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Middle East contemporary survey, volume XIV, 1990
Brief Reviews whether of the terrain, the rudimentary structures, or the wizened men. If not beautiful or alluring, the pictures do help give this hitherto nearly faceless people a distinct identity of its own. And that, after all, is the point. The I&Ung of the ArabIsraelI Conflict, 1947-51.By Ilan Pappe. New York: I. B. Tauris, 1992.324 pp. $69.50. Pappe, one of Israel’s revisionist historians, synthesizes the work of his clique. Despite a consistent and pronounced anti-Israel bias (which isn’t all that surprising: Israeli academics are about as alienated from their government as American academics from theirs), the results hold great interest. Pappe repudiates the Zionist portrayal of a tiny, nascent Israeli state surrounded by enemies, winning its war of independence through pluck and courage. For him, the war was over “before even one shot had been Fred.” How so? Because the Yishuv had built a solid and effective state-like infrastructure over two decades. It had governing bodies, diplomats, military units, intelligence assets, and economic infrastructure. From a customs agency to a medical system, everything was in place and functioning. As a result, “When the hour struck on 15 May 1948, the Jewish community was ready.” In contrast, the Palestinian leadership failed to use the mandatory period to prepare. Pappe points to two main failings. First, members of the elite, persistently looked out for number one, prompted much internecine fighting. Second, they invited the Arab rulers into Palestine, hoping these would carry their water. Of course, the kings and presidents had-then as now-their own interests which they pursued at the Palestinians’ expense. Rather than a tightly integrated history, Making of theArab-Israeli Conflict consists of ten essays only loosely tied together. In combination, they constitute the new standard interpretation of Israel’s emergence as a state. Middle East Contempomry Survey, Volume XIV, 1990. Edited by Ami Ayalon. Boulder, Colo.: Westview, 1992. 758 pp. $89.95. The Iraqi invasion of Kuwait so dominated Middle Eastern politics in 1990 that the annual Middle East Contemporary Sunxy for that year really contains two separate books: before August 2, and after. In over threequarters of the chapters, the invasion gets mentioned in the opening paragraph; in the others it follows soon after. The Saudi chapter (by Jacob Goldberg) starts with arresting pairs of quotes, one pre-invasion, the other post-. The earlier ones refer to Saddam Husayn’s “wisdom” and “farsightedness,” while claiming that the kingdom will rely entirely on its own soldiers. The latter, of course, state just the opposite. Similar reversals characterize the policies of many other states in the Persian Gulf region. Perhaps the most interesting chapters deal with the states which prevaricated in response to the invasion, especially Iran cby David Menashri) and Libya (Yehudit Ronen); the full extent of their incoherence only becomes evident in retrospect. The Middle East Contem#ora y Sun/ey also covers the significant events which never quite got the attention they deserve. In 1990, these included the unification of the Yemens, the fundamentalist Muslims’ consolidation of power Spring 1993 1 315
Brief Reviews in Sudan, and Lebanon’s Ta’if Accord. As ever, the Sunny is the place to look for a quick, reliable lesson on current Middle Eastern history. Nasser’s Blessed Movement: Egypt’s Free Offkers and the July Revolution. By Joel Gordon. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. 254 pp. $38.00. A voluminous literature analyzes Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rule in Egypt and his reach throughout the Arab world. (Faysal Mikdadi’s Gumaf Abdef Nasser: A Bibliography [Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 19911lists 818 entries.) But, as Gordon correctly points out, nearly all of it accepts the Free Officers’ own, highly misleading, version of what happened in the two-and-a-half-year period after they came to power in July 1952. That was the time when the conspiracy turned into a revolution, when Nasser emerged to dominate the government, and when the government came to dominate the country. What happened in Egypt between 1952 and 1954had great significance, not just for Egypt but for the many Arab and ‘Ihird World military officers inspired by Nasser’s example. In masterly fashion, Gordon makes up this deficiency. Relying on recently opened archives, interviews, and a flood of Egyptian memoirs, he makes sense of those tumultuous months, including such murky issues as the alleged U.S. support for Nasser, the role of Muhammad Nagib, and the 1954 assassination attempt in Alexandria. With literary grace and fine historical sensitivity, he explains how the decay of liberalism made Egypt ripe for drastic reform, and how Nasser filled the aching need for a “just tyrant.” Finally, the author shows how the debate over Nasser drives much of the current Egyptian discussion about politics. Indeed, should this book get translated into Arabic, as it deserves, it will perceptibly enhance the way Egyptians understand their modem history, and so more solidly ground today’s controversies,
