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Issue 7/April 1998
Editor, Prof. Barry Rubin
Issue 7/April 1998
Editor, Prof. Barry Rubin
1. NEW PUBLICATIONS OF INTEREST
3. FREE SUBSCRIPTIONS TO E-MAIL PUBLICATIONS
4. FUNDING / SCHOLARSHIPS / FELLOWSHIPS / WRITING OPPORTUNITIES
5. RESEARCH QUERIES--PLEASE HELP
7. ANNOUNCEMENTS OF MEETINGS, CONFERENCES, LECTURES
IMPORTANT NEWS: MERIA JOURNAL VOL. 2, NO. 2 (May 1998):
IMPORTANT NEWS:
CALL FOR ARTICLES FOR MERIA JOURNAL VOL. 2, NO. 2: MERIA
Journal is seeking articles for its next issue, to be published in
late May/early June, on any and all aspects of the modern Middle
East. Articles may be from 1500 to 10,000 words. Please send
queries or texts as soon as possible. Reprints are possible with
permission. Write: Barry Rubin <besa@ashur.cc.biu.ac.il>.
3,000: MERIA is pleased to pass the mark of 3,000 subscribers, a high-level, highly selective audience of Middle East experts, scholars, teachers, students, officials, journalists, and people intensely interested in the region. In addition, tens of thousands have visited our homepage. MERIA has been printed for distribution in libraries and institutions in many countries, as well as for classroom use. Other publications have reprinted our articles. The head of a prestigious research center recently called MERIA the world's largest Middle East journal.
We constantly seek articles, items, and ideas. Contrary to most enterprises, we don't ask you to help us but instead to let us help you. Send us your announcements, summaries of your own (or institution's) writings, and articles for publication. We are pleased that authors and conference organizers report very good feedback to their articles and interest in their meetings. We want to contribute even more to advancing Middle East studies and dialogue. A list of MERIA services appears at the end of this issue.
OFFER TO AUTHORS: If you've written a book or scholarly/analytical article on a Middle East topic, MERIA will publish brief summaries in MERIA News, Section 6. Items should be no more than 50 words for books or 30 words for articles. Include a) title, periodical or publisher, and publication date; b) topic; and c) main themes or theses. The goal is to inform readers of new research and ideas in order to help them in their own work. (No op- ed pieces please.) Write: <besa@ashur.cc.biu.ac.il>.
COLUMBIA CONFERENCE AND US-IRAN RELATIONS
The following article tells of the important recent Columbia
University/Gulf 2000 conference and developing US-Iran relations:
UNIVERSITY WORKSHOP EXPLORES OPPORTUNITIES FOR U.S.-IRAN EXCHANGES
By Judy Aita USIA Staff Writer, USIA, 2 April 1998
New York -- Over one hundred representatives of private agencies, research institutes, American universities, and private industry held a day-long conference April 1 on "Working in -- and with -- Iran" at Columbia University's School of International and Public Affairs.
The conference was designed to follow up on Iranian President Mohammaed Khatami's call for increased exchanges of scholars, writers, artists and journalists in the United States and Iran, even though Iran continues to refuse to have government-to-government talks with the United States. It was organized by Dr. Gary Sick, a senior research scholar at the university.... "Interest in resuming such activities has been growing in recent years, particularly since January when President Khatami called for the exchange of professors writers, scholars, artists, journalists and tourists with the U.S. Khatami's action received a more positive response from the U.S. Government. That was 'unthinkable a short time ago'," he said.
U.S. State Department official Chris Stevens said "it is U.S. policy to encourage people-to-people exchanges with Iranians" and welcomed the recent statement. He noted that American wrestlers, scholars, and even former U.S. policy makers have been well received in Iran recently. The State Department has seen an increase in requests for visas for Iranian visitors sponsored by American organizations and is encouraging and trying to facilitate those requests, Stevens said.
As the conference was going on, the State Department was issuing a new travel warning on Iran for Americans. The new warning urges Americans to defer travel to Iran rather than warning against travel....The conference, Sick said, was intended to highlight the opportunities for private contacts, the variety of possibilities for exchanges and how to go about such exchanges, especially by networking among groups....
The [U.S. Middle East] institute is hoping to have high-ranking Iranians participate in its annual conference in October and is planning, in cooperation with Georgetown University, a 20th anniversary assessment of Iran's revolution in February 1999....
Dr. Mahmood Sariolghalam of Tehran, a visiting professor at Ohio State University, outlined the academic situation in Iran. He said studying in the United States "remains the number one priority for masters [degree] students" in Iran but because of the vast difficulties involved in traveling to the United States, most have turned to universities in Australia, Canada, and Great Britain....
1. NEW PUBLICATIONS OF INTEREST
A summary of the first MAS Social Monitor, published by the Economic Monitoring Unit of the Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS), is now on the Palestine Economic Forum (PalEcon) website: <http://www.palecon.org>. Also posted are summaries of 4 new MAS publications: Opportunities and Potentials for Palestinian Industrialization; The Impact of the Peace Process on the Textile and Garment Industry in Palestine; Palestine and Israel: Subcontracting Relations in the Garment Industry; The Workplace as a Source of Pension Benefits and Health Insurance in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.
