Foreign-branch

In light of recent "diplomatic" activity, Mr. Teslik's magnum opus on the 1945 Arab Boycott of Israel is a must-read. Even a cursory understanding of today's world--a world in which vigilantism pervades, civility and discourse give way to fear and superstition, and structural marvels of modern technology fall from the skies they once scraped--requires grounding in the rudiments of historical Arab/Israeli/American relations. Mr. Teslik's is the book for the occasion. Never have I seen an author so deftly navigate the morass of foreign policy decisions that followed the fateful boycott. While I will not go so far as to say that Mr. Teslik's work provides a comprehensive understanding of modern diplomacy--if such a work exists anywhere, I fear I have yet to indulge in its wisdom--I can unreservedly recommend the work as a valuable piece of the puzzle.

Before reading this book, I knew very little about the Arab boycott of Israel. This fine work made my learning process most enjoyable. Mr. Teslik concisely covers all critical features of this turbulent historical period, from the international backdrop and the political pressures that incited the boycott, to the political ramifications in Israel, the Middle East, and the United States. I would seriously recommend this book to anyone interested in the on-going conflict in the Middle East, or more generally in international relations. Congratulations, Mr. Teslik, and thank you for this most rewarding experience.

What was seemingly a dry and re-hashed subject has been revitalized by Mr. Teslik. Providing brilliant insight to the framework of our country's foreign policy, Teslik gives a revolutionary perspective on the Arab boycott of Israel. We could have gotten minced meat but he gave us filet mignon. I have grown to value the viewpoints of distinguished writers over the years as a discriminatory reader. Even though this is the first work I have read by Kennan Lee Teslik, I extend an enthusiastic applause to his efforts. Kudos.

Hilary Dunsterville Branch's guide to Venezuela is the best guide out there in the market. I've just got back from a month backpacking around the country and I wish I'd bought it before I left the States. As it was I was lucky enough to bump into a French couple that gave me their copy in Merida in the Venezuelan Andes. After three days traveling with Branch's book I dumped my Lonely Planet Guide in the trash. Not only does she give you the practical details on off the beaten track beaches like Choroni, Santa Fe and Morrocoy but she gives you the run down on the cheapest places backpackers can stay. The history was good and easy to read. She got me up to the top of Mount Roraima and her section on the Rio Caura is excellent. What can I say. Thanks to this guide I now know that a month isn't long enough to spend in this incredible tropical country. I'm going back again next year and I'll be taking Branch with me.

Constitutional scholar Louis Fisher has done a magnificent job capturing the history of what he calls "presidential warmaking" -- that is, the tendency of presidents to usurp Congress's Constitutional war-making power. Fisher is not persuaded by claims advanced by modern presidents -- Democrats and Republicans alike -- that the Commander-in-Chief clause grants them broad discretionary war-making powers. His book is a long legal brief in favor of returning the war powers to the Congress.

At times, Fisher's belief in the rightness of his cause borders on the polemic. Though he recognizes that Congress has been complicit in presidential war-making, he reserves his harshest criticism for the presidents themselves. Arguably, however, it takes two to tango; if Congress actually *wanted* the war powers, it could take them "back." But as research shows, it is easier -- and therefore more palatable -- to sit on the sidelines, sniping at the president in case of failure or claiming a share of the credit after success.

No student of American politics or American foreign policy can plausibly claim to discuss the role of the executive branch in military/foreign policy without having digested Fisher's book.

Although some background in constitutional law may be helpful, this book is very readable. Fisher is a thorough scholar, but he is also honest in giving vent to his frustration with Congress' cessation of war power in the modern evolution of Executive-Legislative relations.

This book is a great resource for historical and anecdotal information on the constitutional balance of power between the President and the Congress. Well-cited, and with a firm basis in constitutional logic and theory, Fisher develops a clear case that -although it does take on a diatribal flavor at times- does not require academic contortions to be demonstrated.

The criticism of the War Powers Act is very powerful, and needs to be understood more broadly in America. The unconstitutionality of the act is one reason it is never seriously invoked by the President or insisted upon by Congress, yet many people still refer to it as the crux for understanding the war powers balance between the Presidency and the Congress.

