Now of course that doesn't mean that Israel did what we were pressuring them to do (engage in a peace process), instead they unilaterally pulled out of Gaza in order to end peace talks with Abbas.
Dov Weisglass (the aid) went on to explain:
"The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace process, and when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the ratification of both houses of Congress."
If there was any ambiguity in that he also stated:
"The disengagement is actually formaldehyde. It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a political process with the Palestinians."
That's fairly cut and dry, so no i'm not just proverbially speaking talking out of my ass, rather I say those things because I have paid attention to internal Israeli political dialogue. I make those claims specifically because I have direct supporting evidence for them.
This actually isn't true either, we see pressures occur all of the time in the absence of security council agreement.
sana8410, have you read any interesting books lately? i'm in the mood to read something not work related for once .
Depends on what you do for work and what genres you like to read. I tend to like history books or classic sci fi and fantasy when I want something lighter.
The last couple of history books that I have read over the summer have been:
Darfur: The Long Road to Disaster by Robert O. Collins and Millard Burr, which is primarily a book about Chad, and the conflict dynamics that have existed between Chad, Sudan, Libya and Egypt since independence. It's only really in the last chapter or two that he really gets into Darfur.
Dancing in the Glory of Monsters: The collapse of the Congo and the Great War of Africa by Jason Stearns, a book about the conflict in the DR Congo since the early 90s. It looks at both Congolese wars and the stage setting for the Mai Mai militias and jungle rebel groups that still exist today. This book isn't as dry of reading as the Darfur one, it has good facts, but also a lot of interviews and human testimonies. So he won't just name a massacre give some numbers and a date and move on (Like the French political Scientist Gerard Prunier does in his telling of the conflict in Africa's World War) but he'll do that and then couple it with a personal account from someone he interviewed.
On Saudi Arabia:Its People, Past, Religion, Fault Lines, and Future by Karen Elliott House, title is pretty self descriptive. It lacks the research levels and details that I tend to like in books and is mostly an account of her personal experiences and fieldwork in Saudi Arabia and observations of Saudi culture. It isn't too long though.
Radical Religious and Violent by Eli Berman, written by an economist it is an examination of the behavior of religious radical groups (both violent and non-violent) and how they operate, and why they are so much better at terrorism when they do turn violent relative to non-religious radicals. He mostly examines the Taliban, Hamas, and ultra Orthodox Jewish communities. Though other groups make appearances as well and he even examines (briefly) the growth of Christian radical movements in historical Europe.
Boko Haram: Islamism, Politics, Security and the State in Nigeria, It is a collection of academic works and analyses on different aspects of Boko Haram in northern Nigeria. I read this one in PDF form and it can be found for free online. Some essays are better written and more interesting than others, but all in all it has good content. If you read this one I'd suggest probably reading Curbing Violence in Nigeria (II): The Boko Haram Insurgency published by the International Crisis Group first. it gives a more generalized historical overview of the movement which would be helpful to have before tackling the more specific looks at the insurgency that the above listed paper does. The Crisis Group's Boko Haram report can also be found online for free in PDF form.
A Savage War of Peace: Algeria 1954 - 1962 by Alistair Horne, About the Algerian struggle for independence from France. Probably the best written book on this list. Easy to read with good selections of quotes like Stearns work on the Congo (so it isn't too dry), but very well researched and detailed in its facts (like Collin's work on Chad). It covers pre-war, different ethnic, cultural, and political factions, the entire conflict, and sets the stage for understanding the subsequent civil war and the formation of the GSPC (which would eventually become Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb).
Next on the list is: A History of Modern Sudan by Robert O. Collins, Collins is a well respected expert on Sudanese history, since the first book of his that I read on Darfur ended up being more about Chad, I looked up his other works and picked this one up on Sudan. It is shorter than his more regional work (listed above) and I expect it to be somewhat dry reading like his other book, but also very well researched.
