The Many Faces of Political Islam or Foxbats Over Dimona

The Many Faces of Political Islam: Religion and Politics in the Muslim World

Author: Mohammed Ayoob

Analysts and pundits from across the American political spectrum describe Islamic fundamentalism as one of the greatest threats to modern, Western-style democracy. Yet very few non-Muslims would be able to venture an accurate definition of political Islam. Mohammed Ayoob's The Many Faces of Political Islam thoroughly describes the myriad manifestations of this rising ideology and analyzes its impact on global relations.
 
"In this beautifully crafted and utterly compelling book, Mohammed Ayoob accomplishes admirably the difficult task of offering a readily accessible yet nuanced and comprehensive analysis of an issue of enormous political importance. Both students and specialists will learn a great deal from this absolutely first-rate book."
---Peter J. Katzenstein, Walter S. Carpenter, Jr. Professor of International Studies and Stephen H. Weiss Presidential Teaching Fellow, Cornell University
 
"Dr. Ayoob addresses the nuances and complexities of political Islam---be it mainstream, radical, or militant---and offers a road map of the pivotal players and issues that define the movement. There is no one as qualified as Mohammed Ayoob to write a synthesis of various manifestations of political Islam. His complex narrative highlights the changes and shifts that have taken place within the Islamist universe and their implications for internal Muslim politics and relations between the world of Islam and the Christian world."
---Fawaz A. Gerges, Carnegie Scholar, and holds the Christian A. Johnson Chair in International Affairs and Middle Eastern Studies, Sarah Lawrence College
 
"Let's hope that many readers---not only academics butpolicymakers as well---will use this invaluable book."
---François Burgat, Director, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) and the Institute for Research and Study on the Arab and Muslim World (IREMAM), Aix-en-Provence, France
 
"This is a wonderful, concise book by an accomplished and sophisticated political scientist who nonetheless manages to convey his interpretation of complex issues and movements to even those who have little background on the subject. It is impressive in its clarity, providing a badly needed text on political Islam that's accessible to college students and the general public alike."
---Shibley Telhami, Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development, University of Maryland, and Senior Fellow, Brookings Institution
 
Mohammed Ayoob is University Distinguished Professor of International Relations with a joint appointment in James Madison College and the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University. He is also Coordinator of the Muslim Studies Program at Michigan State University.

Interesting book: Southern Cooking to Remember or Innocent Smoothie Recipe Book

Foxbats Over Dimona: The Soviets' Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War

Author: Isabella Ginor

Isabella Ginor and Gideon Remez’s groundbreaking history of the Six-Day War in 1967 radically changes our understanding of that conflict, casting it as a crucial arena of Cold War intrigue that has shaped the Middle East to this day. The authors, award-winning Israeli journalists and historians, have investigated newly available documents and testimonies from the former Soviet Union, cross-checked them against Israeli and Western sources, and arrived at fresh and startling conclusions.

Contrary to previous interpretations, Ginor and Remez’s book shows that the Six-Day War was the result of a joint Soviet-Arab gambit to provoke Israel into a preemptive attack. The authors reveal how the Soviets received a secret Israeli message indicating that Israel, despite its official ambiguity, was about to acquire nuclear weapons. Determined to destroy Israel’s nuclear program before it could produce an atomic bomb, the Soviets then began preparing for war--well before Moscow accused Israel of offensive intent, the overt trigger of the crisis.

Ginor and Remez’s startling account details how the Soviet-Arab onslaught was to be unleashed once Israel had been drawn into action and was branded as the aggressor. The Soviets had submarine-based nuclear missiles poised for use against Israel in case it already possessed and tried to use an atomic device, and the USSR prepared and actually began a marine landing on Israel’s shores backed by strategic bombers and fighter squadrons. They sent their most advanced, still-secret aircraft, the MiG-25 Foxbat, on provocative sorties over Israel’s Dimona nuclear complex to prepare the planned attack on it, and to scareIsrael into making the first strike. It was only the unpredicted devastation of Israel’s response that narrowly thwarted the Soviet design.

