The kurds: A contemporary overview

Brief Reviews Esposito offers an informed and reasoned discussion of Islam in politics. But he fails either to recognize the hostility and ambition of radical fundamentalists or to consider the implications of growing Muslim populations in the West. 7be Islamic ‘Threat, in other words, provides little guidance to the Islamic threat. The Kurds: A Concise Handbook. By Mehrdad R. Izady. Washington, DC.: Crane Russak, 1992. 269 pp. $15.95 (paper). The Kurds: A Contempo~ Overview. Edited by Philip G. Kreyenbroek and Stefan Sperl. New York: Routledge, 1992. 250 pp. $47.50. The Kurds: A Nation Denied. By David McDowall. London: Minority Rights Publications, 1992. 148 pp. A7.95. No Frknds but the Mountains: The Tragic History of the Kurds. By John Bulloch and Harvey Morris. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992. 242 pp. $25.00. Kurd&tan. By Ziba Arshi and Khosro Zabihi. Photographs by Nasrolah Kasraian. Gstersund, Sweden: Oriental Art Publishing, 1990. Distributed by Routledge, Chapman and Hall. 139 pp. $45.00. As the Kurds become ever more of a factor in the politics of three major countries (Turkey, Iraq, and Iran), the outside world is slowly learning something about this ancient but obscure people. Five recent books neatly complement each other towards this end. Each of them, incidentally, has an explicit political purpose: to bring the twenty or so million Kurds and their culture to attention, hoping-probably with reason--&is will help end their political tragedy. Izady, as his subtitle implies, offers a primer on the Kurds. He covers such diverse subjects as Kurdistan’s flora and fauna, Kurdish vernaculars, political parties, and rug manufacture. More helpful yet, he provides copious bibliographic references for further reading, Even Middle East specialists will find almost everything in Izady’s handbook unfamiliar; he has done an exemplary job of bringing so much together in a clear and reliable fashion. Kreyenbroek and Sperl draw their text from a 1989 conference held in London; after a few introductory chapters, their authors outline, in competent but dull fashion, the modern history of Kurds. They (and especially Ismet Cheriff Vanly) offer much original research and much that is new. Perforce, the chapters deal with individual countries, though this has the unfortunate effect of leaving the reader without a clear sense of the Kurds as a single people. McDowall’s survey of Kurdish history also considers separately the Turkish, Iranian, and Iraqi cases, But his single-authored account has a more focused quality and a more lively presentation than Kreyenbroek and Sperl’s, making it suitable as an introductory text. Bulloch and Morris apply the journalist’s craft to the same story. Alone of the authors considered here, they manage to integrate the Kurdish story into an integral whole, emphasizing recent events and focusing on dramatic highlights (for example, the 1989 assassination in Vienna of a Kurdish leader). Theirs is far and away the most readable book of this roundup, but also the most derivative. Kurdktun contains 126 color photographs (as well as 25 pages of text>. On almost every page, an overwhelming sense of ruggedness comes through, 314 I Or&s

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