The Haj

by Leon Uris

Leon Uris retums to the land of his acclaimed best-seller Exodus for an epic story of hate and love, vengeance and forgiveness. The Middle East is the powerful setting for this sweeping tale of a land where revenge is sacred and hatred noble. Where an Arab ruler tries to save his people from destruction but cannot save them from themselves. When violence spreads like a plague across the lands of Palestine--this is the time of The Haj.

The Fight for Jerusalem:

Radical Islam, the West, and the Future of the Holy City

by Dore Gold

Radical Islam has long desired to seize Jerusalem and cut it off to Christian and Jewish believers. In his revealing new book, bestselling author and former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dore Gold explains why the battle for Jerusalem is intensifying today. Gold shows why only Israel can preserve its holy places for Christians, Jews, and even Muslims, and why uncovering Jerusalem's past-and the truth of biblical history-can be the key to saving its future.

Israel in the World

Changing Lives Through Innovation

by Helen Davis, Douglas Davis, Foreword by Rupert Murdoch

This colorful volume takes an in-depth look at a remarkable achievement: how one small and very young country has successfully become one of the world's technological leaders.

From agriculture to medicine, Israel stands right at the forefront of technological development. Learn about the country's many achievements and breakthoughs, and how it's poised to remain on the industrial cutting edge in the foreseeable future. The countless accomplishments outlined here would be dazzling, even if they hadn't emerged from a nation that didn't even exist 60 years ago: Israel created the ICQ chat facility that is now used by hundreds of millions of internet surfers each day; the technology that allows you to leave voicemail messages on a mobile phone; the medical diagnostic equipment (including magnetic resonance imaging) found in most hospitals; and the surveillance equipment that alerts security officials to suspicious activities at airports. Find out about the people who made such progress possible; the educational system that allowed these citizens, many of them recent immigrants, to reach their full potential; and how Israel uses its knowledge for the well-being of the world.

The Case For Democracy

The Power of Freedom to Overcome Tyranny and Terror

by Natan Sharansky, Ron Dermer, Anatoly Shcharansky

In this brilliantly analytical yet personal book, nondemocratic societies are put under a microscope to reveal the mechanics of tyranny that sustain them. In exposing the inner workings of a "fear society," the authors explain why democracy is not beyond any nation's reach, why it is essential for our security and why there is much that can be done to promote it around the world.

Freedom, the authors claim, is rooted in the right to dissent, to walk into the town square and declare one's views without fear of punishment or reprisal. The authors persuasively argue that societies that do not protect that right can never be reliable partners for peace and that the democracy that hates us is much safer than the dictatorship that loves us. The price for stability inside nondemocratic regimes, the authors explain, is terror outside of them. Indeed, the security of the free world depends on using all possible leverage-moral, political, and financial-to support democracy.

This book is about much more than theory. After explaining why the expansion of democracy is so critical to our future, the authors take us on a fascinating journey to see firsthand how an evil empire was destroyed and how the principles that led to that destruction were abandoned in the search for peace in the Middle East.

Right to Exist

A Moral Defense of Israel's Wars

by Yaacov Lozowick

In RIGHT TO EXIST, Yaacov Lozowick, an Israeli historian, describes his evolution from a liberal peace activist into a reluctant supporter of Sharon. In making sense of his own political journey, Lozowick rewrites the whole history of Israel, delving into the roots of the Zionist enterprise and tracing the long struggle to establish and defend the Jewish state in the face of implacable Arab resistance and widespread international hostility.

Lozowick examines each of Israel's wars from the perspective of classical "just war" theory, from the fight for independence to the present day. Subjecting the country's founders and their descendants to unsparing scrutiny, he concludes that Israel is neither the pristine socialist utopia its founders envisioned, nor the racist colonial enterprise portrayed by its enemies. Refuting dozens of pernicious myths about the conflict-such as the charge that Israel stole the land from its rightful owners, or that Arabs and Jews are locked in a "cycle of violence" for which both bear equal blame-RIGHT TO EXIST is an impassioned moral history of extraordinary resonance and power.

