Middle East Conflict

"The Lemon Tree" is a special documentary marking the 50th Anniversary of the State of Israel and the 1948 Arab-Israeli war. It was produced for Fresh Air by Homelands Productions, producers of other public radio documentaries. It is narrated by producer Sandy Tolan and uses excerpts from his conversations with Bashir, a Palestinian man, and Dalia, an Israeli woman, to tell how their 31 year friendship reveals much of the painful history of the last 50 years experienced by both Palestinians and Israelis.

Dr. Jonathan Tucker is the Director of the Chemical & Biological Weapons Nonproliferation Project based in California. In 1995, Tucker was a member of a biological weapons inspection team in Baghdad for the United Nations. He'll talk about obstacles facing the newest round of inspections in Iraq. Tucker has also served on the Presidential Advisory Committee on Gulf War Veterans' Illnesses. (Interview by Barbara Bogaev)

A talk with The New York Times' Youssef Ibrahim who is in Baghdad where he's been reporting on the situation in Iraq. Meanwhile, U.S. Military forces remain in the Middle East, waiting for the United Nation's weapons inspections to begin in Iraq. (Interview by Marty Moss-Coane)

Ann Marie Oliver and Paul Steinberg, at Harvard University's Center for Middle Eastern Studies Department where they have been visiting professors since 1993. They also lived six years in Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip where they studied and researched the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas. In their forth coming book, they look at the psychology of the young men in the Hamas movement, by interviewing one of them who survived an attempt at a suicide bombing (to be published by Oxford University Press)

Lea Rabin, the widow of the slain Isreali Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin. She's written a new memoir: "Rabin: Our Life, His Legacy," (G.P. Putnam). Rabin was assassinated in November 1995.

Chaim Herzog was President of Israel 1983-1993. He served as Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations in the 1970's. He has been involved and present for almost all of the great and tragic events in Israeli history. In addition to being President, he has been, a soldier, a journalist and an author. Herzog was born in Ireland in 1918, where his father was the Chief Rabbi. He has written a memoir documenting his experiences in Israel and dealing with Arab, Israeli, and American leaders, called "Living History."

Oz is a veteran of the Six-Day War in 1967 and the Yom Kippur War in 1973, and is a leading activist for peace between the Arabs and the Israelis. He's written his 11th novel, "Don't Call it Night." Oz received the German Publishers Peace Prize in 1992. Terry will also talk with him about the latest violence in the Middle East.

The grand-daughter of former Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, Noa Ben Artzi-Pelossof. During the his funeral Noa gave a moving tribute to the grandfather she knew as opposed to the political leader the world knew. She's written a new memoir, "In the Name of Sorrow and Hope," (Knopf).

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. Friedman spent the last decade covering the Middle East, work that won him two Pulitzer Prizes. His book, From Beirut to Jerusalem has recently been updated, to include information on the Peace Process. It's now available in paperback. The book looked at the inside of Arab and Israeli power circles, and examined the Intifada and the perceptions American and Israeli Jews have of each other.

Writer Yossi Klein Halevi is a senior writer for "The Jerusalem Report." He's the author of Memoirs of A Jewish Extremist: An American Story, (Little, Brown) which tells the story of his involvement with Jewish right-wing movements in the United States, and with the extremist rabbi Meir Kahane. Halevi eventually broke away from the movement.

Ze'ev Chafets columnist for "The Jerusalem Report," a news magazine published in Israel. Chafets is an Israeli who grew up in Pontiac, Michigan. He was the director of the government press office under prime minister Menachem Begin. He's also the author of several novels.

Award-winning Israeli journalist Danny Rubinstein. He has a new book called The Mystery of Arafat (Steerforth Press) which looks into the image of the P-L-O leader, Yasser Arafat. Rubinstein is a columnist for the Hebrew daily Ha'aretz and has been writing on Palestinian issues since 1967. He is also the author of the book The People of Nowhere. Rubinstein presently lives in Jerusalem where he teaches in the department of Middle East History at Ben-Gurion University.

Hanan Mikhail-Ashrwai, former spokesperson for the PLO from 1991 to 1993. Ashrawi was the chief spokesperson for the Palestinian delegation at the Middle East peace negotiations. There are two books about her life and her role in the peace process: her personal account, This Side of Peace, and A Voice of Reason: Hanan Ashrawi and Peace in the Middle East by Barbara Victor.

New York Times defense correspondent Michael Gordon and retired Marine Corps General Bernard Trainor. They have collaborated on a book about the Persian Gulf War, called "The General's War: The Inside Story of the Conflict in the Gulf." The book examines why the war was "an incomplete success."

Journalist Youseff Ibrahim, reporter at "The New York Times" since 1977. He has been the regional Middle East correspondent for the paper for seven years. He talks about the current debates among Arab intellectuals about the current political and cultural trends in the region.

Journalist Youseff Ibrahim, reporter at "The New York Times" since 1977. He talks about the current situation in Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Journalist and professor Fred Halliday. He's a professor of International Relations at the London School of Economics, and has written extensively on the Cold War and the Third World for "The Nation," and "The Middle East Report." He'll talk about the possible threat of another military showdown in Iraq.

Thomas Friedman is a Middle East correspondent for "The New York Times," and author of the Pulitzer-Prize winning book "From Beirut to Jerusalem." He'll talk about last week's pact between Israel and Jordan.

Israeli political scientist Ehud Sprinzak. Sprinzak has written a book called "The Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right" (Oxford University Press 1991). He follows the emergence in Israel since 1984 of a radical right-wing movement shaped by religious fundamentalism, extreme nationalism and aggressive anti-Arab sentiment. Sprinzak believes that the influence of the radical right pervades Israeli politics and culture as well as Arab-Israeli relation. He sees Israel's radical right exercising increasing control over the Jewish settlements in the West Bank.

Political writer and correspondent in the Middle East for the New Yorker, Milton Viorst. Terry will talk with him about the massacre last week in the mosque in the West bank, and it's affect on the peace process between Israel and the P.L.O. They'll also discuss his new book "Sandcastles: The Arabs in Search of The Modern World" (Knopf). Called by one commentator "a psychological and social tour of the Arab people and the wondrous cities they live in", "Sandcastles" features VIORST's travels in Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon.