A Brutal Friendship: The West and The Arab Elite - Hardcover

Aburish, Said K.

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9780312185435: A Brutal Friendship: The West and The Arab Elite

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 031218543X ISBN 13: 9780312185435

Publisher: St. Martin's Press, 1998

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In A Brutal Friendship, Said K. Aburish traces the true origins of the region's present turmoil to the manner in which corrupt Arab rulers have subordinated the welfare of their subjects to their cultivation of cozy relationships with the West. Using direct evidence from his unrivaled range of Arab sources, he describes how the West -- mostly the CIA -- sponsored Islamic fundamentalism in the 1950s and '60s in an effort to contain Nasser and thwart Soviet designs on the region, how American and British leaders have turned a blind eye to repressive governments when they suit their interests (and toppled them when they do not), and how it is these very machinations that set Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein on his bloody road to power.

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About the Author:

Said K. Aburish was born in the biblical village of Bethany near Jerusalem in 1935. He attended university in the United States and subsequently became a correspondent for Radio Free Europe and The Daily Mail, and a consultant to two Arab governments. Now a freelance journalist and author, his books include Children of Bethany, Cry Palestine, and biographies of Arafat and Saddam Hussein.

From Publishers Weekly:

Aburish, a Palestinian-American journalist who lives in London, is best known in this country for his familial autobiography Children of Bethany: The Story of a Palestinian Family and for his The Rise, Corruption and Coming Fall of the House of Saud. Here, he extends his condemnation of the Saudi dynasty to the entire Middle East. It's hard to argue with his basic point: since WWI Western governments and businesses have colluded to support ruling regimes (usually of minority groups like Maronites, Sunnis, Wahhabis) that are antidemocratic at best, brutal at worst. In the name of stability and access to oil, then, the West has blinded itself to the human rights of the majority of Arab nations. But until the end, Aburish's point doesn't seem to be so much that had history turned out differently, the majority would live free of oppression, but rather that geo-politics might have been different?more Pan Arab, perhaps, probably more successfully anti-Zionist. He also does two things that undermine confidence. His characterizations tend to be short and dismissive?Gertrude Bell is a "twittering socialite"; King Saud, "an ignoramus and a bungler"; Camille Chamoun, "a skirt-chasing, narrow-minded tribal chief who saw nothing wrong in lying, stealing and murder." And he stints on sourcing?for example, an entire section on the origins and aftermath of the Six Day War has one footnote. Greater subtlety (e.g., early in this century, pro-Western did, in fact, often mean anti-Ottoman) and dispassion would have made for a more powerful argument.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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