The Blessing of a Broken Heart

by Sherri Mandell

Of all the spiritual memoirs written about the healing power of love, this is one of the best and most relevant for our times. Author Sherri Mandell (Writers of the Holocaust) had good reason to become a beacon of rage and despair after enduring the horrific murder of her eldest son Koby. Mandell, an American-born writer raising her family in Israel, sent her 13-year-old son off to school on May 8th, 2001. But Koby never made it to school that day. Instead he skipped school to go hiking with his friend Yosef. The two boys' bodies were found the next day bludgeoned to death in a cave near Koby's home in Tekoa. Palestinian terrorists were blamed for the attacks, although the murderers were never found.

News of the brutal murders swept across the world. The boys were held up as martyrs, symbols for the age-old hatred between two sets of people. Mandell might have used Koby's death to fuel this ancient conflict. But instead she offers a beautiful memoir, written almost like a prose-poem that recounts her transformation from grief into love and compassion.

The Israelis

Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land

by Donna Rosenthal

Today's headlines leave the impression there's little to know about Israel outside of its conflict with the Palestinians. journalist Rosenthal, with years of experience in and knowledge of the Middle East, defies that notion, giving an in-depth look at the rich variety of people in the Jewish state. Relying on dozens of interviews, she gives a lively, variegated portrait of all facets of Israeli life. Terrorism and relations with the Palestinians are covered, but so are the third wife of a fifty-six-year-old Bedouin who watches Oprah and ultra-Orthodox Jews on "Modesty Patrols" who make certain that religious women bus passengers are "properly" attired and seated apart from men (in the world's only country that drafts women for the military). You'll see what it's like taking children to the mall -- first to shop at Toys 'R' Us and then to pick up gas masks. And meet the bride whose Ethiopian-born parents dislike the guy she married, not because he's white -- but because he's not Jewish enough. Interweaving hundreds of personal stories with historical facts and intriguing new research, The Israelis is lively, irreverent, intimate, and always fascinating. It is one of the most original books about Israel in decades.

The Israelis

Ordinary People in an Extraordinary Land

by Donna Rosenthal

Today's headlines leave the impression there's little to know about Israel outside of its conflict with the Palestinians. journalist Rosenthal, with years of experience in and knowledge of the Middle East, defies that notion, giving an in-depth look at the rich variety of people in the Jewish state. Relying on dozens of interviews, she gives a lively, variegated portrait of all facets of Israeli life. Terrorism and relations with the Palestinians are covered, but so are the third wife of a fifty-six-year-old Bedouin who watches Oprah and ultra-Orthodox Jews on "Modesty Patrols" who make certain that religious women bus passengers are "properly" attired and seated apart from men (in the world's only country that drafts women for the military). You'll see what it's like taking children to the mall -- first to shop at Toys 'R' Us and then to pick up gas masks. And meet the bride whose Ethiopian-born parents dislike the guy she married, not because he's white -- but because he's not Jewish enough. Interweaving hundreds of personal stories with historical facts and intriguing new research, The Israelis is lively, irreverent, intimate, and always fascinating. It is one of the most original books about Israel in decades.

The Case For Israel

by Alan Dershowitz

Even as Israel boldly offers statehood to Palestinians in exchange for an enduring peace, many academics and activists-primarily but not exclusively from the hard left-have gone on the attack against Israel, deriding it as an imperialist power bent on oppressing the Palestinians. On prominent campuses across the United States and throughout the world, petitions circulate asking universities to divest holdings in Israel and to boycott Israeli Jews without regard to their individual views. Virulent opponents of Israel have accused that democracy of unspeakable human rights abuses, while many who believe otherwise remain silent. Now, in this impassioned and closely argued book, Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz sets the record straight and explains why Israel, while not perfect, is in fact the sole outpost of liberty and democracy in the Middle East-a country that has earned the right to exist within secure boundaries and defend itself.

Drawing on scrupulous, unbiased research and his peerless skills as an advocate, Dershowitz conclusively refutes thirty-two separate slurs, slanders, and misrepresentations that have been hurled at Israel in recent years. Well reasoned, hard-hitting, and provocative, The Case for Israel is essential reading for anyone who cares about Israel and the ongoing conflict in the Middle East.

The New Anti-Semitism: The Current Crisis and What We Must Do About It

by Phyllis Chesler

In this intensely passionate and compelling book, the best-selling feminist and Jewish writer Phyllis Chesler demonstrates how old-fashioned anti-Semitism has become newly fashionable, even politically correct, and how this plague threatens the Jews of the world, America, and Western civilization.

