Middle East Conflict

Richard Ben Cramer, foreign affairs journalist and Pulitzer Prize winner, has spent extensive time traveling to and reporting on the Middle East. He has reported on Israel, Egypt, and Lebanon, and his stories often focus on individuals. He joins the show to discuss his work and the situation in the Middle East.

Gail Pressberg is the director of the Middle East desk of the American Friends Service Committee. The AFSC is a peace organization that conducts studies and promotes communications between feuding parties. Pressberg is the co-author of the AFSC report "A Compassionate Peace: A Future for the Middle East." Pressberg joins the show to discuss the current war in Lebanon, the background of Arab-Israeli relations, and the recent history of the Palestinian people. Pressberg will also respond to listener calls. (INTERVIEW BY DANNY MILLER)

John Zogby is the National Field Representative of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. The organization was founded in 1980 and opposes discrimination, ethnic slurs, and racism directed against Arabs. The group has protested advertisements, newspaper cartoons, and press coverage, and has lobbied Congress regarding Israel's invasion of Lebanon. Zogby is of Lebanese descent, and lives in Central New York, where he is involved in local politics and worked as a professor of political science and history.

Jehan Sadat, wife of the late Egyptian President Anwar Sadat.

Book Critic John Leonard reviews From Beirut to Jerusalem, Thomas Friedman's account of his ten years covering the Middle East for The New York Times.

Novelist Taghi Modarressi. His new novel, The Pilgrim's Rules of Etiquette, is set in Iran after the Islamic revolution. It revolves around an aging academic, well acquainted with the ways and mores of the West, and his family and friends as they deal with the fear and poverty during the Iran-Iraq War. But when his prize student is killed at the front, the academic, who until now has closeted himself away with his philosophical pursuits, must acknowledge the meaninglessness of his efforts when compared to the chaos of contemporary Iran.

Journalist John Hockenberry. For the past two years he's been National Public Radio's foreign correspondent in the Middle East, where he covered events from his wheelchair. He's also served as host for "All Things Considered," "SoundPrint," and other shows. In 1987 he won a Peabody and in 1988, a Unity in Media award. In March, he'll be hosting "Heat," a new nightly interview, performance, and call-in show over NPR.

Israeli journalist Ehud Ya'ari (A-hood yah-HAR-ee). He's the co-author of "Intifada: The Palestinian Uprising-Israel's Third Front." The book chronicles the events leading up to the Palestinian uprising, and it examines how the Israeli government misread, and misreported, the events surrounding the Intifada. Ehud Ya'ari covers Middle East affairs for Israeli television.

Journalist and network news correspondent Charles Glass. His new book is "Tribes With Flags: A Dangerous Passage Through the Chaos of the Middle East." (The Atlantic Monthly Press). Glass was kidnapped and held hostage by pro-Iranian terrorists in 1987. He escaped from his captors 62 days later.

We talk about the crisis in the Gulf and the state of the Israeli and Palestine with Joel Brinkley, the Jerusalem Bureau Chief for the New York Times.

Rashid Khalidi is a professor of modern Middle East history at the University of Chicago. He and Terry talk about the proposal for an international peace conference on the Mideast, which includes calls for further negotiations in the Israel-Palestine conflict.

In this two-part interview, Terry speaks first with Trudy Rubin, a Mideast expert on the editorial board at the "Philadelphia Inquirer." Rubin's just left Baghdad. We speak to her from Amman, Jordan. Next, Terry is joined by David Fromkin. They talk about the colonial interventions in the Middle East around World War I, and how those actions resonate today.

Janet Aviad of "Peace Now," an organization dedicated to finding peaceful solutions to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, speaks with Terry about her group's position on Saddam Hussein's linking the invasion of Kuwait with the Palestinian question. Terry also talks with David McReynolds, co-secretary of the War Resistors League. The group is advising military men and women who don't want to fight in the Gulf, and co-ordinating the peace movement.

Retired Admiral Gene LaRocque, founder of the Center for Defense Information, gives his scenario for war in the Gulf, which is more pessimistic than those of the Bush administration and the House Armed Services Committee. The Center for Defense Information is an independent monitor of the military and is made up of retired military officers as well as civilians with training and experience in military analysis.

Dan Pipes, the Director of the Foreign Policy Research Institute, talks about what should happen after a potential war in Iraq, including who'll take power, and the diplomatic mistakes we should avoid. While he wouldn't oppose the killing of Saddam Hussein, Pipes doesn't believe targeting the dictator should be a goal of the mission.

Defense Correspondent for The Sunday Times of London James Adams gives his scenario for a war in the Gulf. Among other points, he says the war will be brief, and that Iraqis troops will be totally unprepared for the opening air assault.

Oz talks to Terry from his home in Israel about his family's experiences during the recent Iraqi missile attacks, his work as a lecturer with the Israeli army, his views on the Israeli government's response to the crisis, and his feelings about the current war in Iraq.

Terry interviews Jim Creighton, the staff councilor with Friends Military Counciling, a group sponsored by the Quakers; he advises men and women in the military who object to the Gulf War. Afterwards, she speaks with Sergeant Reginald Bullock, an Air Force recruiter in the Philadelphia area. We'll find out how his job has changed in the past week,

Critic John Leonard talks to Terry Gross about how television news shows are covering the war in Iraq. They conclude that networks are framing the conflict as a kind of entertainment program -- a strategy which may actually bring the war closer to home for many viewers.