The Middle East tracks up or down in the American consciousness with Sunday school attendance and foreign policy crises. But for Abraham Marcus, it is his 8 to 5, crisis or not. In 1980, Marcus came to The University of Texas at Austin to teach history, and fifteen years later he became director of UT's Center for Middle Eastern Studies.

As a native Israeli working with faculty members from every country of the world's most volatile region, he is accustomed to the microscope of internal and external scrutiny. "One of the great tasks that faces me is that of being fair, even-handed, and professional in everything I do," he says. "Whether it's the distribution of funds or the providing of opportunities, it's very important that there not be any reality or even perception of any bias in favor of one group or another."

But his even-handedness seems at least as much a product of his genuine enthusiasm for all of the region's cultures. "I knew from high school that I wanted to study the Middle East," he remembers, but he had already begun his intercultural study at home; his Syrian-born Jewish parents, who still live in Tel-Aviv, spoke Arabic, played Arab music, and fed Abe Syrian food.

Marcus earned his bachelor's degree in Middle Eastern history at Tel-Aviv University in 1973, then moved to New York at age 27 to work on his master's degree and PhD at Columbia, which he completed in 1978 and 1979, respectively.

In an era of increasing specialization, he is an accomplished generalist, even something of a Middle Eastern Renaissance man, equally at ease discussing the tenets of Islam, the Algerian military, or the melismatic structures of Arab music. His teaching of UT's introductory course on the modern Middle East reflects this generalization, and perhaps the field demands it, for where more than in the Middle East are religion, politics, and culture so inseparable?

But he still specializes. His book The Middle East on the Eve of Modernity, an exhaustive social history of the Syrian city of Aleppo in the 18th century, recently won the Middle East Studies Association's prestigious book award.

"It was not entirely an accident that I chose Aleppo," Marcus says. "It's the city from which my family came."

But it also was an area and a time that had not been studied much, he says. Through the study of thousands of 18th century Arabic and Turkish archival records, that, to Western eyes, more closely resemble artwork than writing, Marcus paints a portrait of a society as it was before modernization, before Western ways and institutions began to change the way of life.

Marcus, who is proficient in Arabic, Hebrew, Ottoman Turkish, French, and German, was a historical consultant for the PBS series Timeline from 1985-90.

He has been a musician from childhood, trained in classical and flamenco guitar. So when, as an adult, he had the opportunity to buy an ud, a sort of Middle Eastern lute, he took it. The scholar in him took over, and he began to study the region's whole musical system--the theory and the aesthetics. "It helps me understand Western music even better," he says. "It's like learning a second language; you come to understand in a more formal and conscious way the structures of your own mother tongue." The week before this interview, Marcus accompanied Turkish singer Latif Bolat on the ud in front of an overflow audience of 500 on the UT campus.

There is a missionary quality to his scholarship, especially his music, a stress on the commonality and richness of a region perpetually torn apart by ancient differences. "I use the music as a way to cultivate appreciation of the richness and diversity of Middle Eastern cultures," he says, "and as a springboard for addressing from an unusual angle questions about art, aesthetics, fame, creativity, tradition, modernization, and the impact of technology."

From the relative safety of the West Mall Building's sixth floor, Dr. Marcus reflects on his homeland and a region in dire need of understanding and appreciation.

Are the major religions now apportioned pretty distinctly along national boundaries, or are there still a number of Jews in Syria, for instance?

Fifty years ago, the Muslim lands had close to a million Jews living as minorities from Morocco all the way to Afghanistan. Today, those lands, excluding Israel, have about 50,000 Jews. There has been a massive exodus of very ancient communities that have been living in those lands for many centuries, some of them predating the Arabs and Muslims. In countries like Syria or Iraq, you have just a handful of Jews, and likewise in Egypt--small groups of primarily old people, who will die, and the communities will probably become extinct. This is the end of a very old tradition of societies that used to be very pluralistic and included Jews, Christians, and Muslims living side by side in the cities and the countryside. The Jewish presence in the Middle East is limited almost entirely now to Israel, where you have five million Jews. There are relatively large communities in Morocco, Turkey, and Iran. The rest are very small, sometimes a handful--a couple of hundred.

Do you consider that re-segregation unfortunate?