ASIA
by Ross H. Munro China Turned On: Television, Reform and Resistance. By James Lull. New York: Routledge, 1992. 230 pp. $49.95 ($16.95, paper). Will China’s leaders succeed in their attempt to combine Leninist politics with an open, market-oriented economy? Lull, an expert on the international impact of television, looks at an important factor that will surely influence the outcome: the increasing pervasiveness of television in Chinese life. His extensive research in China in the late 1980s resulted in an impressive survey of television, film, and other forms of popular culture. His synopses of the most influential films and television series of that era are particularly valuable. Also valuable is his analysis of the role that Chinese and foreign television played in the Tiananmen crisis-before, during, and after the June clash. Lulls sophisticated eye misses little of importance. He gives proper weight to those foreign television commercials that send the unsettling message to the PRC that most of their East Asian cousins live better than do they. He 316 I Orbis
Brief Reviews in Sudan, and Lebanon’s Ta’if Accord. As ever, the Sunny is the place to look for a quick, reliable lesson on current Middle Eastern history. Nasser’s Blessed Movement: Egypt’s Free Offkers and the July Revolution. By Joel Gordon. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. 254 pp. $38.00. A voluminous literature analyzes Gamal Abdel Nasser’s rule in Egypt and his reach throughout the Arab world. (Faysal Mikdadi’s Gumaf Abdef Nasser: A Bibliography [Westport, Conn.: Greenwood, 19911lists 818 entries.) But, as Gordon correctly points out, nearly all of it accepts the Free Officers’ own, highly misleading, version of what happened in the two-and-a-half-year period after they came to power in July 1952. That was the time when the conspiracy turned into a revolution, when Nasser emerged to dominate the government, and when the government came to dominate the country. What happened in Egypt between 1952 and 1954had great significance, not just for Egypt but for the many Arab and ‘Ihird World military officers inspired by Nasser’s example. In masterly fashion, Gordon makes up this deficiency. Relying on recently opened archives, interviews, and a flood of Egyptian memoirs, he makes sense of those tumultuous months, including such murky issues as the alleged U.S. support for Nasser, the role of Muhammad Nagib, and the 1954 assassination attempt in Alexandria. With literary grace and fine historical sensitivity, he explains how the decay of liberalism made Egypt ripe for drastic reform, and how Nasser filled the aching need for a “just tyrant.” Finally, the author shows how the debate over Nasser drives much of the current Egyptian discussion about politics. Indeed, should this book get translated into Arabic, as it deserves, it will perceptibly enhance the way Egyptians understand their modem history, and so more solidly ground today’s controversies,
ASIA
by Ross H. Munro China Turned On: Television, Reform and Resistance. By James Lull. New York: Routledge, 1992. 230 pp. $49.95 ($16.95, paper). Will China’s leaders succeed in their attempt to combine Leninist politics with an open, market-oriented economy? Lull, an expert on the international impact of television, looks at an important factor that will surely influence the outcome: the increasing pervasiveness of television in Chinese life. His extensive research in China in the late 1980s resulted in an impressive survey of television, film, and other forms of popular culture. His synopses of the most influential films and television series of that era are particularly valuable. Also valuable is his analysis of the role that Chinese and foreign television played in the Tiananmen crisis-before, during, and after the June clash. Lulls sophisticated eye misses little of importance. He gives proper weight to those foreign television commercials that send the unsettling message to the PRC that most of their East Asian cousins live better than do they. He 316 I Orbis