I have found it really hard to find time and energy to blog recently. Lots has been going on with Just World Books. This very evening, we are launching Manan Ahmed’s terrific book Where the Wild Frontiers Are: Pakistan and the American Imagination. I’m in New York to do this. It’s being hosted by the Asian-American Writers’ Workshop— starts 90 minutes from now!
Timely, huh? Also timely: our next book, Troubled Triangle: The United States, Turkey, and Israel in the New Middle East, edited by the fabulous William B. Quandt.
Wednesday, I’m leaving for the Algiers, where Bill the spouse and I are both taking part in a “Colloque” on the Arab Spring being organized in conjunction with the Algiers Book Fair. I am also hoping to meet some Arabic-language and French-language publishers who might be interested in buying other-language rights to some of our books.
I know there has been a lot happening recently (especially, here in New York) around Abu Mazen’s last-ditch effort to save his legacy by taking the “Palestinian statehood” request to the Security Council. There’s been a lot of dissension in Palestinian ranks about the value of this effort. And yes, it does seem very possible that the statehood request might just languish for months or years in some subcommittee of the Security Council… The matter would be a lot more straightforward if Abu Mazen and his people were to insist on taking a request for enhanced recognition to the General Assembly, and forcing a vote there…
Whatever happens to this particular initiative at this particular time, it already seems that pressure is mounting in the non-U.S. 95% of the global community that the United States has monopolized all Israeli-Palestinian diplomacy for too long now; and that the U.S. has proven itself uniquely unqualified and/or unable to do anything to bring about a fair and sustainable peace… and therefore, that some other, more authoritative and capable form of international sponsorship is needed in order to deal successfully with this important item on the world’s agenda.
I haven’t been able to blog much about this recently. Last week I had a flare-up of horrible back pain, which laid me somewhat low. But next week, on October 4, I’m speaking on the Palestinian statehood issue at Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies. (I think that’s an open meeting: Check their website over the next few days, for details. They don’t have any up there yet.)
3 thoughts on “Updates, Sept.26”
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you are most welcome Helena. I hope you will spend
a lovely time with Algerian scholars.
Hafid
Have a good time in Algiers. People at the colloque might want to hear about my new book, “Algerians without Borders: the Making of a Global Frontier Society” which covers Algerian refugees and migrants from the late 18th c. to now. University Press of Florida, and e-book Oxford U. Press. Out in November.
If Abbas has taken the issue to the Security Council and not the General Assembly, than it’s nothing but a coopt on his part, a clever move to bury it on behalf of the US and Israel. That guy really is a piece of work.