We are grateful to
those who have already made a donation to MEF in 2016. If you have
not yet made a gift, you still can! The Middle East Forum is a
publicly supported, 501(c)3 nonprofit organization. Contributions
are tax deductible. Email Donations@MEForum.org to learn more; or
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Whether you make a
donation, join as a member, or subscribe to the Middle
East Quarterly, we welcome your involvement. Your
support helps further our mission of educating Americans about the
Middle East and influencing U.S. policy towards that region.
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MEF's Islamist Watch published
a report entitled, A Journalist's Manual: Field Guide to Useful Infidels identifying 15
prominent non-Muslims who facilitate or directly aid Islamists,
thereby helping the media and public understand the tactics used to
empower Islamists within American culture, and confronts them with
their own words. The enablers include: Ben Affleck, Christiane
Amanpour, Karen Armstrong, Max Blumenthal, John Brennan, Chris
Christie, Morris Dees, Matt Duss, John Esposito, Glen Greenwald,
Martin Indyk, John Kerry, Grover Norquist and James Zogby. The
response by some of the 15 has been amusing.
Click here to read more.
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MEF has published its Annual Report detailing the year’s
activism, analysis, and funding. Highlights include the Forum’s:
denying influence, financing and legitimacy to Islamists in the
West; protecting open, public discussion of Islamism in courts of
law; preventing Muslim Brotherhood infiltration into the U.S.;
redefining a "Palestinian refugee", ending UNRWA's practice
of Palestinian refugee proliferation; briefing law enforcement,
counterrorism and military officials about Islamism; strengthening
the Higher Education Opportunity Act (HEOA); and exposing a
problematic tie between San Francisco and Nablus.
Click
here to read
more.
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Dear Reader:
Middle East Quarterly,
the Forum’s flagship publication, is our authoritative and celebrated
journal. Now starting its 24th year of publication, it has had close
to ten million page views. The Times of London has
described it as "balanced, sophisticated and
thought-provoking."
The Editor's Introduction to MEQ in
March of 1994 explained how other journals specializing in the
Middle East "frequently present in a benign light such hostile
actors as the Islamic Republic of Iran, the Syrian Ba‘th regime, and
other Middle East despotisms … exaggerate the faults of such friends
as the governments of Turkey and Egypt" and "often
propagate a view of Middle Eastern affairs that, among other things,
sees Zionism as a racist offshoot of imperialism, blames Israel alone
for the origin and persistence of the Palestinian refugee problem,
portrays an independent Palestinian state as the means to ensure
peace and stability, and apologizes for the long record of
depredations perpetrated by terrorist organizations.”
All these years later, as the Obama
administration negotiates with Iran, stands impotent as Syria burns,
condones the Islamist takeover of Turkey, coddles the Muslim
Brotherhood in Egypt, and abstains from a UN Security Council resolution
against Israel, MEQ remains a major
source for reliable information and sound thinking.
Although the Middle East is even worse off than since the first
volume of MEQ in 1994, we do
our best: "by bringing the best of scholarship to bear on the
practical problems of statecraft, we aspire to affect the
intellectual milieu in which policy is made."
Efraim Karsh
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Editor
Middle East Quarterly
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Turkey's Slide into Authoritarianism
by Burak Bekdil
On the evening of July 15, 2016, the inhabitants of Ankara and
Istanbul left their dinner tables in panic and rushed to their
windows and balconies. What they saw was shocking and surreal, if not
apocalyptic: tanks closing the Bosphorus bridge in Istanbul and
encircling the parliament; rival F-16 raids against government and
coup forces; military brass being taken hostage by their aides;
combat between the military and the police, followed by soldiers
attacking civilians; and finally civilians lynching soldiers who had
supported the coup ... Erdoğan's popularity still runs high.
Click here to read
more.
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"Celebrating" Orientalism
by Richard Landes
Whether one views the impact of Edward Said on academia as a brilliant
triumph or a catastrophic tragedy, few can question the astonishing
scope and penetration of his magnum opus, Orientalism ... On
the one hand, it shielded Arabs from public criticism, on the other,
it made the "imperialist" West (and "colonial
Israel"), the object of relentless criticism ... Said's
framework offered conflict-averse progressives a way to avoid a clash
of civilizations ... The move flattered Arab and Western
(progressive) self-images, but it came at the cost of ignoring the
darker realities on the ground.
Click here to read
more.
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Israeli Defense in the Age of Cyber War
by Gil Baram
From the early days of statehood, technology occupied a prominent
place in Israel's national security concept as it sought to establish
a qualitative edge over its vastly more populated and better endowed
Arab adversaries ... Cyber warfare allows Israel to initiate
operations against remote targets without risking the lives of its
citizens and soldiers, a cardinal goal of such a small country with
limited human resources. Operations of this kind also gain Israel
worldwide prestige, which can contribute both economically to the
country's bottom-line—as other nations look to the Jewish state for
expertise and advanced technologies and application—and reinforce
deterrence.
Click here to read
more.
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Saudi Arabia's Flawed "Vision 2030"
by Hilal Khashan
On April 25, 2016, Deputy Crown Prince Muhammad bin Salman announced
the "Vision 2030" plan to revolutionize the Saudi economy
by ending its dependency on oil ... For Vision 2030 to succeed,
all Saudi citizens must be able to "acquire the necessary skills
to achieve their personal goals." This may be impossible in a
society where family, tribal, and regional ties are strong
determinates of identity and which has one of the lowest rates in the
world of women in the workforce ... Vision 2030 "resembles a
'phantasmagoria,' articulated by outside consultants insensitive to
local cultures, structural constraints, and domestic power struggles
and balances within the Kingdom."
Click here to read
more.
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Reviewed
by Asaf Romirowsky
Middle East Forum
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Reviewed
by Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
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Reviewed
by Daniel Pipes
Middle East Forum
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Reviewed
by Michael Rubin
Middle East Quarterly
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Reviewed
by Aymenn Jawad al-Tamimi
Middle East Forum Jihad Intel Project
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Reviewed
by Patrick Clawson
Washington Institute for Near East Policy
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Managing
Editor - Judy Goodrobb
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Judy Goodrobb has
been managing editor of the Middle East Quarterly
for close to 20 years. She is the clearinghouse for the journal,
responsible for day-to-day management and design. She keeps the
work on schedule, handles the endless to-and-fro with authors and
assistant editors, copy-edits articles to conform to house style,
enters authors’ edits, writes captions, chooses graphics,
proofreads, and produces the layout for each issue. She is devoted
to getting the journal out on time and in proper shape. She likes
to say, “The publisher and editor are the brains of the MEQ,
and I’m the hands.”
Click here to learn
more about the Middle East Quarterly
In
her spare time, she is a writing tutor at Penn State University.
Previously Ms. Goodrobb worked as an editor and public relations
professional at Drexel University, Norwich University, and several
non-profits. She taught writing at Johnson State College of Vermont
and Community College of Philadelphia. She holds a B.A. in English
literature from Temple University and an M.A. in writing from
Vermont College. Her favorite thing about reading and writing is
being immersed in worlds other than her own. She is currently at
work revising a novel set in Jamaica.
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2017 Speaker Series
Planning for this years Speaker Series
is now underway! Check back here next month to learn about events
coming to a city near you! (This is a complimentary event
series for MEF supporters contributing $250 or more per year.)
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