Pens and Swords

by Dunsky, Marda

• ISBN13: 9780231133494
• ISBN10: 0231133499
• Format: Paperback
• Copyright: 2008-01-01
• Publisher: Columbia Univ Pr

Summary

As world attention is renewed and refocused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the sixtieth anniversary of its seminal year of 1948, Marda Dunsky takes a close look at how more than two dozen major American print and broadcast outlets have reported the conflict in recent years. Beginning with the failed Camp David summit of July 2000 through the waning of the second Palestinian uprising in the summer of 2004, she finds that the media omit two key contextual elements: the significant impact that U.S. policy has had and continues to have on the trajectory of the conflict, and the way international law and consensus have addressed the key issues of Israeli settlement and annexation policies and Palestinian refugees. Dunsky explores how reports of the conflict routinely take on the contours of American policy and rarely challenge the premises of this "Washington consensus." She also examines the media's responses to allegations of biased coverage and gauges the effect that mainstream news reporting has on public opinion and U.S. foreign policy.

Table of Contents

Introduction

Ex-Soviet Central Asia The Tajik Party of the Islamic Renaissance (PIR) The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) Hizb ul-Tahrir (Party of Liberation)

Afghanistan: From the Islamists to the Taliban and Al-Qaida

Pakistan: From the Religious Conservatism to Political Radicalism Deobandi Movements and Violent Action The Active Jihadist Tendency in Kashmir and Afghanistan from the Harakat ul-Ansat to Jaish-i-Muhammad Salafism and Jihadism

Connections and Dynamics The Al-Qaida Movement and the Afghans The Fusion Between the Taliban and Al-Qaida The Role of Pakistan The Pakistani Military Intelligence Services and the Radical Tendency Pakistani Islamists at the Heart of Transnational Links The Pakistanisation of Al-Qaida The Blurring of Strategic and Ideological Alignments

Conclusion

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