 

Foreign Affairs

The revisionist label is too often used to describe a reinterpretation of past events from an unorthodox political perspective. Here is a book that is truly revisionist, challenging what we thought we knew about the origins and conduct of the Six-Day War, Israel's crushing victory over Egypt, Jordan, and Syria 40 years ago. The exact role played by the Soviet Union has always been murky. The authors work their way through the murk, meticulously using every snippet of relevant information from an extraordinary range of sources, most effectively Soviet military personnel who can recall what they were up to in 1967. Where there are gaps, they make a careful case for conjecture and inference. They demonstrate how anxiety about Israel's imminent nuclear capability and an unwarranted confidence in Arab military strength led Moscow to develop a plot to provoke the Israelis into striking first before being overwhelmed by a devastating riposte, in which Soviet forces would participate. The plan never recovered from the quality of Israel's first strike, although bits of it were implemented as Israel appeared to be marching on Damascus. By its nature, this is an impossible case to prove, but Ginor and Remez have succeeded to the point where the onus is now on others to show why they are wrong.<

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments     ix
Maps     xii
Historiography as Investigative Journalism     1
Threat or Bluster     10
Antecedents and Motivations     15
The Nuclear Context     28
The Spymaster and the Communist: A Disclosure in December 1965     36
A Nuclear Umbrella for Egypt     49
Converging Timelines: Syrian Coup and Party Congress     58
The "Conqueror" and "Victor" Plans: Soviet Signatures     68
The Naval and Aerial Buildup     78
Mid-May: Disinformation or Directive?     88
Escalation and Denial: 14-26 May     104
The Badran Talks: Restraining an Ally     113
Foxbats over Dimona     121
Poised for a Desant: 5 June     138
Un-Finnished Business: Preemptive Diplomacy     153
Debates, Delays, and Ditherings: 6-8 June     164
The Liberty Incident: Soviet Fingerprints     180
Offense Becomes Deterrence: 10 June     191
Aftermath     207
Notes     219
Works Cited     265
Index     275

Blinded by the Right or The Separation of Church and State

Blinded by the Right: The Conscience of an Ex-Conservative

Author: David Brock

In a powerful and deeply personal memoir in the tradition of Arthur Koestler's The God That Failed, David Brock, the original right-wing scandal reporter, chronicles his rise to the pinnacle of the conservative movement and his painful break with it.

David Brock pilloried Anita Hill in a bestseller. His reporting in The American Spectator as part of the infamous "Arkansas Project" triggered the course of events that led to the historic impeachment trial of President Clinton. Brock was at the center of the right-wing dirty tricks operation of the Gingrich era—and a true believer—until he could no longer deny that the political force he was advancing was built on little more than lies, hate, and hypocrisy.

In Blinded By the Right, Brock, who came out of the closet at the height of his conservative renown, tells his riveting story from the beginning, giving us the first insider's view of what Hillary Rodham Clinton called "the vast right-wing conspiracy." Whether dealing with the right-wing press, the richly endowed think tanks, Republican political operatives, or the Paula Jones case, Brock names names from Clarence Thomas on down, uncovers hidden links, and demonstrates how the Republican Right's zeal for power created the poisonous political climate that culminated in George W. Bush's election.

Already making national headlines, David Brock writes with stunning candor about a fascinating but deeply disturbing period of American politics. Blinded By the Right is a classic political memoir of our times.

Los Angeles Times - Todd Gitlin

Anyone wishing to understand America in the 1990s will have to read his book.

Tribune Media Services - Bill Press

If you're looking for proof of corruption and immoral behavior among the nation's most famous conservatives -- read this book.

If you want to learn all about organized crime -- for God's sake, read this book.

David Brock's Blinded by the Right reads like the memoirs of a mafia hit man. But it's the personal story of a former Republican hit man, instead.

New Yorker - Hendrik Hertzberg

Blinded by the Right is a valuable book. It is not an apologia. It is something rarer, and it is something that is owed not only from its author but also from the political cadre he has so spectacularly served and forsaken: an apology.

