Israel could attack Iran without US green light

December 3rd, 2008

The Jerusalem Post reports today that a “top Ministry of Defense official” said that Israel could attack Iran’s nuclear targets with or without coordination with the US.

Israeli officials have said it would be difficult, but not impossible, to launch a strike against Iran without receiving codes from the US Air Force, which controls Iraqi airspace. Israel also asked for the codes in 1991 during the First Gulf War, but the US refused.

And last week Maj-Gen. Ido Nehushtan, commander of the Israel Air Force said that Israel had the capability to destroy the Iranian nuclear facilities:

Nehushtan told [Der Spiegel] that whether a military strike is eventually decided upon is a political question and not an issue of Israel’s military capabilities.

A strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities “is a political decision,” the IAF commander said, “but if I understand it correctly, all options are on the table… The Air Force is a very robust and flexible force. We are ready to do whatever is demanded of us.”

When asked by the paper whether the Israeli military was able to destroy Iran’s nuclear facilities, which are spread around the country and partly located underground, Nehushtan said, “Please understand that I do not want to get into details. I can only say this: It is not a technical or logistical question.”  — Jerusalem Post

I don’t doubt that there are such contingency plans, because Israel cannot afford not to have them. But the interesting question is this one:

Why are a “top MOD official” and a normally reticent general talking to the foreign and English-language Israeli media about them? And why now?

One could speculate that the intended target is the incoming Obama administration, whose Iran policy is developing right now. But I don’t think so. For one thing, it would be easy to communicate with it directly. For the other, we need to look at the developing Obama policy.

Steven Rosen (“Wishful Thinking and Iran” [highly recommended]) suggests that Obama will initially reject out of hand  a) the military option  (whether executed by the US or by Israel with US acquiescence), b) the option of trying to bring about regime change in Iran, and c) the option of accepting a nuclear-armed Iran. He believes that the most likely policy will be a an attempt to change Iranian behavior with a combination of diplomatic carrots and sticks.

But Rosen points to a long history of failed negotiations between the US and Iran since 1979 — including a surprising number of attempts at ‘engagement’ by the Bush administration — to argue that the likelihood of this approach being successful  is low. He believes that the Iranians will continue to temporize until the administration faces only two options: bomb Iran or accept it as a nuclear-armed nation.

There is little doubt that the US will not initiate an attack even at this point: the negatives are too great: our troops in the region could be placed at risk, the oil supply could be disrupted, there could be world-wide terrorist attacks, even in the heart of the US.  And in the final analysis, the short-term consequences for America of Iran’s nuclearization would not be catastrophic (and what politician thinks about the long term?). Iran understands this and therefore does not fear a US attack. So it continues on the nuclear path.

Israel, on the other hand, sees an Iranian bomb as an existential issue.  If Iran develops a bomb and there is a possibility that it will be used against Israel — and it would be almost impossible to defend against a low-trajectory missile fired from Hezbollastan — then Israel would have no other option than to preempt. Ehud Olmert can claim that such thoughts are “megalomania”, but even a bear fears a cornered bobcat, and for good reason.

But Iran believes that the US would not permit an Israeli attack. The Bush administration, and particularly Robert Gates, the Defense Secretary who will continue with Obama, have made it clear that they are strongly opposed to it. Iranian policymakers think that the US will never give Israel a green light.

But what if Israel didn’t need one?

Possibly the recent flurry of talk is intended to send a message to Iran that Israel a) can and b) will attack if it comes to that. And that maybe Iran would be better off accepting some of the large carrots that Obama will certainly be proferring instead of, essentially, making a committment to war.

Today Iran is seriously hurting due to the low price of oil. Those carrots are looking better all the time.

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Olmert still doing damage

December 2nd, 2008

In the summer of 2006, the second Lebanon war marked a turning point in the Mideast balance of power. By holding off the IDF, by showing that Israel was powerless to prevent massive disruption on her home front, by obtaining an advantageous settlement to the 33 day long war, Hezbollah struck a huge blow at Israel’s deterrent — both in image and reality, as the toothless UN resolution 1701 allowed Hezbollah to rearm far beyond its position at the start of the war. At the same time, Hezbollah’s effectiveness in manipulating the media — and Israel’s incompetence in that area — cast Israel as the villain, despite the fact that Hezbollah was the aggressor. ‘Disproportionate response’ was heard over and over as Hezbollah rockets continued to strike towns in northern Israel.

