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Lebanon: Background and U.S. Policy
This report provides an overview of Lebanon and current issues of U.S. interest. It offers background information, analyzes recent developments and key legislative debates, and tracks legislation, U.S. assistance, and recent congressional action.
The State of Democracy in the Arab World
This comparative study assesses the state of democracy and examines the process of democratization in the Arab World between the years 1980-1993. It addresses shortcomings in the mainstream democracy literature that excluded the Arab World from the global democratic revolution on political cultural grounds. To fulfil the objectives of this study, I employ both the qualitative and quantitative research approaches to test a number of hypothesized relationships. I hypothesize that transition to democracy is negatively associated with economic development, militarism, U.S. foreign policy, the political economy of oil, and dependency. I contend that emerging civil society institutions so far have had no significant effect on democratization in the Arab World. Finally, I hypothesize that the level of democracy in the Arab World is influenced greatly by the issue of civil rights. In order to investigate the hypothesized relationships, the following data sets have been used: Gastil's Freedom House Data set, "Repression and Freedom in the 1980s" data set, and Vanhanen's 1990 data set. The findings of this study support the aforementioned hypothesized relationships. I find that Arab countries, in general have made modest progress toward democracy, making the Arab World part of the global revolution.
Lebanon: Background and U.S. Policy
Report that provides an overview of Lebanon and current issues of U.S. interest. It offers background information, analyzes recent developments and key legislative debates, and tracks legislation, U.S. assistance, and recent congressional action.
Hezbollah: Background and Issues for Congress
Report that discusses Lebanon's Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamist militia, political party, social welfare organization, and U. S. State Department-designated terrorist organization. The report also discusses recent Hezbollah-related conflicts, Hezbollah's relationship with other Lebanese political parties, and U. S. policy regarding Hezbollah.
GEO Year Book 2007: An Overview of Our Changing Environment
This publication is an overview of major global environmental issues and policy decisions during the course of 2007.
Hamas: Background and Issues for Congress
Hamas, or the Islamic Resistance Movement, is a Palestinian Islamist military and sociopolitical movement that grew out of the Muslim Brotherhood, a Sunni religious and political organization founded in Egypt in 1928 that has branches throughout the world. The United States, Israel, the European Union, and Canada consider Hamas a terrorist organization. The overarching U.S. goal regarding Hamas is to deter, transform, marginalize, or neutralize it so that it no longer presents a threat to Israel's security, to a peaceful and lasting resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, or to other U.S. interests. This report discusses U.S. efforts and policy debates on these issues.
[News Script: Lebanon]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: International News]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Karami]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Nasser]
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[News Script: Government Crisis]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: International News]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Lebanon]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
The American University of Beirut and Its Educational Activities in Lebanon, 1920-1967
The purpose of this study was to trace the historical development of the American University of Beirut and its educational contributions in Lebanon and the Middle East from 1920 to 1967. Through their activities in the Levant in the early nineteenth century, the American missionaries virtually laid the foundations of the Syrian Protestant College, later known as the American University of Beirut. Though religion was the cornerstone in the founding of the University, under the pressure of the local environment, its secular character was to be substituted for the religious one. The establishment of the University in 1866 marked the beginning of the system of higher education in the Arab world. As the first established institution of higher learning, the University played a significant role in raising the level of literacy throughout the region. Despite the difficult times that the University faced throughout its history, it survived and continued its dedicated mission to serve the people of Lebanon and the entire area. For the University, the first 50 years under Ottoman rule was a period of surviving and maintaining its existence. With the freedom it came to enjoy during the French Mandate and later during independence, the University moved into a period of advancing and expanding. By the 1960s the University had become a prestigious institution and captured the support of most people and governments in the area. The study's six chapters describe the historical setting of Lebanon and the origins of its religious groups, the historical background of the American University of Beirut, the educational activities of the University during the French Mandate, and its educational activities under independent Lebanon. The thesis showed that the University had a significant role in the education of the Lebanese and the peoples of the area, and that it has significantly contributed to …
