Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 28, No.
Review: Shaping Opinion Author(s): Fawaz A. Gerges Review by: Fawaz A. Gerges Source: Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 28, No. 2 (Winter, 1999), pp. 104-106 Published by: University of California Press on behalf of the Institute for Palestine Studies Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2537944 Accessed: 15-04-2015 08:26 UTC
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University of California Press and Institute for Palestine Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Palestine Studies.
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104
JOURNAL OF PALESTINE
rived fromIbn Khaldun's racistobservations about nomads, not Arabs, and which only serves the purpose of underliningthe backwardness of the Arab people (p. 211). Althoughone should not discourage Arabs fromengaging in self-criticalanalysis,which is healthyforany people, this (mis)use of Arab self-critical writingsis intended to legitimize old-fashionedanti-Arabracism,while using the voices of chosen natives,those who are presumablycapable of tellingthe "truth." While the author makes available to English readers some Arabic writings,his book cannot be recommended to students,as the author oftencannot distinguishbetween what is importantand what is trivial.He decides, forexample, thatan articleby Iraqi officialSa'dun Hammadi was "decisive in the historyof Arab nationalism"(p. 93)-a gross exaggeration:Hammadi is merelya functionary of the Iraqi political apparatus. Rejwan cites articlesin the BeiruLt newspaper Sawt al-'Urubah withoutmentioning(or knowing) thatit representsthe views of the insignificant and now defunctNajjadah party(p. 114). A writerin the Lebanese newspaper alShca'b(which probably has the smallest circulation in the country)becomes "a wellknown Lebanese writerand journalist"(p. 121). He is also plainly wrong in thinking thatArab (not only Lebanese) intellectuals did not come to the defense of Sadek Jalal al-Azm,in the wake of the controversygenerated by his book Naqd al-Fikral-Dini. And it is inaccurate to state thatmodern formsof literaryexpression were rejected after1967; thatis not even truLe of Saudi literatyproduction. Finally,the author devotes a token section forwomen's issues, in which he engages in patronizing(or what Leila Ahmed calls "colonial feminist")remarksabout the status of women in the Arab world. Only somebody totallyunfamiliarwith the writings of Arab women would say thatunlike Western feminists,Arab feminists"do not concentrateon problems exclusive to theirgender" (p. 222). He also laments the absence of women in political officein the Arab world, as ifthis serious problem is unique to the Arab world. Female political representationin the Arab world (as flawed as it is) is sometimes higherthan thatof the United States.And on whose feministopinion does Rejwan rely? None other than Lebanon's formerfirstlady Muna Hrawi (p. 225), hardlythe voice of Arab feminism.
STUDIES
In short,this book is not useful,unless one is looking forways to "authenticate"racism against the Arabs.
SHAPING OPINION The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception, ed. YahyaR.
Kamalipour. Westport,CT: Praeger, 1997. 230 pages. Bibliographyto p. 234. Index to p. 238. $59.95 cloth.
Media and Political Conflict:News from
the Middle East, by Gadi Wolfsfeld.Cambridge, England: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1997. 219 pages. Appendix to p. 239. Bibliography to p. 246. Index to p. 255. $59.95 cloth. Reviewed by Fawaz A. Gerges Taken together,the two books under review shed much lighton some aspects of the media's relationshipwith civil society and the foreignpolicy establishment.The U.S. Media and the Middle East is a collection of eighteen shortessays, all addressing various aspects of the media's representationof Arabs and Muslims.The contributorsexamine how the media representor misrepresent Arabs and Muslims ratherthan construct a conceptual model thathelps to explain the nuanced relationshipbetween the media, culture,and the political process. Yahya R. Kamalipour, professorof communicationsat Purdue UniversityCalumet, argues thatthe mass media are active agents thatdetermine people's perspective of the world, the way in which they make decisions, and how they spend theirleisure time,perceive others,and (most importantly)interactwith one another: "Thus, the mass media can be seen not only as a drivingforce behind culturaland social change but also as an index forpolitical mobilization,both domesticallyand internationally" (p. x). Armed with this undifferentiated hypothesis,Kamalipour contends that,by theirconstantfocus on the social upheavals sweeping the Middle East, the U.S. media fostera gross misimpressionof the region's peoples and culturesand distorttheirreality as well. Two overarchingideas seem to inform this edited volume's explanation of the U.S. Fawaz A. Gerges holdstheChristian A.Johnson affairs Chairin MiddleEaststudiesand international at SarahLawrenceCollege.He is theauthorof Americaand PoliticalIslam:Clashof Culturesor ClashofInterests? (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