An excellent book for anyone interested in Constitutional allocation of power; useful for students, professors, and the concerned citizen.

David Hirst, a writer for the notoriously anti-Israel Guardian newspaper, here presents a work that can only be described as off the mark. Hirst pulls out all of the old canards about the Arab-Israeli conflict, turning the Jews into the perfect aggressors and the Arabs into the perfect victim. Sadly, the reality of the situation to any interested observer is far from so black and white.

Hirst wants to argue that the Palestinians want to live in peace with Israel. He even goes so far as to try to paint Yasser Arafat, a man who continues to urge young boys and girls to strap bombs to themselves and go blow up buses, as a peace maker. The problem of course is that even most Arabs these days will admit that Arafat is more of a hindrance to peace than a help. His corrupt regime lines his pockets and those of his cronies while he cynically maintains the conflict so that he has an excuse for his failed autocratic rule.

Moreover, Hirst's historic review is intentionally drawn to paint more than Israel, but Jews as well in a bad light. For example, the massacre of almost a hundred Jews living in Hebron in the 1920s, whose families could be traced back over a two thousand year continual presence is basically ignored. When discussing "historic Palestine" Hirst ignores that this originally included Jordan until the British created the Hashemite kingdom. Thus far from his overblown and misleading numbers, the Jewish state represents less than 25% of historic Palestine. Indeed, if Arafat accepted the Camp David Accords and became the President of Palestine, Arabs would control over 75% of historic Palestine.

Even in its own time Hirst's work was woefully out of date. Shortly after its publication in 1977, Israel returned the Sinai representing more than 2/3 of the territory under its control, to Egypt in exchange for a peace treaty. This is hardly the work of the nation bent on conquest that Hirst wants to paint.

Even in 1977 Hirst's work was shameful to the degree that he apologized for every act of terror. Kosher restaurants blown up in Paris by Yasser Arafat? Hirst blames the Jews. An airport attacked and dozens of tourists killed by the PLO? Hirst blames the Jews. The Israeli Olympic Team is massacred at Munich? Why even give it much of a mention? His forward to this edition just makes matters worse, basically claiming that Israel has no right to exist.

Hirst's thinly veiled piece of propaganda would almost be laughable if its protagonists did not have hands so drenched in innocent blood. In any case, thoughtful and interested readers should look elsewhere if they want to understand the ongoing conflict.

I've only read the first edition, which I found in a used bookstore many years ago--I may eventually read this latest version.

Hirst is obviously on the Palestinian "side", but then I don't know how any honest person could look at the facts and not feel that a great injustice was done to them. I wouldn't read the Gun and the Olive Branch (or anyway, not the first edition) for a complete account of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and there are various other books one should read, such as Tom Segev's "One Palestine Complete", which gives an unemotional and balanced account from various perspectives--Arab, Zionist, binationalist, British. But Hirst's book is a useful antidote to the silly romanticized view of Israel's history that many people receive in the US, which is similar to the whitewashed version of early American history that used to be taught, where the settlers were the good guys and the Indians nothing but vicious primitive savages and only one side committed atrocities. People who prefer that kind of mythical history will hate Hirst's book. (And probably Segev's as well.)

Despite "naysayers" such as Ana Freberg of New York (who obviously did not even read page one !!) of Hirst's respected historical analysis of the Palestinian-Israel struggle--not only are people afraid to discuss the historical, archived reality of what has been done in Palestine to Palestinians in our name, for fear they might be branded anti-Semitic or self-hating Jews for disagreeing with the "party line" but we are discouraged from even READING such texts (which has been "disappeared" and republished --as is-- 3 times in as many decades). I believe that the truth will out! Americans have a duty and a right to know of the profound intrigues and manipulations of US policy, the purchasing of votes thru the "occupation" of our Congress and the untold suffering and destruction of the Palestinian people which have resulted due to American ignorance and manufactured "consent" for biased policies. Hirst's use of Israeli authors,accounts and archives is first rate and he is one of many who have lived in the region whose voice will not be stilled. This book is a MUST READ if only to review the scrupulous research and accounting of 100 years of Zionist presence in America's colonial outpost next to the Suez.

