Middle East

• 
• 8/2/2020
  

  30 Years Later: Saddam Hussein's Fateful Decision to Invade Kuwait

  by Guy Laron

  It was clear from the outset that this was a desperate gamble that put Iraq on a collision course with Washington. But Saddam believed he had no other choice but to stop Kuwait from dumping oil into a slack market.

• 
• SOURCE: France 24
  6/21/2020
  

  Israeli Historian Zeev Sternhell, Advocate for Palestinian Rights, Dies at 85

  Hebrew University president Asher Cohen hailed Sternhell, a professor emeritus there who was awarded the prestigious Israel Prize for political science in 2008, as "among the most important researchers" to emerge from the institution.

• 
• 6/14/2020
  

  Israel and the Palestinians: Architects of Their Own Destruction

  by Alon Ben-Meir

  The political positions of Israeli and Palestinian leadership set the region on a path toward more bloodshed. 

• 
• SOURCE: New York Times
  5/7/2020
  

  Daniel Pipes Argues Annexing the West Bank Would Hurt Israel

  Daniel Pipes, prominent conservative American commentator on Middle Eastern affairs, gives six reasons to believe that taking over Palestinian territory would harm both U.S.-Israel relations and Israel’s status as the Jewish state.

• 
• 4/17/2020
  

  The Saudis, the Jews, and FDR's Dog: The Opening of the US-Saudi Relationship

  by Rafael Medoff

  Recent commemorations of FDR's diplomatic meeting with King Abdul Aziz in 1945 obscure unsavory aspects of the origins of the US-Saudi relationship. 

• 
• SOURCE: The New York Times
  4/6/2020
  

  Will the Virus Trigger a Second Arab Spring?

  The coronavirus outbreak is likely to bring into focus the legitimacy and governance deficit of troubled Middle Eastern regimes.

• 
• 2/16/20
  

  A Gallon of Talk and a Teaspoon of Action, Then Label the Problem "Insolvable" and Plan Another Conference

  by Robert Scott Kellner

  What shall it avail, the latest speech-laden conference on this topic, when seventy-five years of intensive Holocaust education had no effect on Holocaust deniers and could not stop the resurgence of the virulent anti-Semitism that had infected Germany one hundred years ago?

• 
• 2/13/20
  

  The Travesty of the Century

  by Alon Ben-Meir

  Whereas the US has over the years played a central role in the effort to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, no American administration has provided such a detailed proposal, certainly not one that grants Israel all of its wish list.

• 
• SOURCE: Al Jazeera
  2/11/20
  

  America held hostage

  by David Marks

  Forty years after the Iran hostage crisis, its impact endures.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  2/5/20
  

  The United States and Saudi Arabia aren’t allies. They never have been.

  by Ellen R. Wald

  One of our key ideas about the Middle East is wrong.

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  2/5/20
  

  How the US repeatedly failed to support reform movements in Iran

  by Pardis Mahdavi

  For 40 years, the relationship between the U.S. and Iran has been marked by disagreement – but also by a series of missed opportunities.

• 
• 2/2/20
  

  Israel as Palestine: One State is Not the Solution, It’s Reality

  by Ian S. Lustick

  The struggle for peace between Israel and the Palestinians has been replaced by struggles, likely to take generations, for the equalityof Jews and Arabs within the state now known as Israel.

• 
• SOURCE: BBC History Extra
  1/21/20
  

  Tension in the Middle East and populist presidents: what the world was like 100 years ago

  by David Charlwood

  Violent uprisings in the Middle East and a populist US president vowing to put “America First”. Historian David Charlwood looks back 100 years to the global situation of 1920 and finds remarkable parallels with the present.

• 
• SOURCE: Washington Post
  1/8/20
  

  War with Iran is not inevitable — but the U.S. must change course

  by Kelly J. Shannon

  The relationship between the countries, once friends and allies, has soured — because of U.S. aggression.

• 
• SOURCE: HistoryExtra
  Accessed 1/9/20
  

  Understand the news with this brief history of Iran

  by Ali M Ansari

  From the US assassination of Iranian commander Qasem Soleimani to the ongoing case of the jailed mother Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe, Iran has scarcely been out of the headlines in recent months. But how far back does the history of Iran stretch?

• 
• 12/19/19
  

  2020 Will Be More Turbulent Than 2019, Unless…

  by Alon Ben-Meir

  The year 2020 will most likely be as turbulent if not more so than 2019 due mainly to the lack of American leadership and the rush of other powers, especially Russia, China, and to a lesser extent Turkey and Iran, to fill the vacuum the US is leaving behind.

• 
• SOURCE: The Conversation
  12/12/19
  

  Children in the ancient Middle East were valued and vulnerable — not unlike children today

  by Shawn Flynn and Kristine Garroway

  The choices that societies make concerning the treatment of children can bring about the greatest of debates and prompt significant political action. 

• 
• 12/15/19
  

  A Real Red Wedding Massacre Puts Lie to Trump's Claim That he "Obliterated" ISIS

  by Brian Glyn Williams and Javed Rezayee

  The human cost of the war in Afghanistan. 

• 
• 11/26/19
  

  The History Behind the Rocket Used in the Latest Attack Against Israel

  by Gideon Remez

  Israel wielded a similar "mega-rocket" against Egypt 50 years ago. How Soviet advisers dealt with it.

• 
• 11/24/19
  

  The Mysterious Assassination That Unleashed Jihadism

  by Thomas Hegghammer

  The story of Abdallah Azzam suggests that a root cause of modern jihadism was the collapse in respect for religious authority among young Islamists in the late 1980s.