Whether by coincidence or due to the propaganda spin that characterized it, the war also marked a turning point in the American attitude toward Israel.  Initially the Bush administration — with the support of anti-Iranian elements in the Arab world — was prepared to allow Israel to finish off Hezbollah. After several weeks in which this did not happen, and during which Israel was continuously pilloried in the media, the administration’s patience wore out and Israel was instructed to accept the UN cease-fire.

American policy then made a 180-degree turn in the direction of the ‘realist’ position: the way to solve the problems of the Mideast is to force Israel to come to an agreement with the Palestinians, not to confront bad actors like Iran and Hezbollah (the Iraq Study Group report is an example). The Annapolis process began, aiming to bring about a Palestinian state. Israel was pressured to join a cease-fire with Hamas. And in November of 2007, a National Intelligence Estimate was issued that more or less sent the message that the US could live with  Iranian nuclear weapons.

I am not asserting that Israel’s failure in the 2006 war was the primary cause of the shift in American policy. But you can be sure that the advocates of the new policy — the policy that is certain to be adopted by the Obama administration — used it as an argument: “military force will be ineffective against Iran and her proxies; look what happened when the IDF, considered one of the best fighting forces in the world, went up against Hezbollah!”

There is plenty of blame to go around: for the inadequate preparation of the IDF, the strategic and tactical mistakes made, the lack of intelligence, the failure to follow a consistent plan, the inability to protect the home front, the lack of an effective media capability to counteract Hezbollah’s atrocity stories, the incredible blunder of ordering a large ground assault in the last two days of the war, etc. The IDF Chief of Staff, Dan Halutz, resigned as a result of criticism. The completely incompetent Minister of Defense, Amir Peretz, was replaced by Ehud Barak, who at least knows to remove the lens caps from his binoculars.

However, the largest share of blame must go to Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, both for the decisions he made (and didn’t make) and because as PM he bears the ultimate responsibility. Unfortunately, he somehow escaped punishment for one of Israel’s most serious failures and continued in office as PM.  Since then he has been credibly accused of multiple forms of corruption in office, and is now about to be indicted for one of them, billing several agencies for the same travel.

In other words, in addition to having failed at leading Israel in war and damaging her strategic position immensely, Olmert is most likely a common thief.

But that’s not all. It gets even worse.

While still hanging on to his position (a result of the dysfunctional parliamentary system that Israel is cursed with), and with a public approval rating in the single digits, he is making public policy pronouncements. Although he has no mandate to make concessions to the Palestinians, he  nevertheless is making statements that it will be hard for future governments to ignore.

He has called for “a withdrawal from nearly all, if not all, of the [occupied] territories”, including Jerusalem. and for returning the Golan heights to Syria, and has said there is a “short amount of time” in which to do this. He has called the idea that Israel is capable of  ‘doing something’ about the Iranian threat ‘megalomania’.

Anyone can take such positions. But anyone who does has to explain exactly how Israel can withdraw from “nearly all, if not all” of the territories today, while Hamas stands ready to take them over as it has in Gaza, and when there is no Palestinian leadership capable of making an enforceable peace. And he would have to explain why he thinks that Syria will choose to cut her fruitful ties with Iran and stop arming Hezbollah if Israel returns the Golan. Olmert doesn’t explain these things because they can’t be explained.

But when Olmert speaks — and his words are translated into English and printed in the NY Review of Books — then his words have significance. Indeed, they were quoted yesterday in the New York Times, by Roger Cohen (“Try Tough Love, Hillary“). They fit in well with Cohen’s argument that the new Secretary of State should continue the realist policy of her predecessor, and push, push, push until Israel finally gets out of the West Bank and Syria returns to the Golan:

Getting to such a two-state deal at, or close to, the 1967 borders will require concerted U.S. involvement from day one of the Obama administration. Its tone should be one of tough love, with the emphasis on tough.

“I am fiercely attached to Israel’s security”, Cohen says. Yet none of the 826 words of his op-ed are ‘Hamas’ or ‘Hezbollah’. ‘Iran’ appears  twice, thus:

Clinton noted during the campaign that the United States could “obliterate” Iran if it launched a nuclear attack on Israel. Olmert chose different language. He noted “a megalomania and a loss of proportion in the things said here about Iran.” Once again, his words are instructive.