Religious Resurgence and Religious Terrorism: a Study of the Actions of the Shiʹa Sectarian Movements in Lebanon
The purpose for undertaking this case study of the Shi'a in Lebanon is threefold. First, as a hypothesis-generating case study, its objective is to formulate relevant hypotheses about religious resurgence and religious terrorism. This study achieves this objective by formulating 14 general and nine special hypotheses, and testing and confirming the latter. Second, the purpose of this study is also to explore the trajectory of the Lebanese Shi'a's sectarian mobilization. This exploration permits the conceptualization of geocultural immobility and its effect upon a religious minority. It deduces that the Lebanese Shiga's geo-cultural immobility is directly related to their active religious resurgence. The third purpose is to study the changes in the objectives and tactics of a religious minority, that of the Muslim Shi'a in Lebanon. This research is able, via its primary and secondary data, to show a relationship between the Lebanese Shiga's religious resurgence and their use of religious terrorism. This study introduces the concept of geo-cultural immobility. A minority's geo-cultural immobility is identified as an imposed low geographic mobility within a nation with low cultural pluralism. It establishes the Lebanese Shi'a's geo-cultural immobility, to which it attributes their religious resurgence. This Lebanese Shi'a religious resurgence is proven in this research to produce zealots needed by religious terrorist organizations. This study also introduces and defines religious terrorism as violent acts performed by elements of a religious organization or sect, growing out of a commitment to communicate a divine message. It distinguishes between religious terrorism, secular terrorism, and fighters for religious freedom, which are based on the actors' motives, affinities, and consciousness of the maliciousness of their acts. The primary and secondary data and the quasi-experiment in this research support its special hypotheses. They indicate a statistical correlation between eight Lebanese Shi'a cultural and religious attributes: (1) age, (2) marital …
A Comparative Study of Terrorism in Southwest Asia 1968-1982
This study assumes that political terrorism results from conscious decision-making by groups opposing a governing system, policy or process. The kinds of terrorist activity employed depend upon such factors as the philosophy, goals, objectives, and needs of the terrorist group. This presents a comparative analysis of three types of terrorists in southwest Asia: Palestinians, Marxist-Leninists, and Muslims. The first section summarizes and compares the three groups' motivational causes, philosophies, histories and sources of inspiration. The second section compares their behavior from four perspectives: trends and patterns, level of violence, tactical preferences, and lethality. The third section identifies and categorizes socioeconomic, political and military variables associated with tactic selection and acts of terrorism.
International Peacekeeping Operations: Sinai, Congo, Cyprus, Lebanon, and Chad Lessons for the UN and OAU
Peacekeeping is a means by which international or regional organizations control conflict situations that are likely to endanger international peace and security. Most scholars have viewed the contributions of peacekeeping forces only in terms of failures, and they have not investigated fully the political-military circumstances" under which conflict control measures succeed. This dissertation is an attempt to bridge this gap and to show how the OAU compares with the UN in carrying out peacekeeping missions. The method of research was the case study method in which primary and secondary data was used to describe the situations in which six peacekeeping forces operated. The content of resolutions, official reports and secondary data were examined for non-trivial evidences of impediments to implementation of mandates. Findings from the research indicate that peacekeeping missions not properly backed by political efforts at settlement of disputes, cooperation of the superpowers, and financial and logistic support were ineffective and usually unsuccessful. Lack of consensus and pursuit of national interests have resulted in ambiguous or unrealistic mandates and have reduced the effectiveness of peacekeeping operations. Moreover, parties to a conflict were interested only in solutions that favored their interests and were often skeptical about the role and credibility of peacekeeping forces. But the continued violations of ceasefire agreements in defiance of the presence of peacekeeping forces were due partly to the force's inability to use force except in self-defense , Most of the forces operated under serious operational and logistical difficulties and they were inadequately funded. But none of the three factors has been responsible alone for the failure of peacekeeping missions. The coordination of UN operations has been better than that of the OAU. In civil war situations, national governments have requested peacekeeping forces because they could not, unaided, put down their opponents. The UN has deployed …
Israeli-Arab Negotiations: Background, Conflicts, and U.S. Policy
This report discusses issues related to peace in the Middle East, including post-Gulf War negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon; U.S. interest in these and continuing negotiations and peacetalks between Middle Eastern countries; and the role of the U.S., the U.N., the European Union, and Russia in Middle Eastern relations.
[News Script: Lebanon]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story about Lebanon's premier, Saeb Salam, ordering his army to repeal Israeli ground attacks.
