Middle East
The Continuum Political Encyclopedia of the Middle East edited by Avraham
Sela
(Continuum) This volume is an updated and expanded new edition of The Political
Encyclopedia of the
Middle East
(New York: Continuum, 1999). Indeed, the pace and abundance of new events
produced by states and societies in this region underscore the need for an
updated edition of this Encyclopedia. It is intended to serve as a useful source
of knowledge and scholarly insight for those interested in the contemporary
political history of this region, a most turbulent, yet crucial area in the
context of world affairs.
The Encyclopedia brings to the reader a wealth of
information on this region, in a historical perspective, with emphasis on the
two recent decades, which were marked by cataclysmic events, both in and out of
the region. Among the more conspicuous events during these two decades were the
Israel-Egypt peace treaty (1979); the Islamic revolution in Iran (1979); the
eight-year-long Iran-Iraq War (1980-88); the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the
Gulf War (1990-91); the collapse of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War
(1991); the breakthrough in Arab-Israel peacemaking (1993-94). Since the first
edition of the Political Encyclopedia of the
Middle East
, the region has witnessed the breakdown of the Israeli-Palestinian Oslo process
and a plunge into unprecedented bloody violence threatening to spill over into
the neighboring states.
Above all, it was the horrific
11 September 2001
attacks on
New York
and
Washington
by Islamist terrorists, with its consequent war against the Taliban regime in
Afghanistan
, that shook the world and triggered a dramatic change of
America
's self-perception and world-view. Related to these events were the volatile
prices of oil, the major natural resource in the Middle East; the intensified
demographic and economic predicaments of many states in the region; the gap
between the quest for political participation and liberalization, and the
political reality of authoritarian, security-obsessed, and politically
restrictive regimes; and the rising tide of Islamic radicalism, which has become
the primary social and political force in the region. On the international
level, the 11 September events have been widely perceived as fulfilling the
prophecy of the "Clash of Civilizations" between Islam and the West. More
realistically, these events have been taken seriously as a major threat to the
world order, underscoring the danger of individual and group violence to
universal human values.
The Encyclopedia emphasizes the formative events that led
to the shaping of the contemporary
Middle East
following World War I and the consolidation of states, ideological trends and
movements, and regional and international relations. At the same time, it takes
a special interest in the post-Gulf War and post-Cold War years, in which two
parallel processes have been essential: the dramatic breakthrough and disrupted
progress of the Arab-Israeli peace process; and the growing sense of popular
discontent and tensions between state and society, tradition and modernity,
austerity and globalization, epitomized by the continuing trend of radical
Islamic movements. The breakthrough in the Arab-Israeli peace process was, above
all, a reflection of the changing political structures, in both domestic and
inter-state politics, of the Middle East, i.e.., the erosion of regional
ethno-religious identities rooted in supra-national Pan-Arabism and Islam and
the transition to increasingly state-based identities and hence to more
pragmatic politics. These changes also brought about a modest reconsideration of
the term "
Middle East
" with regard to its geographical boundaries and cultural essence.
Indeed, despite the prevalent use of the term "Middle East"
(or Near East in the United States), for decades students and institutions of
the international academic community have been divided over the very validity of
the term and even more so over its geographical boundaries. Area specialists
tended to point to the historical, linguistic and religious commonalities of the
Middle East peoples, defining the region as one marked by dominant Arab-Islamic
identity, which excluded Israel as an alien and non-regional actor. They
rejected the term "
Middle East
" as a reflection of the imperialists' viewpoint and interests. Some Arab
scholars defined the region as an all-Arab national system of states, arguing
that the term "
Middle East
" was deliberately introduced by Western imperialists to legitimize the
existence of
Israel
in the heart of the Arab homeland.
Indeed, the Arab world, "from the [Atlantic] Ocean to the
[Persian] Gulf," constitutes the major part of the
Middle East
land and population.