This content downloaded from 129.10.9.178 on Wed, 15 Apr 2015 08:26:02 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
RECENT
BooKs
media's continued misrepresentationof the humanityof Arabs and Muslims:reportersdo not understandthe political culture and stiLictureof Middle Easternpolities, and the U.S. media cover the Middle East withinthe worldview of a (primarilyWestern) audience. By strivingto make the Muslim world familiar to theirWesternaudience, the media end up distortingthe region's complex realities. The remedy,note some of the contributors, lies in "culturalrelativism,"the study of the values of other people withinthe framework of theirown culture,not one's own. The U.S. media coverage of the Middle East will thus remain negative and stereotypicalunless culturaldifferencesbetween Western and Muslim societies are respected and understood. Althoughthe contributorsto The US. AMedia and tlheMiddle East lament the media's persistenttendency to misrepresentIslam and Muslims,theirdiscussions also show that media coverage has evolved progressivelyin the last ten years. For example, the image and portrayalof the Palestinians have underin the United gone a dramatictransformation States since the 1960s, moving frominvisibilityto high visibility.Two of the contributors argue thatthe intifadabrought about a drastic shiftin media coverage of the Palestinian cause, which in turncaused an important change in Americans' perceptions of and U.S. foreignpolicy toward the Palestinians.This point is worth highlightingbecause it raises criticalquestions about the media's abilityto affectand shape the political and cultural field. This edited volume does not provide a systematicexplanation of the relativeweight of the media with regard to the foreignpolicy elite and general public beliefs. Some contributorsascribe too much influenceto the media; others argue thatthe media serve as a pawn and a tool in the hands of the foreign policy establishmentand cite the Gulf War as a case in point. The U.S. Media and the Middle East is rich empiricallyand has a broad sample of case studies thatexamine media coverage of Islam and Muslims. However, it lacks a rigorous conceptual framework thatspecifies and delineates the complex relationshipbetween the media, society, and politics. By contrast,Israeli academic Gadi Wolfsfeld in Media and Political Conflictconstructsa theoreticalmodel, called thepolitical contestmodel, to assess the role of (mainlyIsraeli) news media in domestic politics.He contends thatthe best way to under-
105 stand the media's role is to view the competitionover the news media as part of a larger and more significantcontest among political antagonistsfor political control.Unlike the contributorsto Kamalipour's edited volume, Wolfsfeldexplicitlyargues thatpolitical power can be easily translatedinto power over the media: "the political process is more likelyto have an influenceon the news media than the news media are on the political process" (p. 3). However, the level and degree of the authorities'control over the political environment determineto a large extentthe role of the news media in political conflicts.Wolfsfeld contends that"challengers"(weaker antagonists) do exercise an independent influence on political conflicts.Although authoritieshave tremendous advantages over the quality and quantityof media coverage they receive, the role of the news media in political conflictsvaries over time and circumstances. In the second halfof the book, Wolfsfeld applies his theoreticalmodel to the role of the news media in case studies, including the intense struggleover the Israeli political environmentthatcharacterizedthe intifadaand the 1990 Gulf War. Wolfsfeldargues thatduring the intifada,the news media played an independent role as "advocate of the underdog" (i.e., the Palestinians) even though the challengers had farfewer materialresources and much less political power than the Israeli state.The Palestiniansstruggledhard to communicate theirmessage to the world, and theyultimatelygained the empathy and legitimacyof the internationalmedia, including the Israeli media. During the Gulf War, however, the media indirectlyparticipatedin the governmentpropaganda campaign by demonizing Iraq, therebyassuming the role of a state agency. Wolfsfeldattributesthe government'sinabilityto exercise control over the political environmentduringthe intifadato three factors:(1) control of events: Israel did not control events duringthe intifadabecause the Palestinians,not Israel, had the initiative;(2) flow of information: Israel could not control the flow of information fromPalestinianterritories;and (3) lack of consensus: Israelis did not agree on how to respond to Palestinian defiance. The result was thatthe challengers succeeded in influencing media coverage of the intifadaand the Palestinians.By contrast,Iraq failed to make its case heard, initiateaction, or exert control of its political environment.Not sur-
