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Arab-Israel, Palestinian - Israeli or Muslim versus the West?
The evolution of the Palestine Issue in Arab and Western politics and policy
The conflict between the Arabs and Jews of Palestine has always been expressed in several different dimensions, each of which assumes greater or lesser importance at different times in history and in different perspectives. Some of the major dimensions are:
Arab people versus the Jews of Palestine or
Palestinians versus the Jews of Palestine
Muslims versus Jews of Israel
Muslims and Arabs versus the West
It is not always easy to untangle these different motifs either in popular thinking about the conflict or in policy decisions of governments. It is fair to say that over the years the conflict over Palestine-Israel has evolved from an Arab-Jewish conflict into a Palestinian - Israeli or Palestinian-Jewish conflict and a Muslim-Jewish conflict. It would be foolhardy, however, to ignore the existence of a genuine conflict between the Arab countries and the West that has only a peripheral relation to the Palestinian issue, or to dismiss aspects of the Arab-Zionist and Muslim-Jewish conflict that always existed, were never fully resolved, and may very likely return to the fore after the basic needs and aspirations of the Palestinians are met. We can distinguish several phases:
Ottoman: When the first Zionist settlers arrived in Palestine toward the end of the 19th century, there was no particularist nationalism in the Ottoman Turkish Empire, beyond a broad movement for Arab liberation and perhaps the Armenian and Greek communities, which were not related to the Palestinian issue. The Zionist settlement program was viewed with alarm both by Arab nationalists inside and outside Palestine, because it might threaten Arab national claims, and by Arabs living in Palestine who felt threatened by the Jews or who were directly affected by Zionist settlement. Thus, the conflict was both a local issue and an Arab/Muslim issue.
Mandatory Palestine: The coming of the British and the Balfour declaration intensified the conflict. The end of World War I, breakup of the Ottoman Empire and the peace treaties changed the Middle East and created a new reality and a new set of conflicts. The war created a number of semi-independent Arab states that the British had hoped would be beholden to them, but which in fact, became increasingly independent and jealous of outside interference. The British and French, and later the Americans, wanted to maximize their influence in the region and retain control over strategic and natural resources: namely, the Suez Canal and the oil resources of the Gulf countries, which became increasingly important. The Arab countries believed they had been deceived by the British, because they thought they would be setting up an independent country or countries throughout the Middle East, whereas in fact Syria and Lebanon were given to France as mandate countries based on the secret Sykes-Picot agreement and Palestine was given to Britain, based on the Balfour declaration. The Arabs considered that this arrangement betrayed British promises to them. The Hashemite family of Feisal, which had aided Lawrence of Arabia in overthrowing Turkish rule, was ousted from Saudi Arabia by Ibn Saud. Instead of a united Hashemite Arabia, the Hashemites were forced to content themselves with kingdoms in Iraq and Jordan. In Syria, the French, with the consent of the British, put down a revolt in favor of Feisal. Ibn Saud was quick to align himself with the British, but the politics and aspirations of the Saud dynasty were different from those of Feisal and the Hashemites, and having seen how the British had dealt with Feisal, Saud was not likely to fall into the same traps. Saud also had the advantage that increasingly, the great powers recognized the strategic importance of the vast oil wealth of Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region.
The Arab Revolt - Beginning in 1936, the Arabs of Palestine revolted against British rule and in particular, against the Jewish national home promise of the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine, and the immigration of Jews to Palestine. Ibn Saud intervened, and was allowed to intervene by the British on behalf of the Palestinians, thereby gaining prestige in the Arab world as protector of Arab interests. The Arabs rejected the Peel Report, which would have partitioned Palestine into a tiny Jewish state and a much larger Arab area, and ensured that the British would accede to Palestinian demands and close the gates of Palestine to Jewish immigration. According to historian Elie Kedourie , this intervention in the revolt in Palestine marked the beginning of the primacy of the Palestine conflict as an issue in Arab relations with the West, and the beginning of Arab intervention in that conflict. The role of Palestine as an Arab-Western issue and as an issue in Arab national politics was extended in the 1940s, when President Roosevelt felt compelled to reassure King Saud that the United States would not back an independent Jewish state in Palestine, and with the formation of the Arab League. One of the express purposes of the Arab League was to prevent the formation of a Jewish state.