Israel
is indeed an alien entity in this region in terms of its cultural, religious,
social and economic characteristics, even though about half of its Jewish
population is Middle Eastern by origin. However, from the end of World War I,
the nascent political Jewish community in
Palestine
, and later the State of Israel, has played an indispensable role in
Middle East
regional politics. The Arab-Israeli conflict has left its imprint on the
region's political thought and practice, reflecting mainly the Arab-Muslim
response to the religious, cultural, territorial and political challenge that
the Jewish State has constituted for its neighbors. Obviously, Israel played a
key role in the region's strategic and international affairs, even though for
most of its fifty-four years of existence Israel's relations with most of the
Middle East states were marked by ideological hostility and a practical state of
war.
The 1990s also witnessed the growing incorporation of
Turkey
in the
Middle East
setting, underscored by intensified ethnic (primarily concerning the Kurds) and
water conflicts with its Arab south and southeastern neighbors, shared economic
interests with
Iraq
and
Iran
, and newly established strategic relations with
Israel
. At the same time,
Iran
has maintained its interest and penetration in the Arab-Muslim Middle East,
boosted by its Islamic revolution in 1979 and its quest for hegemony in the
Persian Gulf
and beyond. Finally, the
11 September 2001
events brought to the surface the new phenomenon of al-Qa'ida as an
international network of militant Islamic groups, primarily Arab, whose agenda
and practices are yet to be found out. The links between this network and the
two-decade-long state of lawlessness and state failure in
Afghanistan
, including the rule of the Taliban, made it necessary to include this country
in this updated edition.
This volume thus defines the
Middle East
as a region encompassing the whole Arab world, from the
Maghreb
in
North Africa
to the
Persian Gulf
(including nominally Arab states, hence briefly reviewedMauritania,
Somalia
,
Eritrea
and
Djibouti
) as well as non-Arab states:
Israel
,
Turkey
and
Iran
. This definition derives mainly from the common Muslim identity of the vast
majority of the peoples in the region and their sense of shared regional
identity. Yet, for the purposes of this Encyclopedia it is also necessary to
view the region in the context of long-term structural interactions among
states, as well as the existence of cross-national institutions, trends, and
shared economic, security, and political links. Thus, in addition to entries on
each state in the region (reviewing land, people, culture, and political
history, both domestic and international), major processes of regional
significance are amply discussed in this Encyclopedia through substantive
entries that constitute short essays on issues such as: Arab Nationalism;
Arab-Israel Conflict; Arab-Israel Peacemaking; Islamic Radicalism and Movements;
Water Politics; Military Forces; Oil; Non-Conventional Weapons; Refugees and
Migrants; Terrorism; Women; al-Qa'ida; and al Jazira. Other entries of regional
importance relate to ethnic and religious groups, such as Arabs, Kurds, Druze,
Jews, Alawis, Copts, Circassians, Maronites, as well as Muslims (Sunnis, Shi'is,
Isma'ilis, etc.), Christians (Greek Orthodox, Greek Catholic, Latin, etc.). In
addition, the Encyclopedia also includes short entries on leading political
figures, parties and movements.
The Encyclopedia is arranged in alphabetical order, with
cross-references designed to help the reader find entries close to or related to
the issue searched. We have also added an index referring to entries where the
searched item can be found. To ease the search,
cross-references appear in small capital letters. Non-English words and terms,
as well as original names of movements, parties, and ideas, appear in italics.
Initials of the authors of the updated/new entries appear at the bottom of each
(entries slightly changed/updated remain credited to their authors in the
previous volume). We also added updated bibliographies for further reading. An
annexed table provides basic updated data on the
Middle East
states, such as area, economic growth and main resources, population and
population growth, gross domestic product and per capita income, and more. A
short note on transliteration: the approach adopted in this volume is "user
friendly," that is, regarding Arabic names, we used the customary way of
spelling names and places in the English-speaking world, with a tendency toward
a phonetic rather than precise transliteration from Arabic. Al (with capital A)
is used as part of a dynasty's name, denoting "The house (family) of , as
opposed to the usual aldenoting the definite article. In the case of Turkish
and Iranian names, we took the closest spelling to the phonetic pronunciation.
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