This content downloaded from 129.10.9.178 on Wed, 15 Apr 2015 08:26:02 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
106
JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
prisingly,the news media ignored Iraq's point of view. Wolfsfeld'sanalysis does not take into account the existence of certainlimitsbeyond which the media do not venture.In the United States and Israel, journaliststend to shy away fromchallenging the prevailing consensus. When the consensus begins to break down, the coverage of the news media becomes more criticaland diverse. This state of "legitimatecontroversy"or legitimatecriticism never surpasses the boundaries set by the government,and the media's criticism gets directed to specific decisions and political figuresbut never against institutions. There is nothingequivalent to partisanor oppositional media thatoffersanother interpretationof the news. The importanceof Media and Political Conflictlies in contextualizingthe role of the news media in unequal political conflicts;it draws attentionto the complex dynamics of the political process and the strugglefor power among the various policy elite. The media do not exist in a social and political vacuum; they are one player among many others. POST-OSLO
PERSPECTIVES
The Middle East Peace Process: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Ilan Peleg. Albany: State Universityof New York Press, 1998. SUNY Series in Israeli Studies. xi + 263 pages. Referencesto p. 289. Index to p. 300. $19.95 cloth. Reviewed by Rex Brynen This edited volume offersa broad range of perspectives on the dynamics of the Madrid/Oslo Arab-Israelipeace process, including its relationshipto Israeli attitudesand institutions,its effectson Palestiniansand Jordanians,and its economic dimensions. Althoughmany of the articleswere firstwritten in 1995, all have been partlyupdated or completely rewrittento reflectthe less optimisticsituationfollowingBenjamin Netanyahu's election in May 1996. As with any edited volume, the chapters in The Middle East Peace Process vary in quality and approach. The lead chapter,by Laura ZittrainEisenberg and Neil Caplan, sketches a broad historicalbackdrop to Arab-Israelipeace-making. Two selections Rex Brynenis a professor in theDepartment of in Montreal, PoliticalScienceat McGillUniversity Canada.
examine the relationshipbetween the peace process and the ideological change in Israel. The first,by Mordechai Bar-On, examines debates withinIsraeli historiography.The second, by MyronAronoffand PierreAtlas, explores competing challenges to dominant Zionist discourse. Tamar Hermann and Ephrain Yuchtman-Yaaroffera tightlywritten analysis of Jewish and Arab attitudesto peace in Israel. At the institutionallevel, Gad Barzilai presents an extremelyinteresting treatmentof the effectof the Israeli Supreme Court decisions on conflictand the search forpeace. By contrast,StuartCohen's chapter on civil-military relationsis solid but breaks littlenew ground. This book was published as part of the SUNY series in Israeli studies. Perhaps as a result,the Palestinians receive somewhat less attention:there is a chapter by JoAn-n DiGeorgio-Lutz on the PLO, and another by Daphne Tsimhoni on Palestinian Christians. Of these, DiGeorgio-Lutz offerslittlebeyond what is already well known. Tsimhoni's chapter is more original,but it is marredby a lack of familiarity with the underlyingdynamics of Palestinian nationalistpolitics. Also notable is what the volume is missing:any real treatmentof the emergence ancdconsolisurely dation of the PalestinianAuthority, one of the most importantand strikingoutcomes of the Oslo agreement.This skewedness is reinforcedby the editor's decision to devote as many chapters to Jordan as to the Palestinians:CurtisRyan describes Jordan's engagement in the peace process, and Aharon Klieman reassesses the Jordanianoption in lightof Oslo. Moreover,while Klieman underlines both Jordan's interests and its geostrategicimportanceto any eventual peace settlement,he also suggests a residual fondness fora Jordanianrole in Palestine at a time when the Hashimite kingdom has almost completely lost the influence it once had in the West Bank. The finaltwo chapters of the book address economic issues: the effectsof regional integrationon labor and the potential peace dividend forIsrael. Althoughmany of their points remain valid, reading these chapters does generate a certainnostalgia forthe days when regional economic cooperation seemed possible. Overall, readers' evaluations of the usefulness of this volume are likelyto depend on theirdisciplinaryorientationand familiarity with the topics under discussion. I found the chapter by Barzilai to be the most interesting
This content downloaded from 129.10.9.178 on Wed, 15 Apr 2015 08:26:02 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
University of California Press and Institute for Palestine Studies are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Journal of Palestine Studies.
