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Rating: 
Summary: A one-sided and distorted polemic
Review: This is a bad book. Its representations of the historical record are characterized by so many distortions, misconceptions, and one-sided misrepresentations as to make the book risible, were not the issues at stake so serious. AbuKhalil says he does not require of the reader any special knowledge of the issues, but in fact his book absolutely depends for its persuasiveness on the reader's ignorance of the issues under discussion, especially when it comes to his remarkably biased and tendentious representation of the Arab-Israeli conflicts.
However, the real problem with the book goes deeper than merely the construction of the argument -- it goes to the author's central thesis. AbuKhalil argues that Islamist terror is a response to American policies, and while condemning the Sept. 11 attacks, suggests that American policies have been even worse, thus constructing a somewhat disingenuous apology for Islamic terrorism. Indeed, he warns readers not to "be dragged along the US standards of outrage" in reacting to the murderous Sept. 11 terror strikes.
The problem for AbuKhalil's argument is that Islamist terrorism has its own agenda, independent of particular American policies, as AbuKhalil is probably well aware and demonstrates when, late in his book, he discusses the influence of 14th century Islamist Ibn Taymiyya and 20th century Muslim Brother Sayyid Qutb. AbuKhalil clearly has a distaste for the Wahhabi Islam of Saudi Arabia, and in its more murderous form, of Osama bin Laden, but he fails to recognize or acknowledge the implication of this form of Islamist radicalism for his own argument.
The author is on stronger ground when he rightly tries to disassociate Islam as a religion from Islamist terrorism, but wrongly denies that there is any such thing as a political language of Islam. Islam, of course, is a major religion of 1.2 billion people practised in variety of ways across a diversity of cultures and peoples; most Muslims are not Arabs, nor are all Arabs Muslim. But politicized Islamist fundamentalism is a very real ideology with a totalitarian political agenda. Absurdly, AbuKhalil compares Billy Graham's relationship with several presidents to the rule of the mullahs in Iran, favorably citing a Syrian intellectual who describes Graham as "an ayatollah"! The disturbing problem of right-wing Christian fundamentalist influence on American politics is nothing like the problem of politicized Islamist fundamentalism. Indeed, it is precisely the Islamist desire to impose Shari'a law on society through terror against both apostates and infidels that marks the defining political stance of politicized Islamist fundamentalism. The failure of Jamal Abdul Nasser's secular pan-Arab nationalism after 1967 (an ideology for which AbuKhalil shows some sympathy), opened the door for the new brand of Islamist fundamentalism, and Qutb, who was executed by Nasser in 1966, is now having his ideological revenge.
In attacking US foreign policy, AbuKhalil identifies what he sees as two central problems: US support for Israel and US support for authoritarian regimes in the Middle East. Like many Islamists he even connects current American foreign policy to the medieval Crusades. The book was published in 2002, but he no doubt sees the course of the current war on terror as adding to the list of Arab and Muslim grievances against the US (although Islamist terror bombings against other Arabs or Muslims do not seem to stir his outrage).
AbuKhalil's argument is one that will comfort those who wish to believe that the attacks of Sept. 11 were all our fault, although the book does not go very far to actually support this position. Those seeking a stronger argument for the case against American Cold War foreign policy as fostering Islamist terrorism would do well to read Mahmood Mamdani's interesting but still flawed 2004 book, "Good Muslim, Bad Muslim: America, the Cold War, and the Roots of Terror."
The problem is that Islamist terror is not just, nor even primarily, a response to US policies. It is a response to the failure of the Muslim world within the Middle East to adapt effectively to the challenges of modernity, resulting in extraordinary levels of poverty, illiteracy, authoritarian regimes, and violence, both domestic and public. It is also a response to the weakness of national-state organization in diverse, culturally fragmented societies without either a national-state or liberal tradition. There is no easy answer to this problem, but the public space for honestly discussing these issues in the Middle East virtually doesn't exist. It might be emotionally satisfying for many to blame these problems on outside forces (France and Britain earlier in the century, the US and Israel today), but the economic and socio-cultural decline of the Arab Muslim world since the 13th century has roots extending back long before modern Europe began penetrating this region at the end of the 18th century with Napoleon's invasion of Egypt, and through the long decline of the once-powerful Ottoman Empire.