A dangerous, worldwide coalition of Islamic terrorists, well-intentioned but profoundly misinformed students, right wing fascists, left-wing ideologues, pious academics, feminists, opportunistic European politicians, and sensation-seeking international media have joined together to once again blame the Jews and the Jewish state for the current world crisis. Hundreds of synagogues have been burned, cemeteries and destroyed, and Jews threatened, boycotted, beaten, and killed.

So what must we do? "Fight against the Big Lies," Chesler says. Avoid rigid, dogmatic ideologies. Focus on the world's real problems (disease, poverty, illiteracy, violence) instead of scapegoating the Jews and demonizing the Jewish state. Be fair to Israel. Form Jewish-Christian, Jewish-Muslim, and Jewish-Palestinian alliances. Restore campus civility and above all, Jews must stop fighting among themselves.

Ivory Towers on Sand: The Failure of Middle Eastern Studies in America

by Martin Kramer

It has been a long time since scholars of the Middle East looked critically at themselves. In the 1970s, the field underwent a wrenching crisis, prompted by Middle Eastern turmoil, academic radicalization, and budget cutting. It ended in a great shakeout and a shift of academic power. The new leaders of the field claimed to be more competent, and prided themselves upon possession of more potent paradigms for explaining and understanding the Middle East.

Only now have hesitant voices been raised from within the ramparts, pointing to serious problems. They run even deeper than insiders are prepared to admit. It is no exaggeration to say that America's academics have failed to predict or explain the major evolutions of Middle Eastern politics and society over the past two decades. Time and again, academics have been taken by surprise by their subjects; time and again, their paradigms have been swept away by events. Repeated failures have depleted the credibility of scholarship among influential publics. In Washington, the mere mention of academic Middle Eastern studies often causes eyes to roll. The purpose of this book is to probe how and why a branch of academe once regarded with esteem has descended to such a low point in the public estimate, and what might be done about it. The conclusion considers what might be done to find another way forward.

The Middle East

by Bernard Lewis

hanging balance of power between the Muslim and Christian worlds. Within this narrative, Lewis details the myriad forces that have shaped the history of the Middle East: the Islamic religion and legal system; the traditions of government; the immense variety of trade and the remarkably wide range of crops; the elites - military, commercial, religious, intellectual and artistic - and the commonalty, including such socially distinct groups as slaves, women and non-believers. He finally weaves these threads together by looking at the pervasive impact in modern times of Western ideas and technology, and the responses and reactions they evoked. Rich with vivid detail and the knowledge of a great scholar, this brilliant survey of the history and civilizations of the Middle East reveals the huge Islamic contribution to European life, as well as the European contribution to the Islamic world.

Hatred's Kingdom:

How Saudi Arabia Supports the New Global Terrorism

by Dore Gold

In Hatred's Kingdom, Dore Gold has the goods on Saudi Arabia, proving how it is actively supporting terrorism. Using previously unpublished documents, Gold, former Israeli Ambassador to the U.N. and internationally known Middle East strategy expert, pieces together the links between the current wave of global terrorism - from the World Trade Center to Bali, Indonesia - and the ideology of hatred taught in the schools and mosques of Saudi Arabia.

Empires of the Sand:

The Struggle for Mastery in the Middle East, 1789-1923

by Efraim Karsh, Inari Karsh

Empires of the Sand offers a reinterpretation of the struggle for mastery in the Middle East during the long nineteenth century (1789-1923). This book denies primacy to Western imperialism in the restructuring of the region and attributes equal responsibility to regional powers. Rejecting the view of modern Middle Eastern history as an offshoot of global power politics, the authors argue that the main impetus for the developments of this momentous period came from the local actors.. "Empires of the Sand sees a pattern of pragmatic cooperation and conflict between the Middle East and the West during the past two centuries, rather than a "clash of civilizations." Such a vision affords new ways of viewing the Middle East's past as well as its volatile present.

