Some resources

I frequently get asked for resources to study the issues that I discuss in the blog. As you know, the site does not allow posting of web addresses so just do a web search for any of the organizations or authors I list below.

By far the best research on the history of Islam is Barnard Lewis. Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, Lewis is generally considered the world's leading expert on Islam and the Islamic Empires of the past.

One of his books "What Went Wrong" is a very good starting point for anyone wanting to understand the Muslim mindset from a geopolitical standpoint.

It is a short paperback and reads easily. Not like a textbook, but more like popular history.

I would also suggest looking up Daniel Pipes. Pipes writes regularly in many newspapers around the country, particularly the NY Sun, and was one of the early voices warning, not about Islam as he points out, but about what he calls "Islamofacism".

Hillel Halkin is another Israeli that writes regularly for the NY Sun and in the Jerusalem Post.

Michael Oren wrote the definitive book on the 6 day war: "Six Days of War - The Making of the Modern Middle East". He had access to Arab leaders that was unprecedented and it is a magnificent history of the region post WWII and the results of the war up until about 2000.
It was on the NY Times bestseller list for more than a year.

There is a woman in Israel, that writes a regular e-mail column that is fairly well known, Naomi Regan. She is VERY right wing, more so than I, but will give a good perspective on the Israeli view of many issues.

If you do a search for "The Middle East Times" it is an Arab paper that usually once a week will do a roundup of the editorials in many of the Arab world's papers.

Al Ahram is a paper published in Egypt that is an official organ of the government that will give it's views.

You can also, of course, go to the web site of Al Manar or Al Jazeera television stations. Both have online versions.

There are many organizations whose sole function is to root out the falsehoods that are printed in virtually every one of these papers, or on Arab TV.

These are MEMRI, Honest Reporting, Palestinian Media Watch, CAMERA, etc.

Frequently, they will also post videos of the type of incendiary speeches I have discussed with the translation in Arabic.

These are important, because what happens is that the politicians in these lands are famous for saying one thing in English, another in Arabic.
Yasser Arafat was truly famous for this.

The Israeli papers all have English language web sites as well. The Jerusalem Post, Yediot Aharonot and Haaretz.

For inside information of terrorism and developments in the region check out Debka. It is not as "inside" as it once was, but at one time, there were rumours that the people that wrote it were Mossad agents!

Please feel free to contact me here or via e-mail with any questions. I frequently engage in e-mail exchanges with my readers.

Thanks again for tuning in.