Kramer, Martin. “
Israel and the Post-American Middle East: Why the Status Quo is Sustainable.”
Foreign Affairs 95, no. 4 (2016): 51-56.
Web version ($)Abstract
Conventional wisdom holds that the Israeli-Palestinian status quo is "unsustainable." Yet it has been remarkably resilent in the face of the distruptive changes sweeping the Middle East. This article explains why the status quo has been so durable, and why it is likely to endure in the future.
Israel and the Post-American Middle East (pdf) Kramer, Martin. “
The Pathology of Middle Eastern Studies.” In
Ninth Annual Conference of the Association for the Study of the Middle East and Africa (ASMEA). Washington, DC, 2016.
Vimeo version The Pathology of Middle East Studies (pdf)Plenary address as delivered.
Kramer, Martin. “
Repairing Sykes-Picot.” In
Lines That Bind: 100 Years of Sykes-Picot,
edited by Andrew J. Tabler, 79-85. Washington, DC: The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, 2016.
Entire bookAbstractA century after Sykes-Picot, much confusion reigns about its actual legacy. Some of its provisions faded into history, but a few have persisted. This article looks at what has lasted and what has not, and asks whether it should be dismantled or repaired.
Repairing Sykes-Picot (pdf) Kramer, Martin. “
How Independent is Israel?”
Mosaic Magazine, 2016, May 18.
Web originalAbstractIsrael in its early years built the foundations of its national security in defiance of the United States. Israel's growing dependence on the United States since 1967 has eroded its freedom of action, posing a question of whether it will be able to act decisively should its future leaders wish to do so.
How Independent is Israel? (pdf) Kramer, Martin. “
The Return of Bernard Lewis.”
Mosaic Magazine, 2016, June 1.
Web originalAbstractOn the 100th birthday of Bernard Lewis, his student and friend Martin Kramer recalls Lewis's prescience in his 1976 article "The Return of Islam," and situates it in the great historian's vision of the relationship between Islam and the West. The follow-up, "The Master Historian of the Middle East," responds to respondents, and adds further insights.
The Return of Bernard Lewis (pdf) The Master Historian of the Middle East (pdf)The two parts of this essay were published in June 2016. Visit the website of Mosaic Magazine for the responses by Itamar Rabinovich, Amir Taheri, Robert Irwin, and Eric Ormsby.
Kramer, Martin. “
Sykes-Picot and the Zionists.”
The American Interest (internet), 2016, May 19.
Web originalAbstractMany believe that the 1916 Anglo-French partition of the Ottoman Empire, known as the Sykes-Picot agreement, was a precursor to the Balfour Declaration. To the contrary: Zionists regarded it as "fatal" to their plans, and they worked to undermine it. The Balfour Declaration negated Sykes-Picot, and superseded it.
Sykes-Picot and the Zionists (pdf)Published on May 19. 2016.
Kramer, Martin.
The War on Error: Israel, Islam, and the Middle East. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 2016.
Buy at AmazonAbstract
In The War on Error, historian and political analyst Martin Kramer presents a series of case studies, some based on pathfinding research and others on provocative analysis, that correct misinformation clouding the public’s understanding of the Middle East. He also offers a forensic exploration of how misinformation arises and becomes “fact.”
The book is divided into five themes: Orientalism and Middle Eastern studies, a prime casualty of the culture wars; Islamism, massively misrepresented by apologists; Arab politics, a generator of disappointing surprises; Israeli history, manipulated by reckless revisionists; and American Jews and Israel, the subject of irrational fantasies. Kramer shows how error permeates the debate over each of these themes, creating distorted images that cause policy failures.
Kramer approaches questions in the spirit of a relentless fact-checker. Did Israeli troops massacre Palestinian Arabs in Lydda in July 1948? Was the bestseller Exodus hatched by an advertising executive? Did Martin Luther King, Jr., describe anti-Zionism as antisemitism? Did a major post-9/11 documentary film deliberately distort the history of Islam? Did Israel push the United States into the Iraq War? Kramer also questions paradigms—the “Arab Spring,” the map of the Middle East, and linkage. Along the way, he amasses new evidence, exposes carelessness, and provides definitive answers.
Kramer, Martin. “
Shabtai Teveth and the Whole Truth.” In
The War on Error: Israel, Islam, and the Middle East, 219-24. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 2016.
AbstractThe author recalls his long friendship with the late Shabtai Teveth, renowned journalist and the biographer of David Ben-Gurion. Teveth, largely unknown to younger readers, may have been the first to challenge the excesses of the “new historians," and his work deserves to be rediscovered.
Shabtai Teveth and the Whole Truth (pdf)Originated in a 2015 post at the Commentary blog.
Kramer, Martin. “
Fouad Ajami Goes to Israel.” In
The War on Error: Israel, Islam, and the Middle East, 283-89. New Brunswick, NJ and London: Transaction Publishers, 2016.
Web originalAbstractMuch maligned for his truth-telling about Arab political culture, Fouad Ajami became the bête noire of the Middle East studies establishment. Some went so far as to call him “pro-Israel,” even a “Likudnik.” The author knew Ajami from his student days, and often assisted him on his visits to Israel. The article sets the record straight on Israel in Ajami’s worldview.
Fouad Ajami Goes to Israel (pdf)Originally published at Mosaic Magazine on January 8, 2015.