Rex Brynen

• McGill University

Introduction: Every year, natural and other disasters cause significant loss of life around the world. This calls for an improved response from, among others, the health professions to strengthen disaster medicine, whether relating to prevention, emergency response or recovery. It includes both knowledge and competencies, such as planning, coordina...

The question of Palestinian refugees has long been recognised as one of the core issues that would need to be addressed in any eventual Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement. This article examines compensation for property seizure and forced displacement, an aspect that has figured in every round of major peace talks on permanent status issues for th...

Simulating War: Studying Conflict Simulation through Games Philip Sabin London: Continuum Books, 2012, pp. 363. - Volume 48 Issue 1 - Rex Brynen

The complex, multidimensional nature of contemporary peacekeeping operations presents particular challenges for teaching about them in the classroom. Teaching should bridge the academic/policy divide, and impart a real sense of the political complications and operational challenges of peacekeeping. Fortunately, teachers can call upon new resources...

BenoîtChalland, Palestinian Civil Society: Foreign Donors and the Power to Promote and Exclude (London: Routledge, 2009). Pp. 288. $148.00 cloth, $49.95 paper. - Volume 46 Issue 1 - Rex Brynen

Simulations and games can offer valuable insight into the management of conflict and the achievement of peace. This special symposium issue of Simulation & Gaming examines several such approaches, used in both educational settings and to prepare practitioners to deal with the concrete challenges of peacebuilding. In the introduction, the authors of...

In addition to civil war in Syria, violence in Iraq, and the recent Israel-Hamas war in Gaza, the Middle East is the subject of another sort of conflict — this time of the ludological kind, expressed in electrons or cardboard rather than real-life death and destruction. This review essay examines four recent board games that address regional confli...

Morality and Contemporary Warfare, by James Turner Johnson, New Haven: Yale University Press, 1999 Croatia: A Nation Forged in War, By Tanner, Marcus, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1997 Another Kind of Justice. Canadian Military Law from Confederation to Somalia, By Chris Madsen, Vancouver, University of British Columbia Press, 1998...

There often exists a problematic gap between more theoretical works on war-to-peace transitions, and the practical challenges that peacebuilding operations face in the field. This article describes the use of classroom simulation to highlight the complexity of contemporary multilateral peace operations. It describes the content and mechanics of the...

CorrEdwin G., GinatJoseph, and GabbayShaul M., eds., The Search for Israeli–Arab Peace: Learning from the Past and Building Trust, Studies in Peace Politics in the Middle East (Brighton, U.K.: Sussex Academic Press, 2007). Pp. 286. $67.50 cloth. - Volume 41 Issue 2 - Rex Brynen

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Brynen—The Geneva Accord and the Refugee Issue 1 Following the first major leaks to the media in October, and later the formal launch ceremony Geneva on 1 December 2003, the unofficial Israeli-Palestinian "Geneva Accords" have attracted considerable attention. Most of the international community has welcomed them as a valuable contribution to the d...

As the title suggests, this edited volume explores the sociopolitical terrain between the state and Islam, emphasizing “the forces of skepticism, liberty, and creativity that struggle against Islamic conformism and state hegemony.” As the editors note, “however influential religion appears in word and deed, however evident the trappings of state au...

On 18–19 October 1995 representatives of the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel, the World Bank, 29 donor states and ten international organizations met in Paris. The purpose of the meeting: to develop a renewed programme of development assistance for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, in the wake of the Taba (Oslo II) agreement between Israel and the P...

Possible final status arrangements for the Palestinian refugee issue are explored, with emphasis on their consequences for the Palestinians in Lebanon. It is suggested that the right of return will be limited largely to the West Bank and Gaza, where it will be shaped by local economic conditions. Available compensation fiends may be inadequate. Gre...

Among the various negotiations that comprise the multilateral component of the Middle East peace process, the Refugee Working Group faces perhaps the most intractable and sensitive issue of all: the Palestinian refugee question. The experience of the RWG can best be described as one of ``quasi-negotiation,'' in which discussion among the parties ha...

The structures and processes that have developed to support the international assistance effort are complex, involving more than three dozen countries and international organizations, not to mention individual Palestinian ministries, nongovernmental organizations, and others. This primer is intended to identify the major components of the process....

RubinBarry, Revolution until Victory? The Politics and History of the PLO (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1994). Pp. 284. - Volume 28 Issue 1 - Rex Brynen

The transition to Palestinian self-government in Gaza and the West Bank has been beset by charges of patronage, nepotism, and corruption. Some outside commentators suggest that the problem is rooted in an Arab-Palestinian political culture which is more inclined to patronage than institution building. This article will suggest that a more convincin...

Critically reviews the existing literature on Palestinian elite formation, and assesses its utility for the study of the emerging dynamics of Palestinian self-government. Examination of this elite suggests a multiplicity of recruitment paths and social backgrounds. The various factors sustain a fairly heterogeneous elite structure, characterized by...

GarfinkleAdam, Israel and Jordan in the Shadow of War (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1992). Pp. 250. - Volume 25 Issue 1 - Rex Brynen

Security is the most widespread, if not the most basic, concern of states and societies. Yet the actual form which security threats take, as well as their severity, varies considerably from one set of states to another and from region to region. Students of international politics have traditionally concentrated almost entirely on external military...

The Middle East has long been an area of conflict, to the extent that its name now typically evokes thoughts of Arab-Israeli wars, coups d’état, ethnic conflicts, militant Islam, ‘terrorism’, and so forth. To avoid such conflict when studying the region would be to risk becoming irrelevant: aversion to a phenomenon should not, of course, preclude s...

Two Gulf wars and the continuing Arab-Israeli conflict have highlighted the salience of military factors in the Middle East. This book argues, however, that many of the most serious 'security' challenges to Arab states and societies are rooted not in external military threats but in the imperatives of socio-economic development. Contributors examin...

The article argues that in many Arab countries the political economy of regional petroleum wealth has served to inhibit democratization. In the particular case of Jordan, petrodollar foreign aid and workers' remittances long served as a critical aspect of political stability, supporting regime neo-patrimonialism and blunting pressures for greater p...

This article examines the sensitivity of Arab states to the political and ideological repercussions of the Palestine issue by focussing upon Egypt, Syria and Jordan. It suggests that the policies of Arab regimes towards the Palestine issue have been substantially shaped by historical patterns of state formation, and by the gradual consolidation of...

DannUriel, King Hussein and the Challenge of Arab Radicalism: Jordan, 1955–1967 (New York and Oxford: Oxford University Press, in cooperation with the Moshe Dayan Center for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University, 1989). Pp. 216. - Volume 23 Issue 3 - Rex Brynen

Traces the history of the Palestinians from their uprooting in 1948 to the present. Brand explores the development of the sociopolitical institutions that served as bases for the reemergence of the Palestinian national movement. Institutions among students, women, teachers, and workers in the Palestinian communities of Egypt, Kuwait, and Jordan are...

Political activity in the Palestinian diaspora (like that among other refugee populations) has taken a variety of forms, ranging from participation in the political systems of host societies, to local community organization and participation in a broader nationalist movement. This article examines Palestinian political activism in Lebanon, identify...

Peace-Making in the Middle East: Problems and ProspectsMarantzPaulSteinJanice Gross eds. Totowa, N.J.: Barnes and Noble, 1985, pp. 244 - Volume 19 Issue 1 - Rex Brynen

I have been asked today to offer some thoughts on how democratization efforts in North Africa compare with those in other regions: the Mashreq, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union. I want to start, however, by asking a question of the very question that has been set for us. Are the political reforms that we'v...

Incl. bibl., index