[News Script: Lebanon military patrols]
Photocopy of a script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Israeli strikes funeral]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story about Israeli strikes sent to Syria and Lebanon.
[News Script: Lebanon]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: News roundup]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story about a need for anti-cholera vaccine, joint space shots, German negotiations, and military spending.
[News Script: World news]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story about the IRA making a truce with British forces in Northern Ireland, Egypt's leading publisher beig realeased from prison and the House Elect Crime Committee questioning Frank Sinatra.
[News Script: Jets attack power plant]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Israelis]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story about Israeli troop returning back to their barracks after celebrating Yom Kippur, a holy Hebrew holiday and after a blitzkrieg in Leboanon smashing nests of Arab guerrillas.
Lebanon
This report provides an overview of Lebanon and current issues of U.S. interest. It provides background information, analyzes recent developments and key policy debates, and tracks legislation, U.S. assistance, and recent congressional action. The report includes information regarding Prime Minister Saad Hariri's resignation and subsequent reinstatement in November 2017.
Lebanese Internal Divisions and Palestinian Guerrilla Activity, 1967-1976
This study presents the thesis that religious cleavages in Lebanon have been the major factor behind most of the country's problems since the achievement of independence in 1943. The coming of the Palestinians in 1948 and in the 1970s upset Lebanon's delicate sociopolitical balance between Christians and Muslims in favor of the latter. The study's four chapters describe the origins of Lebanon's religious groups, the arrival of the Palestinians, Lebanon's emergence as the sole Palestinian guerrilla base, and the outbreak and aftermath of the Lebanese civil war of 1975-1976. Finally, suggestions are made for the resolution of the continuing Christian-Muslim conflict, notably the alternatives of federalism and confederalism as possible future political arrangements for Lebanon.
Lebanon
This report provides an overview of Lebanon and current issues of U.S. interest. It provides background information, analyzes recent developments and key policy debates, and tracks legislation, U.S. assistance, and recent congressional action. The report includes information regarding Prime Minister Saad Hariri's resignation and subsequent reinstatement in November 2017.
Lebanon and the Uprising in Syria: Issue for Congress
This report gives an overview of the social and political situation in Lebanon and in Syria, and discusses how the uprising in Syria could affect U.S. relations with Lebanon. Syria exerts a strong political influence on Lebanon and Syrian business interests remain prominent in the Lebanese economy. Both Lebanon and Syria have diverse societies where ethnic and sectarian groups compete and cooperate as they seek power within the confines of a rigid political system. Congress may review U.S. priorities and programs in relation to future U.S. policy in Lebanon.
[News Script: Education bill]
Photocopy of a script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Vatican spokesman discusses war criminals]
Photocopy of a script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Colonels held hostage]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Jordan attacks]
Photocopy of a script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: International military]
Photocopy of a script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Late president Nasser]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Mid East]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Evacuation planes cancelled]
Photocopy of a script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Rockets strike home]
Photocopy of a script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: War]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Cease fire in Jordan]
Photocopy of a script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
Lebanon
This report provides an overview of Lebanon and current issues of U.S. interest. It provides background information, analyzes recent developments and key policy debates, and tracks legislation, U.S. assistance, and recent congressional action
The Middle East and North Africa: Political Succession and Regime Stability
This report discusses the political future of various countries in the Middle East-North Africa (MENA) region. A change in the leadership in these countries could significantly affect their policies toward the United States and their willingness to cooperate with the United States in achieving the stability needed to advance U.S. interests in this important region.
[News Script: Prime minister disappears]
Photocopy of a script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Jordan]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Government and war news]
Photocopy of a script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: 15 hostages freed]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Mid-East]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
[News Script: Amman]
Script from the WBAP-TV/NBC station in Fort Worth, Texas, relating a news story.
Oral History Interview with Campbell Read, July 1, 2013
Interview with Campbell Read, a professor at Southern Methodist University and Dallas-area LGBT activist from Edinburgh, Scotland. Read discusses fighting police harassment, organizing a televised rebuttal to televangelist James Robison's condemnation of the gay community, important members of the community in Dallas and Denton, attending college in Lebanon and the United States, becoming involved with gay rights' activities at SMU, his family, and bird-watching. In appendix are pictures of demonstration signs Read carried and relevant newspaper clippings.
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