http://www.jstor.org
This content downloaded from 129.10.9.178 on Wed, 15 Apr 2015 08:26:02 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
104
JOURNAL OF PALESTINE
rived fromIbn Khaldun's racistobservations about nomads, not Arabs, and which only serves the purpose of underliningthe backwardness of the Arab people (p. 211). Althoughone should not discourage Arabs fromengaging in self-criticalanalysis,which is healthyforany people, this (mis)use of Arab self-critical writingsis intended to legitimize old-fashionedanti-Arabracism,while using the voices of chosen natives,those who are presumablycapable of tellingthe "truth." While the author makes available to English readers some Arabic writings,his book cannot be recommended to students,as the author oftencannot distinguishbetween what is importantand what is trivial.He decides, forexample, thatan articleby Iraqi officialSa'dun Hammadi was "decisive in the historyof Arab nationalism"(p. 93)-a gross exaggeration:Hammadi is merelya functionary of the Iraqi political apparatus. Rejwan cites articlesin the BeiruLt newspaper Sawt al-'Urubah withoutmentioning(or knowing) thatit representsthe views of the insignificant and now defunctNajjadah party(p. 114). A writerin the Lebanese newspaper alShca'b(which probably has the smallest circulation in the country)becomes "a wellknown Lebanese writerand journalist"(p. 121). He is also plainly wrong in thinking thatArab (not only Lebanese) intellectuals did not come to the defense of Sadek Jalal al-Azm,in the wake of the controversygenerated by his book Naqd al-Fikral-Dini. And it is inaccurate to state thatmodern formsof literaryexpression were rejected after1967; thatis not even truLe of Saudi literatyproduction. Finally,the author devotes a token section forwomen's issues, in which he engages in patronizing(or what Leila Ahmed calls "colonial feminist")remarksabout the status of women in the Arab world. Only somebody totallyunfamiliarwith the writings of Arab women would say thatunlike Western feminists,Arab feminists"do not concentrateon problems exclusive to theirgender" (p. 222). He also laments the absence of women in political officein the Arab world, as ifthis serious problem is unique to the Arab world. Female political representationin the Arab world (as flawed as it is) is sometimes higherthan thatof the United States.And on whose feministopinion does Rejwan rely? None other than Lebanon's formerfirstlady Muna Hrawi (p. 225), hardlythe voice of Arab feminism.
STUDIES
In short,this book is not useful,unless one is looking forways to "authenticate"racism against the Arabs.
SHAPING OPINION The U.S. Media and the Middle East: Image and Perception, ed. YahyaR.
Kamalipour. Westport,CT: Praeger, 1997. 230 pages. Bibliographyto p. 234. Index to p. 238. $59.95 cloth.
Media and Political Conflict:News from
the Middle East, by Gadi Wolfsfeld.Cambridge, England: Cambridge UniversityPress, 1997. 219 pages. Appendix to p. 239. Bibliography to p. 246. Index to p. 255. $59.95 cloth. Reviewed by Fawaz A. Gerges Taken together,the two books under review shed much lighton some aspects of the media's relationshipwith civil society and the foreignpolicy establishment.The U.S. Media and the Middle East is a collection of eighteen shortessays, all addressing various aspects of the media's representationof Arabs and Muslims.The contributorsexamine how the media representor misrepresent Arabs and Muslims ratherthan construct a conceptual model thathelps to explain the nuanced relationshipbetween the media, culture,and the political process. Yahya R. Kamalipour, professorof communicationsat Purdue UniversityCalumet, argues thatthe mass media are active agents thatdetermine people's perspective of the world, the way in which they make decisions, and how they spend theirleisure time,perceive others,and (most importantly)interactwith one another: "Thus, the mass media can be seen not only as a drivingforce behind culturaland social change but also as an index forpolitical mobilization,both domesticallyand internationally" (p. x). Armed with this undifferentiated hypothesis,Kamalipour contends that,by theirconstantfocus on the social upheavals sweeping the Middle East, the U.S. media fostera gross misimpressionof the region's peoples and culturesand distorttheirreality as well. Two overarchingideas seem to inform this edited volume's explanation of the U.S. Fawaz A. Gerges holdstheChristian A.Johnson affairs Chairin MiddleEaststudiesand international at SarahLawrenceCollege.He is theauthorof Americaand PoliticalIslam:Clashof Culturesor ClashofInterests? (Cambridge University Press, forthcoming).
