(Part 3) Best middle east history books according to redditors
We found 2,177 Reddit comments discussing the best middle east history books. We ranked the 769 resulting products by number of redditors who mentioned them. Here are the products ranked 41-60. You can also go back to the previous section.
55. The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem Revisited (Cambridge Middle East Studies)
5 mentions
Thank you everyone for the laughs and the subtle concern. As mentioned here, I've been incredibly busy. This is all good stuff and I'm truly blessed. A few of the goings on:
Once more, thank you all for the laughs and subtle concern. Thank you /u/linuxuser86 for making this post. If any of you have questions please email me any time: [email protected]
The Making of the Arab-Israeli Conflict, 1947-1951 by Ilan Pappe, and The War for Palestine by Avi Shlaim agree with Morris.
Trust me. From the hundreds of tomes and articles I've read on the subject, there is no such thing as an objective history of Israel. It's impossible. There's simply too much emotional and cultural baggage that people have to lug around.
You just have to critically sift through the arguments. Saying that one Israeli historian fundamentally disagrees with another historian is like pointing out that Israel's flag has a Star of David on it... Not a huge surprise.
TLDR the international plan was not just a "sorry about that whole holocaust thing" that called for booting out the Palestinians. The Zionist concept of an independent Jewish state predates the Holocaust by decades, and plans had been drafted well before Hitler rose to power in Germany. By the time the UN voted to partition the country, a large Jewish community had been living in Palestine for sixty+ years, and smaller Arab-Jewish communities predated even the aliyahs.
Disclaimer: I have attempted to avoid biased language in this. I did not have space to cover every massacre or infraction by either side. This is intended to be a brief overview of the situation and a starting point to read and learn more about this immensely complicated subject, not a comprehensive history of the creation of Israel. It should be noted that Zionist != Jewish != Israeli. Likewise Arab != Muslim != Palestinian. There are and were Arab Christians, Arab Jews, and non-Arabs all involved in the situation.
Sources (just the first two I grabbed off my shelf):
Lacquer, Walter. The Israel-Arab Reader: A Documentary History of the Middle East Conflict , 7th Edition.
Gelvin, David. The Israel-Palestine Conflict: One Hundred Years of War.
Unfortunately, the most efficient way to become knowledgable about the Middle East is to read. A lot. The Middle East is a far more complex place than most people imagine and understanding the region requires a great deal of knowledge. I have been studying the Middle East for nearly a decade and I still feel like there is so much that I do not know. I would start by reading reputable news sources every day. Places like The Economist, New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, BBC, Financial Times, are the Los Angeles Times are good English language news sources that you should look at. Additionally, I have written up a suggested reading list for learning about the Middle East, though it is a bit more security-related since that's my area of expertise. I hope it helps. And feel free to ask any questions if you have them.
Books - General History of the Middle East
Books - Middle East Military History
Books - Middle East Terrorism and Substate Violence
Books - U.S. Foreign Policy in the Middle East
Think Tanks
Below is a list of several different think tanks, which frequently publish everything from extension research and analysis to quick and succinct blog posts about the issues in the Middle East. Some of these think tanks specifically focus on the Middle East, while for others it is only one area of their research.
Journals, Blogs, Podcasts, and other Publications
The past few days I've felt really frustrated, hopeless, and helpless after the Orlando shooting. I feel like we're all going to grieve for a few days, I'm gonna listen to People Who Can Eat People a couple times, and then we'll all continue with nothing changed, waiting for the next one. I still feel helpless, but I have thought of some things, short-term and long-term, that I think might help if you want to do something.
A History of the Arab Peoples by Albert Hourani was required reading for my Middle Eastern History course in undergrad.
This is correct in terms of both contemporary Sunni and Shi'i Islam. Scholars are generally recognized by their erudition and contributions to the theory and/or application of Islamic (as well as other areas such as theology, Qur'anic exegesis, spiritual practice, etc.).
I can comment more on the situation in Twelver Shi'ism, as I am a Twelver Shi'i Muslim myself. Twelver Shi'ism will appear to have more of a hierarchical structure or at least exhibit more centrality than what is seen in the Sunni world, but it's still very far form the central hierachy of the Catholic clergly. While often finds comparisons between the Shi'i scholars and the catholic clergy in the media and even in the academic literature, these comparisons are often misguided, and at the very least reductive. Basically, within Twelver Shi'ism since the late eighteenth (or perhaps more accurately/practically, the mid-nineteenth century), the common practice has been for the laity to follow the rulings of the most learned scholar that has the authority to exercise independent legal judgements (although these are still, at least nominally, only derivations made from the source material, the Qur'an and ahadith, rather than original legislation); they would also pay the khums tax to this scholar if applicable, which among other things, funds the seminaries. At various points in time one figure would be seen by the vast majority as the most learned, but at other points in time (such as the current era), there would be multiple figures with large followings. Virtually anyone could announce themselves as a learned scholar, but to be taken seriously by much of the population, and indeed by ones peers, one would typically need to study in one of several seminaries (which today would primarily be those in Qum, Iran and to a lesser extent in Najafi, Iraq) under well-known teachers (generally, the most recognized scholars of the previous generation). Things have become more complicated since the Islamic Revolution in Iran, where the lines between scholarship and public service (i.e., holding positions of political power) are becoming blurred.
The situation within contemporary Sunni Islam is even more decentralized. For one things, there are four major legal schools within Sunni Islam, and then there's also the Salafi movement that exists outside of those legal schools. Moreover, scholarship even within the same legal school can be quite different based on geography. For example, the Hanafi school is the primary school followed in both Asia Minor (e.g., Turkey) and Central/South Asia, but as I've heard there's quite a difference between the practice of the religion, even in its more legal dimensions, between say Turkey and Pakistan; in fact even within South Asia, there are multiple approaches taken by Hanafi Sunni Musilms that lead to quite different expressions of religion, and each will have their own scholars.
Moreover, the prestige of centers of learning within Sunni Islam have also been in flux lately. One of the issues in Sunni scholarship today is that whereas in Shi'i Islam centers of learning are primarily funded through khums, in Sunni Islam they've historically relied mainly on awqaf (charitable endowments, the singular form is waqf), and these were regulated if not outright taken by modern nation states in the contemporary era. In fact, modern (often secular) nation states in the Islamic world began to increasingly oversee and regulate the formal practice of religion and its scholarship within their borders. Therefore, scholars became increasingly dependent on the state for support, so you have something like national hierarchies forming, with say, a grand mufti at the head. This in term led to the prestige of centers of learning such as Al-Azhar university in Cairo, Egypt to fall in the eyes of many, as they were seen as being co-opted by the state (although the relationship between scholars and temporal power has always been tenuous and tricky in both the Sunni and Shi'i traditions). Simultaneously, we've seen increasing prestige associated with the Salafi expression of Islam (with centers of learning in Saudi Arabia), which ostensibly eschews all hierarchy even more rigorously than what's seen in other expressions of Islam, by rejecting the legal schools. However, some would contend that effectively, much of Salafi practice comes from treating a small number of contemporary scholars as authorities.
