MESH invites selected authors to offer original first-person statements on their new books—why and how they wrote them, and what impact they hope and expect to achieve. Itamar Rabinovich was Israel’s chief negotiator with Syria, and is visiting professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School. His new book is The View from Damascus: [...]
Archive for November, 2008
Solving the Iranian dilemma
Posted in Iran, Israel, Mark T. Clark, Nuclear on Nov 24th, 2008 Comments Off
From Mark T. Clark One of the more pressing problems facing the new administration of Barack Obama will be dealing with the incipient Iranian nuclear program. During the primaries and election, Obama only said that we will need a robust international effort to stop the program. Broadly speaking, however, he seems inclined towards nuclear disarmament, [...]
A Middle East envoy?
Posted in Adam Garfinkle, Alan Dowty, Diplomacy, Israel, Josef Joffe, Mark N. Katz, Palestinians, Raymond Tanter, Robert O. Freedman, Robert Satloff, Syria, Tamara Cofman Wittes, Walter Reich on Nov 20th, 2008 Comments Off
From MESH Admin Over the past week, MESHNet, the closed-forum companion to MESH, conducted a poll of MESHNet members, asking them who would make the best Middle East envoy of the Obama administration (if it is decided to appoint one). The structure of the poll emulated an earlier poll administered to a panel of Israeli [...]
Pop quiz!
Posted in Afghanistan, Demography, Intelligence, Iran, Iraq, Military, Yemen on Nov 18th, 2008 Comments Off
From MESH Admin Some of the many interactive geography quizzes on the web ask visitors to identify the countries and capitals of the Middle East. We assume MESH readers have no problem there, so we’ve collected links to more challenging quizzes. There’s no end to learning.
‘Hamas vs. Fatah’
Posted in Books, Hamas, Lebanon, Palestinians on Nov 17th, 2008 Comments Off
MESH invites selected authors to offer original first-person statements on their new books—why and how they wrote them, and what impact they hope and expect to achieve. Jonathan Schanzer is director of policy at the Jewish Policy Center and a former counterterrorism analyst for the Office of Intelligence and Analysis at the U.S. Department of [...]
1967 and memory
Posted in Egypt, Israel, Jordan, Martin Kramer, Michael Young, Palestinians, Syria on Nov 13th, 2008 2 Comments »
From Martin Kramer How did the outcome of 1967 change the way Arabs think about themselves and the world? It was the late Malcolm Kerr, one of America’s leading Arabists at the time, who perfectly summarized the consensus. (Kerr was a UCLA professor, later president of the American University of Beirut, who was killed there [...]
Terrorism’s money trail
Posted in Matthew Levitt, Terrorism on Nov 11th, 2008 Comments Off
From Matthew Levitt U.S. and international efforts to combat terrorist financing are a little understood—and often under-appreciated—aspect of the global counterterrorism campaign. With this in mind, soon after rejoining The Washington Institute after serving in the Treasury Department’s Office of Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, Michael Jacobson and I decided that it would be worthwhile to [...]