Fabricating Israeli History:

The New Historians (Cass Series--Israeli History, Politics, and Society)

by Efraim Karsh

New edition of a study in which Karsh (Mediterranean Studies Programme at King's College, U. of London) takes issue with revisionist accounts of Israeli history. Through careful examination of the documentation they have used, as well as of sources that he believes were ignored, he suggests that for the most part the new historiography has violated every tenet of bona fide research, from reading into documents what is not there to making false descriptions of the contents of these documents. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Dream Palace of the Arabs:

A Generation's Odyssey

by Fouad Ajami

From Fouad Ajami, an acclaimed author and chronicler of Arab politics, comes a compelling account of how a generation of Arab intellectuals tried to introduce cultural renewals in their homelands through the forces of modernity and secularism. Ultimately, they came to face disappointment, exile, and, on occasion, death. Brilliantly weaving together the strands of a tumultuous century in Arab political thought, history, and poetry, Ajami takes us from the ruins of Beirut's once glittering metropolis to the land of Egypt, where struggle rages between a modernist impulse and an Islamist insurgency, from Nasser's pan-Arab nationalist ambitions to the emergence of an uneasy Pax Americana in Arab lands, from the triumphalism of the Gulf War to the continuing anguished debate over the Israeli-Palestinian peace accords.

For anyone who seeks to understand the Middle East, here is an insider's unflinching analysis of the collision between intellectual life and political realities in the Arab world today.

A History of Israel:

From the Rise of Zionism to Our Time

by Howard M. Sachar

Second Edition, Revised and Expanded

From Time Immemorial:

The Origins of the Arab-Jewish Conflict over Palestine

by Joan Peters

This monumental and fascinating book, the product of seven years of original research, will forever change the terms of the debate about the conflicting claims of the Arabs and the Jews in the Middle East.

The weight of the comprehensive evidence found and brilliantly analyzed by historian and journalist Joan Peters answers many crucial questions, among them: Why are the Arab refugees from Israel seen in a different light from all the other, far more numerous peoples who were displaced after World War II? Why, indeed, are they seen differently from the Jewish refugees who were forced, in 1948 and after, to leave the Arab countries to find a haven in Israel? Who, in fact, are the Arabs who were living within the borders of present-day Israel, and where did they come from?

Joan Peter's highly readable and moving development of the answers to these and related questions will appear startling, even to those on both sides of the argument who have considered themselves to be in command of the facts.

This book is one that has already had a major impact on the policy discussions of one of the most vital and intractable of the world's problems, shrouded until now in a fog of misinformation and ignorance.

Six Days of War:

June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East

by Michael B. Oren

"Though it lasted for only six tense days in June, the 1967 Arab-Israeli war never really ended. Every crisis that has ripped through this region in the ensuing decades, from the Yom Kippur War of 1973 to the ongoing intifada, is a direct consequence of those six days of fighting. Michael B. Oren's magnificent Six Days of War, an Internationally acclaimed bestseller, is the first comprehensive account of this epoch-making event." Oren reconstructs both the lightning-fast action on the battlefields and the political shocks that electrified the world. Extraordinary personalities - Moshe Dayan and Gamal Abdul Nasser, Lyndon Johnson and Alexei Kosygin - rose and toppled from power as a result of this war; borders were redrawn; daring strategies brilliantly succeeded or disastrously failed in a matter of hours. And the balance of power changed - in the Middle East and in the world. A towering work of history and an enthralling human narrative, Six Days of War is the most important book on the Middle East conflict to appear in a generation.

The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict

2nd Edition

by Mitchell G. Bard

You're no idiot, of course. You know that the Middle East is always in the news. But the situation there is so complex and tangled up you just can't keep track of it all. Was King Hussein related to Saddam Hussein? Why all the fighting over the West Bank? And what's oil, water, and sand got to do with it all? Don't let your brain get parched yet! The Complete Idiot's Guide to Middle East Conflict sorts through the political and military quagmire of the Middle East in language anyone can understand. In this Complete Idiot's Guide, you get:

Myths and Facts:

A Guide to the Arab-Israel Conflict, Second Edition

by Mitchell G. Bard

For years people have been asking for a resource that provides concise, factual information on the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. Myths and Facts fills this desperate need. This 464-page guide contains 26 chapters covering everything from Israel's roots to each of the wars to the "al-Aksa intifada." In addition to discussions of the historical issues and current events, the book has a collection of maps and key documents, such as the Oslo agreements and the peace treaties Israel signed with Israel and Jordan. The facts are footnoted and a wide variety of sources have been consulted, from Arabic, Hebrew and English newspapers to scholarly journals and books.

