Palestinian Amal Rifa'i and Israeli Odelia Ainbinder are two teenage girls who live in the same city, yet worlds apart. They met on a student exchange program to Switzerland. Weeks after they returned, the latest, violent Intifada broke out in the fall of 2000.But two years later, Middle East correspondent Sylke Tempel encouraged Amal and Odelia to develop their friendship by facilitating an exchange of their deepest feelings through letters. In their letters, Amal and Odelia discus...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Includes a new afterword about the Iran nuclear agreement, the 2016 presidential race, and the future of the U.S.-Israel allianceMichael B. Oren’s memoir of his time as Israel’s ambassador to the United States—a period of transformative change for America and a time of violent upheaval throughout the Middle East—provides a frank, fascinating look inside the special relationship between America and its closest ally in the region....

Originally published in 2007, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, by John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt of Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government, provoked both howls of outrage and cheers of gratitude for challenging what had been a taboo issue in America: the impact of the Israel lobby on U.S. foreign policy. A work of major importance, it remains as relevant today as it was in the immediate aftermath of the Israel-Lebanon war of 2006...

When Emma Sky volunteered to help rebuild Iraq after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein in 2003, she had little idea what she was getting in to. Her assignment was only supposed to last three months. She went on to serve there longer than any other senior military or diplomatic figure, giving her an unrivaled perspective of the entire conflict.As the representative of the Coalition Provisional Authority in Kirkuk in 2003 and then the political advisor to US General Odierno from 2007-2...

The drama that shaped today’s Iran, from the Revolution to the present day.In 1979, seemingly overnight—moving at a clip some thirty years faster than the rest of the world—Iran became the first revolutionary theocracy in modern times. Since then, the country has been largely a black box to the West, a sinister presence looming over the horizon. But inside Iran, a breathtaking drama has unfolded since then, as religious thinkers, political operatives, poets, journa...

In Tangier, young Lakhdar finds himself homeless after being caught in flagrante with his cousin Meryem. As the political and religious tensions in the Mediterranean flare up with the Arab Spring and the global financial crisis, Lakhdar and his friend Bassam entertain dreams of emigration, fuelled by a desire for freedom and a better life. Part political thriller, part road-movie, part romance, the latest novel by Mathias Enard takes us from the violence of Tangier's streets to Barcelona's...

If you have ever wondered “Why is there so much violence in the Middle East?”, “Who are the Palestinians?”, “What are the occupied territories?” or “What does Israel want?”, then this is the book for you. With straightforward language, Phyllis Bennis, longtime analyst of the region, answers basic questions about Israel and Israelis, Palestine and Palestinians, the US and the Middle East, Zionism and anti-Semitism; about complex issues ranging from the Oslo peace process to the election of ...

In 2011, a wave of revolution spread through the Middle East as protesters demanded an end to tyranny, corruption and economic decay. From Egypt to Yemen, a generation of young Arabs insisted on a new ethos of common citizenship. Their bravery and idealism stirred observers around the world and led militant jihadists to worry that they had been superseded by a new and peaceful uprising.Five years later, the utopian aspirations of 2011 have darkened. In one country after another, br...

The role of social media in the events of the Arab Spring and its aftermath in the Muslim world has stimulated much debate, yet little in the way of useful insight. Now Haroon Ullah, a scholar and diplomat with deep knowledge of politics and societies in the Middle East, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, draws the first clear picture of the unprecedented impact of Twitter, Facebook, and other means of online communication on the recent revolutions that blazed across Muslim nations. 

How did Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood win power so quickly after the dramatic “Arab Spring” uprising that ended President Hosni Mubarak’s thirty-year reign in February 2011? And why did the Brotherhood fall from power even more quickly, culminating with the popular “rebellion” and military coup that toppled Egypt’s first elected president, Brotherhood leader Mohamed Morsi, in July 2013? In Arab Fall, Eric Trager examines the Brotherhood’s decision making throughout this critical period, expla...

As the top-ranking official at the U.S. Department of Defense in charge of economic rebuilding, Brinkley and his organization of hundreds of business volunteers struggled against bureaucratic policies to revolutionize foreign aid by leveraging America's strength—its private sector. In doing so, his team demonstrated success in the midst of failure, and created hundreds of thousands of jobs in areas long written off by the civilian bureaucracy as hopeless.Reporting directly to Secre...

"The first childhood memory I have of my father is linked to the destruction of empires--the collapse of a world order that had once seemed eternal."So begins Avraham Burg's authoritative and deeply personal inquiry into the ambitions and failures of Israel and Judaism worldwide.Born in 1955, Burg witnessed firsthand many of the most dramatic and critical moments in Israeli history. Here, he chronicles the highs and lows of his country over the last five decades, threading ...