In a way I do, because I look back at the time when people did live in relative harmony. I say relative, because there were some mutual prejudices and sometimes animosities, but on the whole, not a record of persecution of minorities in the Middle East. There was a record of coexistence within certain restrictions on the non-Muslims, in matters like clothing and the ability to rise to positions of power. But on the whole, it seems to me a shame that as we come to the end of the 20th century, with the ideas of tolerance and liberalism having spread throughout the world, we're seeing a counter-movement in which communities that have lived together have found it necessary to separate. There's almost an ethnic cleansing that has taken place.

Is that just the result of Zionism?

I think Zionism has a lot to do with it, but also the rise of nationalism throughout the Middle East. Communities began to define themselves in certain national terms of language and history, and the Jews often found themselves unaccepted as full members of society, as they were in Europe. They were always seen as some kind of outside community with a history and ways of its own, one that could not be fully digested. But also the rise of Zionism clearly created a lot of bad feelings and in various communities, all the way to the '40s when the whole issue of Palestine became one of international concern and finally Israel emerged. There were communities of Jews in the Middle East who lived in the region for many years who were not Zionists, but the rage of the local Muslims was turned against them. By association they became guilty and it became evident to many Jews that life would become untenable for them because of this atmosphere created by larger tensions in the regions. And that's where the flight, the exodus, took place. Mostly between 1948 and 1951. Baghdad had over 100,000 Jews in 1948; almost all of them left. In fact, on the Jewish Sabbath, many Muslim businessmen closed their doors because the Jewish bankers and businesses were not around. They were such an important presence in society, and not only in economic terms. When the Jews left Iraq, they took with them some of the most expert practitioners of Iraqi classical music. In some ways, I think the exodus of the Jewish communities was an impoverishment for the local societies, in areas like trade, literature, music, and crafts.

So, on balance, do you think the creation of Israel was good or bad? So far it sounds like it has been a negative thing for the region as a whole because it's taken away the pluralism of all of these countries.

Well, we shouldn't make too much out of this. The Jews were a small minority always in most of these areas. If you look at the larger minorities, they are Christians. The formation of Israel cannot be judged on this criterion alone, but should be looked at in terms of Jewish history and the place that the Jews had to find for themselves in the modern world. It so happened that they settled on a land that was inhabited by Arabs; that created a lot of tension between the two communities, and we are now seeing an attempt to find a final resolution, which would take the form of partitioning pre-1948 Palestine between the Jewish state and what would become a Palestinian state. Short of that, it's hard to see how coexistence can be established between the two peoples.

Do you have some prediction as to how all of this with Iraq will play out?

I think these arrangements now being made for resumption of weapons inspections deal only with one aspect of the larger set of issues that connect Iraq to the region and to the world community. My sense is that there will probably be future frictions, even if they don't lead to some major resumption of violence. Iraq has been, for the last decade, a source of instability in the region. In 1980, the Iraqis invaded Iran and launched a war that ranks in modern Middle Eastern history as the most brutal conflict on record. In 1988, they reached a cease fire with Iran, and two years later, invaded a fellow Arab country. Iraq is a country that, in the 1970s, was seen by scholars as the region's rising star, the new leader. It had all the elements of a country that could replace Egypt as the leading state in the Arab world: oil; a relatively educated, skilled population; water resources from its two rivers. And it was not overpopulated as was Egypt, which was weighed down by demographic, social, and economic problems. That Iraqi potential was squandered by these misadventures of Saddam.

Should we just wait for Saddam to die of natural causes, a la Castro, or is there any way to integrate Iraq as long as that regime is in power?

Many assume that, given Saddam's track record, the only way in which one can create a normal relationship with Iraq is to see a change of regime. Then the debate proceeds to the question of whether this can be done at all, whether it's feasible. If in fact he could be removed, who would replace him? If he's not removed, then do we just wait and contain him? How long can we keep it up? Or is there a need for a whole change in thinking, as some would prefer, based on the assumption that the Iraqis have been subjected to enough punishment, and that we should do business with Iraq and lift the sanctions, which clearly are very debilitating to the Iraqi people even if not affecting very much the regime? Iraq is not an easy case. The United States has not been able to devise a policy that Americans feel is really accomplishing very much, because it's based on containing rather than accomplishing any positive goal. He's unpredictable.

Did you ever think you'd live to see the day that the United States would be rooting for a Muslim group to overtake a secular government?