This book provides a strong argument against the Bush Administrations arguments against going to war in Iraq. You can argue that the book is biased but the bottom line is that the facts speak for themselves. To date, the only probable FACTs we've been told about Saddam and Iraq are the ones related to his human rights abuses. This is not really touched on because, what's understood on this case does not need to be discuss. With that said, that book breaks down the following:

Saddam's ties to Al Queda:
There never were any. These allegations were made on dubious intelligence claims that at most, proved that Saddam's officials may have had a meeting with Al Queda operative 10 years ago. Saying that Saddam has Al Queda ties is the equivalent of saying that someone you or I went on a date with 10 years ago is our boyfriend/girlfriend of 10 years. In short, it's a complete distortion of the truth/

Chem.. & Bio Weapons:
We know Saddam had and used these prior to Gulf war I. Why? WE gave him the means to make them. The claims that he still possessed them came from defectors who proved to be less than credible witnesses. The weapons inspectors and CIA reports have all stated the same thing.There's no evidence Saddam still possessed these weapons. Even if he had them prior to 1991 is irrelevant because chem.. & bio weapons only have a shelf life of 2-3 years.

Saddam's Nuclear program:
What existed was dismantled after Gulf War I. Are we seeing a pattern here?

The War would be a cakewalk:
I think it's safe to say most people believed this to be the case. Obviously it hasn't been, largely due to poor planning and other agenda's.

Iraq as a model for Democracy:
The shabbiest and most overused since the WMD and Al Queda claims were proven to be bogus. The issue here is that there are many, many brutal dictatorship's in the word and to think that we would send 100,000 troops to a foreign land to "liberate" a nation is just plain gullible.

If you want a good summary argument about the false pretenses used to launch the Iraq war, this book provides a readable 175 pg argument.

Every American should read two thin books about Iraq: "The Five Biggest Lies Bush Told Us About Iraq" by Christopher Scheer, Robert Scheer, and Lakshmi Chaudhry, and "Warrior King: the Case for Impeaching George W. Bush" by John Bonifaz with forward by Congressman John Conyers.

The first book exposes the lies that President Bush and members of his Administration knowingly told during the build-up to the war on Iraq, including the lies that are keeping US troops in Iraq today.

The second book addresses Bush's unconstitutional act of taking the US military to war without a declaration of war by Congress. A number of US soldiers and US Congress Members sued the President in a failed attempt to prevent this war, and this book lays out the case.

If you are a strong supporter of President Bush, don't comment on what you feel about the issues with no relevance to the book. The reviews are here because people want to know how other people who have the same interests perceived this book. This is not a place for a political rant.

The most unfortunte thing about this book is that it is poorly constructed and falls apart easily under even light "travel" strain. On the other hand, despite horrific maps, it is a fairly good guide. Thorough coverages is provided for both the Gran Sabana and Amazonas regions, including helpful narratives of people who have undertaken various explorations. It is especially useful if you plan to drive, as it occasionally mentions hotels with garages and gives detailed information on certain routes.

Buy Bradt for the guide, but Lonely Planet Venezuela for the maps.

This book makes big promises, describing four modes of Congressional activity in the foreign policy arena. Subsequent chapters then give case studies of events which fit each of the four modes, and a fifth chapter describes the influence of lobbying. While the authors give good descriptions of the case studies, the framework of modes is unsatisfying, and the discussion of lobbying seems a last-minute addition, which is not properly integrated into the larger thesis. While two of the modes are well explained and documented (Congressional assertiveness and aquiescence to presidential leadership), the second two modes (bipartisanship and division-of-labor) are more questionable, especially as only one case study is provided to substantiate the latter. More troubling is that little is done to explain when and why Congress will choose to act within a particular mode. The explanatory circumstances of each case study are presented, but there is no theory presented which might help predict future choices. Overall, while this might be useful for students of Congress with little background in Congressional-presidential relations, for scholars hoping for deeper analysis the book falls short.