Middle East conflict

The Six-Day War of 1967 left Israel with a dilemma: what to do with the land it had taken in the process of winning a conflict that also involved Egypt, Syria and Jordan. A new book, The Accidental Empire, looks at what came next.

A new Hamas-led government; protests against cartoons of Muhammad; a re-started nuclear program in Iran: It's a busy time for journalists specializing in the Middle East. Christopher Dickey is the regional editor for Newsweek.

A new tactic has emerged in the angry debate over cartoons depicting religious figures, as an Israeli artist launches a contest for the best anti-Semitic cartoon -- drawn by a Jew. Amitai Sandy says the Israeli Anti-Semitic Cartoons Contest is a response to an Iranian newspaper's competition for cartoons on the Holocaust.

The recent Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections has left many wondering what repercussions the change will bring in the Middle East. Reporter Greg Myre is the Jerusalem correspondent for The New York Times.

Pulitzer prize-winning playwright Tony Kushner co-wrote the screenplay for the new Stephen Spielberg film Munich. Kushner won a Pulitzer for his 1993-1994 play Angels in America, which was performed in two parts and set in New York in the mid-1980s in the midst of the AIDS epidemic.

New York Times foreign affairs columnist Thomas Friedman's new book, The World is Flat, explores the effects of outsourcing and globalization. The book, subtitled "a brief history of the 21st century," connects recent business trends with social issues.

Rami Khouri is Palestinian-Jordanian, with a U.S. citizenship. He is an internationally syndicated political columnist and the host of Encounter, a weekly current affairs talk show on Jordan Television. He also hosts a weekly radio program, and he spent the 2001 academic year at Harvard University as a Nieman Fellow. He was editor-in-chief for the Jordan Times newspaper for seven years. He often comments on Middle East issues for the BBC, NPR and CNN.

Flynt Leverett is a senior fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. As Syria is prodded to withdraw its troops — and influence — from neighboring Lebanon, the region faces potentially drastic changes.

Journalist Hugh Miles is the author of Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera, the premier news channel in the Arabic-speaking world, plans to launch an English channel sometime in the next few months.

In their new book, Lightning Out of Lebanon: Hezbollah Terrorists on American Soil they warn of the presence of Hezbollah militants in the United States. Diaz and Newman say the cells could potentially be more dangerous than al Qaeda.