The opposition in Iraq is really a mixture of groups, not one single, united movement. That perhaps is one of the weaknesses of the opposition and explains why it has been difficult to build some kind of alternative, shadow government that could gradually establish a foothold in the country, let's say in the northern Kurdish area or the southern Shiite area. The opposition includes secular leaders, disenchanted officers, and others who have gone into exile, and they include also Islamist elements that have been suppressed and had to go underground. But many of these groups are at odds with each other, and not united to put up a common front. Add to that the Kurdish internal factional strife that has also undermined the cause of building a base of opposition to Saddam. He has been able to capitalize on the divisions. A couple of years ago he went into the north of Iraq and quelled a possible anti-Saddam movement that the United States was backing. There were two Kurdish factions and he managed to gain the support of one, and undermine any viable opposition to himself.

He considers his government a secular government, and yet he invokes Islam when it serves him, doesn't he?

That is a pattern that you find throughout much of the Middle East, where regimes are very wary of the Islamic movements and deal with them on two fronts: paying lip-service to Islam--using rhetoric that is designed to appeal to Muslim sentiments, passing laws that invoke Islamic laws--and at the same time, suppressing these movements--trying to restrict them by keeping them out of politics or banning them altogether, exiling their members or putting them in prison. Or, if they're allowed to operate, restricting their activities and publications. We have here a dual approach designed, on one hand, to debilitate these movements, and on the other to appropriate some of their rhetoric to present a more Islamic face to the public, which most people do not buy. They can see it is public relations.

In the last couple of months we've seen terrorist attacks in Egypt and Algeria, Muslim groups opposed to secular government. What is it about secular government that they find so intolerable?

The Islamic movements hold that to have a truly Islamic society, it is essential that Islamic law prevail. In the past, all Islamic states have had, as their basic code of law, a set of rules, principles, and regulations known as the shari'a. This is regarded by Muslims as a divinely ordained law drawn from the Qur'an, from sayings and deeds of Muhammad, and from juridical opinions. It forms a comprehensive set of rules by which a believing Muslim should live. It was always seen as the role of the state to enforce those laws. Here in the United States, it is not proper, in fact, not even legal constitutionally, to impose religious law on the population. In the past, Islamic states had as their primary function the enforcement of the religious law--making sure that Muslims on earth lived a righteous life that would prepare them for the afterlife. It was definitely the role of the state, not something left to the conscience of the individual.

In the past 200 years, governments have created new sets of laws that replaced Islamic law and have followed secular codes and imposed them as the law of the land. For Muslims, this is anathema. A Muslim state is designed in such a way that it will rest on Islamic law and Islamic ethics. Those who regard things in this light see Western moral codes and norms as loose, foreign, and unacceptable, and feel that their system is more spiritual.

The second element that has led Muslim opposition to governments is disenchantment of segments of the population with their economic and social reality--hardship, lack of prosperity, lack of housing, and so forth. Muslim groups have emerged that basically proposed a system that they said will be based on social justice to correct all the misdeeds of these secular rulers who have messed up things and have not delivered on their promises. And for many of those disenchanted and alienated by the system, there arrives a moment at which they say, "Maybe we can try this. Maybe they can provide better for our needs." Many of the Muslim groups that operate in the region have welfare organizations that provide care for the sick, for children, and, on the whole, create a network at the lay, grassroots level, to which people can relate. They may say "Government doesn't do anything for us, but these groups do." I should add that support for Islamic movements comes from the lower classes of society as well as from professionals like us--journalists, professors, engineers, doctors, who also see this as a viable alternative.

So there's a socialist attraction, or what you called "social justice"?

When I say social justice, it is not necessarily socialist, but rather an approach that suggests that under an Islamic government there will be greater attention paid to the needs of the poor and the disadvantaged in society. The population of the region is growing very, very fast. Bear this demographic reality in mind. There is a lot of pressure on resources. So this thinking is not necessarily geared to a socialist, command economy of the Eastern European style that, in fact, the secular republican regimes in countries like Egypt, Syria, and Iraq have brought to the region. Now there are attempts to privatize and get out of this system that has weighed down economies in a structure of inefficiency. The social and economic programs of the Islamists present a rather vague set of promises about reversing the maldistribution of wealth and providing services to the disadvantaged. The Islamist politicians often answer questions in a very general and abstract way. When they come to power, they'll have to deal with reality, and at that point, it will be a little more challenging.

Some things are the same everywhere!

(Laughs) Yes, you need votes. You need support.

