MIDDLE
EAST DESK
INTRODUCTION
Middle East
Desk (MED) is the Web site of a private study group of experts from
several countries on Middle Eastern and other Asian affairs. The group publishes essays on political,
military, cultural, religious, economic and social topics of this conflict-ridden
part of the globe and on their impact on international relations.
MED regards it as its task to supply background
facts and views to supplement or dispute Western media reports – too often incomplete, misleading and reinforcing incomprehension – as a service to those
who take an informed interest in this troubled and troublesome region. Our observation of incomprehension and misinterpretation
of Asian affairs in the West is not new. Rudyard Kipling, born in India and educated
in England, summed it up in the lines “Oh East is East and West is West, And
never the Twain shall meet.”
But on our
shrinking planet the twain cannot help meeting politically, particularly since
the Suez Canal was opened (in 1869),
oil was found and tapped in the Middle East., and since modern communication
technology, radio, TV and the World-Wide-Web of the computer, has been turning the globe’s
population into a neighbourhood community. The members of our Middle
East Desk realize that well-researched and honest information alone will not end the region’s deep-rooted conflicts of irreconcilable
passions and interests. But it can at least illuminate the intellectual and emotional gap,
the main cause of the widely
prevailing incomprehension, and reduce the element of surprise by unforeseen,
but often foreseeable reactions and events.
The articles were written over a period
of 25 years by different
experts in different countries and contexts, and some repetion is unavoidable.
But they are still relevant, mainly since changes in the Middle East are slow
by Western clocks and often more
apparent than real.
All the members
of the Middle East Desk group will remain unnamed. They were or are
all retired, independent volunteers, serve on no political organizations, dedicated to supplying what they regard
as honest, verifiable information and comment. Several have died since the group formed in the early nineties. The validity of all contributions was and will be tested
by the light they cast on events, past,
present and future – in the Middle East and beyond.
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