Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader - Softcover

Phyllis Bennis is the director of the New Internationalism Program at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of many books, including Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy US Power and the first in this series, Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict. She is a frequent television and radio commentator, and her editorials have appeared in many national publications.

The editors of this collection of 30 essays have assembled a distinguished cast of dissenting voices, from American democratic socialists like Barbara Ehrenreich to former Arab League ambassador to the U.N. Clovis Maksoud. Said's foreword, which is forthright and even-handed, notes that ignorance runs deep on both sides (the U.S. and the Arab world), and that nowhere in the Gulf region is there serious academic study of the U.S. Several other essays stand out. Bennis ( From Stones to Statehood: The Palestinian Uprising ) argues convincingly that the U.N. essentially served as a rubber stamp for U.S. policy. Israeli activist Stanley Cohen offers a particularly insightful and compassionate evaluation of the reaction of the Israeli peace movement to the war. Even more useful is Laura Flanders's thoughtful dissection of the role of the media, with a telling description of the abdication of responsibility by television journalists who allowed themselves to become cheerleaders for administration policy. A comprehensive chronology is included, as is the text of salient U.N. resolutions. Moushabeck is Middle East editor at Olive Branch.
Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.