Not a word about the tens of thousands of missiles aimed at Israel by Hezbollah and Syria, no mention that Hamas is developing similar capabilities as Hezbollah, all paid for by Iran. You’d think that someone “fiercely attached to Israel’s security” would think about these concrete threats, threats which would be hugely exacerbated by withdrawal from the West Bank or the Golan in the near future.

Voices like Cohen’s are popping up all over lately. The fundamental mistake they all make is that they assume that the conflict today is driven by the quarrel between Israel and the Palestinians.  It is not. Rather, it has been taken over by Iran to be used as a lever to wipe out Israel, by means of non-state proxies Hamas and Hezbollah and Iranian satellite, Syria.

A solution can’t come from pressuring Israel and paying off some Palestinians. The only way to begin to fix it is to go to the source, which is Iran.

But it’s hard for Americans to see this when they have Olmert’s foolish words to quote.

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What do you have to do to be called a terrorist?

November 29th, 2008

After a three-day standoff with militants ended amid a fire Saturday at the Taj Mahal Palace & Tower Hotel, the removal of the bodies from the wrecked 105-year-old landmark began… 

On Wednesday night, when a married couple in their 70s went to their third-floor window to see what was happening after hearing gunfire, the attackers blazed away with assault rifles, killing them both. Shards of glass still hung in the panes on Saturday.

When several attackers seized a Jewish outreach center, Nariman House, on Wednesday, neighbors mistook the initial shots for firecrackers in celebration of India’s imminent cricket victory over England. But then two attackers stepped out on a balcony of Nariman House and opened fire on passers-by in an alley nearby. They killed a 22-year-old call center worker who was the sole financial supporter of his widowed mother.

When a tailor locked up his store for the night, half a block from the Taj Hotel, a gunman spotted him and killed him instantly, said Rony Dass, a cable television installer. “We still don’t know why they did this,” he said, mourning his lifelong friend. — Somini Sangupta and Keith Bradsher, NY Times

What do you have to do to be called a terrorist?

This question comes to mind when the word ‘militant’  is used in almost all of the media accounts of the Mumbai attacks.

In addition to the usual targets of  Westerners and Jews, the gunmen murdered anyone available — old men and women, anybody they felt like shooting.

When terrorists detonate a bomb, they know they are going to kill indiscriminately, but they don’t usually look their victims in the eye. In many cases these terrorists carefully aimed at their victims, most of whom were ordinary Indians.

“One man’s terrorist is another’s freedom fighter”, Jeremy Bowen of the BBC famously said, no doubt having in mind Palestinian terrorists and thereby proving himself a moral idiot. I suppose his logic is that he would prefer not to offend anyone, no matter how ignorant that person may be.

But for whom are the Mumbai terrorists ‘freedom fighters’?

Is it necessary to call them ‘militants’ so as not to offend the homicidal sociopaths among The Times’ readership? How many of them could there be?

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The Saudi Initiative

November 28th, 2008

What’s so wrong with the ‘Saudi initiative’ (more correctly, the Arab League initiative)? Couldn’t issues like the ‘return’ of descendants of Arab refugees be negotiated into return to the Palestinian state and compensation? After all, it does represent a breakthrough in that for the first time the Saudis seem to be saying that under some circumstances they would recognize Israel.

Caroline Glick makes the problem clear, when she writes,

With his enthusiastic embrace of the so-called Saudi peace plan, Olmert is committing Israel to accepting the Arab narrative of the Arab-Israeli conflict.

The Saudi plan is predicated on the wholly mendacious claim that there has never been any Arab aggression against Israel – only Israeli aggression against Arabs and legitimate Arab resistance to Israel. With Olmert now giving his stamp of approval to the Saudi plan, he is denying the country its moral right to defend itself both militarily and diplomatically. [my emphasis]

Leaving Olmert aside (how wonderful if this were possible in more than rhetoric!),  her point is well taken. The text of the Arab League approved version of the initiative and the original Saudi version can be found here: “The Arab Peace Initiative“.