Of course there are other Muslim groups, so we can briefly cover them. Zaydi Shi'ism also has a rich history of scholarship, based primarily in Yemen, but I'm less familiar with that to comment (and at various times throughout history the lines between Zaydi scholarship and Sunni scholarship have become blended), and I know virtually nothing about Ibadi scholarship (which is a school of thought that is neither Shi'i nor Sunni, largely based in Oman), and ditto for Zahiri scholarship (sometimes considered a fifth school in Sunni Islam). I should add that the Nizari Ismaili Shi'i community does feature a type of hierarchy, in that they have a present living Imam who carries the charismatic authority of the Prophet (saws), as opposed to the hidden Imam of the Twelver Shi'is; this Imam can act as an infallible. But really this is one charismatic figure, who essentially acts like a head of state without a territory in the modern world, surrounded by a bureaucracy. For more information, you can look up the Agha Khan Development Network (AKDN). I should add though that Nizari Isma'ilis today resemble something that is basically unrecognizable when compared to normative Sunni, Twelver/Zaidi/Shi'i, and Ibadi Islam.
There are also Sufi groups, most of which fall within Sunni Islam legally speaking, but some of which are not strictly speaking Sunni (and might actually be affiliated with Twelver Shi'ism, even though Sufism is generally viewed upon negatively in that tradition). Here you might have some hierarchy within a tariqa but that's different. There are also antinomian Sufi groups, which do their own thing and don't really follow Islamic law. These may exhibit some cult-like tendencies, where you have a charismatic community built around one or a small group of leaders, but here I'm just speculating as this is pretty far from the areas I'm knowledgeable about.
In short, aside from these mystical/antinomian persuasions, in theory, a scholar in Islam is really no different than a member of the laity in religious/theological terms, except for their ability to issue rulings on religious law. Although I don't know much about Catholicism (so take this with a grain or few of salt), I guess you can think of Muslim scholars as something in between a lay theologian and a canon lawyer I guess. In practice, of course, they serve in a distinct social/cultural role, and do things like leading prayers, officiating marriages, handling burial rites, counseling people and giving them advice, etc., although a qualified lay individual can fulfill all these functions too.
For further reading on Sunni scholarship, see Jonathan A.C. Brown's Misquoting Muhammad: The Challenge and Choices of Interpreting the Prophet's Legacy, and for further reading on Shi'i scholarship, see Roy Mottahedeh's The Mantle of the Prophet.
Michael Scheuer wrote a book during the lead up to Iraq called, Imperial Hubris in which he describes the principles of "blowback" and why the war on terrorism would ultimately be a failure. it is not a surprise he would support Ron Paul, who describes these same principles.
They have completely different evolutionary origins, that's why they are different. Perhaps someone else can provide a better source than hearsay from my Persian friends, but Persians are Indo-Europeans and the two groups are closely related. Thus, Iranians are "racially" Caucasian. Even more, the language they speak (Farsi = Persian; Farsi != Arabic) is linguistically closer to French than it is to Arabic.
Now I'm really entering the area of which I'm unsure (so if I'm wrong, someone correct me!), but Persia was was one of the world's first superpowers, and for centuries it was the only superpower in the region now known as the Middle East. This empire saw its zenith under Xerxes (think 300, minus the hunchbacks and the naked women). The spread of Arabic culture and religion (Islam) came after the death of Mohammed (622 AD), and spread throughout the Middle East like wildfire. Thus, Persia ends up with its old language and race, but the "Arabic" religion/society.
It was up until World War II that "Persia" was known by that name, and one of the leaders changed it to "Iran" because they actually wanted to show solidarity with Hitler and his "Aryan" movement. Before you go making crazy connections about both "Aryan" groups to the Jews, remember that Iran had been a colony of the "Allied" powers since the 1800s, and therefore their association with the Axis was purely an attempt to free themselves from that situation, and Iran's current issues with the Jewish people are unrelated. Therefore, if your friend's family left Persia before it became Iran, it is likely that they would refer to themselves as "Persian." Also, many Persians do not want to associate themselves with the actions of the state of "Iran," and so refer to themselves as Persian. Either is correct; it's all about how they feel on the issue.
For a much more scientific look at the issue than mine, I definitely recommend The Persian Puzzle.
It isn't the narrative of the country, it's just part of the current thought process post-WWII. It's impossible to not be affected by something like that on a cultural level, and reinforced by the weight put on it by basically everyone, Jewish or not. Israel did have a lot of refugees from WWII but they were also actively being limited by Britain, like refugee ships being intercepted and diverted away from Israel, because they were trying to adhere to an immigration limit to appease the Arab population.
Re: books, I'm currently reading this one that I highly recommend. It talks about all this stuff in great detail.
Let me gather up the links for the materials I've found, this will be for Darija and MSA.
I'll edit when I've gathered them all, it might take a little bit though.
EDIT:
A-okay! I probably missed a few links (and probably double linked stuff) and this post is probably going to look like a mess, but that's okay, because I can always go back and fix stuff. : )
I’ll be linking stuff either to websites, to books (as you requested) that you can buy through Amazon, or to other stuff that I've found.
Just to get it out of the way, if you’re into pirating, then there’s this massive learning pack you can download.
Master posts:
Anyway, for MSA, Alif Baa is typically the book most learners start off with in order to learn the alphabet. In this book it covers MSA, and the Levantine and Egyptian dialects and it comes with a DVD/audio.
There’s also this book for the alphabet too The Arabic Alphabet: How to Read & Write It
As another poster has already brought up, there’s the Al-Kitaab series with Part 2 here. Not self-teaching friendly at all.
There’s also:
And here’s some more link vomit:
Youtube:
For Darija, it’s really difficult to find resources for compared to other dialects, but here are some that I’ve found over time.
Books:
Links:
Youtube:
Other:
There’s also this in person course in Rabat that many people have spoken highly of.
You may be interested in Stephen Shoemaker's The Death of a Prophet.
http://www.amazon.com/The-Death-Prophet-Beginnings-Divinations/dp/0812243560/
It is pricey, so you may want to find it at an academic library. The research and writing is top notch, and everything is superbly cited and referenced.
It's been a while since I read the book, but at the time I had strong feelings against the book, and this hasn't changed in the year since. First of all, it has to be said that Holland is a very engaging writer and I enjoyed his other books thoroughly, though perhaps it was because I'm not so familiar with other periods of history. At the very least, he writes excellent popular history and though his arguments in this book is controversial, it in my opinion brought more public attention to a very exciting and interesting field, which is no bad thing! This is also a flaw though, since he can get a bit too into his rhetoric, which is great for the reader, but obscures the complexities of the problems he deals with.
The key element of Holland's argument, that Islamic sources are not reliable, is not contested in modern Western scholarship, but the problem is that some historians, such as Patricia Crone, go too far and argue that they should be dismissed altogether. Holland unfortunately followed this approach blindly even though he's not an expert in this field. The book Hagarism by Crone and Michael Cook is the most obvious example of the views of these ultra-sceptics. It is a fascinating read, suggesting that based on contemporary non-Islamic sources, Islam was a Jewish splinter sect (with Samaritan influences) that became its own religious force in the reign of Abdul al-Malik in the late seventh century; Muhammad was a secular leader who got turned into a prophet by his successors when they realised that they need an alternative form of legitimacy after their ties with Judaism became strained. However, even though Islamic sources were written down at least a century after the events they described and some were obvious forgeries, I still think that SOME facts about Muhammad's life were passed down orally. Hagarism also used a shoddy methodology and its main argument about Islam being a Jewish sect relies on three sources: a contemporary Armenian history, a Byzantine anti-semitic pamphlet and a Jewish apocalyptic work. The first two would obviously cast Islam as a brand of Judaism, because contemporaries were unbelievably anti-semitic and Jews were the obvious scapegoat for any Byzantine misfortune, whilst the last source is hardly a reliable one. As far as I'm concerned, I'm willing to concede that Muhammad's early followers formed some kind of an ecumenical group that included Jews and Christians (as Fred Donner argued) since there are plenty of evidence for inter-faith co-operation and influence, but Islam being a Jewish sect or Muhammad not claiming to be a prophet? They don't mesh well with our sources at all.