David Albright and Kevin O'Neill. "Iraq: Resettle the Scientists," Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, November/December 1997.
Publisher's Profile: Frank Cass has a new Middle Eastern Studies catalog: <http://www.frankcass.com>. Recent books include: Efraim Inbar and Gabriel Sheffer, The National Security of Small States in a Changing World; Efraim Inbar and Bruce Maddy-Weitzman, Religious Radicalism in the Greater Middle East; Efraim Karsh, Between War and Peace: Dilemmas of Israeli Security, and From Rabin to Netanyahu and Fabricating Israeli History: The New Historians; Kemal Kirisci and Gareth Winrow, The Kurdish Question and Turkey; Zeev Maoz, Regional Security in the Middle East; Aharon Levran, Israeli Strategy After Desert Storm; Gabriel Sheffer, US-Israeli Relations at the Crossroads; Harold Cubert, The PFLP's Chainging Role in the Middle East; David Menashri, Central Asia Meets the Middle East; Gad Gilbar, Population Dilemmas in the Middle East, and The Middle East Oil Decade and Beyond.
For ordering RIIA publications: Dusty Miller, Publications Marketing Manager: 101574.2670@compuserve.com
The website given in MERIA NEWS 98:6 for the Dayan Center
library is not yet opened. To use the library's listings:
Go via telnet: aleph.tau.ac.il with username aleph
Type lb/day
Type f^ and your search terms.
The Jaffee Center has posted issue 1 of its new quarterly on security and strategic issues affecting the Middle East, Strategic Assessment: http://www.tau.ac.il/~jcssjb/quarterly.html
The Center for Palestine Research and Studies (CPRS) is a nonpartisan, policy related think-tank that conducts policy research and public opinion polling in the West Bank/Gaza: http://www.cprs-palestine.org
The Health Development, Information and Policy Institute (HDIP) is a nonpartisan institute dedicated to strengthening Palestinian civil society through ngo-Palestinian Authority policy dialogue: http://www.hdip.org
Focus on Useful Tunisia Sites
Center for Maghreb Studies in Tunis
http://bertie.la.utexas.edu/research/mena/cemat/index.html
Tunisia's WWW Sites [by Hajeri], http://www.liii.com/~hajeri/iraq.html
Tunisia Schools
http://www.worldwide.edu/ci/tunisia/index.html
IRSIT Research Center(Tunisia)
http://gopher.rnrt.tn/0c:/organise/irsit.htm|/
Tunisia's Page at U Penn
http://www.sas.upenn.edu/African_Studies/Country_Specific/Tunisia.html
Tunisia Info. Page. {NEW}
http://www.ug.bcc.bilkent.edu.tr/~elkafi/tunisia.html
The Tunisian WWW Home Page
http://www-nt.e-technik.uni-erlangen.de/~younes/tunisian_home/tunisia.html
Tunisia's Homepage.(IRC Group)
http://www.enst.fr/~hadrich/tunisia.html
Tunisia information from Arab net
http://www.arab.net/tunisia/tunisia_contents.html
Focus on Useful Sites on Israeli Politics
CIA Factbook on Israel
http://www.odci.gov/cia/publications/nsolo/factbook/is.htm
Elections in Israel
http://www.geocities.com/~derksen/election/israel.htm
Israeli Politics
http://www.math.technion.ac.il/~nyh/israel/english/74.html
Government and Politics
http://gauss.technion.ac.il/%7Enyh/israel/politics.html
Political Parties and Organizations
http://www.lookup.com/homepages/96888/politics.htm
Political parties & Politicians
http://www.walla.co.il/new/wie.cgi?i=247&r=0&f=0&o=0
Jewish Politics U Colorado, Jewish Student Union HomePage
http://ucsu.colorado.edu/%7Ejsu/politics.html
Likud
http://usa.likud.org.il/index.html
Avoda The Israel Labor Party
http://israel-labor-party.org.il/ OR www.inter.net.il/~avoda/
Meretz (Hebrew)
http://www.meretz.israel.net/
Yisrael Ba-Aliya
http://www.ix.co.il/y_aliya/
Chadash, Communist Party of Israel
http://www.gezernet.co.il/chadash.html
MAPAM
http://www.mapam.org.il/online.html
Meimad
http://www.barak.co.il/meimad/index.htm
3. FREE SUBSCRIPTIONS TO E-MAIL PUBLICATIONS
International Republican Institute (IRI) sends data from Palestinian public opinion polls. To receive: lross@iri.org
Washington Kurdish Institute has a daily e-mail service that provides news articles on Kurds and countries in which they live, as well as in on conferences and other Kurdish resources. To receive: <wki@kurd.org>. It also has a current bibliography and catalogued links to all major Kurdish internet sites.
