"This is a lucidly written, rigorously argued, informative and interesting piece of research examining relations between the U.S. and Israel and looking at the global conflict(s) between Israel and the Palestinians on one hand and the U.S. and Al-Qa'ida on the other. Scholars and policymakers will benefit from the research and analysis presented here. So will anyone with a serious interest in understanding global politics in the 21st century." -- Dr. Bulent Gokay, Reader in International Relations, School of Politics, International Relations and the Environment, Keele University "A refreshing new analysis of Washington's current Middle East problem. As the title suggests, it encompasses the whole entangled spectrum of players, including Israel. This story of superpower hubris and self-initiated blunders is written with insight, passion, and biting humor. Gerteiny's perspective, sourced from experience in the Middle East, Europe, and the United States, is particularly valuable for American readers." -- Stanley Brush, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, University of Bridgeport, Connecticut, University of the Panjab, Lahore, Pakistan "Gerteiny presents a provocative and original explanation for terrorism focused on U.S. and Israeli responsibilities. Terrorism, he charges, is never one way and will continue unless its legitimate grievances are remedied." -- Don Peretz, Professor Emeritus,Binghamton University, Binghamton, N.Y. "If we want to understand the roots of terrorism, especially in the Middle East, Alfred Gerteiny's book is a valuable analysis." -- Howard Zinn "Alfred Gerteiny has elegantly woven together many strands of history and politics in his masterly analysis of terrorism in the Middle East. For those not yet persuaded of the complexity--and pain--of the issues, it is a must-read. For those persuaded, it is refreshing and instructive" -- Nita Kumar, Brown Family Professor of South Asian History, Department of History, Claremont McKenna College
Alfred G. Gerteiny is Adjunct Lecturer of History at the University of Connecticut in Stamford. He has, over nearly four decades, offered undergraduate and graduate courses, conducted research, and lectured in many universities around the world. Beginning in 1973, following the terrorist attack on the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, he designed and led seminars on terrorism. He has been a longtime media commentator on the Middle East, Africa, terrorism, and U.S. foreign policy.
[T]his book emphasizes how the terrorist actions of each side to
help motivate and excuse the terrorist actions of the other.
Gerteiny returns time and again to how and why the US has tended to
miss the complexity of the situation and by providing an uncritical
support for Israel has sucked the US democracy into the dance of
mutually constitutive animosity. To continue down this path, he
argues, disfigures US democracy and empowers the radicals the US
claim to oppose. Recommended. General readers, upper-division
undergraduates, graduate students, and researchers.
*Choice*
Gerteiny, a teacher on the Middle East, has combined his academic
training and years of introspection on this subject in writing this
book. He begins with an analysis of power, political legitimacy,
and the role of violence within political entities. With this
grounding, he dedicates the bulk of this work to the examination of
terrorism--the organization and philosophies of terrorist groups
and their relationship to the state. He looks more closely at
Islamic terrorist groups and delves deeply into the role of
terrorism in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict. He also probes the
relationship that has developed between the United States and
terrorism. This book is extensively footnoted and the author offers
a bibliography of scholarly sources that have helped to inform his
understanding on this subject.
*Castle Crier*
While few authors have examined in depth the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict and its decisive role in contemporary transnational
terrorism, Gerteiny analyzes state and anti-state forms of
terrorism, and makes a distinction between terrorism carried out in
pursuit of national liberation and the theologically driven
jihadism that is fueled by it.
*The Justice Journal*
Sadly, one of the prime characteristics about the debates in the
United State over terrorism and the war on terrorism has been the
rather successful silencing of any discussion of the role of US
foreign policy in spurring extremist Islamic terrorism,
particularly US support for an expansionist and United
Nations-defying Israel that is militarily occupying and oppressing
millions of Palestinians. Thankfully, Gerteiny appears unafraid of
these taboos, as he addresses unqualified US support for Israel and
how it helps give rise to both Palestinian nationalist terrorism,
aimed only at ending Israeli oppression, and Islamic jihadi
terrorism, which is able to point to the US-Israeli nexus as the
spearhead of a new crusader force in the region. He also criticizes
the hypocritical support of the United States for dictatorships in
the region while claiming to be supporting democracy, the illegal
and disastrous invasion of Iraq, and the corollary failures in
Afghanistan.
*Reference & Research Book News*
. . . analytically provocative . . .The Terrorist Conjunction: The
United States, the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, and Al-Qa'ida, is
among a class of recently published intellectual reflections
valuable for considering the roots of consequential violence in the
Middle East. This slender but densely packed essay is an important
contribution. . . . the elegance and seductiveness of this essay
lies in its explicit and provocative intensity and relevance to
ongoing debates on U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East . . .
initiated students and scholars of terrorism and political violence
should indeed read the work.
*Terrorism and Political Violence*
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