Partition and the first Arab-Israeli War - The nature of the Arab League, founded to oppose the creation of a Jewish state, as well as the agitation of the Grand Mufti, Haj Amin El Husseini, and the prestige value of Palestine as an issue in Arab politics, made it almost inevitable that the Arab countries would attack the new state of Israel. What is less widely understood, is that the several Arab countries had a deep aversion to Haj Amin El Husseini, and had no intention of allowing him to set up an independent Palestinian state.Transjordan, Syria and Egypt intended to carve up Palestine between them, or parts of it, and to prevent each other from having too large a slice of Palestine [2,3,4]. King Abdullah of Transjordan had already made a tacit agreement with the Zionist leadership to confine Jordanian territorial aspirations to the West Bank, and encouraged the Israelis to minimize Egyptian gains in Gaza. Abdulla el Tall told Elias Sasson "Strike the Egyptians as much as you can, our attitude will be neutral [2,4]. The Israelis were so successful at this that they eventually incurred the wrath of the RAF and the British government, which forced them to withdraw from forward positions in El Arish. The Syrians, for their part, feared that if Transjordan was too successful in Palestine, they would attempt to overthrow the Syrian government and replace it with a Hashemite monarchy. None of the Arab states was enthusiastic about setting up a Palestinian state, though abortive rival Jordanian and Egyptian versions of the "Palestinian State" were announced in Gaza and the West Bank at the end of the war for propaganda purposes. In the context of inter-Arab politics, the Palestinian refugees created as a result of the 1948 war (the Israeli War of Independence) were a troublesome or useful byproduct of the conflict, and Palestinian national rights were a hot issue to be deflected and suppressed, because they represented the possibility of radicalization in the Arab world. Palestinian rights. Sympathy for the Palestinians was expressed in the desire to liberate Palestine as an Arab national cause. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza were not allowed autonomous self-government. Palestinian aspirations were carefully channeled away from the direction of national self-determination.
Decolonialization - In the period after World War II, the role of France and Britain in the Middle East and North Africa, and their colonial empires, collapsed very rapidly. In addition to formal withdrawal from Egypt, Algeria and Syria, client regimes collapsed in Iran, Iraq and Libya. The USSR helped to accelerate this process, and both the USSR and more clumsily the US, intervened in several cases. The US worked against the British in Egypt, but worked with the British in Iran, to remove the nationalist Mossadeqh and reinstate the more amenable Shah Reza Pahlevi. With the exception of the Iranian counter-coup, all the regimes that came to power were anti-Western, with the Palestine issue being only a minor part of their agenda initially. The subsequent development of the Arab-Israeli or Muslim-Israeli conflict must be viewed in this context.
Nasser and the Rise of Arab Nationalism - Gamal Nasser was the most important of the new leaders who rose with the wave of decolonialization. He replaced Farouk, a British client, and then proceeded to remove the last vestiges of Western influence from Egypt. At the same time, he molded the Baathist Pan-Arab cause and recast it in his image, in a bid to make himself and Egypt leaders of the Arab world. The Palestinian issue was useful to Nasser. First, failure of the old regimes to liberate Palestine in 1948 was the issue that legitimized the revolution of 1953. Liberation of Palestine would now ultimately be used as an issue that would establish Nasser's credentials as the central leader of the Arab world. The Palestinian issue became subordinate to a larger anti-colonialist issue, or perhaps it is more correct to say that the Palestinian issue for the Arabs was always representative of the larger colonialist issue and inseparable from it. Arab nationalists resented Western influence and control, and Israel represented a "foreign western implant" on Arab soil. For Nasser however, the presence of the British in Egypt was a more pressing issue, and one that seemed easier to resolve. He nationalized the Suez Canal and provoked a conflict with Britain and France as well as with Israel. Israel, France and Britain attacked Egypt in October 1956. Israel quickly reached the Suez Canal and French and British troops moved to take over the canal area. But Nasser correctly assessed and capitalized on US-European rivalries to transform the humiliating military defeat of the Sinai campaign into a great moral and political victory.