Saddam now has fired missiles on Israel, Iran, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Why, in this current crisis, can the United States not get more support in the region, especially from Iran or Saudi Arabia, for strikes?

In 1990, the issue was much more clear-cut. Iraq invaded another country and essentially announced that it was annexing it as its 19th province. That, in the region itself, was seen clearly as an act of aggression--one Arab state essentially digesting another. It was not so difficult, therefore, for most Arab leaders to recognize that this was an act that they could not condone. It had implications for the security of the whole region. Saddam had access to the gulf, and to immense new oil resources, and was now sitting on Saudi Arabia's border.

Now we are looking at a situation, seven years after the war, that is much less clear. Iraq has clearly suffered from the sanctions, and many Arabs feel that Iraq has been penalized more than enough; that the penalties have hurt the people of Iraq rather than their leader, who is continuing to build palaces and survive with his repressive regime getting the support it needs, through coercion or appropriation of the wealth of the country. I believe that many in the Arab world itself, even the leaders, have no sympathy for Saddam and would be very happy to see him go. At the popular level, there is a sentiment of support for the Iraqi people, a sympathy for their own plight. That's what has put the brake on the possibility of support from various Arab states for American military action. Gulf states are reluctant now to put themselves in a position where they become staging grounds for attacks on Iraq.

Now, the European countries are also less enthusiastic and have left the United States almost isolated, with the exception of Great Britain. Here again, Russia with its new foreign minister is taking a very different course from the Russia of 1990 and '91. Under Primakov, an Arabist and old friend of Saddam Hussein, we have a different kind of policy that seeks to approach foreign affairs on Russian terms rather than U.S.-led terms. The United States can probably expect considerably less cooperation from Russia in the near future.

The French have had a long-standing relationship with Iraq and would probably be happy to see a normalization that allows the pursuit of their particular interests. The United States is in that difficult role of remaining a superpower and a policeman, without all the kids on the block being interested in aiding it because they have their own interests in mind and find it politically awkward at times to back U.S. policy.

Saddam has forfeited more than $100 billion in oil revenue because of sanctions. What makes these weapons that valuable to him?

The sanctions have worked up to a point, but he clearly has some money to keep going. Iraq still conducts trade with its neighbors and manages to sell oil illegally. If the costs of the sanctions are high, they're high for the population itself, not so much for the regime. The regime has maintained a semblance of its military force, although much weakened. It has invested heavily in internal security. There are several security organizations in Iraq, some of them competing, that collect intelligence, suppress opposition, and protect the president. These are well-funded. The regime has sufficient funds to keep going, and it makes American policymakers unhappy that this man is still around, maintains himself, and is able to defy world opinion and to garner some sympathy despite his conduct over the years.

As for the weapons of mass destruction, I don't know if anyone actually knows what he has stored in his various caches and how much of it is deliverable. What is known, though, is that his country has bought substantial amounts of chemical agents used traditionally for the creation of chemical weapons and also has developed biological weapons. How much of those are still available and can be used to attack neighboring states, we don't know. But the assumption is that there clearly is something there, because in the last round of inspections, it appears that the inspectors did come close to identifying some of the more sensitive manufacturing and storage areas.

It's sometimes hard to explain Saddam in rational terms. It will take perhaps two decades to restore Iraq to where it was economically before 1980, such harm has been done to it. But clearly this has not weighed too heavily with him, because one can imagine a situation in which another leader would have said, "Okay, we will dismantle all of these weapons, we want to get rid of these sanctions, we want to resume the sale of oil, we declare that we are at peace with our neighbors, we have no territorial ambitions, we will try to work out a deal with our Iraqi Kurds to make sure that they feel comfortable within Iraq, and the same with the Shiites." This would present a set of steps that could have resolved in principle many of Iraq's existing problems within the region, with its own people, and with the world at large. Clearly none of these have been really addressed.

Is there more or less Islamic militancy today than there was 15 or 20 years ago?

Since the '70s, scholars have alternated between predictions that the Islamic movements are the wave of the future and are going to overtake many of the regimes, and announcements that the movements are ebbing, have lost their wind, and do not pose a threat. I feel that regimes have basically succeeded in containing these movements. Only two countries have Islamic regimes in place: Iran and the Sudan. Every other country in the region has foiled the movements, either through suppression, as in Egypt, with attacks on and imprisonment of their leaders, or by incorporating them into the political system as parties but with all kinds of restrictions. What happened in Algeria is an interesting case: the Islamic movement was in the process of taking over, and the military stepped in and aborted their rise to power through democratic means. I don't see any immediate Islamic threat to any regime.