4. FUNDING / SCHOLARSHIPS / FELLOWSHIPS / WRITING OPPORTUNITIES
Graduate Student Travel Grants are offered by the Canadian Committee of the Middle East Studies Association (CANMES) for those currently enrolled in a Canadian university to attend conferences in North America and present their work there. Applicants may request a maximum of $750 (Canadian) each. Applications must be received two months before the date of the proposed conference. Write: Professor James A. Reilly, <james.reilly@utoronto.ca>.
The Fulbright Scholar Program is now taking applications for post-doctoral lecturing or research awards in the Middle East and elsewhere for 3-10 month periods in the 1999-2000 academic year. Applicants must be U.S. citizens and must have a PhD or equivalent, plus a record of university or college teaching and/or research. Deadline: August 1, 1998. Write: <ggarrison@cies.iie.org>. Material may only be mailed to addresses in the United States.
Binghamton U is organizing a volume of interdisciplinary articles on contemporary North Africa (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and the Sudan. There is still room for a few more 15-page=long articles. Topics include historical dimensions of conflict; ethnicity; Islamic assertion; women, state, and society; language and literature; indigenous (i.e. Amazigh) cultural movements; exiles, transnational migrants, and foreigners; and cinema and North Africa. Write: Prof. Kevin Lacey, Acting Director, Middle East and North Africa (MENA) <klacey@binghamton.edu>
International Republican Institute (IRI) and Center for Palestine Research and Studies (CPRS) seek a director for the Parliamentary Research Unit (PRU), a legislative research service in Ramallah serving the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC). Knowledge of constitutional law, Palestinian politics and fluency in Arabic and English required. Expertise in legislative development and financial management preferred. Fax resume: WBPR, (202) 408-9462.
5. RESEARCH QUERIES--PLEASE HELP
Gilberto Conde Zambada wants suggestions for studying how Islam has traditionally viewed the environment and how attitudes have been changing, first under colonialism and now with the challenges of modern times.
Dr. George Irani, a senior fellow at the U.S. Institute for Peace is currently working on a book on Middle Eastern Rituals of Reconciliation (such as SULHA and SHLOM BAIT). Others doing research on these questions or suggested references would be most appreciated.
Emory C. Bogle, Islam: Origin and Belief, University of Texas Press, May 1998. Attention to family relationships in early Islam and the Shi'i controversy which resulted. Nearly 20% of the book deal with Shi'ism which most general books ignore. Emphasizes the origin of Islam and concentrates on twentieth-century developments.
Arms Control:
Dr. Avner Cohen and Joseph F. Pilat, "Assessing Virtual
Nuclear Arsenals," Survival 40, no. 1 (spring 1998): 129-44. This
piece explores the utility of the notion of virtual nuclear
arsenals in ensuring/undermining peace and in arms control efforts.
Cohen and Pilat conclude that, although virtual arsenals offer some
positive features, they are unlikely to be the preferred option of
most countries.
Avner Cohen, "Israel and the Evolution of U.S. Nonproliferation Policy: The Critical Decade (1958-1968)," The Nonproliferation Review 5, no. 2 (winter 1998): 1-19. This piece illustrates how the Israeli nuclear weapons program helped to shape American nonproliferation policy. America's experience in dealing with the Israeli program is significant for having provided the U.S. with the incentive needed to craft a new nonproliferation policy--a shift from bilateralism to multilateralism that has lasted to this day.
Israel
Yaacov Bar-Siman-Tov, The United States and Israel since 1948:
A "Special Relationship"? Diplomatic History, vol. 22, no.2 spring
1998 pp. 231-262. U.S.-Israeli relations became special after 1967.
Before that year, the values and ideals common to both sides were
not sufficient to make it special in light of the divergence in
strategic interests and the absence of strategic cooperation.
Alan Dowty, The Jewish State: A Century Later. U. California Press, 1998. A comprehensive interpretation of the historical roots and contemporary functioning of Israel, proposing answers to puzzles regarding the strengths and weaknesses of Israeli democracy. Covers the challenges of communal division, religious contention, the Arab minority, and accommodation with the Palestinians. The genius of Jewish politics, it is argued, is its capacity for power-sharing.
Turkish Studies:
Mehmet Tutuncu (editor), Caucasus: War and Peace, 1998, 224
pages. The Caucasus has become fertile ground for ethnic violence.
Armenia-Azerbaijan, Abkhazian-Georgian and Chechen-Russian wars
have cost more than 100,000 lives and millions of refugees. What
causes these conflicts? Is peace possible? What is the role of
international organizations, media, and women? Information:
<sota@euronet.nl>
Yukselen Asya, Cin ve Turkiye (Rising Asia, China and Turkey) By Mehmet Ogutcu. This book analyses the Asia-Pacific region through the prism of a Turkish diplomat, traveler and strategist, with a strong emphasis on the new economic superpower China. Considers Turkish engagement with China in particular and the Asia-Pacific region in general. For more information: mehmet.ogutcu@iea.org or through Imge Kitabevi, Refik Tabakci (publisher): imge@www.imge.com.tr
MERIA offers you discounts on books and publications. We welcome special arrangements for our readers. To propose articles, items for publication, give others free subscriptions, or other correspondence, write:besa@popeye.cc.biu.ac.il