Soon after the Suez campaign, Egyptian agents contacted Yasser Arafat and tried to set him up as a student leader who would channel Palestinian aspirations in the pan-Arabist, pro-Egypt direction desired by Nasser. The eventual result was the creation of the Fatah and the PLO as "liberation movements" and their adoption at the second Arab summit conference of 1964, in the context of achieving Arab aspirations in Palestine, rather than Palestinian national aspirations. The Palestinians themselves were not too happy with this arrangement or with the tutelage and interference of Egypt and Syria, but they had little choice, especially as the Syrians provided the organization and military know-how to set up the first Fatah cells in the 1960s. Whatever genuine Palestinian national sentiment existed was kept carefully and control and channeled into the pan-Arab issue. Palestinians were not allowed real political freedom either in the West Bank or Gaza Strip, though in theory they could have formed a state there at any time, free of Israeli influence, and free to oppose Israel in the international arena.
Arafat and the birth of Palestinian Nationalism - Arab nationalism began to vanish from the Middle East political scene after the debacle of the 1967 6-day war. Instead of destroying Israel and liberating Palestine, the Arab countries suffered a humiliating defeat and what had been left of Palestine before 1967 was now in Israeli hands. Yasser Arafat, the PLO and the Fatah were now freed from the shackles of Egyptian and Syrian control, and developed the line of independent Palestinian nationalism, which had been more or less implicit in the Fatah program and in Arafat's writings in his newspaper, Falestinunah.
The PLO at the UN - Since the late 1930s, US and British foreign policy had placed great weight on the Arab-Jewish (later, Arab-Israeli) conflict as the major fly in the ointment of Arab/Muslim-Western relations. This view was reinforced by the successive wars with Israel, culminating in the defeat of the Arabs in 1967. The defeat catalyzed the rise of Palestinian nationalism. The Palestinian plight, hitherto a more-or-less neglected byproduct of the Arab-Israeli conflict, was brought to the fore. Yasser Arafat addressed the UN, and the PLO was given recognition. UN General Assembly Resolution 3236 recognized the PLO as representatives of the Palestinian people, and stated the support of the General Assembly for Palestinian self determination. It also put the stamp of approval on Palestinian "resistance." It stated that the UN:
1. Reaffirms the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people in Palestine, including:
(a) The right to self-determination without
(b) The right to national independence and sovereignty;
2. Reaffirms also the inalienable right of
the Palestinians to return to their homes and property from which they have been displaced and uprooted, and calls for
3. Emphasizes that full respect for and the realization of these inalienable rights of the Palestinian people are indispensable for the solution of the question of Palestine;
4. Recognizes that the Palestinian people is a principal party in the establishment of a just and lasting peace in the Middle East;
5. Further recognizes the right of the Palestinian people to regain its rights by all means in accordance with the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations;
6. Appeals to all States and international organizations to extend their support to the Palestinian people in its struggle to restore its rights, in accordance with the Charter;
7. Requests the Secretary-General to establish contacts with the Palestine Liberation Organization on all matters concerning the question of Palestine;
General Assembly Resolution 3237, passed on the same day, granted observer status to the PLO. Under Soviet tutelage, the PLO and the Palestinians had achieved international recognition, and the cause of Palestinian self-determination was put on the international agenda.
Harold Saunders and the American Recognition of Palestinian Nationalism - In 1975, the new situation was acknowledged by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Harold H. Saunders, who told a US House of Representatives subcommittee:
We have also repeatedly stated that the legitimate interests of the Palestinian Arabs must be taken into account in the negotiation of an Arab–Israeli peace. In many ways, the Palestinian dimension of the Arab–Israeli conflict is the heart of that conflict. Final resolution of the problems arising from the partition of Palestine, the establishment of the State of Israel, and Arab opposition to those events will not be possible until agreement is reached defining a just and permanent status for the Arab peoples who consider themselves Palestinians."