Indeed the economic, political, and technological stagnation of the Middle East has been a source of concern for Arab and Muslim intellectuals since at least the 19th century, and has prompted a variety of responses, including both secular pan-Arab nationalism, and more recently, politicized Islamist fundamentalism. Of the evolution of these responses to the problem of modernity within the Muslim world, AbuKhalil has virtually nothing to say.
The intellectual sources to whom contemporary Islamists look for inspiration were not reacting to US foreign policy. Ibn Taymiyya in the early 14th century was attacking Mongol converts to Islam, while Sayyid Qutb was attacking what he saw as the jahiliyya heresy of Nasser's 20th century secular pan-Arabism (although it is true that Qutb was disgusted by what he saw as the sexually promiscuous nature of American society in the 1940s). These intellectuals largely shaped the contemporary Islamist movement (as AbuKhalil himself acknowledges) and their vision is of a superior universal Islamist society based on the application of Shari'a principles to all society. It is the politicization of this fundamentalist Islam on a global scale, beginning with the extermination of infidels and apostates at home through terror, that is the problem. We can argue about strategies to deal with that problem, but it will do no good to grossly misrepresent the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, nor to suggest in a simple-minded way that if we just shape our policies more to the liking of the Arab and Muslim world, everything will be fine.
He does make one good important point, on the need for the United States to be more consistent in our support of human rights. Too often our economic and geopolitical priorities entirely trump human rights concerns. Our policies in the 1980s in Central America were a vicious disgrace, we ignored Rwanda in the 1990s, and our policies in Afghanistan during the 1980s were short-sighted and naive, although there are many parties responsible for the suffering in that country, not least the Soviet Union and later, the Taliban.
But it is the United States and Israel that outrages Abu Khalil. That the PLO provoked catastrophic civil wars in Jordan in 1970 and in Lebanon in the 1970s and early 1980s, and Syria continues to occupy the country, is apparently a matter of little or no concern to AbuKhalil, nor does he seem to hold Saddam Hussein responsible for holding his own people hostage, denying humanitarian aid, and looting the oil-for-food program to rebuild his arsenal in the 1990s while letting his people starve. This is not even to mention Syria's massacre of the village of Hama in 1982, the Iraqi use of poison gas at Halabja in 1988, nor the Taliban massacre of the Shi'a Hezara at Mazar-i-Sharif in 1998; nor the catastrophic losses and destruction created by Saddam Hussein's wars against Iran and Kuwait. Despite this, we saw Arabs celebrating the murderous Saddam Hussein as a hero! Of the genocidal regime in Sudan AbuKhalil says nothing except to make a comment suggesting the US has tried to use internal unrest to undermine the murderous Khartoum regime. As for the oppression of women, he has little to say, except dismiss American concerns about the matter as insincere; it is, I suppose, more difficult to persuasively blame this problem on the US and Israel, so better be silent. He is right about the need for the United States to more consistently support human rights, but this hardly explains or justifies what happened on Sept. 11.
For AbuKhalil, it's enough to blame the US, just as he seems to excuse the relentless and obsessive Arab hatred against Israel. Israel has served as a target for the frustrations and anger of people living in poverty-stricken and unjust societies without any means of holding their own leadership responsible (aside from assassinations). That displaced hatred and rage has evolved into a terrible obsession against Israel -- the one genuinely democratic and open society in the region -- that has justified terror and war, while condemning Israel for defending herself from this exterminationist drive.