Most modern historians are aware of the flaws of Islamic sources and always take care to compare these sources with other contemporary writings. Two historians who used this approach recently, James Howard-Johnston and Robert Hoyland, both came to the conclusion that Islamic traditions are generally accurate, though some dates/events were fudged to suit the religious/political sensibilities of the chroniclers, which is hardly surprising. A few others still use these sources uncritically (such as Hugh Kennedy, whose book on the Islamic conquests is excellent, but I still cringe a bit at the uncritical approach to sources he used), but generally, I get the impression that the consensus is somewhere in the middle, with historians using Islamic sources carefully to reconstruct early Islam, rather than following blindly or dismissing them altogether.
There are still some exciting theories floating around, but they are based on hard evidence. Most recently, Stephen Shoemaker's Death of a Prophet argued that Muhammad led an ecumenical movement of followers of various Abrahamic religions and was involved in early attacks on Palestine (rather than dying in Medina before the Islamic conquest as conventional accounts have it) - controversial, but there are contemporary sources that suggest Muhammad did just that. Holland on the other hand did not argue from sources (part of the nature of writing a non-academic book) and was trying to summarise complex theories into one exciting argument. The impression I got was that he was basically re-phrasing Crone's argument by positing an alternate home-city for Islam and de-emphasising the role of Muhammad as a prophet, but it was an argument that has generally been dismissed in academia - even though Hagarism was an exciting book to read and was really important in changing historians' perception of early Islam, it had a flawed methodology and I much prefer Crone's later works, which were still sceptical, but were more nuanced and actually looked at more than three sources.
It's definitely something you see across the literature. Many aspiring Imams and Mullahs would head to places like Karbala, Najaf, and Qom, and study from the various teachers there. Then, many would head off to various localities, often acting as a community leader with religious legitimacy. You can see some of this happening here:
Roy Mottahedeh - The Mantle of the Prophet: https://www.amazon.com/Mantle-Prophet-Roy-Mottahedeh/dp/1851686169
There are two books by Moojan Momen
Shi'i Islam: A Beginner's Guide
and
Introduction to Shi'i Islam
The first one is a relatively short book, but thorough. The second on is a VERY detailed and long book, and honestly still the best there is as far as I am concerned.
Of course neither of these are nearly as readable as Lesley Hazelton, who writes more like a novelist and less like an academic, so her writing is easier, albeit less packed with information. But where Hazelton gets you a great overview, Momen will give you amazing detail.
For MSA I used Mastering Arabic and it was great; very fun to read and kept me motivated throughout.
Mastering Arabic 1 with 2 Audio CDs: Third Edition (Arabic Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0781813387/
For Levantine Arabic I have these two recommendations, but both are more advanced and expect an existing understanding of Arabic.
Living Arabic: A Comprehensive Introductory Course (Arabic and English Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0974484342/
Colloquial Palestinian Arabic: An Introduction to the Spoken Dialect (Arabic Edition) https://www.amazon.com/dp/0982159536/
The history of Iran is one of my favorite subjects. We in the US tend to view the entire Middle east as one monolithic culture, and learning about Persian/Iranian history really helps broaden one's perspective regarding US-Middle East relations.
So many fascinating subjects in Iranian history, from it's long and proud tradition of viewing itself as a coherent culture, which contrasts somewhat with the tribal nature of the Arabs, to the fledging democracy movement that was crushed in 1953 with a great deal of help from the CIA and Great Britain (which just might play into why our relationship with them isn't fantastic), to the current tensions within the country between the educated liberal youth, the religious Guardian Council, and the conservative forces around the military and Ahmadinejad.
My favorite intro book on the Iran is:
A Modern History of Iran by Ervand Abrahamian - a fantastic, and short, overview of Iran once it started modernizing with a few mentions of the deep cultural legacy of Persia.
Israel: A History, by Martin Gilbert
Currently reading the updated 2017 version, myself.
So far, I think it is better than Albert Hourani's very similar book.
https://www.amazon.com/History-Arab-Peoples-Albert-Hourani/dp/1441787933
Great choice of interest - I have studied Israel for the last couple of years and it has been very interesting.
There are two books I would recommend:
Martin Gilbert, Israel: a History. Almost 800 pages, but you could read it selectively. I recommend this because I often find that in order to understand something about Israel you need to know something about its background. The conflict starts a long time before the formation in 1948 when Jews bought land from the locals.
David Hirst. The gun and the olive branch. More focused on the conflict(s), but also sets out from the time before the declaration of state. Slightly shorter and more readable than Gilbert's book.
Both of them are well known books on the subject and perhaps more likely to be available from a nearby library. They also come as reasonably priced paperbacks.
LOL!
To u/ACaulfield910, it is pretty clear you don't really understand what you are touting.
Just to point out a single example,
For another example, when u/wazzym provided you with some links here; your glorious response was to say that they are by "a reddit keyboard warrior with no credibility".
Now that is an ad hominem worthy of its name. To top that, you followed your ad hominem with an argumentum ad verecundiam.
Please, get your thoughts straight before trying to teach others logic.
Apart from that, you aren't doing yourself any favors on this forum if you think you can uncritically accept and merely regurgitate traditional Islamic narratives.
From your romanticist views of early Islam, it is also clear that you are clueless as to what contemporary critical non-religious scholarship has to say about Islamic origins. I really recommend that you read this book by Stephen Shoemaker
Good Luck
Tl;Dr Mossadegh hated Brits and Russians because of the "Great Game." Led to anti-socialism and nationalized oil industry despite contemporary support for Marxism in some classes and surrounding nations.
Mossadegh was democratically elected. At the time, surrounding states were experimenting with Marxist ideologies. Given time, Iran would have done the same. In fact, the very revolution that would oust him had a strong connection to his hatred of socialism, historically speaking.
Iran had long been fought over by Russia and the British. Both wanted access to her oil reserves and the Gulf trade network. Britain also wanted to lay communications wires to India across the plateau. This was known as the "Great Game." As such, powerful Iranians (commoners couldn't care less) hated both Britian and Russia from the get-go.
Britian eventually "won" their influence and were able to lay lines and "steal their oil." Mossadegh's residual hatred toward the Brits is evident thru his nationalization of the oil companies - a process that was extremely controversial on the world stage - which directly led to British and American interference.
We can see the desire for change (as was in the developing Marxist states) in the revolutionary spark the Iranian public had back in the 50s. Though, what they received was not what they intended. The other Central Asian states have a tendency to follow Iranian leadership - as has been the case since Persian times. (Ie. Iran goes Islamist? Afghanistan goes Islamist. You get the idea.)