There are several reasons that Glick is correct. Consider the introduction and point 1 of the proposal:

Reaffirming the resolution taken in June 1996 at the Cairo Extra-Ordinary Arab Summit that a just and comprehensive peace in the Middle East is the strategic option of the Arab countries, to be achieved in accordance with international legality, and which would require a comparable commitment on the part of the Israeli government [introduction]

[The Council of Arab States] requests Israel to reconsider its policies and declare that a just peace is its strategic option as well. [point 1, my emphasis]

In other words,  the Arab states have chosen the ‘strategic option’ of  seeking peace through (their interpretations of) relevant UN resolutions, but Israel has not and must ‘reconsider’. The implication is that the Arabs want peace and Israel does not.

The second point describes the concrete steps that Israel must take — indeed, as the proposal has been presented by the Arabs, must complete — before the Arabs will take action:

I- Full Israeli withdrawal from all the territories occupied since 1967, including the Syrian Golan Heights, to the June 4, 1967 lines as well as the remaining occupied Lebanese territories in the south of Lebanon.  [note that this includes all of East Jerusalem — ed]

II- Achievement of a just solution to the Palestinian refugee problem to be agreed upon in accordance with U.N. General Assembly Resolution 194. [This has always been interpreted by the Arabs to mean that all 4-5 million Arabs claiming refugee status have a right to choose between compensation or ‘returning’ to Israel proper — ed]

III- The acceptance of the establishment of a sovereign independent Palestinian state on the Palestinian territories occupied since June 4, 1967 in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, with East Jerusalem as its capital.

And here is the third point:

Consequently, the Arab countries affirm the following:

I- Consider the Arab-Israeli conflict ended, and enter into a peace agreement with Israel, and provide security for all the states of the region.

II- Establish normal relations with Israel in the context of this comprehensive peace.

The third point begins with the word ‘Consequently’, and the Arabs have made it clear that it is to be understood in a temporal as well as a logical sense — “after the above Israeli actions and as a result of them”. Before discussing the content of the third point, let’s look at the implications of this.

One would expect in a compromise made between equals that steps would be taken by both sides simultaneously, or perhaps with each side making a concession in turn. This gives the impression that neither side is admitting that its present position is untenable, but rather that they are moving together in a cooperative fashion. It also has the practical effect of enabling either side to stop the process if it feels that the other is not living up to its commitments.

But the Arab initiative is exactly the opposite. Israel is required to make all the concessions before the Arab states must do anything. This is reasonable only if we understand the first part — in which Israel must “reconsider its policies” as follows: Israel admits that her policies were wrong and agrees to redress the injustices. Then, and only then, will the Arab states grant ‘peace’ (we’ll discuss what this might be later).

So what exactly is Israel asked to redress?

  • By full withdrawal with no adjustments or compromises, Israel admits that the 1967 war was a war of aggression by Israel against the Arabs.
  • By ‘return’ or compensation of  ‘refugees’ Israel accepts that the consequences of the 1948 war are her responsibility. Everyone agrees that if the ‘refugees’ were allowed into Israel it would be the end of the Jewish state. But it’s also true that accepting responsibility for the refugees by compensation — even if not one ‘returns’ — is an admission of guilt.

So Israel is expected to admit her guilt and sole responsibility for the conflict, and give up everything concrete — land, and possibly even her nation itself. As Glick points out, Arab war and terrorism against Israel are therefore excused because they constitute morally and legally (by the Arabs’ interpretations of UN resolutions) justified resistance against an aggressor.

Now let’s look at what Israel gets, assuming that there still is an Israel after the implementation of point 2.

The conflict will be ‘ended’ — there will be no more fighting. There will be ‘normal relations’. The Arabs will ‘provide security’ for all states in the region.

There is no mention of recognition, even less recognition as a Jewish state. Will Israel even have a role in ‘providing security’ for herself? This is a surrender, not a treaty between equals.

The Arab nations have lost every war they fought against Israel and have had the West save them from suffering the consequences of defeat time and again. Yet they try to dictate terms of surrender as though they had been victorious! What arrogance and chutzpah!

But some say that regardless of all this, Israel should take the proposal seriously, at least as a starting point for negotiations. After all, it is the first time the Arabs — in particular the Saudis –have admitted that under some conditions they will live at peace with Israel. This reminds me of a joke: a man proposes marriage to a woman, who responds “I’ll marry you when Hell freezes over!” So the man goes home and tells his mother, “she hasn’t accepted yet but we have a starting point for negotiations. There are some conditions under which she’ll marry me.”

