نشریه مطالعات خاورمیانه
سال هفدهم شماره 1 (پیاپی 60، بهار 1389)

Despite a century of the conflict on Palestine has passed, various efforts at ending the hostilities and disputes have failed to reach a result yet. Focusing on the nature of peace proposals and plans put forward up to now, this paper has divided them into six types of solutions for ending the crisis: Single (federal) state, two-national, partition of Palestine into two Jewish-Arab regions, single Palestinian state without the existence of Israel, single Jewish state governing the entire Palestine, establishment of two Israeli and Palestinian states, and a Palestinian-Jordanian confederation. The course of events shows that the establishment of an independent Palestinian state along with Israel has gained furthest attention and acceptance, although the Israeli policies cause that this plan will not bring a safe and independent Palestine for the pro-peace Palestinians.

This paper deals with the processes of formation of a security system in the Persian Gulf after the fall of Saddam Hussein, referring to the role played by the United States and challenges posed to the Islamic Republic of Iran. A historical study shows that setting Iran aside of the security system in the Persian Gulf has caused illegitimacy and fragility of the system. Findings demonstrate that U.S. security policy towards the Islamic Republic of Iran has been a two-tier policy (attracting Iran to the system and exerting pressures on Iran at the same time). The trends indicate that due to distrust found in Iran’s relations with the regional Arab actors, Iraq’s transitional, vague role in the region and continued dependence of the Persian Gulf Cooperation Council on the United States, along with the intensified challenges arising from Iran’s nuclear case, U.S. policy in the new era is based on intensified containment of Iran and forging a security system with the participation of GCC countries plus Iraq, while setting Iran aside.

Turkey has possessed a multiparty political system after the Second World War and the country is mainly characterized by party rivalry in spite of three military coups. Because of its proportional electoral system, the cabinets formed in Turkey are usually a coalition of several parties, and as such are fragile. During the past three decades, only the Motherland Party (ANAP) and recently the Justice and Development Party (AKP) have managed to form a strong single party cabinet with gaining the majority of votes in the parliamentary elections. Nonetheless, the life of catch-all strong parties is not long in Turkey and some observers assess the decrease in the votes gained by the AKP in 2009 local elections as a harbinger of the party’s decline in the future, if it fails to gain its supporters content. Analysis of the results of local elections which are held in the interval between two general parliamentary elections can be employed as indicating the prospect ahead in both domestic politics and to a lesser degree in foreign policy.

Tayyib Tizini is among the prominent contemporary Arab thinkers who seek to find a way for countering the widespread decline in the Arab World, adapting Islamic teachings with certain Marxist discussions. Describing various aspects of Tizini’s thinking and challenges to the Muslim World in his viewpoint, this paper focuses on the new awakening and enlightenment movement in the Arab World containing Tizini’s political-social solutions. Though the proposal has taken shape on the basis of an adequate understanding of Islamic teachings and the conditions of the Arab World, it seems partly utopian and idealistic. The reason is that it is not methodological and ultimately decides in favors of the political and economic dominance of Marxism.

Using the bibliometric method, this research deals with the situation of scientific productions of the Middle Eastern researchers in a 10-year period, 1998-2007, in the ISI database. The research findings show that Turkey with a huge distance in comparison to the other Middle Eastern nations is the pioneer country, while Iran is at the second place. The largest international partnership of the Middle Eastern researchers is conducted with the American researchers, but the largest international partnership of the Yemeni and Qatari researchers takes place with their Egyptian counterparts, whereas only Bahrain has the biggest international partnership with the UnitedKingdom. Generally speaking, scientific productions of the Middle Eastern countries have seen scant growth or decline except for Iran and Turkey.

The 33-day war and Lebanese Hezbollah’s resistance to the all-out Israeli army’s invasion is viewed as a turning point in the Middle East regional developments and events. This paper addresses the positions adopted by various regional countries as well as organizations such as the Arab League towards the Israeli attacks. This study demonstrates that apart from the Iranian and Syrian proactive stances, the other countries either got along with Israel or acted passively. As a result, the statements and meetings held by these countries were merely superficial and even they did not agree to recognize Hezbollah’s resistance in defense of Lebanon. Such a study clearly reveals the reason for the continued presence of Israel, that is dependence and conservatism of the Arab governments.