This type of "revolution" is not uncommon in the Middle East. We see the same thing 35 years prior with the Ottomans and T. E. Lawrence. New thoughts > stoked flame by outside forces > revolution > revolution completely hijacked > puppet government.
I've got a book around here about all of this but can't remember the title. I'll edit here when I find it.
Edit a History of Modern Iran
I'm actually just right after a reading of "History of the Arab Peoples"(which is really worth reading, I encourage anyone interested in the topic) and I may not be and expert on the topic. Actually I definitely am not. But from what I've read the Arab culture and Islam as a religion is far behind morally and culturally from Christianity, and especially the mild European version of Christianity. And take that from an atheist.
Islam, based on it's source material, which is the Quran and various types of Hadith, is a religion that is bound to it's original texts to a far greater extent then pretty much any modern flavour of Christianity. And the original texts are not a very peasant reading.
As much as I consider the Old Testament an outdated book and the New Testament a poor source of morality at least the New Testament doesn't describe it's main character as a conquerer and someone who spreads it's religion by force. Which Quran and pretty much all the hadiths do.
But what do I know, I'm just some guy on the internet.
needs Hodgson's "Venture of Islam" (all 3 vols)
http://www.amazon.com/The-Venture-Islam-Volume-Classical/dp/0226346838
This is interesting http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0814760325
This is a tricky thing in terms of online sources, since the form sort of lends itself to pointing towards contemporary issues, rather than strict historicism. I'll recommend a few books that I think directly address some of the issues you're interested in below. What I might actually suggest is digging around for primary sources on the internet for this issue. One kind of nice side effect of the long-running Arab-Israeli conflict is that pretty much all of the major primary documents have been reproduced online! And many of the non-English ones have been translated into English! I suggest taking some time to actually read the Balfour Declaration, the Sykes-Picot agreement, UN Res. 242, the Hamas Charter, the Israeli Constitution, the Oslo Accords, etc., etc..
Additionally, if you want even deeper primary source info, you can get that too. The US National Archives has made public and digital thousands of primary documents related to this subject on it's website. A simple search for Israel, as an example, returns over 1,700 documents that are in the Online Public Holdings. Similar searches at the British Public Records Office can be done as well.
Some recommended reading:
Israel Gershoni, Confronting Fascism in Egypt
Eugene Rogan and Avi Shlaim, The War for Palestine, 1948
Rashid Khalidi, Palestinian Identity
The Persian Puzzle offers a good historical perspective on the history of democracy and Islam in Iran in particular, and the middle east in general.
I always recommend three books for people who want to start learning about the subject:
Righteous Victims by Benny Morris
Israel, a history by Martin Gilbert
and Six Days of War by Michael Oren
Between those three, you have a good introduction. The Morris and Gilbert are both comprehensive histories covering everything from the early Zionists to modern day. They have very different interpretations; it's not that either one is wrong, they just place emphasis on different aspects. And the Oren is the best overview of the six day war which was the most important war in terms of causes of the present day conflict.
It sounds like your professor didn’t tell you anything about the violence that Palestinians committed against Jews before and during the creation of Israel.
Here are some starting points for you:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920_Nebi_Musa_riots
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1929_Palestine_riots
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1936–1939_Arab_revolt_in_Palestine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Relations_between_Nazi_Germany_and_the_Arab_world
https://www.ushmm.org/research/publications/academic-publications/full-list-of-academic-publications/nazi-palestine-the-plans-for-the-extermination-of-the-jews-of-palestine
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1947–48_Civil_War_in_Mandatory_Palestine
Here are a couple academic books you can read by a historian who is known to be among the most even-handed (not pro-Israel or pro-Palestine):
https://www.amazon.com/Righteous-Victims-Zionist-Arab-Conflict-1881-2001/dp/0679744754
https://www.amazon.com/Palestinian-Refugee-Problem-Revisited-Cambridge/dp/0521009677/ref=mp_s_a_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1539091713&sr=8-1&pi=AC_SX236_SY340_QL65&keywords=birth+of+the+palestinian+refugee+problem&dpPl=1&dpID=41k290p1ICL&ref=plSrch
Now here are a few things for you to think about:
Why is your professor so intent on piling you with pro-Palestinian sources that she’s giving you fictional novels to read? Does that sound like she is trying to teach you or indoctrinate you?
It sounds like your professor has taught you about Jews expelling Arabs from the area they controlled, but didn’t teach you about how Arabs expelled Jews from the area they controlled. Why do you think that is? Do you think teaching students about each side’s violence would yield different opinions than only teaching about the Jews’ violence and framing all Palestinian violence only as a reaction?
It’s good that you asked about the other side of the issue and sought out reading material explaining it. But how many of your classmates do the same? What impression do you think that leaves them with? Do you think at the end of your class they will have a good understanding of the Israeli-Arab conflict, or a distorted impression?
What do you think are your school and your professor’s responsibilities to their students with respect to informing them of the facts of topics they choose to study? How do you think the actual performance compares to their responsibilities?
If most schools have intro professors like yours (on this topic and others, but especially this), what effect do you think that has for the current generation of students?
You said you keep up on current events in the Israeli-Arab conflict. What sources are you reading? Is it only left-wing sources? Centrist sources? A mix of left, right, and center?
FWIW, I find Ynetnews.com, the online version of Israel’s most popular newspaper, to be the best source. You are better off if you supplement it with the New York Times (pro-Palestinian editorial board, but the news articles are pretty fair). USA Today and Bloomberg tend to be pretty fair too.
I really liked Black Flags: The Rose of Isis by Joby Warrick. It's a great primer on the origins and history of the group and its 2 most important figures, Abu al Zarqawi and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Before I read it Isis was for me as you alluded to: a topic I heard about all the time but really only had a surface level knowledge of.
Here's the link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Black-Flags-The-Rise-ISIS/dp/0385538219
The Israel-Arab Reader is almost entirely composed of primary sources, with almost no commentary by the authors apart from the foreword and afterword.
https://www.amazon.com/Israel-Arab-Reader-Documentary-History-Conflict/dp/0143113798
http://www.amazon.com/Zionism-Real-Enemy-False-Messiah/dp/0932863647/
http://www.amazon.com/Zionism-Enemy-David-Becomes-Goliath/dp/0932863663/
http://www.amazon.com/Zionism-Real-Enemy-Conflict-without/dp/0932863698/
http://www.amazon.com/The-Gun-Olive-Branch-Violence/dp/1560254831
http://www.amazon.com/Disappearing-Palestine-Israels-Experiments-Despair/dp/1848130317
Some good answers here. If you were really interested in learning a lot about the subject Black Garden by de Waal is the definitive book.
That said, I'll explain my comment since others have explained the overall conflict.
In Armenia, Karabakh holds an important, almost mythical sway on the consciousness. Pretty much every Armenia I have ever met has asked me "have you been to Karabakh?" They see the land as theirs, wrongfully stolen from them when the Soviets drew the borders, putting this area they see as part of ancient Armenia (and, to be fair, had a lot of ethnic Armenians in it) in to Soviet Azerbaijan.