And yet it seems the terrorism will continue.

In some places, yes. In Algeria it is particularly incredible in its brutality. We have the case of Egypt where there have been spells of violence against tourists, against government installations, and random attacks on villagers. But the Egyptian government seems to be in control. Syria had its spell of violence in the late '70s. In 1982, President Assad sent his army against an Islamic uprising in the city of Hama in northern Syria, and part of the old city was leveled; an estimated 30,000 people were killed. Since then, things have been quiet, but it clearly took acts of brutality in which the regime was willing to fight its own people.

Does terrorist activity affect your faculty's and students' ability to travel and study abroad?

Unfortunately it does. We do encourage our students to study in the region, but their options are limited by the realities. A place like Libya is not open. Algeria is not a place we could recommend. Lebanon until recently was a country that the State Department prohibited Americans to visit. Iraq is not available. Iran is problematic, but there may be some openings now. Yemen was for a period engulfed in civil strife. These difficulties do limit our options, but the region is large enough to leave many opportunities open. Our students and faculty clearly have to handle themselves with a lot of care.

What are the most popular countries for students or sabbaticals?

Egypt is visited often. Many of our faculty and students have gone to Israel and the Palestinian territories. We have exchange agreements with institutions in Turkey and Morocco. Syria is another country that is really very promising in terms of research and field work. If there is a comprehensive peace, I could see the whole eastern Mediterranean--Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel--as a region in which very interesting educational activities could take place, because it shares a common history--the Crusader past, the Ottoman, the Greek, the Roman, the Islamic. One should travel throughout that region regardless of boundaries to get a full grasp of the layers of civilization that shaped this area.

What do you make of this recent overture that was made by Iran to America? Might this blossom into a normal relationship?

I think it has the potential to blossom and to restore a degree of normalcy, which people on both sides would welcome. This is easier said than done, because there is a legacy of ill feeling and mutual suspicion that has yet to dissipate on both sides. And there are regional political diplomatic issues that need to be resolved as well: Iran's relationship with Iraq, its opposition to the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians, its support for various groups that engage in terrorism. And on the part of Iranians, the release of funds that were frozen after the revolution and have never been released. But some break, some opening, has been created, and with some readiness on both sides, over time improvements will take place. In academia, there will be great interest in seeing that happen because Iran is a pivotal country in the region. It has a long history of importance--strategic, cultural, economic--in the Middle East.

Was Khomeini's death the beginning of that crack?

No, it was more the recent rise of President Khatami, who is presenting a more moderate image and is clearly interested in establishing a greater degree of normalcy. The Iranian population is growing at 2.5 to 3 percent a year, meaning that the population doubles in 20 to 25 years. It now counts about 65 million people. With all of its oil resources, it still needs educated people who can benefit from institutions abroad, foreign expertise, and foreign trade. It needs to be integrated into the larger global system, and many Iranians are very pragmatic about this. They see it as a necessity, without necessarily feeling they have to become subservient to Western interests or adopt Western morals.

Let's also remember we are now 20 years after the Islamic revolution. We have a new generation that has lived with the new regime in place and may not have any memory of the Shah's period and associations with it except through what they learn. There's also a certain degree of fatigue with the continued hostility with the greatest world power.

The Great Satan?

Yes. For many Iranians, America is still a very tempting society. They watch American sitcoms, as they have access to satellite television. They are attracted by the United States. Critical as they may be of the United States, there's something tempting for them about American gadgets, culture, clothing, and ways. Much of the Middle East displays this kind of ambivalence--resenting American policies and support for Israel, while at the same time admiring America's technology and prosperity. You find this among the youth, who listen to American music, dress in gym shoes, jeans, and T-shirts.

What does the future hold for the Middle East?

The Middle East is facing a number of challenges that will affect its future. This region is one in which almost all the regimes are authoritarian. Everywhere there is a certain yearning for a more open system, one in which people can express themselves more freely, participate in political life, read press that is free, listen to media that they can trust, and build a civil society in which they participate in the political life of their community. Middle Easterners are sophisticated in terms of their political savvy. They read, they listen to news, they talk about politics, but they often fear that it is too dangerous for them to get involved in the affairs of their own countries.

