MIDDLE EAST DANGER! An Interview with Professor Hisham Ahmed

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An Interview with Professor Hisham Ahmed*

Death and destruction are escalating, not subsiding, throughout the Middle East region. In just the past few days 12 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and many more injured as the fifth anniversary of the invasion approaches. In the past two weeks over a hundred Palestinians have been killed and 10 Israelis. In Afghanistan still more U.S. and NATO troops are being rushed to the spreading conflict there. In Pakistan car bombs and suicide bombings continue to escalate as never before. War with Iran remains possible even in the remaining months of the Bush/Cheney government.

Today Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice testified before Congress that the “Middle East Peace Process” is failing because of the Palestinians, i.e., Hamas. Even as she did so the Palestinian Prime Minister in Gaza was holding a press conference calling for a cease fire. Even as he was doing so disguised Israeli gunmen pulled up to a car in Bethlehem and opened fire, Mafia-style, assassinating five more Palestinians. Just the day before the top U.S. military commander for the entire region, Admiral William Fallon, considered a key man holding back the dogs of escalating regional warfare, was essentially dismissed by President Bush. And just a few days before that the President announced that Vice-President Cheney was heading to the Middle East for reasons unknown.

With all this taking place we turned we turned to Professor Hisham Ahmed to help us understand and put in perspective what is going on in Iraq, in Palestine, and in the region as a whole.

* Professor Ahmed now teaches political science at Saint Mary’s College in northern California. He is recognized as one of the most insightful analysts of the situation in the Middle East and U.S. policies in the region. He was born near Bethlehem in the Deheishe Palestinian Refugee Camp, received his Ph.D. from the University of California at Santa Barbara, and has been the recipient of a Fulbright grant to do research and writing about the rise of Hamas. At the time of the most recent Palestinian election in 2006 Professor Ahmed was selected to be one of three distinguished and independent analysts interviewing each of the major candidates on Palestinian television.

We asked Professor Ahmed to explain what is happening throughout the Middle East region, his overall views of our Plan V for Iraq, and whether the “Two State Solution” and the “Peace Process” relaunched last November at Annapolis, remains credible. The intense discussion went on for about a half hour.

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