The Armenians have been screwed by border drawing by foreign powers before--their holy Mountain, the Mountain that Noah's Ark landed on, the Mountain that adorns their coat of arms and every Armenian home--was drawn on the other side of the border with Turkey at the close of WW1. Of course, WW1 also had the Turks carrying out a massive genocide of the Armenian people, and so this literally added insult to massive injury. But there's nothing to be done about Mount Ararat; Turkey is far too powerful. Karabakh, on the other hand, can be held and there are many Armenians living there. As a people who have suffered so much holding on to that land is important.
The sons of Armenia (and Azerbaijan, to be fair) die all the time on the front line of this Cold War. Territory doesn't change hands, but snipers fire over the border, sometimes hitting civilians. Armenians see themselves as having given so much to protect this land they will not give it up--and they also fear not having Karabakh as a buffer between their main state and Azerbaijan. I don't know any Azeris so I can't speak to their feelings, but the impression I get is that they believe they should hold the territory that was in their borders during Soviet times. However--and I admit I am biased when making this statement--I don't think that's realistic. This area of the world has a strong ethnic association with territory (Azeris in Azerbaijan, Armenians in Armenia, etc.) that I don't see how it could end well for the ethnic Armenians in Karabakh if the Azeris got that territory back.
This is one of the most complicated situations in the world right now, and very few people know about it.
Jonathan Cook: West's Failure to Act Will Be Cause of the Next Gaza Massacre https://original.antiwar.com/cook/2018/05/16/wests-failure-to-act-will-be-cause-of-the-next-gaza-massacre/
Norman Finkelstein Explains the Extraordinary Evil That Is Israel https://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2018/05/16/norman-finkelstein-explains-extraordinary-evil-israel/
Gilad Atzmon http://www.gilad.co.uk/
Uri Avnery http://original.antiwar.com/avnery/
Uri Avnery is now over 80 years old and used to be a member of the Knesset. He has been mixing with Israeli leaders for the last 50+ years. You might want to start with him.
Miko Peled - The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine https://www.amazon.co.uk/Generals-Son-Journey-Israeli-Palestine/dp/193598215X
Miko Peled writes occasional articles and does lectures and Youtube videos too. He is the son of a very famous Israeli General.
Is that enough to be going on with?
Abdel Bari Atwan is hardly a reliable source. William Perry is a much better source, but even he isn't sure "I believe that the Khobar Tower bombing was probably masterminded by Osama bin Laden," Perry said. "I can't be sure of that, but in retrospect, that's what I believe. At the time, he was not a suspect. At the time ... all of the evidence was pointing to Iran.". At the time Prince Nayef absolved Iran of involvement relations were improving between the two countries due to the election of Khatami. Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council official, states that by the time US and Saudi officials had evidence implicating Iran relations were thawing and they didn't want to rock the boat. http://www.amazon.com/The-Persian-Puzzle-Conflict-Between/dp/0812973364
not on your list of conflicts but still a current war that had a recent flair up.https://www.amazon.com/Black-Garden-Armenia-Azerbaijan-Anniversary/dp/0814760325 It's a good objective account of the conflict that i'd recommend to anyone.
I know a couple books at an academic level that are easy reads but they might not fit nicely into what you're looking for.
For example the book that I have in mind describes politically driven events and the motivations behind them but because it's a book about Islam before anything else, you may have to connect some of the dots yourself. If you'd like a quick summary, what happened is that after the Prophet (PBUH) passed away there was a discord as to who his "successor" should be. This splintering would result in a new sect of Islam, civil wars, corrupt leaders, and the expansion of Islam which in turn would introduce a huge amount of culture and scientific advancements. This book covers all that.
Another easy read would be Islam: Faith and History. It covers the tribal structure of society before Islam, the major wars that would occur (their motivation/impact) and how Islam would eventually change this idol worshiping society. Again, it's a book about Islam rather than the politics but the two are so intertwined that I feel like it makes for a good introduction.
I'll take a look through and see what else I've read that might be useful if those don't fit the bill. If you're unsure about the recommendations, I can certainly scan a few pages and send them your way for review.
Edit: Both the books can be read by (I'd say) someone in late highschool or above. The first book is a bit dry and long while the second one is some small, non-intimidating primer.
If you're looking for scholarly history research, the first books from Benny Morris like 1948 and After are as unbiased as you can get in this controversial issue. His later books, on the other hand, are more complete and include new relevant information that came since to the light, but you'll have to take into account that he went to the far-right politically by then.
If you are looking for lighter reading, O Jerusalem!, from Dominique Lapierre and Larry Collins is pretty balanced (though still slightly pro-Israel). I still prefer the The Gun and the Olive Branch, from David Hirst, but the author does not hide his sympathy for the Palestinians' plight in that one. Not such a bad thing, I would say, as long as you stay true to the facts and your heart is in the right place.
Lots of great answers everyone. I see that I have a lot of reading to do and that is a good thing. Just for anyone also interested I compiled all of the named books into a list and sourced them, for your reading pleasure.
The Accidental Guerrilla by David Kilcullen
Counterinsurgency by David Kilcullen
Out of the Mountains by David Kilcullen
Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counterinsurgency Lessons From Malaya and Vietnam by John Nagl
Tactics of the Crescent Moon: Militant Muslim Combat Methods by John Poole
Modern War: Counter-Insurgency as Malpractice by Edward Luttwak
A Savage War of Peace by Alistar Horne
The Bear Went Over the Mountain by Lester Grau
Invisible Armies by Max Boot
Vid Putivla do Karpat by Sydir Artemovych Kovpac
Fire in the Lake by Frances FitzGerald
Inside Rebellion by Jeremy M. Weinstein
It's a crazy complicated history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Some of the earliest Jewish settlements were to escape Russian pogroms in the late 1800s. During this time the area we refer to as Israel or Palestine now was under control of the Ottoman Empire, which were relatively religiously tolerant provided citizens paid their taxes to include the Jizyah. Fast forward about 30-40 years, the Ottoman Empire (one of the Central Powers during WW1) is dissolved into many of the modern day states of the middle east by the British and French (Sykes-Picot Agreement). One of the easiest ways to see this is the hard angular lines of country's borders in the middle east. Anyway, when the the British and French divided the territories of the Ottoman Empire, the British ended up with Palestine. The British ran a provisional government of sorts during this time and ultimately the Jewish settlers of the area had far more experience with Western European notions of bureaucracy than the Arab Palestinians (far more accustomed the the rule of authoritarian's like the Ottoman Sultan). Anyway this continues for roughly the next 50 years with Jewish settlement continuing in several waves referred to as Aliyahs (Return in Hebrew if I remember correctly). Post WW2 the UN grants Israel statehood. This is a crazy crazy simplification of a highly complex issue but if your interested in reading about it, I would look into these 3 books.
​
Land, Labor and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict
Land & Power: The Zionist Resort to Force
The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Crisis Revisited
Good on you. Ignorance is one of the most dangerous things in our society and I applaud you for taking an independent approach to learning the faith of Islam in a non-baised way.
The thing with your question is, there are many interpretations of Islam and it's not easy to find specifics. A great author by name of Moojan Momen has an excellent book (which I read when I asked your exact question) which can be found on Amazon. Really informative, detailed and also compares Shi'a Islam with Sunni Islam. There isn't any bias evident since Moojan doesn't follow Islam personally, but has a strong history of researching and exploring all major world faiths.
I would highly recommend:
or
Hourani's is a bit more thorough and is available in audiobook format, whereas Rogan's is an easier read and gives more attention to the modern day Middle East. Both offer insight into the cultural, colonial, and political histories of the peoples living within the Middle East, which is really the only way to understand how and why the states operate the way they do today.