The only form of this initiative that Israel should be prepared to  use as a basis of negotiations should be one turned upside down. Something like this:

Whereas the Arab nations recognize that the state of Israel is fully legitimate and entitled to define itself as a Jewish state for the Jewish people, they agree to end the conflict.

In return, insofar as the Arabs, Iranians and their proxies will prove that they have actually renounced war and terrorism, Israel will negotiate a two-state solution with the Palestinians — those who accept the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state.

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AP stories distort, distort, distort

November 27th, 2008

The media coverage of the Palestinians seems to be based on the idea that nothing can possibly be their own fault. Every problem they have is a direct result of Zionist colonialism. That’s nonsense. But every story like this buttresses the position of those who want to solve all the problems by making the Zionists go away.

None Dare Call it News Coverage

By Barry Rubin

I realized something important when reading a relatively marginal feature story from the Associated Press.

It shows us that Palestinians don’t really exist as a society but only as a set of victims. By definition, all — or to be fair, almost all, of their problems are said to come from Israel. Yet since the continuation of the conflict and their difficult situation comes first and foremost from within Palestinian politics and society, this kind of interpretation makes it impossible to understand why there is no peace, no Palestinian state, and no end of violence.

Karin Laub, “Amid poverty, a Renaissance villa in the West Bank,” November 26, 2008, provides a great opportunity to talk about the problems within Palestinian society. The story is about a “Palestinian tycoon [who] has created a tranquil paradise on a Holy Land mountaintop, with a replica of a famous Renaissance villa, sculpted gardens and a wrought-iron pavilion that once belonged to a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte.”

We are immediately told, however, that this is to be compared, not to the impoverishment of his own society but rather to guess-who: “But even one of the West Bank’s richest men cannot entirely shut out Israel’s military occupation, army bases and Israeli settlements occupy hills surrounding the 100-acre estate.”

Note that the mere existence of Israeli installations nearby is the “terrible” thing that allegedly cancels out this individual’s Garden of Eden. Not that there is any direct effect, but the message is that all Palestinians are a subject people, no matter how rich they are. He may never meet an Israeli, he may live in a situation where he can accumulate wealth and act as a lord, he may live under Palestinian Authority rule but — we are told — this is deceptive. Because nothing matters but Israel’s presence, even if it is barely in sight.

I have learned not to take even the most basic claims of AP for granted so I do not assume that there are “army bases” or settlements in the area.

Only afterward however are we informed that maybe, just maybe, there is something wrong with this conspicuous display of wealth in the Palestinian context:  “And some say such a display of wealth, the honey-colored Palladian mansion is visible for miles, is jarring at a time of continued economic hardship. At the foot of the mountain in Nablus, unemployment runs at 16 percent and the mayor says 40 percent of the 180,000 residents live in poverty.”

Jarring? How about asking the most basic questions, the kind that would be asked in covering any other society on earth?

The person in question is Munib Masri. The Masris are a large clan closely associated with Fatah and the Palestinian Authority (PA). We are given the bare facts — he was close to Arafat, he formed a development company. But the points are made with the greatest possible delicacy: “Critics say some of the profits were made possible by a lucrative telecommunications monopoly the company held for several years.”

We are not told from whence this monopoly came — from the PA. The word corruption is never mentioned. Such a lack of curiosity about the sources of his wealth does not accord with journalistic practices in covering other stories.

Indeed, the story of the telecommunications monopoly is one of the best-known stories of corruption among Palestinians. How PA and Fatah factions competed over the loot, how Arafat intervened directly into the issue.

But for AP it is a story untold. The story should be as follows:

