‘Mideast for Dummies’ covers issues but won’t satisfy politicos: book review

Writing a history of the Middle East that pleases everyone on all sides of the myriad conflicts is probably about as easy as bringing peace to the realm.

Be that as it may, Craig S. Davis has bent over backward in an attempt to do the former with "The Middle East for Dummies," yet another entry in the ubiquitous "Dummies" retinue. The big question is, how dumb, exactly, is a dummy?

If you follow news of the Mideast avidly or even passively yet still don't know a Parthian from a Sasanian, Davis' book can be a very helpful summary of the ancient and modern region, from biblical days to the colonialism that set the stage for today's embattled reality.

But if this book really is intended for those with a blank slate when it comes to Mideast politics and history, a number of omissions, assertions and questionable language choices will rile both Israel advocates and pro-Palestinians.

Davis' attempt to avoid hopelessly contentious issues is never more evident than in his narrative of the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, which, of course, mentions the hundreds of thousands of resultant Palestinian refugees, but it avoids any mention of just what induced them to leave their homes. He also fails to mention the forcible expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Jews from Arab nations, though he does note that "Jews of all shapes and sizes from all over the world, speaking a variety of languages, and practicing countless different customs began migrating to Israel."

The author, who works for the International Child Labor Program at the U.S. Department of Labor's Bureau of International Labor Affairs, is more committal when describing recent Israeli-Palestinian clashes, however. And pro-Israel folks probably won't be happy.

Thrice in a two-page span, we are told that the current intifada, which began in September 2000, was sparked by Ariel Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount, despite readily available evidence that an uprising was long in the works and Sharon's trip was merely a convenient pretense. Uninformed readers are not told of the Temple Mount's significance to Jews, though, oddly, it is referred to as "the most revered Muslim site in East Jerusalem." This is not unlike describing the Transamerica Pyramid as "the tallest pyramid-shaped building in San Francisco."

Of course, the intifada isn't all Sharon's fault. Davis notes the Palestinian conviction that "As had proved successful in the previous intifada, limited use of violence and civil unrest could strategically garner international sympathy and force Israel to the bargaining table." In other words, cynically manipulating the world media by sending out Palestinians to kill Israeli citizens and baiting a response before dying gruesomely in front of the TV cameras.

Finally, Davis devotes a subsection of a chapter to the Israeli incursion into Jenin, yet he fails to mention the bogus "massacre" that was lapped up by the aforementioned world media.

Yet pro-Palestinians will probably not be pleased with this work either. While Davis relays a first-hand account of overworked Israeli border guards turning a blind eye to numerous Palestinian workers leaping fences and scurrying off to their jobs, he does not dwell upon the grim realities of occupation. Incidentally, he frequently refers to "returning" the West Bank and Gaza to the Palestinians, when even the history in his own book describes one major power or another holding the land, never the Palestinians.

Despite these problems, one can learn quite a lot from Davis' book, which, like all "Dummies" publications, is broken into short, digestible chapters one could, say, read during commercial breaks in "JAG."

The smart dummy, however, will learn that he has a lot to learn and will graduate to more detailed works of history.




"The Middle East for Dummies" by Craig S. Davis (Wiley Publications, 386 pages, $19.99).