I'd be happy to help answer any questions to the best of my ability. I'd also recommend learning about the conflict not via a historical book arguing a particularly interpretation but rather a documentary source book. This one is wonderful and will give you direct access to many primary source documents so that you can make up your own mind about the conflict.
After learning the primary sources, then it's worth reading some more opinionated histories, like Benny Morris's or Efraim Karsh's.
The best advice I can give is to not forget that the conflict is really about people. People whose lives, families, and societies are on the line and whom are often caught up in the games of much bigger players who care little for them.
Did you know Amazon will donate a portion of every purchase if you shop by going to smile.amazon.com instead? Over $50,000,000 has been raised for charity - all you need to do is change the URL!
Here are your smile-ified links:
a History of Modern Iran
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^^i'm ^^a ^^friendly bot
Basic: Islam by Karen Armstrong
Intermediate: A History of Islamic Societies by Ira Lapidus
Advanced: The Venture of Islam by Marshall G. S. Hodgson, Volume 1, Volume 2, Volume 3.
Thomas de Waal wrote a book about the Nagorno-Karabakh region and the ongoing conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia. It was published in 2003 and updated in 2011.
The book is called a Black Garden.
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0814760325/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_m3BWCbBY67YYB
Your assertion that there is absolutely no state-sponsored influence on any facets of American media, and that there are no power players who involve themselves in advertising, is obviously, categorically false. Your argument is founded solely on either naivety or misinformation. I'd recommend to everybody seeing this read The Dictator's Handbook, NY Times best-selling Dark Money, and maybe even Pulitzer-prize winning Black Flag for a more in-depth study on the complicated issue of how exactly we're manipulated and exploited.
A couple to get you started...
Nikki Keddie, Modern Iran: Roots and Results of Revolution (updated 2006)
Roy Mottahedeh, The Mantle of the Prophet (2nd edition, 2008)
Contrary to popular myth, it is usually not men but women, particularly divorcees and widows, who seek temporary marriges, and many such arrangements lead to permanent loving relationships. Haeri’s extensive survey showed that many older women approached “young men, particularly handsome ones, directly and frequently”. http://www.amazon.com/Law-Desire-Temporary-Marriage-Contemporary/dp/0815624832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203007477&sr=8-1
So it's clear to me that you don't really know all that much about Iran or the Iranian people, but I can suggest some reading material so that you can further educate yourself if you so choose to. I found these books to be quite informative.
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5
If you're quite interested, I'd recommend Invisible Armies by Max Boot. It'll take some time to get through but it covers every major insurgency in recorded history and he's a pretty good writer so the read goes faster than expected.
Avi Shlaim's book, https://www.amazon.com/War-Palestine-Rewriting-History-Cambridge/dp/0521699347/
His essay http://users.ox.ac.uk/~ssfc0005/The%20Debate%20About%201948.html
Sigeh (in Farsi) is a form of temporary marriage and to the extent that it is actually practiced, usually by older women but often leads to lasting relationships. https://www.amazon.com/Law-Desire-Temporary-Contemporary-Paperback/dp/0815624832
This is a legal "boyfriend-girlfriend" relationship which specifies that any children born are legitimate and therefore entitled to care and inheritance etc. https://www.nytimes.com/2000/10/04/world/love-finds-a-way-in-iran-temporary-marriage.html
As Shahla Haeri revealed in her 1989 book, Law of Desire (published in the UK by I B Tauris), many muta contracts in Iran are transformed into permanent, loving relationships. Contrary to popular myth, it is usually not men but women, particularly divorcees and widows, who seek muta marriage. Haeri’s extensive survey showed that many older women approached “young men, particularly handsome ones, directly and frequently”. http://www.amazon.com/Law-Desire-Temporary-Marriage-Contemporary/dp/0815624832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203007477&sr=8-1
Historiska fel.
Propaganda.
Intressant läsning om du är intresserad av konflikten: http://www.amazon.com/The-Generals-Son-Journey-Palestine/dp/193598215X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1407513484&sr=8-1&keywords=miko+peled (ja, man kan läsa en del online, det är bara att klicka!)
I won't argue your history but the rest of the world will. Miko Peled discusses the history from his father's involvement in the 6 day war, his father was General Peled. (You can buy it on Amazon) http://www.amazon.com/The-Generals-Son-Journey-Palestine/dp/193598215X
Please don't invoke the Nazi party. They believed in a Master Race (those kind of races for example where God gives them the right to do and act without consequence), the ability to secure territorial enlargement, and the harassment, marginalization, imprisonment, and killing of "undesirable" elements." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
I don't claim that the Nazi's were moral, but at least their motto was: "Treu, Tapfer, Gehorsam" "loyal, valiant, obedient." Compare this with the Israeli Mossad: בתחבולות תעשה לך מלחמה "With clandestine terrorism we will conduct war," or "By Way Of Deception, Thou Shalt Do War."
Thank you for the conversation. I'm enjoying this.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazism
You were referring to this work?
See Black Flags, The Rise of ISIS https://www.amazon.com/Black-Flags-Rise-Joby-Warrick/dp/0385538219/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1468031319&sr=1-1&keywords=black+flags
>Then why do all the mullahs and imams promote forcing Muslims and their children to pray like is mentioned here?
The man who created this site is a widely disliked wahhabi. In fact, wahhabis are pretty universally disliked... by many people in the muslim world. In fact, I could provide citations of this for days. But eventually you're just going to have to learn some things before you start drawing these dangerous conclusions that risk starting a deadly war of civilizations. Wahhabis are a minority, and their spread started only in 1932 when western powers propped up the dictatorial house of Saud in Saudi Arabia.
I would like to point out that this page you gave does not cite the Qur'an even once and does not use the Haadith even once
To say "all mullahs and imams" proves your profound ignorance of the history and diversity of Islam and the middle east. Most Sunnis, and no Shia or Sufi (together, the vast majority of Islam, 99% of muslims, over 1 billion people) would ever be caught dead following this garbage. In fact, if I were to ever find myself in Saudi Arabia, I could very well be killed for being a member of my branch of Islam.
To understand some of this history, I would start with this. And perhaps move on to this. First so that you can have a basic understanding of how Islamic jurisprudence works, and second, so that you can stop parading the ignorance of Islamophobes who refuse to do research and the Wahhabis who delight in this fact.
>Are you more learned about Islam than they are?
Frankly, yes. And so are the VAST majority of muslims.
What do you think the objectives of a terrorist organization are? How would you counter said terrorist organization? How would you convince your fellow representatives to follow your initiative? How would you work against an Islamic power of Iran due to the collapse of Irans religious/local rivals due to american military presence in Iraq/Afghanistan?
Might I suggest reading How to Win a Cosmic War, Thinking Like a terrorist, Afghanistan: The Bear Trap, and Imperial Hubris to get some background on why the United States has/is losing the greater war on terror.
Mike, I'm afraid that you're a little confused about cause and effect. Let me give you hand...