This content downloaded from 129.10.9.178 on Wed, 15 Apr 2015 08:26:02 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
RECENT
BooKs
media's continued misrepresentationof the humanityof Arabs and Muslims:reportersdo not understandthe political culture and stiLictureof Middle Easternpolities, and the U.S. media cover the Middle East withinthe worldview of a (primarilyWestern) audience. By strivingto make the Muslim world familiar to theirWesternaudience, the media end up distortingthe region's complex realities. The remedy,note some of the contributors, lies in "culturalrelativism,"the study of the values of other people withinthe framework of theirown culture,not one's own. The U.S. media coverage of the Middle East will thus remain negative and stereotypicalunless culturaldifferencesbetween Western and Muslim societies are respected and understood. Althoughthe contributorsto The US. AMedia and tlheMiddle East lament the media's persistenttendency to misrepresentIslam and Muslims,theirdiscussions also show that media coverage has evolved progressivelyin the last ten years. For example, the image and portrayalof the Palestinians have underin the United gone a dramatictransformation States since the 1960s, moving frominvisibilityto high visibility.Two of the contributors argue thatthe intifadabrought about a drastic shiftin media coverage of the Palestinian cause, which in turncaused an important change in Americans' perceptions of and U.S. foreignpolicy toward the Palestinians.This point is worth highlightingbecause it raises criticalquestions about the media's abilityto affectand shape the political and cultural field. This edited volume does not provide a systematicexplanation of the relativeweight of the media with regard to the foreignpolicy elite and general public beliefs. Some contributorsascribe too much influenceto the media; others argue thatthe media serve as a pawn and a tool in the hands of the foreign policy establishmentand cite the Gulf War as a case in point. The U.S. Media and the Middle East is rich empiricallyand has a broad sample of case studies thatexamine media coverage of Islam and Muslims. However, it lacks a rigorous conceptual framework thatspecifies and delineates the complex relationshipbetween the media, society, and politics. By contrast,Israeli academic Gadi Wolfsfeld in Media and Political Conflictconstructsa theoreticalmodel, called thepolitical contestmodel, to assess the role of (mainlyIsraeli) news media in domestic politics.He contends thatthe best way to under-
105 stand the media's role is to view the competitionover the news media as part of a larger and more significantcontest among political antagonistsfor political control.Unlike the contributorsto Kamalipour's edited volume, Wolfsfeldexplicitlyargues thatpolitical power can be easily translatedinto power over the media: "the political process is more likelyto have an influenceon the news media than the news media are on the political process" (p. 3). However, the level and degree of the authorities'control over the political environment determineto a large extentthe role of the news media in political conflicts.Wolfsfeld contends that"challengers"(weaker antagonists) do exercise an independent influence on political conflicts.Although authoritieshave tremendous advantages over the quality and quantityof media coverage they receive, the role of the news media in political conflictsvaries over time and circumstances. In the second halfof the book, Wolfsfeld applies his theoreticalmodel to the role of the news media in case studies, including the intense struggleover the Israeli political environmentthatcharacterizedthe intifadaand the 1990 Gulf War. Wolfsfeldargues thatduring the intifada,the news media played an independent role as "advocate of the underdog" (i.e., the Palestinians) even though the challengers had farfewer materialresources and much less political power than the Israeli state.The Palestiniansstruggledhard to communicate theirmessage to the world, and theyultimatelygained the empathy and legitimacyof the internationalmedia, including the Israeli media. During the Gulf War, however, the media indirectlyparticipatedin the governmentpropaganda campaign by demonizing Iraq, therebyassuming the role of a state agency. Wolfsfeldattributesthe government'sinabilityto exercise control over the political environmentduringthe intifadato three factors:(1) control of events: Israel did not control events duringthe intifadabecause the Palestinians,not Israel, had the initiative;(2) flow of information: Israel could not control the flow of information fromPalestinianterritories;and (3) lack of consensus: Israelis did not agree on how to respond to Palestinian defiance. The result was thatthe challengers succeeded in influencing media coverage of the intifadaand the Palestinians.By contrast,Iraq failed to make its case heard, initiateaction, or exert control of its political environment.Not sur-
