Middle East

Martha Hodes Talks "My Hijacking" with HNN

by Michan Connor

In 1970, when she was 12, Martha Hodes was held hostage for nearly a week in a campaign of airline hijacking that captured world attention. She discusses trauma and erasure in the historical record, the roles of remembering and forgetting in shaping views of the past, and how she investigated herself as a historial actor. 

Martha Hodes Turns Historian's Training to Reach Memory Hidden by Trauma

A memoirist of her own experience of terrorist hostage-taking reviews Martha Hodes's effort to apply the tools of historians to recover memory of being held in the Jordanian desert on a hijacked plane in 1970. 

Martha Hodes Reconstructs Her Memory of a 1970 Hijacking

At age 12, the historian, with her older sister, was a passenger on a jet hijacked by Palestinian militants. After decades of minimizing the story, her efforts to approach her past as a historian highlight the gaps in documentary records, the contradictory ways memory can fill those gaps, and the varying degrees of distance historians keep from their subjects.

For First Time, UN Commemorates Palestinian Nakba

Rashid Khalidi discusses the history of Palestinian displacement and the struggle to have the Palestinian side of the Arab-Israeli conflict recognized. 

China is Cutting the US Out of the Middle East with an Axis of the Sanctioned

by Juan Cole

Recent American policies have squandered an opportunity to engage poductively with Iran and Saudi Arabia and instead pushed them toward stronger economic development relationships with China. 

William Casey (Almost) Certainly Delayed the Release of Iran Hostages to Help Reagan

by Jonathan Alter, Gary Sick, Kai Bird and Stuart Eizenstat

It has long been suspected that Reagan's campaign chief William Casey convinced Iran that they could get a better deal by releasing American hostages after the election of Ronald Reagan. Available documents, recent interviews, and the vast circumstantial evidence present a damning case, argues a team of policy vets and journalistic experts on the Carter years. 

Israel and Palestine Have a Way Forward. Will They Choose It?

by Alon Ben-Meir

It is time for Israel and the Palestinians to face the bittersweet truth and accept certain realities on the ground that neither side can change short of a calamity. These inescapable realities will frame the contours of a peace agreement in the context of an Israeli-Palestinian-Jordanian confederation.  

I Helped John Connally Try to Delay the Release of the Iran Hostages

The New York Times recently reported the claim by Ben Barnes that he and the former Texas governor toured the middle east in 1980 to try to delay the release of hostages to help Ronald Reagan win election. 

Youth Failed by Their Leaders: How the Palestinians Lost Their Way

by Alon Ben-Meir

Four generations of Palestinian leadership have failed their youth through intransigence and a failure to distinguish between Israel and the occupation. 

Is a Third Intifada Imminent?

by Daniel Byman

The second intifada, between 2000 and 2005, ended not with negotiated peace but with an overwhelming application of force by Israel on Gaza and the West Bank. As Israeli politics tilts rightward and abandons the idea of a negotiated settlement, it is unclear what will prevent a new escalation of violence. 

Eric Alterman on the Shifting Debate over Israel-Palestine in America

The writer discusses his conclusions about the evolution of the debate among American Jews about the nature of their relationship to Israel and the moral status of American policy. 

Will the US Build an Embassy on Palestinian Land in Jerusalem?

by Rashid Khalidi

As the new ultra-right wing Israeli government prepares to escalate the dispossession of Palestinians in the West Bank and Jerusalem, the United States should not allow the siting of its embassy to give cover to this project. 

From Torch to Tunis to El Alamein: Events 80 Years Ago Made the Modern Middle East

by Robert Satloff

80 years ago Operation Torch, the Allied invasion of North Africa, opened a second front against Nazi Germany. Today, it has proven equally important for establishing models for America's relationship to the Middle East. 

"As if I Wasn't There": Writing from a Child's Memory

by Martha Hodes

Writing her own memory of being held hostage by terrorists forced the author to put herself at the center of the story. 

After Four Decades, Iranian Women's Frustrations are Erupting

by Kelly J. Shannon

Since the 1990s, Iranian women have been engaged in slowly escalating protest against the restrictions imposed by the Islamic Republic. Have those protests become too large and too public to be contained? 

Walter Russell Mead's Contrary View of the Roots of the US-Israel Alliance

In Mead's account, American Christians, with an affinity for viewing the Old Testament as part of the nation's heritage, not the machinations of modern Jewish organizations, brought American policy to support a Jewish state. 

Walter Russell Mead: Non-Jewish Interest Groups, not "Israel Lobby" Drive Hawkish US Mideast Policy

Rejecting the idea of a Jewish-led "Israel Lobby" Mead emphasizes the historical influence of American Christian zionists and militarists in tilting America's mideast policy toward the goals of the Israeli right. 

Attacking Iran would be a Catastrophic Mistake for Israel

by Alon Ben-Meir

Regardless of a success or failure to reach a new agreement with Iran, Israel must not attack Iran’s nuclear facilities and must work closely with the US to develop a joint strategy to curb Iran’s ambition to acquire nuclear weapons and potentially end the conflict with Iran on a more permanent basis.

Can Libya's Elections Lead to a Second Chance at Stability and Engagement with the World?

by Luiza Carter

The recent postponement of elections is another hurdle on Libya's path from post-dictatorship chaos toward potential democratic stability. 

Isaac Chotiner Interviews Martin Indyk about Henry Kissinger

Does Martin Indyk's new book on Henry Kissinger, who is a personal friend, have enough critical distance between subject and author, asks interviewer Isaac Chotiner.