Edit: spelling and grammar
A lot of people would tell you Al-Kitaab and I don't want to discourage you from buying it but honestly the book is so AWFUL. The dialogues in it are not written out, you have to guess what they are saying, you have to pay extra for the online content and it expires making you re-buy it, the grammar explanations are really really bad. It made easy things like Idafa seem extremely confusing. Please look at all the horrible reviews for alkitaab on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Al-Kitaab-fii-taallum-al-Arabiyya-Arabic/product-reviews/1589017366/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_viewpnt_rgt?ie=UTF8&filterByStar=critical&showViewpoints=0&pageNumber=1
If you are jumping right into Al-Kitaab it won't teach you the alphabet.
It is so bad, in my classes we are on the second book now and I honestly want to burn it. The best book I have used so far is Mastering Arabic by Jane Wightwick. You can find it here:
https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Arabic-Audio-CDs-Third/dp/0781813387/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1466799605&sr=8-1&keywords=Mastering+Arabic
You can buy a workbook for it as well, in general it has more exercises and explains things better, and it has tons of audio. I'd also recommend Living Language Arabic. But Al-Kitaab is just so frustrating and so bad. I hate that this book is the standard for colleges. I think it is the reason why so few people finish Arabic in college.
i know a professor and she did give this multiple book series for history a pass, the author is not an orientalist as well, the Venture of Islam:
https://www.amazon.com/Venture-Islam-Classical-Age/dp/0226346838/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523804477&sr=8-1&keywords=the+venture+of+islam&dpID=51KRFoNyv9L&preST=_SY291_BO1,204,203,200_QL40_&dpSrc=srch
Quran.com you can read, also see the text and listen as well.
Oh, a friend also used this when researching religions:
https://www.amazon.com/Worlds-Religions-Plus-Huston-Smith/dp/0061660183/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1523804928&sr=8-1&keywords=huston+smith+world%27s+religions
Thomas Freidman wrote From Beirut to Jerusalem about two decades ago and it is still such a great read.
In reality...
>As Shahla Haeri revealed in her 1989 book, Law of Desire (published in the UK by I B Tauris), many muta contracts in Iran are transformed into permanent, loving relationships. Contrary to popular myth, it is usually not men but women, particularly divorcees and widows, who seek muta marriage. Haeri’s extensive survey showed that many older women approached “young men, particularly handsome ones, directly and frequently”.http://www.amazon.com/Law-Desire-Temporary-Marriage-Contemporary/dp/0815624832/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1203007477&sr=8-1
I can recommend this book. It is very good: https://www.amazon.com/War-Palestine-Rewriting-History-Cambridge/dp/0521699347
https://www.amazon.com/War-Palestine-Rewriting-History-Cambridge/dp/0521699347
and numerous other books.
>So 7K-25K deaths are "tiddlywinks". So how many people has Israel killed?
Oh, are you pretending to be a fan of the Muslim brotherhood now? I thought you'd be happy.
>What slaughtering occurred before the war?
Go to the library or a decent bookshop and get this book.
>And do you include the destruction of the 2500 year old Jewish community in Hebron as part of "cleansing the natives"?
An unfortunate and condemnable incident but totally pales in comparison to the inequities and suffering dealt upon the Palestinians. Are you again trying to argue that such incidents somehow justify zionazi crimes against humanity?
Its chapter on the history is short, but if you're interested in people's current views on it and how it impacts current life (at least as of 1989), I would strongly recommend Thomas Friedman's "From Beirut to Jerusalem".
Yeah, it's the same guy who wrote "The World is Flat". He was stationed as a reporter in Beirut during the period around the Lebanese Civil War and covered all kinds of Israeli-Palestinian conflicts. His reporting at the time won two Pulitzers, and the book won the National Book Award. It's an immensely fascinating read.
And yes, Friedman is Jewish, but his writing is pretty fair, and acknowledges bias where it exists. He's pretty heavy-handed in condemning many of Israel's tactics, probably to the point of holding them to a higher moral standard than the PLO.
Give it a shot.
Yeah I was really disappointed that Duolingo had Klingon and High Valyrian but no Arabic. I was debating between Drops and Memrise. Drops is only like 5 minutes daily and was primarily words whereas Memrise started with the actual symbols themselves. Aside from those I really wasn't sure.
I live about 2 hours from Dearborn, Michigan and our little down has a high population density with most of them being from Yemen which has its own dialect being Yemeni Arabic which is used primarily in Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Somalia. This was the other resource that I found that I was hoping to buy in a couple weeks as a self Christmas present if I can get the money saved up for it https://www.amazon.com/Mastering-Arabic-Audio-CDs-Third/dp/0781813387/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1541741749&sr=8-7&keywords=arabic
This is more novelistic than academic, but it's a great starting point: http://www.amazon.com/After-Prophet-Story-Shia-Sunni-Split/dp/0385523947/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1376894644&sr=8-1&keywords=after+the+prophet
This is also quite readable: http://www.amazon.com/Heirs-MuhammadIslams-Century-Origins-Sunni-Shia/dp/1590200225/ref=cm_cr_dp_asin_lnk
For a history written by a Shi'i about their origins: http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Shi`i-Islam-History-Doctrines/dp/0300035314/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1376894805&sr=1-1&keywords=momen+shia
Any more info needed I'd be happy to help.
Jews in the same way there are Greeks or French? What? Jews live in virtually every country, a lifelong way of life. Greeks or French must live in Greece or France, a lifelong way of life, there in those countries, but not everywhere.
Zionists secretive? What? I would never describe Zionists as secretive, but rather as anything but secretive.
I have no difficulty 'owning what I believe'.
I can do better than a transcript - here's the book. I suggest that your library, or anyone's, would be enriched by having this book in it.
Cannot agree more.
Here is a book I thought was brilliant book.
https://www.amazon.com/Invisible-Armies-History-Guerrilla-Warfare/dp/0871406888
I read a book called Imperial Hubris where a former CIA desk officer writing in anonymity discussed exactly this. He says that Osama studied the counter-culture revolution in the 60's and how the Communists used America's youth to motivate the leaders of the country to abandon the Vietnam War.
Osama used this idea of driving change to instead attack our economy and drive change through the youth in America by making it unbearable to live here. What better way to attack the economy than an attack on the symbol of the US's economic domination.
You are right in that he didn't predict the US would invade Iraq but he was ready for US to invade Afghanistan. He killed the top US ally in Afghanistan on September 9th.
Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ahmad_Shah_Massoud
http://www.amazon.com/Imperial-Hubris-West-Losing-Terror/dp/1574888498
> What does the United States have to gain from lying about Gaza being occupied? What do the EU and UN have to gain?
The UN is a membership organization made up of countries and some organizations (in a consultative position). Look up who the voting members of it are and make a list with your own classifications along the lines of "democratic", "authoritarian", "totalitarian". Put each voting country in one of the columns. Think about whether you see a pattern in the voting behavior.
The EU - oil, a sense of "Maybe if we vote their way terrorism won't reach our country."
The US - perhaps the same. Perhaps landing rights for its planes in the war on terror. Perhaps diplomatic support on other issues.
I'm not saying that they are the only countries that have what might be called a 'deceitful' or a 'hypocritical' foreign policy (or that they even have such). And I'm not saying that they don't have other concerns or interests other than what I've listed here.
> The only conclusion I can come to with only information from the IDF and no information from anywhere else is "I don't know."
It doesn't seem to me that you are taking an "I don't know" position. It seems that you are taking a "The IDF is wrong, but I don't know how it is wrong and I'm not sure if it wrong here, but I will disbelieve them anyway."