Why should any of this matter? That anti-Semitic hatred has had consequences. Wiser Arab leaders like Anwar Sadat have recognized the futility of this hatred, but Sadat was assassinated while Arafat continues to grow fat on the exploitation and misery of his own people while leading them through terror to disaster. Reluctant apologists for terror like AbuKhalil make excuses while Islamist terrorists continue to blow up civilians and chop off heads. That is no way to achieve peace, progress or security. It's a guarantee of misery and failure, which is the direction in which politicized fundamentalist Islamists seemed determined to take the Islamic world, which would be a tragedy for Muslims everywhere, and the world.
Rating: 
Summary: War on Terrorism
Review: I agree. Prof. G. should have assigned a different book.
this book does not deal with any issue of international law. it sounds more like a collection of quotes and theories promoted by the Guardian and the Nation than anything else. very one sided.
and the book ends without giving any kind of alternative or advice. an example of what not to do in a book.
Rating:
Summary: would not recommend
Review: the only thing good about this book is probably the picture on the cover. everything else is not only speculation but really farfetched speculation. the guy has a website angryarab.blogspot.com, where all he does is attack the US and Israel. has nothing good to say about anybody or about any effort the US has put into Afghanistan or Iraq
would not recommend the book.. people can get better source of information from the internet or from the Times.. he is a classic example of the disenchanted arabs who have lost their identity and have replaced it with random systems of thought
Rating:
Summary: would not recommend
Review: The writer throws in an issue or a comment, such as Bernard Lewis receiving a chairship on NBC, and then goes on with allegations and personal opinions with no factual basis. He is totally unfair in his writing. The book is laden with the writers own opinions, makes too many conclusory statements, which, in academia, is often regarded as unprofessional. I would recommend that people look elswhere for fresh and intelligent perspectives on the war on terrorism.
look at Fareed Zakaria, Edward Said, and Alexander Cockburn.
Rating:
Summary: Even Arabs would find this book offensive
Review: The writer throws in an issue or a comment, such as Bernard Lewis receiving a chairship on NBC, and then goes on with allegations and personal opinions with no factual basis. He is totally unfair in his writing. The book is laden with the writers own opinions, makes too many conclusory statements, which, in academia, is often regarded as unprofessional. I would recommend that people look elswhere for fresh and intelligent perspectives on the war on terrorism.
look at Fareed Zakaria, Edward Said, and Alexander Cockburn.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Introduction
Review: This book is a good introduction to the current political situation and the so-called "War on Terror". Most people don't have a clue what is going on and if you are one of them, I recommend reading this book. It is a quick read and you might just learn something. AbuKhalil's next book is about Saudi Arabia and should be very informative.
Rating:
Summary: Good Introduction
Review: This book is a good introduction to the current political situation and the so-called "War on Terror". Most people don't have a clue what is going on and if you are one of them, I recommend reading this book. It is a quick read and you might just learn something. AbuKhalil's next book is about Saudi Arabia and should be very informative.
Rating:
Summary: Smart Title, Bad Book
Review: This book was suggested to me as I embarked on a research paper on Islam and its cultural implications on the west for a political science class I'm taking. It first started out well, however, It lost me after a few pages. I felt that it lacked the academic analysis of a researcher and ended up being highly speculative. and verging on the propaganda side. could not use it in a paper.
would recommend you borrow it first before you purchase it.
Rating:
Summary: very weak and highly partial
Review: While I would never call this a balanced book, it does have its virtues. First, given how we in America tend to only hear the Israeli side, there should be some voice to the Arabic side. The book is excellently divided in chapter topics, and is a easy read.Scholars may have little use for the book, but for the lay person and college student, this is a good book. But, due to the shock to the system that an American will feel by reading this book, I recommend reading Paul Findley's THEY DARE TO SPEAK OUT first.
Rating:
Summary: good book
Review: yes, this book does have a few mistakes and it is short, but it is packed with info. while all of america is including all muslims as terrorists, it is nice for someone to stick up for them and show america what this "war" really is doing and will do.
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