged, as the title of the essay declares. Raz's essay is a mirror image of the propaganda that Israeli right-wingers produce on the Palestinians, cherry-picking evidence in bad faith (for some stories there is no evidence), truncating quotations, quoting out of context, and supplying malicious translations. There is no empathy for the subject, no effort to explain, only to condemn. This is pamphleteering rather than historical analysis. There is hardly a paragraph without some cause for a corrective comment. A few examples will have to suffice.Premier Eshkol expressed “great desire” to keep the Gaza Strip although, according to Raz, “he had difficulty explaining why.” Perhaps “because of Samson and Delilah,” Eshkol said (271). Examining the source shows that Eshkol had no difficulty with the explanation, but Raz chose not to share it, intimating that Eshkol was some kind of bible-bashing buffoon. Eshkol had a reputation for both wit and wisdom. Samson and Delilah were obviously Eshkol's jest. The real explanation was a sentence later when Eshkol observed: “when you see the map, with the Egyptian finger of the [Gaza] Strip” (pointing to Tel Aviv), “you want to keep the Strip for yourself. But this is a rose with many thorns. There are 300–400 thousand Arabs there.”2Raz also quotes Moshe Dayan on various issues. “The true reason for storming the Golan was, according to Dayan's retrospective admission, strong pressure from leaders of kibbutzim in the Galilee who craved the fertile land of the area” (271). This retrospective admission is in a seven-page-long, especially revealing, interview. Of the seven pages Raz chose one sentence out of an inconsistent text, hardly a source on which to base such an unequivocal determination as “the [one and only] true reason” for taking the Golan.In the interview Dayan does say that the kibbutzim pressured the government to take the Golan because they wanted the land. But when questioned by the interviewer on whether he really meant to say that all that motivated the kibbutzim was their desire for more land, Dayan prevaricated and contradicted himself within the space of one paragraph: “That is not what I am saying. Of course, they wanted the Syrians to disappear out of their sight. They had suffered a lot from the Syrians … The Syrians who faced them were soldiers who shot at them and naturally they did not like it.” But, all the same, he was “absolutely certain” that when they approached the government to take the Golan, what drove the kibbutzim was their craving for the land and nothing else.3So even Dayan had a moment's hesitation on what he thought the kibbutzim really wanted, not to mention Israel's generals and ministers in the cabinet for whom there were many other political and strategic considerations, beyond the farming land for the kibbutzim. Israel's subsequent reluctance to withdraw from the Golan was related to the strategic importance of the Heights, looking down on Northern Israel facing west, and on the road to Damascus facing east. It had precious little to do with the orchards, the cattle ranches, and the wineries, with all due respect to the farmers.Israel, we are told, “set its heart on Sinai, too, particularly Sharm al-Sheikh at the southern tip of the peninsula, overlooking the Straits of Tiran—the gateway to the Israeli port of Eilat. ‘Better Sharm al-Sheikh without peace than peace without Sharm al-Sheikh,’ Dayan famously stated” (271). Interestingly, though, and well known to Raz, Dayan himself thought this was a foolish statement. When confronted about it in the same retrospective interview quoted above by Raz, Dayan retorted angrily: “So I said it. So what? … Only fools quote things and hang on to them as if they were the Torah [given] to Moses from [Mount] Sinai … Only donkeys don't change their minds.”4On June 19, 1967, the Israeli cabinet passed a resolution “that seemingly proposed” a withdrawal from the occupied Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights in return for contractual peace with Egypt and Syria, respectively. But, Raz reveals, there was a catch, a typically Israeli “deceptive move.” The resolution provided that the peace accords should be “based on the international borders and the security needs of Israel” in to Israel to of Sinai and the Israel, Raz was far less than it wanted to the real however, in for contractual peace with Israel did in withdraw from of the Sinai and It is especially the that this is no Raz still case as if the peace over years There was nothing about the cabinet Israel's security needs were not “a They were as of 1967 in UN and part and of the peace with which made the withdrawal from Sinai Israel was also in the to withdraw from the Golan Heights in for peace with such a was because of the failure of the to to which Israel would and, more the of Israel and to on Israel's on security and the of The failure did not on an Israeli to new Palestinian after These refugees were as to them from the refugees. The Raz them for the by the Israelis was and not which who The by Raz, is as as stories are just Raz an according to whom the Israelis two on the of the June war, for on that could to the for in the of an Egyptian This to say the The of Israel's forces were on the Egyptian which was but a from Israel's home to most of its the of population was in the over on the would have been far more to Israel than to much to Israel's military and to its the of the June War Israel engaged in with Palestinian who in in the to the Israel's pursuit of the their especially in of the of the Arab The of the them in to of the and the PLO the of the Palestinian all this was Israel's This in which the are no more than of the Israeli with virtually no role in the of their own national is need not be a of Israel nor of Israel's occupation of the Bank to be to provide a more of the of Israeli which are not a of and It would be a challenge to any in the international from ISIS to Iran and North and anywhere and everywhere in policies could be solely as a of and the of Raz, “The and by is a of This is an and of Turkey, through the of the local as the key players in the of the The IMF, the World Bank and the are not even and a is the has both in its domestic and in its of foreign and the essay an of the of over the last years. Turkey was no the for countries in the world. The political has been from a to one of This has a of social and political that has destabilized the and one half of the that do not for the and was by as a of for and policies were designed to to a while The of religion as a to and the own base has become a part of a background of and the failed attempt of a for to the through This effort was less than a cultural and social on a with the original state-building of the at the of the republic.” pursuit of a Turkey in image was designed to the and its republican the civil and with the of over the was “the core and of the all the while from its own The the has over was a of the religious the of state the that the foreign affairs Turkey of the has from its with the European Union, and the United The international Turkey from the to Turkey as a major in the Arab and Muslim world. This has since the failed as have the of the military and foreign who the Western with who a to the East, foreign with an on a and Islamist of the attempt has been by of for the with himself in the role of “the But in to “he has made himself into a more on less to the of and over an and destabilized this is an if the can and the ideological the does offer a comprehensive and high-quality collection of essays covering a of topics and as such will still to be a very and of the modern Middle East and its historical

