Joshua Teitelbaum

Bar Ilan University | BIU · Department of Middle Eastern Studies

Most analyses of the fate of the Hijaz and the Muslim pilgrimage after the First World War have focused on the struggle between Hashemites and Saudis. But in actuality the Egyptians were heavily involved in this dispute, for the Hijaz had been for centuries part of a geopolitical system based on the Red Sea littoral states. Indeed, this was a tripa...

Scholars inquiring into Saudi–Egyptian or Hijazi–Egyptian relations, or the history of modern Saudi state formation, have been tempted to concentrate on the June 1926 attack by the tribal Ikhwan on the Egyptian Maḥmal, or pilgrimage caravan, as the key to understanding these relations. But such a courte durée, sometimes known as the événementielle...

‘Cross-Straits Relations’ is the title given by the protagonists to the relations that evolved in the past 20 years between Taiwan and the People’s Republic of China. Designed to create confidence-building measures and trust and avoid military confrontation in a frozen, abeyant intractable conflict, these ties have grown enormously in trade volume,...

Revised Arabic edition of Saudi Arabia and the New Strategic Landscape (Stanford: Hoover Press, 2010).

This article examines the founding, social origins, and ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood in Syria from 1945 to 1958. The organization was influenced ideologically by the original Egyptian Brotherhood, but its founding was essentially an independent move. Unlike its Egyptian counterpart during this period, the Syrian Brotherhood was a participant...

In the new post-cold war strategic landscape of the Middle East, the United States' most important Arab ally, Saudi Arabia, plays a key role. The will and the resources of Saudi Arabia are badly needed if the Iranian menace is to have a worthwhile regional challenger. Joshua Teitelbaum has studied Saudi Arabia, following the twists of its history a...

On the face of it, a book-length survey of the relations between Israel and the countries of the Persian Gulf would seem a bit out of place. After all, these states are far away from Israel’s borders, relations have been minimal, and, with the exception of Iraq, they have never directly confronted Israel in a war. But over the years the role of the...

Hebrew

Saudi Arabia has faced a full-fledged Islamic insurgency since May 2003. In combating this insurgency, the kingdom is hampered by the lack of loyal security forces, which seem to be penetrated by al-Qa'ida. In the beginning the regime tried the old methods of co-optation, including a generous amnesty to bring in the insurgents. However, it has rece...

Revised Hebrew edition of Holier Than Thou: Saudi Arabia’s Islamic Opposition.

This article examines Saudi Arabia's introduction of the Internet, and the manner in which the Kingdom has sought to balance the communications, business, and economic advantages of the Information Revolution with the country's conservative form of Islam. The article also examines the use of the Internet by the Saudi opposition abroad and the gover...

Hebrew

It has been established elsewhere that gaining the Caliphate for the H¸shimite family was a consuming interest for the Sharºf of Mecca, Ýusayn b. {Alº, and his son {Abdall¸h.1 The desire to take the Caliphate played a cardinal role in his decision to revolt against the Ottomans. As Ýusayn would have it, he was revolting not to establish a kingdom i...

Hebrew

In the latter years of the nineteenth and the first years of this century, Arab nationalists began to articulate their vision of a polity that would eventually replace the Ottoman framework. By the time Sharif Husayn ibn Ali alHashimi assumed the mantle of the Sharifate in Mecca in 1908, three ideas were in circulation which would have an impact on...

According to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the real root of the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians had been their ongoing refusal to recognize "the right of the Jewish people to a state of their own in their historic homeland" and he has singled out this issue as a key "prerequisite for ending the conflict." Netanyahu's proposal puts...