New York Times - Frank Rich

....literary antecedent for Blinded by the Right is less The God That Failed than Julia Phillips's scorched-earth memoir of Hollywood, You'll Never Eat Lunch in This Town Again. But Brock, unlike Phillips, can write, and he seems to have expelled much of the bile that marked his past writing. In his portrayal, there are some honorable and principled conservatives who cross his path -- John O'Sullivan of The National Review (which had the guts to pan The Real Anita Hill), Tod Lindberg of The Washington Times, the writer Christopher Caldwell -- and there's a humanity to some (though not all) of the gargoyles and lunatics who outnumber them.

NYPress - Michelangelo Signorile

...illuminating and at times enraging ....[the] cast of hypocrites, vipers and freaks doesn't get any more perverse than those in Blinded.

The Nation - Michael Tomasky

....the writing has about it the tenor of veracity and candor. Brock comes clean on things he has no contemporary motive to come clean on...

Chicago Sun Times - Steve Neal

Brock draws vivid portraits of his contemporaries in the conservative movement, from the hypocritical Newt Gingrich to the sloppy Matt Drudge and socialite Arianne Huffington, who padded her syndicated column by writing down the thoughts of others at cocktail parties.

Philadelphia City Paper - Andrew Milner

Blinded by the Right is a terrific personal account of the seamier side of American political life.

New York Observer - Joe Conason

By journalistic standards, then, Mr. Brock is a credible person; more credible, certainly, than those who tried to deny the existence of the Arkansas Project and, more broadly, the "right-wing conspiracy" to undermine the Clinton Presidency. But there are elements of his story that are perhaps more compelling than the dry corroboration of names, dates and bank accounts.

Boston Globe - John Aloysius Farrell

Blinded by the Right is terrific. It's bitchy. Audacious. Malevolent. An indulging, mesmerizing treat....No one on the right comes off looking clean in this book. Not the hypocritical House Republicans who investigated Clinton's sex life while nursing their own adulteries. Not the closeted conservative columnists and office holders who chased and pawed Brock at parties, clubs, and dance floors while their party preached the depravity of gay life. Not the high-ranking Republican legal establishment, whose rage at the left's tactics in the confirmation battles over Robert Bork and Thomas was such that they abandoned time-tested conservative principles such as truth, fair play, and patriotism.

USA Today - Clara Frenk

.... fascinating look into the murky world of the politics of personal destruction that led to a $70 million impeachment inquiry. Most important, in a town where everyone from journalists to political appointees does everything to avoid admitting past transgressions, Brock not only says he was wrong -- he tries to make amends.

Library Journal

When Brock (The Real Anita Hill; The Seduction of Hillary Rodham) was a freshman at the University of California at Berkeley in 1981, his political idol was Bobby Kennedy. Four years later, he was a committed conservative who idolized Oliver North and Robert Bork. In this book, Brock chronicles the political round trip back to his more liberal roots. Along the way, he earned the adoration of the extreme right, even after he acknowledged that he was gay, because he worked feverishly as a writer for conservative publications such as the Washington Times and American Spectator, promoting and validating conservative causes. An American Spectator article in early 1994 broke the "Troopergate" scandal and laid the groundwork for the Paula Jones suits against President Clinton, but Brock says he was troubled by the relentless investigations of the Clintons and came to regret his part in them. Eventually, the shallowness of his relationship with the conservatives forced him to make a final break in 1997. Although readers may doubt the sincerity of Brock's latest conversion, the book offers a revealing inside look at the conservative media and provides a careful chronicling of the investigations of the Clintons. Recommended for media studies and political science collections and for larger public libraries. Jill Ortner, SUNY at Buffalo Libs. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Table of Contents:

	Prologue
Ch. 1	The Making of a Conservative	1
Ch. 2	The Third Generation	21
Ch. 3	Leninists of the Right	48
Ch. 4	"A Counter-Intelligentsia"	71
Ch. 5	The Real Anita Hill	87
Ch. 6	Holy War	121
Ch. 7	Troopergate	134
Ch. 8	Out of the Closet	160
Ch. 9	"A Woman Named Paula"	176
Ch. 10	The Arkansas Project	193
Ch. 11	The Best and the Rightist	215
Ch. 12	Strange Lies	237
Ch. 13	The Seduction of Hillary Rodham	249
Ch. 14	The Gary Aldrich Affair	264
Ch. 15	Breaking Ranks	273
Ch. 16	Monica, Sidney, and Me	299
	Epilogue	330

Read also Understanding Management or Second Nature

The Separation of Church and State: Writings on a Fundamental Freedom by America's Founders

Author: Forrest Church

A primer of essential writings about one of the cornerstones of our democracy

Certain basic issues will always be debated in our country, even without a presidential election at stake. One of the most important of these is the separation of church and state. On this issue, Americans constantly interpret and reinterpret the intentions of America's founders. Now, they will have a collection of the most eloquent writings of the founders to help them understand the original reasoning behind this separation.

Forrest Church, well-known writer and religious leader, son of former senator Frank Church, has used his considerable knowledge about this subject to bring together these writings for modern readers. Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Adams, George Washington, Patrick Henry—these are just some of the leaders who wrote movingly about the need to separate religion and government. This concise primer will get past the rhetoric that surrounds the current debate and deliver instead specific writings by the original authors of the Constitution.

Edited and introduced by Church, this volume will inform readers about the founders' original vision and will stand as a timely reminder of how important this fundamental separation is to our way of life.

After Fidel or Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy

After Fidel: Raul Castro and the Future of Cuba's Revolution

Author: Brian Latell

This is a compelling behind-the-scenes account of the extraordinary Castro brothers and the impending dynastic succession of Fidel's younger brother Raul. Brian Latell, the CIA analyst who has followed Castro since the sixties, gives an unprecedented view into Fidel and Raul's remarkable relationship, revealing how they have collaborated in policy making, divided responsibilities, and resolved disagreements for more than forty years--a challenge to the notion that Fidel always acts alone. Latell has had more access to the brothers than anyone else in this country, and his briefs to the CIA informed much of U.S. policy. Based on his knowledge of Raul Castro, Latell makes projections on what kind of leader Raul would be and how the shift in power might influence U.S.-Cuban relations.

Table of Contents:

Acknowledgments     xi
Prologue     1
Introduction: More Radical Than Me     5
A Peasant from Biran     23
The Victim of Exploitation     41
We Will All Be Heroes     61
My True Destiny     79
So We Can Seize Power     101
He Is Our Father     121
My Job Is To Talk     143
I Detest Solitude     161
The Moral and Political Duty     181
The Corpse of Imperialism     193
My Brother Twice Over     207
More Than Enough Cannons     231
Afterword     251
Notes     265
Index     283

See also: Fun Meals for Fathers Sons or Wonder Bread Cookbook

Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy

Author: John Rawls

This last book by the late John Rawls, derived from written lectures and notes for his long-running course on modern political philosophy, offers readers an account of the liberal political tradition from a scholar viewed by many as the greatest contemporary exponent of the philosophy behind that tradition.

Rawls's goal in the lectures was, he wrote, "to identify the more central features of liberalism as expressing a political conception of justice when liberalism is viewed from within the tradition of democratic constitutionalism." He does this by looking at several strands that make up the liberal and democratic constitutional traditions, and at the historical figures who best represent these strands—among them the contractarians Hobbes, Locke, and Rousseau; the utilitarians Hume, Sidgwick, and J. S. Mill; and Marx regarded as a critic of liberalism. Rawls's lectures on Bishop Joseph Butler also are included in an appendix. Constantly revised and refined over three decades, Rawls's lectures on these figures reflect his developing and changing views on the history of liberalism and democracy—as well as how he saw his own work in relation to those traditions.

With its clear and careful analyses of the doctrine of the social contract, utilitarianism, and socialism—and of their most influential proponents—this volume has a critical place in the traditions it expounds. Marked by Rawls's characteristic patience and curiosity, and scrupulously edited by his student and teaching assistant, Samuel Freeman, these lectures are a fitting final addition to his oeuvre, and to the history of political philosophy as well.