Mitchell G. Bard earned his B.A. in economics from the University of California at Santa Barbara.

The Mideast Peace Process:

An Autopsy

by Neal Kozodoy

This volume contains 11 articles originally published in Commentary assessing the reasons for the failure of the Mideast peace process. Contributors include, for example, former Jerusalem Post editor David Bar-Illan, U.S. Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith, and Israeli parliament member Yuval Steinitz. In the afterword, novelist Mark Helprin considers what Israel must do to survive in light of the September 11 attack on the U.S. The volume does not contain bibliographical references.

American Jihad:

The Terrorists Living Among Us

by Steven Emerson

The United States Government is actively monitoring terrorist cells affiliated with Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network in eleven cities, from Florida to Boston to Denver to Houston. But al Qaeda is hardly our only threat. Some of Hamas's top officials have been based in America, and the organization has tentacles in Texas, California, New Jersey, Virginia, and Illinois. The University of South Florida played host to key members of the infamous organization known as Palestinian Islamic Jihad -- one of its faculty members even left the country to take that group's top leadership role after his predecessor was assassinated. Hizballah has been tied to cells in North Carolina and Michigan, from which it allegedly drew funds and attempted to procure military equipment. In short, September 11, 2001, was hardly an isolated or unpredictable event. The United States has become home to hundreds and probably thousands of terrorists, and it has become a central node in their international networks.

Steven Emerson, hailed as "the nation's leading expert on Islamist terrorism," has been working full-time since 1993 to track the spread of terrorist networks to our shores, even at great personal risk. In 1995, not long after the release of his PBS documentary "Jihad in America," he was informed by federal officials that a South African Islamist death squad had been dispatched after him, and told that he should leave his home immediately. Since then he has not maintained a home address, though he has continued to write and testify under his own name. With the help of a staff of researchers he has followed the terrorists' monetary sources, monitored their attacks and plans, exposed their ties to charitable foundations, and assisted a variety of government agencies in the battle against them. He has obtained videotaped evidence of terrorist training camps and conferences, and tracked the international connections of American operatives to over a dozen organizations. In American Jihad Emerson reveals the full story that only he knows. This is a frightening and crucial book for anyone who needs to understand the threat within our borders.

The Other Arab-Israeli Conflict:

Making America's Middle East Policy from Truman to Reagan

by Steven L. Spiegel

Discusses the history of and analyzes the factors shaping American policies in the Middle East.

Escape from Slavery:

The True Story of My Ten Years in Captivity and My Journey to Freedom in America

by Francis Bok, Edward Tivnan

As a seven-year-old boy growing up in the southern Sudan, Bok was caught up in a raid on a regional market center. Marauders from the north killed the men and kidnapped the women and children to work as farm slaves. He went from a loving and supportive extended family to the brutality of slavery in a strange land and culture, dominated by Muslims who considered him a Christian infidel. After enduring 10 years of slavery, Bok escaped to freedom in Cairo, where he became a U.N. refugee, eventually making his way to the U.S. at the age of 21. Bok became involved in the antislavery movement, speaking around the country while seeking to earn a high-school degree. This simple account of being a child cut off from his family and culture that shows the inhumanity of slavery. Bok's saga provides another--more contemporary--perspective on slavery for Americans reckoning with the rise of Muslim fundamentalism and their own troubling history of such inhumanity.

Militant Islam Reaches America

by Daniel Pipes

One of the most far-reaching examinations of militant Islam written to date.

Long before September 11, 2001, Daniel Pipes publicly warned Americans that militant Islam had declared war on America-yet sadly, Americans failed to take heed. The publication of Militant Islam Reaches America finally brought Pipes the attention he deserves. Dividing his work into two parts, Pipes first defines militant Islam, stressing the large and crucial difference between Islam, the faith, and the ideology of militant Islam. He then discusses the relatively new subject of Islam in the United States, and how it has developed rapidly in the last decade. In Militant Islam Reaches America, the product of thirty years of extensive research, Pipes provides one of the most incisive examinations of the growing radical Islamic movement ever written.