This document was rightly considered revolutionary because it proposed to recognize the national rights of the Palestinians and offered more than a broad hint that if the PLO adopted a compromise position and recognized the right of Israel to exist, the US would work to ensure dialogue between the parties. Saunders acknowledged what was evident: there would be no solution without the Palestinians, the PLO was now the recognized representative of the Palestinians, and the US should be ready to do business with the PLO provided the PLO was amenable to a reasonable solution. This change of policy was extremely important, and is discussed in more detail elsewhere. However, Saunders did not seek to redefine the conflict, and did not do so.
The first sentence makes it clear that the Palestinian problem is not the only issue, and this is amplified by "In many ways" in the next sentence. However, the cautionary preamble "in many ways" was dropped in most reports. Somehow, "that conflict" was transmuted to "the conflict," and Saunders soon came to be credited (or blamed) for the thesis that "The Palestinian dimension ... is the heart of the conflict."
In his Congressional testimony, Saunders also said: "It is a fact that many of the three million or so people who call themselves Palestinians today increasingly regard themselves as having their own identity as a people and desire a voice in determining their political status."
Saunders was merely over-stating in words what had become obvious, that the Palestinians had come of age, and that their conflict with Israel would henceforth dominate the Middle-Eastern political scene. It had in fact been dominating the Middle Eastern political scene for several years, since the PLO had threatened the regime of Hussein of Jordan, and had been expelled from Jordan to Syria and Lebanon. Saunders went on to state,
The statement is often made in the Arab world that there will not be peace until the 'rights of the Palestinians' are fulfilled, but there is no agreed definition of what is meant and a variety of viewpoints have been expressed on what the legitimate objectives of the Palestinians are...."
"No one, therefore, seems in a position today to say exactly what Palestinian objectives are.... The issue is not whether Palestinian interests should be expressed in a final settlement, but how. There will be no peace unless an answer is found.
Again, Saunders was stating the obvious: a solution to the Palestinian problem is a necessary condition for a settlement, and without such a solution there can be no peace. Saunders did not say it was a sufficient condition however. He certainly did not state that a solution to the Palestinian problem would necessarily guarantee peace between Israel and the Arabs, or put an end to friction between the West and the Arabs. However, the Saunders thesis was quickly misinterpreted to imply that if only the Palestinian problem were solved, the entire Arab-Israeli conflict would vanish. Likewise, various "solutions" such as Israeli withdrawal from occupied territories, and/or return of the refugees, attached themselves to the Saunders thesis as if they were necessary and sufficient to meet Palestinian demands, and as if it was a certainty that they would bring about a solution to the conflict. Middle East history was now reinterpreted by many as if the Arab-Israeli conflict had begun in 1949, with the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem, or perhaps even in 1967, with the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza strip.
In December of 1975, Saunders co-authored a Brookings Institution report that reflected these ideas as well as others. The Brookings Report of December, 1975, called for a settlement among all parties, including all the Arab states. Among its summary points we find :
Point 1 states that the United States "is concerned for the security, independence, and well-being of Israel and the Arab states of the area."
Point 3 states, "We believe the time has come to begin the process of negotiating such a settlement among the parties, either at a general conference or at more informal multilateral meetings..."
Point 3 (e) is the reference in these summary points to "Palestine" or "Palestinian." It says, "Palestine. There should be provision for Palestinian self-determination....This might take the form of an independent Palestinian state ... or of a Palestinian entity voluntarily federated with Jordan but exercising extensive political autonomy."
The "Palestine first" approach was sidelined for a while by events, but we can recognize in it the beginnings of the Madrid conference as well as the Oslo Accord. In Israel, Menachem Begin was elected on a platform that stated, "Judea and Samaria will not be given over to any foreign government; between the sea and Jordan there will only be Israeli sovereignty." Egypt made a separate peace with Israel. If the Americans believed the Palestinian issue was crucial for peace, they did not make this particularly evident in their approach to Egyptian-Israeli peace. The PLO missed that opportunity when they refused the Egyptian invitation to participate in talks, and refused to recognize UN Security Council Resolution 242. However the "Palestine first" approach became more popular in the 80s. The first attempt was to provide a solution through a federation with Jordan. King Hussein brought this offer to the Israelis, but it was turned down by the Shamir government. This left only the Palestinians themselves, and the Palestinians were ready to deal only through the PLO. The PLO on the other hand, was unwilling to recognize Israel or Resolution 242, and the Israelis and US refused to deal officially with the PLO in consequence. In the US, the problem was perceived as one of getting the PLO to become a part of the peace process. This was thought to be achieved in 1988, with the announcement by Chairman Yasser Arafat of PLO acceptance of resolution 242. Now the problem was to get the Israelis on board as well. This did not occur until the right-wing Shamir government was replaced by the Labor government of Yitzhak Rabin in 1992. The Rabin government in fact leapt past the US, negotiating directly with the PLO, resulting in the Oslo Accords.