D. Schultz - Choice

John Rawls is perhaps the most influential Western political philosopher of the twentieth century. The late Harvard philosopher's 1971 A Theory of Justice is often credited with bestowing that title upon him. In that book he drew on the works of John Locke and Immanuel Kant, among others, to criticize utilitarian theory and defend an egalitarian version of political liberalism. This volume draws together his Harvard lectures on political philosophy and liberalism, providing his insights and interpretations of Locke and Kant, as well as Thomas Hobbes, David Hume, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, and others. In these lectures Rawls reveals how he interpreted these philosophers both in light of their historical circumstances and problems they were trying to address, and also in light of contemporary political debates.

Charles Larmore - The New Republic

A definitive and magnificent version of Rawls's teachings on the history of political philosophy...The distinction between the rational and the reasonable runs through these lectures, and through all of Rawls's writings. Its importance signals one essential task that political philosophy should assume even in a democratic age: democracies cannot long endure, however high-sounding the principles they profess, unless their citizens learn to love and to practice the civic virtues of fairness and open discussion that alone can make these principles a reality...Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy shows us a Rawls keenly aware of the historical underpinnings of his own theoretical constructions...His Lectures on the History of Political Philosophy complement more systematic works such as A Theory of Justice. They make plain how the careful analysis of the insights and the limitations of his predecessors helped him to fashion many of the elements of his own political thought...Rawls's writing is at its most powerful when he thus casts aside his contractual scaffolding and speaks directly to our political conscience. Then he impels us to see more clearly than before the moral substance of the democratic ideal. He shows us in an exemplary way how philosophy can be democratic.

John Dunn - Times Higher Education Supplement

Rawls was a dedicated and remarkably winning teacher, deeply admired by generations of grateful Harvard University pupils. Reading Lectures you can see why. The tone throughout is unassuming but assured, the purpose consistently to make clear, to get into steady common view what he took to be the key issues in the grand texts that he chose to explore. There is something soothing and encouraging about being guided through the works of Hobbes and Locke, Hume and J. S. Mill, Henry Sidgwick and Bishop Butler--and even Karl Marx--in these calm and measured tones...There is much quiet pleasure to be drawn from these pages, as well as a great deal of instruction about the terms in which Rawls came to frame his own ethical conceptions and the secular liberalism he believed them to imply. Anyone seriously interested in the development of Rawls's thinking and his sense of the relations between his approach and those of major predecessors in the history of Anglophone liberalism will find the insight it provides on numerous points indispensable.

Steven B. Smith - New York Sun

While many contemporary philosophers have deliberately shunned the history of political philosophy as irrelevant to "doing" philosophy, Rawls shows himself to be a conscientious and painstaking reader of the great works of the philosophical tradition of which he was a part. He regarded his own work as both indebted to and as culminating the great tradition that he interprets for his readers.

David Gordon, Bowling Green State Univ., OH</P> - Library Journal

After the publication of A Theory of Justicein 1971, Rawls (1921–2002) became the most influential moral and political philosopher in the Western world. As such, the issuing of this posthumous volume, carefully edited by Freeman (philosophy & law, Univ. of Pennsylvania), a former student and teaching assistant from Rawls's courses at Harvard University, is a major event. Rawls discusses Thomas Hobbes, John Locke, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, J.S. Mill, and Karl Marx (appendixes treat Henry Sidgwick and Joseph Butler as well). He is especially concerned with how each thinker views the fair terms of social cooperation. He distinguishes between being rational (i.e., efficient in pursuit of one's ends) and being reasonable (i.e., willing to cooperate on fair terms with others)—Hobbes did not make this distinction, but it is useful in explaining Locke and Rousseau. Rawls finds in Rousseau the notion of public reason, the key concept of his Political Liberalism. He devotes much attention to the utilitarian tradition, the principal rival of his own approach. An unexpected feature is a sympathetic discussion of Marx. Highly recommended for all philosophy collections.