An examination of Chuck Hagel's interactions with Arab and Israeli leaders, as reflected in U.S. diplomatic dispatches preserved in WikiLeaks.

For almost two generations, major parts of academe have been alienated from America's exercise of power due to entrenched ideological differences with the federal government. Following President Obama's election, however, signs of a remarkable shift emerged, with more academics serving in policy positions, huddling with top officials behind closed doors, and otherwise extolling the virtues of "soft" or "smart" power. How can Washington take advantage of this once-in-a-generation opportunity to create more structured and effective partnerships with universities? In this Policy Focus, Dr. Martin Kramer surveys the state of government-academe relations ten years after his bestselling book Ivory Towers dissected "the failure of Middle Eastern studies in America." Intended as a short field manual for government engagement with professors, deans, and university presidents, the paper describes how policymakers can better wield three of academia's most important levers: the clout inherent in peer review, the influence conferred by academic endowments, and the access created by sharing information despite the need to keep some of it classified.

The Obama administration is undercutting its own ambitious agenda, by signaling that the United States has lost some of its weight in world affairs. The “post-American” rhetoric of liberal internationalists and realists is setting off a scramble for advantage among the “middle powers” of the Middle East.

An inquiry into the views of the late Elie Kedourie on the relationship between academe and the making of foreign policy.

For the past twenty years, Middle Eastern studies in America have been factories of error. The academics, blinded by their own prejudices and enslaved to the fashions of the disciplines, have failed to anticipate or explain any of the major developments in the Middle East. Within the field, hardly a voice dares to protest, but beyond it, each debacle chips away at academic's credibility. Middle Eastern studies have failed--at a time when understanding the Middle East has become crucial to America. In this iconoclastic exposé, Martin Kramer surveys the ruins of Middle Eastern studies, to ask how and why they went wrong. Ivory Towers on Sand is the most thorough critique of Middle Eastern studies ever published in the United States--and a necessary step toward their reconstruction.

Jews figure prominently in the history of the modern European encounter with Islam. The similarities between Hebrew and Arabic, the parallels between two faiths grounded in law, and the relative tolerance of Muslim rule toward Jews--all these are said to have permitted many Jews to approach Islam with an understanding and sympathy once uncommon in Europe. Was there a "Jewish discovery of Islam," distinct from Europe's discovery? Is there some unifying characteristic to the approach of these Jewish "discoverers"? In this original volume, contributors assess the approaches to Islam of some of the most famous European Jewish travelers, writers, and scholars.

Is Islamism driven by religious fervor, social protest or national xenophobia? Is the rise of Islamism a threat to stability, tolerance, and order, or is it the first step toward reform, participation, and democratization? These and other questions are debated by nine authors - leading protagonists in the Islamism debate - from the United States, Britain, France, and Israel.

Over the past decade, the political ground beneath the Middle East has shifted. Arab nationalism the political orthodoxy for most of this century has lost its grip on the imagination and allegiance of a new generation. At the same time, Islam as an ideology has spread across the region, and "Islamists" bid to capture the center of politics. Most Western scholars and experts once hailed the redemptive power of Arabism. Arab Awakening and Islamic Revival is a critical assessment of the contradictions of Arab nationalism and Islamic fundamentalism, and the misrepresentation of both in the West.

An impressive array of scholars, biographers, and critics from the disciplines of anthropology, history, political science, and psychology explore the diversity of approaches both to writing biography and to reading self-narratives.

The foreign hostages in Lebanon are living reminders of the challenge posed to the West by Hezbollah, the Iranian-backed movement of fundamentalist Lebanese Shi’ites. Hezbollah has conducted its operational campaign with a great measure of strategic and tactical savvy. Yet its ideologues understand and represent its struggle as a war without borders whose aim is to redraw the map of the Middle East and ultimately fashion an Islamic world order. In this Policy Paper, Martin Kramer ascribes the origin of Hezbollah’s hostile vision of the West not only to the policies of Western governments, but to Hezbollah’s own ideological and theological tenets. Kramer offers a broad discussion of  authority in Hezbollah; an analysis of Hezbollah’s vision of an Islamic world order; an account of its presentation of the United States, Israel, Western Europe, and the Soviet Union; and reflection on the centrality of ideas in Hezbollah’s rise and subsequent development.

Juillet 1987: manifestation à la Mecque de pèlerins iraniens, reconstitution des faits à partir de versions contradictoires.

Analyse de "la logique morale" élaborée et développée au sein du hizbollah: "parti de Dieu".

An analysis of the effort by Syria's politically dominant Alawi minority to secure legitimation as Muslim, and the resistance to that effort by Syria's Sunni majority.