The Muslim Dimension - The Muslim dimension of the Palestine conflict was always implicit. Rather than being antithetical to Arab nationalism, Islamist and Muslim themes were always to some extent an integral part of the Arab nationalist doctrine. Islamic lands were divided into those that were already lost to the West, chiefly Al-Andalus, or Spain, and those that were properly part of Dar al-Islam, the home of Islam. Palestine was supposed to be in the latter category. The Israeli capture of Jerusalem greatly enhanced and underlined the Muslim religious dimension. Beginning with the Iranian revolution of Khomeini, Islamism became an increasingly potent political force in the Middle East, and therefore the Islamic dimension of the Palestine conflict assumed increasing importance as it was taken up by Iranians, by Salafi radicals in the madrassas (Islamic schools) being built with Gulf oil money throughout the Muslim world, and by Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda. Bin Laden does mention Palestine in his rhetoric, subordinate to railing against the US for occupation of the holy places of Saudi Arabia. This caused some to further misinterpret the so-called Saunders doctrine to mean that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and US support of Israel, were at the heart of the Islamist struggle against the United States. However, the chief concern of Islamism, whether it is represented by the Shi'a Iranian branch or al-Qaeda, is the negation of Western influence, liberal democracy and the emancipation of women. The United States, and not Israel, is the Great Satan. The Palestinian issue, as well as anti-Semitism, are only convenient and popular issues. Islamist politicians leverage on these issues to advance their program.
The nature of the Israel-Arab conflict has certainly changed over time, and perceptions have changed. The distorted idea, convenient to Israel, and to a certain extent to Arab states, that the Palestinian issue was of little or no importance in solving the conflict has been been discarded. No Israeli leader can say any more, as Golda Meir said, "There are no Palestinians." However, this distortion has been replaced by a different set of questionable perceptions. It is not clear by any means what the real importance of the Palestinian issue is to Muslim or Arab politics or in the every day lives of Arab people. It is uncertain whether they care about the Palestinian people, or about Arab (as opposed to Palestinian) control of Jerusalem and Palestine. The Lebanese, for example, show no great love for the Palestinian refugees living in their midst, but manifest a great aversion to Israel and sympathy for the Palestinian cause, so long as the Lebanese themselves are not called upon to do anything for the Palestinians. The Syrian government apparently still considers Palestine part of "Southern Syria" and therefore within their rightful sphere of influence.
Arab animosity to Jews and the idea of a Jewish state did not arise with the Zionist state or the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. All the evidence indicates that it predates the state of Israel.
Mousa Khazem El-Houseini, Mayor of Jerusalem, told Winston Churchill just after WW I:
The Jews have been amongst the most active advocates of destruction in many lands... It is well known that the disintegration of Russia was wholly or in great part brought about by the Jews, and a large proportion of the defeat of Germany and Austria must also be put at their door.
(Benny Morris, Righteous Victims, Knopf 1999 Page 99)
In 1937, King Saud told Colonel H.R.P. Dickson:
Today we and our subjects are deeply troubled over this Palestine question, and the cause of our disquiet and anxiety is the strange attitude of your British Government, and the still more strange hypnotic influence which the Jews, a race accursed by God according to His Holy Book, and destined to final destruction and eternal damnation hereafter, appear to wield over them and the English people generally.
'God's Holy Book (the Qur'an) contains God's own word and divine ordinance, and we commend to His Majesty's government to read and carefully peruse that portion which deals with the Jews and especially what is to be their fate in the end. For God's words are unalterable and must be.
