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Title: Yasir Arafat: A Political Biography by Barry M. Rubin, Judith Colp Rubin ISBN: 0-19-516689-2 Publisher: Oxford University Press Pub. Date: July, 2003 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4 (5 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: An excellent addition to the literature
Comment: Yasser Arafat's centrality to the Middle East equation is hard to deny. An impressive survivor, he continues to command considerable power and clout despite the countless times his adversaries have declared him irrelevant. With this in mind, Rubin and Rubin have done students of the Middle East a great service with this able biography, by far the most complete of the five so far published. The authors track Arafat from his student days in Egypt, through his transition from one of the founders of modern terrorism to a leader commanding considerable respect on the world stage. The authors offer considerable analysis of his most fateful and often disastrous decisions, from attempting to overthrow the king of Jordan that led to the so called Black September Massacre, to his decision to back Saddam Hussein in the first gulf war. Through all of this a telling portrait of Arafat emerges, though not one that his acolytes would necessarily appreciate.
Arafat's ability to play world powers off each other, first the Soviets off the US and now the Europeans off the US, is justifiably legendary. The authors do an excellent job explaining how he does this, understanding the essential goals of each and inserting himself into their strategy. What emerges is a man whose greatest concern is not his people, but his role in history and that he should never be seen as "the traitor who made peace with the Jews." Indeed, he is quoted when he rejected the Camp David Accords that he did not want to be the man who was seen as accepting the Jewish States right to exist. The Rubin's do not seek to turn Arafat into some sort of evil monster, but rather to put him in the context of his culture, his times, and his values. From this perspective, his motivations and actions become not only clear, but quite calculating and shrewd.
The most interesting of the authors' conclusions is that through out his long career, Arafat may have changed tactics, but that his strategy and goals remain virtually unchanged. Going back to the early 70's Arafat freely spoke of the idea of establishing a presence on some portion of the land between the Mediterranean and the Jordan by any means and then using it as a base from which to attack, demoralize, and eventually destroy the Jewish State. Given recent events it seems the world would have done well to listen to what he had to say.
Rating: 5
Summary: An illusion-shattering book
Comment: Like many well-meaning European leftists I grew through my political adolescence with an ill-informed but (or should that be "therefore"?) resolute conviction that, while respecting Israel's right to exist, etc., there had to be a Palestinian state before peace in the Middle East could be secured and, fiurthermore, that Yasir Arafat was the key to that solution. This book - along with other extensive reading - confirms that view for the well-meaning illusion it was (and remains, not least in the halls of the European Union and its member states).
The book does not make Arafat out to be an evil ogre but a masterful and Macchiavellian schemer, managing to portray himself as a militant and martial Islamic leader to the Arab world but as a diplomatic yet frustrated nation-builder in the mould of Mandela to all-too-many "useful idiots" in the West. The Rubins convey - with convincing evidence, implacable logic and admirable constraint - the true extent to which Arafat and his authoritarian and anti-semitic clique (not Sharon or Israel or "US imperialism") remains the principal cause of the Palestinians' suffering and deprivation. Their insights into broader Middle East politics and the collective pathologies that pass for Arab nationalism also provide critical insights into the situation in Iraq.
If you read only one book on the Middle East this year, this is the one.
Rating: 5
Summary: Praise for Rubin & Rubin / Arafat: A Political Biography
Comment: "A masterly study....Many books have been published recently about Iranian politics; here is one at last that makes sense of the Shah's reign and Khomeini's revolution, and provides a full, objective assessment of the American role in both eras."--The New York Times Book Review
"An extremely readable, up-to-date, comprehensive and balanced study which is also a unique combination of scholarship and reporting....[Rubin] is able to unravel contemporary developments and reweave them in an often rich narrative style."--Washington Post Book World
"Judicious and thoughtful...Rubin offers a prognosis for the future with the measured optimism of someone who has watched the conflict unfold from up close for some time." --Boston Book Review
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Title: The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz ISBN: 047146502X Publisher: John Wiley & Sons Pub. Date: 01 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $19.95 |
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Title: Arafat's War: The Man and His Battle for Israeli Conquest by Efraim Karsh ISBN: 0802117589 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: October, 2003 List Price(USD): $25.00 |
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Title: The New Anti-Semitism : The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It by Phyllis Chesler ISBN: 078796851X Publisher: Jossey-Bass Pub. Date: 11 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude by Robert Baer ISBN: 1400050219 Publisher: Crown Pub. Date: 15 July, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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Title: Hatred's Kingdom: How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism by Dore Gold ISBN: 0895261359 Publisher: Regnery Publishing Pub. Date: February, 2003 List Price(USD): $27.95 |
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