  • The Palestinian upper economic and political class cares nothing for its own people.
  • In its fourteen-year rule of the West Bank, the PA has focused on looting it rather than on raising living standards and providing good government.
  • Billions of dollars in international aid donations have disappeared, probably paying for a large portion of Masri’s mansion.
  • The PA’s failures are blamed on Israel both by the PA itself, Western governments, and the international media.
  • Palestinian suffering is not primarily due to Israel but to their own leaders.
  • A lot of Israel’s success has been due to Jews around the world making both investments and donations.  Palestinians have not been forthcoming in supporting their own “state,” a point well-known in Palestinian circles (an exception here, of course, is in backing Hamas’s terrorist campaign in recent years).
  • Anyone who keeps their eyes open will see other huge, albeit less impressive than this one, mansions in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. Even other members of Masri’s own family have been criticized for their ostentation. While this estate may be the most extreme case, it is hardly an exception in that regard.
  • Wealthy Palestinians do not give charity to help their poorer cousins. The PA doesn’t even have a comprehensive tax system. Thus, the international community is left to support the Palestinians, and their oversized security apparatus.
  • Violence sponsored by the PA was responsible for destroying the chance for their people to work in Israel, hitherto a major aid to their economy; the destruction of infrastructure; and the hesitation of investors, who are also put off by the PA’s corruption and incompetence.
  • Intransigence and the failure to reach a compromise solution stem from the Palestinian leadership, including Masri’s buddy, Arafat.

Meanwhile, despite the hints in this article about a stifling Israeli occupation, Masri has no difficulty in proposing huge projects costing more than a half billion dollars. I suspect that these projects will never materialize but will be scams for ripping off foreign aid money.  “Masri remains optimistic, even though independence appears no closer than when he first returned to the West Bank.”  Hm, I wonder why they haven’t achieved it yet. I sure won’t learn it from AP coverage.

And to switch to the broader picture, consider another Karin Laub effort, “Abbas ads make appeal to Israelis,” November 21, 2008. The subtitle is, “The Palestinian’s ads detail withdrawal terms first offered in a 2002 Arab Peace Initiative.” Well, if the ads detail the terms, Laub certainly doesn’t.

The 12-paragraph story never gets around to telling us what’s in the offer and why Israel has a problem with it. The only reference to that point says, “An Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and parts of Jerusalem would bring them recognition by the Arab world.”

Of course, Israel has already withdrawn from all of Gaza, but at any rate it would have been easy for Laub to mention that the terms are for Israel to leave all of the West Bank and all of east Jerusalem, not one centimeter less. She merely had to insert the word “all.” The point is that the way it is worded makes the offer seem more attractive than it is.

But that’s not the worst part. Laub doesn’t mention that the plan also demands that all — there’s that word again — Palestinians who ever lived in any part of what is now Israel and all their descendents must be allowed to ‘return’ to Israel. That’s a few million people.

To distort points of fact about the terms is scandalous and shameful. A couple of decades ago, AP would have issued a correction. But that’s not the way things are done nowadays, is it? Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni is only paraphrased as saying “its positions on key issues such as final borders, the status of Jerusalem and the fate of Palestinian refugees are not acceptable.” There’s no explanation as to why it is, presumably lest Israel’s rejection be understood as a rational response.

And as always there is no mention of Palestinian refusal to meet Israel’s needs. As always, we aren’t even told about such things, which Abbas’s adds don’t mention: end of incitement to terrorism, a declared end to the conflict, no foreign troops on Palestinian soil. One might think that an ad campaign by the PA would say something about Palestinian positions.

The article concludes, “Many Israelis are also skeptical about a peace deal, in part because the embattled Abbas no longer speaks for all Palestinians.”

Thank goodness that while it is impermissible to criticize the PA or Fatah, at least the media can talk about Hamas. We are then given a decent description of it as an  “Islamic extremist group” which staged a “violent 2007 takeover, two years after a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the territory,” and its firing of “thousands of rockets and mortars on Israeli border towns since the pullout.” The article then notes, “Israelis fear a West Bank withdrawal could bring more attacks.”

Of course, that’s in the last paragraph. But two more reasons for Israeli skepticism should also be added: the failure of the PA to keep its past promises and its demands that Israel give everything without offering anything itself.

Can we coin a phrase here? Much of the coverage can be called “anti-news” because it is deceptive nature. Perhaps there should be little labels affixed, like those on cigarette packs: Warning! Reading this article can be hazardous to your intellectual health.

Barry Rubin is director of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center and editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs (MERIA) Journal. His latest books are The Israel-Arab Reader (seventh edition), with Walter Laqueur (Viking-Penguin); the paperback edition of The Truth About Syria (Palgrave-Macmillan); A Chronological History of Terrorism, with Judy Colp Rubin, (Sharpe); and The Long War for Freedom: The Arab Struggle for Democracy in the Middle East (Wiley). To read and subscribe to MERIA and other GLORIA Center publications or to order books, visit http://www.gloriacenter.org.

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