''We Arabs have been the traditional friends of Great Britain for many years, and I, Bin Sa'ud, in particular have been your Government's firm friend all my life, what madness then is this which is leading on our Government to destroy this friendship of centuries, all for the sake of an accursed and stiffnecked race which has always bitten the hand of everyone who has helped it since the world began.
While some Arab hostility to the United States and the West is due to American support for Israel, the reverse is also certainly true. Arabs and non-Arab Muslims are hostile to Israel because Israel is viewed as an outpost of Western civilization, and the "last outpost of Western Colonialism." There are numerous expressions of this attitude, which arises both from religious extremists who see Israel as a Trojan horse that will bring Western liberalism into the Middle East, and from leftists, who paint Israel as a tool of imperialism. At the Durban UN Conference on Racism, Yasser Arafat stated that Israel is the last outpost of colonialism, a view that has many adherents.
A Tunisian, Latif Chokri, stated in a dialogue:
Imperialist support for the Zionist institution has not decreased, simply because the institution is a convenient tool and spearhead for terrorising the peoples of the region, for laying hands on their resources, plundering their wealth and preventing them from uniting together and gaining their independence
(From "Dialogue - Review for discussion between Arab and Jewish activists of Palestine," www.miftah.org/Doc/Reports/2005/DialogueReport.pdf)
Salah Salah, Chair of the Commission of Refugees of the Palestinian National Council stated:
I do not want to enter into a grand debate, by stating that Israel is an outpost of colonialism and imperialism in the region. I do not wish to impose my point of view on anybody, but you should know that there is an alliance between the Zionist project and the global imperialist regime, under various forms.
(From "Dialogue - Review for discussion between Arab and Jewish activists of Palestine," www.miftah.org/Doc/Reports/2005/DialogueReport.pdf)
The rights of Palestinian Arabs and concern over those rights were always an issue for the Palestinians, beginning in Ottoman times, when Palestinians protested against land sales to the Zionist movement. The problem took on much more urgency following the Israeli War of Independence (1948 War), when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians became refugees. There is no doubt that the emergence of the new PLO following the 6-Day war took the Palestinian issue out of the deep freeze, where it had been hidden for the convenience of Israel and the Arab countries. However, Palestinian antagonism to Zionism was, from the start, related to larger issues of Arab nationalism and resentment of the West, as well as to traditional Arab and Muslim attitudes toward Jews, and it would be a mistake to think that these larger issues could be resolved solely by ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, or even by resolving all the substantive issues that divide Palestinians and Israelis.
It is certainly true that hostility to Israel and Jews is fanned by the occupation and the plight of the Palestinians. Ending the occupation and the conflict will simplify US diplomacy in the region and improve sentiment toward Israel. However, It is not necessarily the case that extremists would be satisfied with a resolution that left an intact Israeli state or that hostility to Israel would vanish if ever the Palestinian issue were resolved. Racist and xenophobic views like the ones quoted above would continue to threaten the peace and challenge the legitimacy of governments that had signed peace treaties with Israel. It is even less likely that resolution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict would somehow magically resolve the very real conflicts between Western and Arab/Muslim interests in controlling the oil resources of the Gulf or the fiction created by differences in Western and Muslim cultural and political outlooks.
1. Kedourie, Elie, Islam in the Modern World, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, N.Y. 1980
2. Rogan, Eugene, Jordan and 1948: The Persistence of an Official History, p 118 in Rogan, E. and Shlaim. A. (eds)The War for Palestine, Cambridge, 2001, pp 104-124.
3. Landis, J., Syria and the Palestine War: Fighting Abdallah's 'Greater Palestine' Plan in Rogan, E. and Shlaim. A. (eds) The War for Palestine, Cambridge, 2001, pp 178-205.
4. Gerges, F., Egypt and the 1948 War: Internal Conflict and Regional Ambition in Rogan, E. and Shlaim. A. (eds) The War for Palestine, Cambridge, 2001, pp 151-177.
5. The Brookings Report on the Middle East Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Winter, 1977) , pp. 195-205.
Details of the historical events of the conflict are given in: Brief History of Israelis and Palestinians A capsule history of Palestine/Israel since early times.
See also - IN A NUTSHELL: ISRAEL vs PALESTINIANS
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