Non-State Actors in the Middle East

This is a truly remarkable book, which is the result of the cooperation of an Israeli and an Arab professor, and eleven other highly qualified scholars. All contributions are of the same high level quality; quite unusual for such anthologies! Galia Golan-Gild, born and raised in the United States, is a government teacher and peace activist at the Hebrew University’s Lauder School of Government and Strategy, located at Herzliya, home of the affluent, to the north of Tel Aviv. While studying in Europe she had been attached to Herbert Marcuse, first at Brandeis University and later in France. Golan-Gild is well known also as a prominent Jewish expert on Soviet affairs, having written five books on that subject, including Soviet Policies in the Middle East (1990). In turn, Walid Salem is Director of East Jerusalem’s Panorama, the Palestine Center for the Dissemination of Democracy and Community Development, out to promote Israeli-Palestinian civil cooperation. Both authors draw attention to the remarkable fact that, in the Near East, civil society, i.e. non-state actors, enjoys greater credibility than government bodies do. Thus, the Center became important as a motor for social, economic and political transformation. For Palestinians, in particular, civil society substitutes for non-existent government.