The Middle East
January 1998

January Article Abstracts

Title: Clinton's Middle East Legacy: A Scuttled Peace?
Author: Augustus Richard Norton
"As we listen to the death rattles of the peace process, it is past time to acknowledge the obvious. Under the leadership of President Clinton, the United States has proved itself incapable of playing the role of honest broker in the difficult negotiations between Israel and the Palestinian Authority."

Title: Oslo's Muddled Peace
Author: Naseer Aruri
"Why has a peace process, which was born amid so much euphoria and celebrated as a major achievement for United States diplomacy, produced so much conflict yet so little peace?"

Title: Authoritarianism with a Palestinian Face
Author: Glenn E. Robinson
"For some observers there is nothing surprising about the creation of another Arab dictatorship. Why should Palestine and the Palestinian Authority be any different from so many other countries in the Arab world? Such arguments, generally focusing on an essentialist, antidemocratic understanding of Arab-Islamic political culture, miss the point of the political-not cultural-origins of pa authoritarianism."

Title: The Palestinian Economy after Oslo
Author: Sara Roy
"The closure Israel imposed in 1993 has had a pronounced and deleterious impact on Palestinians. Their economy, already greatly weakened before the start of the peace process, has declined even further. . . What is at stake are not only economic fundamentals such as employment and income creation, but the ability of human beings to live a normal life."

Title: Israel's First Fifty Years
Author: Alan Dowty
"The central puzzle of Israeli politics is how the state has managed to maintain a stable democratic system. In part, the answer lies precisely in its Jewishness, the continuity of which. . .helps explain the strengths and weaknesses of this democracy."

Title: Egypt: Repression's Toll
Author: Robert Springborg
"Before the [November 1997] Luxor attack, Egypt's political leaders apparently believed that they were about to emerge from what had been a five-year struggle to contain radical political Islam and lay the foundations for more rapid economic growth. . . The leadership undoubtedly appreciates the economic and political costs of heavy-handed repression. . .and would like to restore at least the facade of political liberalization."

Title: Misreading Iran
Author: Tarek E. Masoud
"Although domestically Iran may be shedding its radical Islamic attire, its foreign policy, despite the rhetoric, was never Islamic to begin with and is based on calculations of its national interest that will not change. United States policy toward Iran must flow from an accurate reading of these interests, not from first impressions or dreams of easy oil and ready cash."