Another challenge is to provide for the social and economic needs of the population. In particular, the region needs to address its integration into the larger global economy, and in fact, the weakness of its own internal trade. Middle Easterners trade relatively little with each other. They trade more with outsiders, and their trade with outsiders is relatively limited. They buy many manufactured goods that they don't produce. They sell a lot of raw materials, primarily oil, to the outside world. But in the last 10 or 15 years, the Middle East has been left very much behind in global and economic development, and that has partly to do with the kind of political systems in place. They maintain economies in which the public sector is very large and is draining resources. The state is subsidizing a lot of commodities, runs a lot of factories that are not productive. The IMF or the World Bank have come in and said, "You need to reform. You need to privatize and put your house in order to be competitive." The regimes are reluctant to give up the economic power they have because it's like giving away parcels of their political power.

Then there's regional security, primarily resolving the Arab-Israeli conflict. This is one of the more endemic conflicts and, if resolved, would contribute to a greater degree of accessibility of the region to foreign businessmen, to scholars, to tourists, and in general to all societies.

With respect to all of those, are you optimistic or pessimistic?

On the political front, in the last 10 to 15 years, there's been a degree of opening up by a variety of regimes that have allowed multiparty systems to replace single-party systems and permitted elections and a greater degree of participation in politics. But all these experimentations with democracy have been controlled from above, piecemeal, and very cautious. They have gone only so far, but they are promising signs. Some regimes are unaffected. Syria, Iraq, and Libya are often provided as examples of regimes that remain repressive and brutal, but if you look at Jordan, Egypt, and Morocco, changes have been made that have provided for a greater degree of expression and opened more political space for the public. It's hard to say if they will make many more concessions, because regimes are not eager to set up full-fledged democratic systems that will essentially result in their own removal.

Not many Gorbachevs there?

No, that's it. Since you mention him, when Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union underwent their revolutions in '89 and '90, there was hope that something similar would take place in the Middle East, that this was the next region where the Ceausescus would be swept away and more open societies would be established. It didn't happen, and in fact, it is often argued that many of the regimes in the Middle East have become coup-proof. They have reached such a level of control that it is very hard to remove them. There has not been a coup in the Middle East since 1970. I say this because if you look at the period from 1949 to 1970, there were dozens of them all over the region. Syria had three in 1949 alone, and several after that! But since then, regimes have perfected a system of internal control that is very hard to undo. Rising against these regimes can be suicidal, so the hope is that these regimes themselves gradually relax their controls, open up, and realize it's not the end of the world.

On the economic front, reforms have been taking place in different countries. There has been some investment in privatization, liberalizing the economies, inviting foreign capital, but that has been limited. The states themselves have a vested interest in maintaining control over the resources. By giving away factories, you're giving away the workers who have been dependent on state checks, the patronage and the subsidies that you can provide. Many people in that old system were dependent on the state and happy to be dependent on the state, and therefore had a vested interest in it. The pressure for change is largely an external one; it stems from developments in the global economy and from world financial organizations that are willing to provide support and funding on condition that reforms take place. The medicine they prescribe is sometimes very bitter to swallow.

For example, food subsidies are seen by the IMF and the World Bank as wasteful. If a government is spending hundreds of millions of dollars a year just to make bread cheaper, it's not going toward anything that creates jobs. But every attempt by governments in the region in the last 30 years to cut or remove subsidies has led to immediate riots. People are in the streets right away, burning, breaking into stores, and expressing their despair, because they cannot, living as they do at bare subsistence levels, accommodate sudden rises in the prices of wheat, oil, butter, and other staple foods.

On the Arab-Israeli conflict, unfortunately, things have come to a standstill. But the process itself seems irreversible. The two peoples have made a sort of strategic decision to accept each other; it's the modalities of that accommodation--the distribution of land, of resources, of rights--that need to be worked out. It's going to take some years to accomplish this, even with eager leaders on both sides acting in good faith. But the main step has been taken; that is, the recognition that the two peoples must co-exist, and that the Palestinians eventually will develop a political entity of their own that will probably be sovereign. That may bring about a final resolution of this age-old conflict.

By Avrel Seale,
from Texas Alcalde magazine (May/June 1998)
Photographs by Robert Pandya

Links:

UT Austin:

• Center for Middle Eastern Studies

• Dr. Abraham Marcus

• Department of Middle Eastern Languages and Cultures

• UT International Office

• The Alcalde magazine