Reviewing the Middle East

I was profoundly honoured when Arena asked me to review its contributions on the Middle East. No other independent publisher has been so committed to the task of both (re-)describing our geopolitical situation and offering prescriptions for redress that are neither shrill nor doctrinaire. Admirably, Arena has resisted the professionalized peer-reviewed journal's drift towards specialization and coterie discussion; it has taken no notice of the niche journal's fetish for theoretical shadow-boxing, the narcissism of small differences that has increasingly depoliticized academic discussion. Instead, in Arena's pages, sober analysis of current affairs shares space with philosophical meditation, expansive cultural criticism and utopian speculation. For Arena the only remit that matters is that of urgent and robust critique. Still, I have to confess to approaching the task of reviewing Arena's commentary on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with a degree of dread. Arena&#39...