> > Hamas is highly secretive due to the nature of the organization itself, not as a result of the state that Gaza has been in for some time. Hamas is an authoritarian (at the very least) organization that wants to impose a theocratic state on the people that live in the territory it rules.
> You don't think it has anything to do with reasonable paranoia from decades of having to deal with spies and other state of the art intelligence services?
Hamas is an offshoot of The Society of the Muslim Brothers (aka The Muslim Brotherhood, or The Brotherhood). It as been like that for years before Israel was even founded.
> > By self-sufficiency, do you mean having the funds to carry out social welfare and infrastructure-building? If so, you should do some research and find out just how much money the world community has supplied the PA with over the past 10 years or so. (Hint: well over $500,000,000 since the beginning of 2010!)
> Of course.
Well, what are your findings on how much money the PA has received from the world community in the past 10 years or so?
***
With all respect, I think that you are basing your opinions on an idealized notion of what you would like the situation to be, rather than what it is.
If I may be so bold, may I suggest some reading for you?
A History of Zionism: From the French Revolution to the Establishment of the State of Israel, by Walter Lacquer
Israel: A History, by Martin Gilbert
Palestine Betrayed, by Efraim Karsh
Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World, by Jeffrey Herf
The Flight of the Intellectuals, by Paul Berman
I don't have any connection to Amazon and don't get paid to shill for them.
There are a lot of leftist groups in South America which have had some real longevity, if not success, such as The Shining Path and FARC. There's the Taliban, who really started out as a protection racket for the Pakistani ISI and bloomed into a Islamist revolutionary army, and then a state, and then an insurgency. The Bush War between the Rhodesians, especially the Selous Scouts, and groups like the ZANU is pretty fascinating. Probably the most successful was Giuseppe Garibaldi who started as an insurgent fighter in both South America and Europe before eventually unifying the Italian state.
I'd highly recommend Invisible Armies by Max Boot. I think it would be right up your alley.
EDIT: After rereading your post I think you may be looking more toward "unconventional warfare" teams than "Guerrilla groups". I'd check out the CIA and Special Forces operations with the Montagnards in Southeast Asia, who ran five or ten man teams with local fighters against communist forces in Vietnam/Cambodia/Laos. The Brandenburgers of the German Abwehr were also really fascinating. They ran teams of commandos who were often bi-national or born overseas to run operations in their respective ethnic areas behind enemy lines in World War Two. One of their more famous ops had Russian speaking commandos dressing up as NKVD troops in Crimea and then directing Soviet troop formations on the way to the front in the wrong direction. After the war quite a few of them disappeared, with some ending up in the French Foreign Legion, if legends are to be believed.
"Temporary marriage" means childen are considered legitimate and must be taken care of.
>As Shahla Haeri revealed in her 1989 book, Law of Desire (published in the UK by I B Tauris), many muta contracts in Iran are transformed into permanent, loving relationships. Contrary to popular myth, it is usually not men but women, particularly divorcees and widows, who seek muta marriage. Haeri’s extensive survey showed that many older women approached “young men, particularly handsome ones, directly and frequently”. http://www.amazon.com/Law-Desire-Temporary-Marriage-Contemporary/dp/0815624832
>Your objection to that statement shows your ignorance of history.
What in my comment is untrue, exactly?
>The prophet died during the year 632.
Numerous Jewish, Christian, and Islamic sources date Muhammad's death later, actually, and place him at the conquest of Palestine. There are lots of good reasons to doubt the traditional dating and narratives surrounding the life of Muhammad.
I'm not sure if this is quite what you're looking for, but Burton Mack's The Christian Myth is the best religious studies book that I've read. It's short, elegant and profound. A Myth of Innocence is also good, but it might be a dense outside of a classroom. Both books deal with the study of the New Testament from a secular, sociological perspective, but there's a lot of theory on the concept of myth-making and social influences that can be more generally applied to other fields of religious study. Mack is sorta the antithesis to the "secular" Historical Jesus Movement, which is the dominant movement in academic New Testament studies (and insufferably stupid in my opinion but I'll save my rant).
Actually, the class that I read Mack for used Wayne Meeks's The First Urban Christians as an introduction to the topic. So, if you're really into learning about the origins of Christianity, that's a better place to start.
I never Islam from a sociological perspective, but I liked Hodgson's series The Venture of Islam for a relatively readable (if quite long with some extremely dense sections) description of the history of Islam and Muslim society. It's straight history, though, nearly textbook-style, but it does a great job interweaving all of the different strands and tracking competing and mutating social influences up to the 20th century (I didn't actually read much of the third book, which ends in the 1950's, I guess). Even my converted-to-Islam brother (le sigh...) doesn't hate it because Hodgson did more original research on Muslim history than probably any other Western scholar.
Sorry to ramble on. This was what I studied in college.
I enjoyed From Beirut to Jerusalem by Tom Friedman.
Can recommend this book: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Mastering-Arabic-Audio-CDs-Third/dp/0781813387/
I recommend "All The Shah's Men" before this, but if you still want more info afterwards
https://www.amazon.com/History-Modern-Iran-Ervand-Abrahamian/dp/0521528917/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_product_top?ie=UTF8
> http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/0814760325
That is the best book on the subject.
The idea is to have an honest, simple, accessible, easy to understand, few minutes short content showing the Karabakh Armenian side based on facts and recent history.
From Beruit to Jerusalem is fantastic. You can find it used anywhere,
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0385413726/
> COLONIAL MODERNITY (COLONIALISM AND ITS AFTERMATH) OPERATED THROUGH THE CREATION OF RIGID DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN SELF AND OTHER...
Us vs Them.
A good quote came from the book The Persian Puzzle, where one British diplomat remarked to an American diplomat: "We English have had hundreds of years of experience on how to treat the Natives. Socialism is all right back home, but out here, you have to be the master."
Palestine and the Arab-Israeli Conflict by Charles Smith was quite balanced, as I remember. Check out the reader's reviews. More reviews of it here.
I agree with bugbunz that there's plenty of propaganda on both sides, so when you read the reviews of that one, or any other book on the conflict, remember that supporters of each side will typically view different books as "one-sided" or "skewed". I suppose the only way to get through all that is to read even more books, to eventually reach something of a 'balanced understanding', whatever that is... Good luck! :)
EDIT: I chose Smith's book in part because it contains plenty of historic documents, like the Balfour Declaration, the White Paper, speeches in the UN etc.
If you don't end up buying the Smith book (and even if you do), you should at least get a hold of one or more document readers, like this or this one. Here is another one, that you can browse through here. Beware that bias is also possible in the selection of documents to present (or of which sections to quote).
What about this https://imgur.com/a/XN6Z1FQ?
Or this : https://imgur.com/a/O5VmvMy
Or this: https://www.amazon.com/Palestinian-Refugee-Problem-Revisited-Cambridge/dp/0521009677
Or this: https://icahd.org/2018/09/02/demolition-and-displacement-report-august-2018/
Essential
Prepare yourself for some harsh comments.
Try The Gun and the Olive Branch, by David Hirst. I feel you'll like it.
Every person willing to educate themself on the matter should read this book The General's Son: Journey of an Israeli in Palestine
And view this presentation by the very same person
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=etXAm-OylQQ