There is an ongoing debate about whether China’s growing economic presence in the Middle East will eventually make it more politically assertive on the Middle Eastern affairs. This paper demonstrates, from a theoretical perspective of “path dependence,” that China’s promotion of the “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence” since the 1950s as the guiding doctrine of its foreign relations has forged a “path” for China to follow, along which it has made and repeated promises against interventionism and imperialism to other countries including the Middle Eastern ones. It, in turn, has created a situation where moving away from that “path against interventionism and imperialism” will cause huge damage to China’s reputation as a reliable non-interventionist partner to the Middle Eastern countries, and the “Global South” in general. As a result, China has refrained, and will arguably continue to refrain, from being too politically assertive on the Middle Eastern affairs.

The aftermath of major regional and global financial crisis always has tremendous impact on regional and global political and economic landscape. In several major regions of the world, financial crisis has led to the establishment and/or expansion of regional financial safety nets (FSNs), which acts a complement to current multilateral or global financial safety nets such as IMF. However, the establishment and expansion of these regional safety nets is not without consequences. This paper finds that regional safety nets, which came in line with the spirit of regionalism and regional integration, has major impacts on global financial architecture. First, it has created a new level of financial cooperation, in addition to the existing ones (namely the bilateral and multilateral level), including adding new actors to the financial system such as the regional monetary union. Second, regional FSNs are results of political action within states and among states which can affect its relationship with IMF. In this sense, at the time of crisis, countries need to bargain and cooperate at the domestic level, regional level and multilateral level simultaneously. Third, due to regional political consideration, countries may opt to lending and borrowing activities at the regional level, and increase the incentives for countries to do forum shopping. In sum, the development and growing importance of regional financial safety nets in global and regional politics should be assessed more carefully, particularly regarding its relationship with IMF.

This research paper aims to explore the implications of Iran’s nuclear deal on the growing influence of Iran in the Middle East. It also tries to investigate the reasons of the US withdrawal from the Iran’s nuclear deal and its alliance with the Saudi-Arabia to balance out the increasing dominance of Iran in the region. In 2015, a deal was secured among P5+1 (China, United States, Russia, France, Britain and Germany) and Iran, named as Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) which was endorsed by the UN Security Council Resolution 2231. A 159 pages agreement directed that the commitment of Iran with JCPOA would be verified by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Complying to the requirements that were set forth in the agreement Iran dismantled much of its nuclear activities by giving more excess to IAEA and arm race in the Middle East was expected to slow down. American President Donald J. Trump on May 8th, 2018 announced the withdrawal from its nuclear deal and putting more sanctions on the regime. The nuclear non-proliferation in the Middle East was disrupted