This content downloaded from 129.10.9.178 on Wed, 15 Apr 2015 08:26:02 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
106
JOURNAL OF PALESTINE STUDIES
prisingly,the news media ignored Iraq's point of view. Wolfsfeld'sanalysis does not take into account the existence of certainlimitsbeyond which the media do not venture.In the United States and Israel, journaliststend to shy away fromchallenging the prevailing consensus. When the consensus begins to break down, the coverage of the news media becomes more criticaland diverse. This state of "legitimatecontroversy"or legitimatecriticism never surpasses the boundaries set by the government,and the media's criticism gets directed to specific decisions and political figuresbut never against institutions. There is nothingequivalent to partisanor oppositional media thatoffersanother interpretationof the news. The importanceof Media and Political Conflictlies in contextualizingthe role of the news media in unequal political conflicts;it draws attentionto the complex dynamics of the political process and the strugglefor power among the various policy elite. The media do not exist in a social and political vacuum; they are one player among many others. POST-OSLO
PERSPECTIVES
The Middle East Peace Process: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, ed. Ilan Peleg. Albany: State Universityof New York Press, 1998. SUNY Series in Israeli Studies. xi + 263 pages. Referencesto p. 289. Index to p. 300. $19.95 cloth. Reviewed by Rex Brynen This edited volume offersa broad range of perspectives on the dynamics of the Madrid/Oslo Arab-Israelipeace process, including its relationshipto Israeli attitudesand institutions,its effectson Palestiniansand Jordanians,and its economic dimensions. Althoughmany of the articleswere firstwritten in 1995, all have been partlyupdated or completely rewrittento reflectthe less optimisticsituationfollowingBenjamin Netanyahu's election in May 1996. As with any edited volume, the chapters in The Middle East Peace Process vary in quality and approach. The lead chapter,by Laura ZittrainEisenberg and Neil Caplan, sketches a broad historicalbackdrop to Arab-Israelipeace-making. Two selections Rex Brynenis a professor in theDepartment of in Montreal, PoliticalScienceat McGillUniversity Canada.
examine the relationshipbetween the peace process and the ideological change in Israel. The first,by Mordechai Bar-On, examines debates withinIsraeli historiography.The second, by MyronAronoffand PierreAtlas, explores competing challenges to dominant Zionist discourse. Tamar Hermann and Ephrain Yuchtman-Yaaroffera tightlywritten analysis of Jewish and Arab attitudesto peace in Israel. At the institutionallevel, Gad Barzilai presents an extremelyinteresting treatmentof the effectof the Israeli Supreme Court decisions on conflictand the search forpeace. By contrast,StuartCohen's chapter on civil-military relationsis solid but breaks littlenew ground. This book was published as part of the SUNY series in Israeli studies. Perhaps as a result,the Palestinians receive somewhat less attention:there is a chapter by JoAn-n DiGeorgio-Lutz on the PLO, and another by Daphne Tsimhoni on Palestinian Christians. Of these, DiGeorgio-Lutz offerslittlebeyond what is already well known. Tsimhoni's chapter is more original,but it is marredby a lack of familiarity with the underlyingdynamics of Palestinian nationalistpolitics. Also notable is what the volume is missing:any real treatmentof the emergence ancdconsolisurely dation of the PalestinianAuthority, one of the most importantand strikingoutcomes of the Oslo agreement.This skewedness is reinforcedby the editor's decision to devote as many chapters to Jordan as to the Palestinians:CurtisRyan describes Jordan's engagement in the peace process, and Aharon Klieman reassesses the Jordanianoption in lightof Oslo. Moreover,while Klieman underlines both Jordan's interests and its geostrategicimportanceto any eventual peace settlement,he also suggests a residual fondness fora Jordanianrole in Palestine at a time when the Hashimite kingdom has almost completely lost the influence it once had in the West Bank. The finaltwo chapters of the book address economic issues: the effectsof regional integrationon labor and the potential peace dividend forIsrael. Althoughmany of their points remain valid, reading these chapters does generate a certainnostalgia forthe days when regional economic cooperation seemed possible. Overall, readers' evaluations of the usefulness of this volume are likelyto depend on theirdisciplinaryorientationand familiarity with the topics under discussion. I found the chapter by Barzilai to be the most interesting
This content downloaded from 129.10.9.178 on Wed, 15 Apr 2015 08:26:02 UTC All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions
