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A highly decorated Israeli military officer, leader, and former director of the internal security service, Shin Bet, sees the light on what his country must do to achieve a lasting peace between Israel and the Palestinians. In this deeply personal journey of discovery, Ami Ayalon seeks input and perspective from Palestinians and Israelis whose experiences differ from his own. As head of the Shin Bet security agency, he gained empathy for ‘the enemy’ and learned that when Israel carries out anti-terrorist operations in a political context of hopelessness, the Palestinian public will support violence, because they have nothing to lose. Researching and writing Friendly Fire, he came to unde...
Prior to the twentieth century, Arab society in Palestine was predominantly illiterate, with most social and political activities conducted through oral communication. There were no printing presses, no book or periodical production, and no written signs in public places. But a groundswell of change rapidly raised the region's literacy rates, a fascinating transformation explored for the first time in Reading Palestine. Addressing an exciting aspect of Middle Eastern history as well as the power of the printed word itself, Reading Palestine describes how this hurried process intensified the role of literacy in every sphere of community life. Ami Ayalon examines Palestine's development of a modern educational system in conjunction with the emergence of a print industry, libraries and reading clubs, and the impact of print media on urban and rural populations. Drawn from extensive archival sources, official reports, autobiographies, and a rich trove of early Palestinian journalism, Reading Palestine provides crucial insight into the dynamic rise of literacy that revolutionized the way Palestinians navigated turbulent political waters.
FINALIST -- The National Jewish Book Award In this deeply personal journey of discovery, Ami Ayalon seeks input and perspective from Palestinians and Israelis whose experiences differ from his own. As head of the Shin Bet security agency, he gained empathy for "the enemy" and learned that when Israel carries out anti-terrorist operations in a political context of hopelessness, the Palestinian public will support violence, because they have nothing to lose. Researching and writing Friendly Fire, he came to understand that his patriotic life had blinded him to the self-defeating nature of policies that have undermined Israel's civil society while heaping humiliation upon its Palestinian neighbors. "If Israel becomes an Orwellian dystopia," Ayalon writes, "it won't be thanks to a handful of theologians dragging us into the dark past. The secular majority will lead us there motivated by fear and propelled by silence." Ayalon is a realist, not an idealist, and many who consider themselves Zionists will regard as radical his conclusions about what Israel must do to achieve relative peace and security and to sustain itself as a Jewish homeland and a liberal democracy.
Middle Eastern newspapers evolved in the 19th century and were shaped during a period of accelerated change into a unique political, social and cultural role. Drawing on a wealth of sources, this study explores the press as a fundamental Middle Eastern institution.
In this study of the rise of modern Arabic, Ayalon examines 19th-century linguistic change in the Eastern Arab world, describing how the language responded to the infiltration of Western politics, technology, and culture. Focusing on the realm of political discourse, Ayalon looks at a wide array of evidence--local chronicles, travel accounts, translations of European writings, Arab political treatises, newspapers and periodicals, and dictionaries--to show how shifts in the color, tone, and meaning of the Arab vocabulary reflected a new socio-political and cultural reality.
Focusing on Near Eastern history in Mamluk and Ottoman times, this book, dedicated to Michael Winter, stresses elements of variety and continuity in the history of the Near East, an area of study which has traditionally attracted little attention from Islamists. Ranging over the period from the thirteenth to the nineteenth century, the articles in this book look at the area from Istanbul down through Syria and Palestine to Arabia, the Yemen and the Sudan. The articles demonstrate the great wealth of the materials available, in a wide variety of languages, from archival documents to manuscripts and art works, as well as inscriptions and buildings, police records and divorce documentation. The topics covered are equally as varied and include Dufism, the festival of Nabi Musa, military organisations, doctors, and charity to name but a few.
Ayalon explores the birth of Arab printing, publishing, dissemination methods, and mass readership during the formative phase from 1800 to 1914.
Ami Ayalon, a peace campaigner and member of the Knesset, was asked if he stood by his oft-quoted remark that the Palestinians and the Israelis hate each other. "I cannot say that I hate Palestinians, but I think, as a nation, as a society, yes, most Israelis hate Palestinians and most Palestinians hate Israelis...I had a very interesting meeting in London during the intifada. A Palestinian friend approached me [and said] 'Ami, we won. We Palestinians won.'... I asked him, 'Are you crazy? What do you mean "We won"? You are losing so many people ... and we are losing so many people. What is the whole essence of victory?' He said, 'Ami you don't understand us. Victory for us is to see you suffer. This is all we want. Finally, after so many years, we are not the only ones who suffer in the Middle East.'"... It was a double-edged sword. Ayalon added, "In a way it is the same for us. We suffer, we lost many people, and [at] a certain point we were looking for revenge." Book jacket.
This annual record of political developments in the Middle East is designed as a continuing, up-to-date reference for scholars, researchers and analysts, policy-makers, students and journalists. It examines in detail the rapidly-changing Middle-Eastern scene in all its complexity. This volume covers the eruption of the Gulf crisis and the war that had dramatic effects on all the countries of the Middle East.
A diverse group of Israelis offers their views on Ariel Sharon's military invasions of the West Bank and Gaza and argue that his policies undermine the security, moral authority, democratic ideals, and liberal values of Israel. Reprint.