In the Path of God

Islam and Political Power

by Daniel Pipes

Written in 1983, this book provided the first comprehensive political study of Islam's extraordinary role in modern world. Pipes' reasoned, literate explanation of what generated the Islamic resurgence goes a long way to explaining recent events.

The book is divided into three sections. The first covers the premodern legacy of Islam's sacred laws and its failure to implement the public ideal represented by those laws. According to Pipes, for most of Muslim history, traditional Muslims were willing to accept the gap between the ideal and the actual, to live with a less-than-complete implementation of Shari'a.

The second section covers Islam's encounters with the West, beginning with the battles against Crusaders and proceeding quickly to Napoleon's 1789 invasion of Egypt.

Pipes devotes the third section to Islam in current affairs, detailing the effects of the fundamentalist surge on 22 Muslim-dominated nations from Indonesia to Afghanistan to Algeria to Morocco to the Middle Eastern countries. In at least 8 other nations, Muslims vie with non-Muslims for power. In one of these--the Sudan--the conflict has grown bloody, forcing millions into subjugation and slavery. Pipes also reviews 20 areas, including the former Soviet Union, where Muslims account for less than a quarter of the population but are asserting themselves. Pipes includes an extensive 50-plus page look at how oil money is used to promote Islam.

Onward Muslim Soldiers

How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West

by Robert Spencer

Islam claims to be a religion of peace and tolerance, yet jihad, or Islamic holy war, is growing faster than ever. In his new book, Onward Muslim Soldiers, Robert Spencer shows how jihad warriors have penetrated and established themselves in the American homeland and how they are quickly gaining a hold in Europe, spreading values of hatred, violence, and intolerance as they go. Spencer, a student of Islam for over twenty years, gives a unique perspective on the fundamental bases and truths of Islam, focusing on facts that the media often disregards or denies. With a special focus on how the jihad propagates terrorism, Spencer provides a timely, reasoned look at the threats of radical Islam and a list of steps that must be taken to combat jihad terrorism before it's too late.

Rentless Pursuit

The Dss and the Manhunt for the Al-Qaeda Terrorists

by Samuel M. Katz

Al-Qa'ida war on America did not start on September 11th, 2001. Just ask the Diplomatic Security Service, a little-known but highly effective branch of the U.S. Department of State that combats terrorists all over the world.

It was on February 26, 1993, that the United States was first attacked on its own soil by foreign terrorists. A zealous band of holy warriors parked their bomb in the garage beneath the World Trade Center. They hoped to topple one tower into the other and kill 250,000 people or more. They ended up killing six and wounding over 1,000.

In Relentless Pursuit, Samuel M. Katz reviews the escalating series of terrorist attacks on the US of the last decade and more, in many foreign countries and finally in New York and Washington. In the process, he tells the gripping story of the DSS and its agents, protecting us and our representatives here and abroad. Katz's detailed, personal, on-the-ground anecdotes bring home the contexts and linkages of the War on Terrorism that has been fought on our behalf by the DSS since the 1980s.

Terrorist Hunter

The Extraordinary Story of a Woman Who Went Undercover to Infiltrate the Radical Islamic Groups Operating in America

by Anonymous

As an undercover agent, this courageous woman uncovered shocking revelations about innocuous-sounding Islamic groups that she says serve as fronts for Hamas, Palestine Islamic Jihad and even al-Qaeda; about FBI ineptitude in investigating these groups; and about government suspicion of those, like herself, who are investigating this network. Readers will follow along in fearful fascination as she slowly assembles the puzzle pieces of a complex, interlocking group of organizations and traces their links to terrorist groups and, ultimately, to a "Saudi connection." The author, a researcher at an unnamed research institute in New York City that focuses on the Middle East, has, through her work, become perhaps a leading authority on how these front organizations operate in the U.S.-government agencies come to her for information. Readers will share her nervousness as she attends a Muslim conference with a tape recorder attached to her eight-month-pregnant stomach under her burka or dives into a garbage-filled Dumpster in search of documents. Her personal story is equally dramatic: as a child, she and her Jewish family escaped imprisonment in Iraq after the regime executed her father as a spy for Israel.