Books by Gilbert Achcar

The Arabs and the Holocaust: The Arab-Israeli War of Narratives

by Gilbert Achcar

There is no more inflammatory topic than the Arabs and the Holocaust―the phrase alone can occasion outrage. Political scientist Gilbert Achcar analyzes the various Arab responses to Nazism, from the earliest intimations of the genocide, through the creation of Israel and the destruction of Palestine and up to our own time, critically assessing the political and historical context for these responses and offering by the same token a unique ideological mapping of the Arab world. While challenging distortions of the historical record, Achcar makes no concessions to anti-Semitism or Holocaust denial. This pathbreaking, essential book provides a new basis for Arab-Israeli and Arab-Western understanding.

People Want

by Gilbert Achcar

“The people want . . .”: This first half of slogans chanted by millions of Arab protesters since 2011 revealed a long-repressed craving for democracy. But huge social and economic problems were also laid bare by the protestors’ demands.

Simplistic interpretations of the uprising that has been shaking the Arab world since a young street vendor set himself on fire in Central Tunisia, on 17 December 2010, seek to portray it as purely political, or explain it by culture, age, religion, if not conspiracy theories. Instead, Gilbert Achcar locates the deep roots of the upheaval in the specific economic features that hamper the region’s development and lead to dramatic social consequences, including massive youth unemployment. Intertwined with despotism, nepotism, and corruption, these features, produced an explosive situation that was aggravated by post-9/11 U.S. policies. The sponsoring of the Muslim Brotherhood by the Emirate of Qatar and its influential satellite channel, Al Jazeera, contributed to shaping the prelude to the uprising. But the explosion’s deep roots, asserts Achcar, mean that what happened until now is but the beginning of a revolutionary process likely to extend for many more years to come.

The author identifies the actors and dynamics of the revolutionary process: the role of various social and political movements, the emergence of young actors making intensive use of new information and communication technologies, and the nature of power elites and existing state apparatuses that determine different conditions for regime overthrow in each case. Drawing a balance-sheet of the uprising in the countries that have been most affected by it until now, i.e. Tunisia, Egypt, Yemen, Bahrain, Libya and Syria, Achcar sheds special light on the nature and role of the movements that use Islam as a political banner. He scrutinizes attempts at co-opting the uprising by these movements and by the oil monarchies that sponsor them, as well as by the protector of these same monarchies: the U.S. government. Underlining the limitations of the “Islamic Tsunami” that some have used as a pretext to denigrate the whole uprising, Gilbert Achcar points to the requirements for a lasting solution to the social crisis and the contours of a progressive political alternative.

Perilous Power: The Middle East and U.S. Foreign Policy Dialogues on Terror, Democracy, War, and Justice

by Noam Chomsky, Gilbert Achcar, Stephen R. Shalom

The volatile Middle East is the site of vast resources, profound passions, frequent crises, and long-standing conflicts, as well as a major source of international tensions and a key site of direct US intervention. Two of the most astute analysts of this part of the world are Noam Chomsky, the preeminent critic of U.S, foreign policy, and Gilbert Achcar, a leading specialist of the Middle East who lived in that region for many years. In their new book, Chomsky and Achcar bring a keen understanding of the internal dynamics of the Middle East and of the role of the United States, taking up all the key questions of interest to concerned citizens, including such topics as terrorism, fundamentalism, conspiracies, oil, democracy, self-determination, anti-Semitism, and anti-Arab racism, as well as the war in Afghanistan, the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and the sources of U.S. foreign policy. This book provides the best readable introduction for all who wish to understand the complex issues related to the Middle East from a perspective dedicated to peace and justice.

Gaza Catastrophe The Genocide in World-Historical Perspective

by Gilbert Achcar

"A left-wing materialist perspective that has faded in prominence in the Arab world in recent times."―The Irish Times
"Exposes the bankruptcy of Western Liberalism."―Jacobin
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From a foremost expert on the Middle East—a searing indictment of the forces that led to genocidal war on Gaza and its reverberations across the globe.
 
The destruction rained on Gaza has been seen and accepted by many as a vengeful overreaction to the reckless Hamas-led attack on October 7, 2023. This book, however, argues that the new catastrophe befalling the Palestinian people is the culmination of a decades-long pattern that runs parallel with Israel’s inexorable shift to the right. It also contends that Gaza was the final nail in the coffin of the Atlanticist “international liberal order” before Donald Trump came back to the White House.
 
Gaza Catastrophe reckons with the lethal consequences far greater than the Nakba of 1948 and the significance of a war waged by an advanced military-industrial state—with full US participation and open support from the West. Renowned political scientist Gilbert Achcar explores the dynamics of a complex historical process that culminated in the war on Gaza and wider conflict in the Middle East. Achcar offers critical insights on the genocide’s regional and international consequences, as well as radical critiques of Zionism, Hamas, and other state and non-state actors. This volume is essential to understanding the root causes of the violence destabilizing the entire region and the wider world, as well as the conditions required to bring it to an end.

The New Cold War The United States, Russia, and China from Kosovo to Ukraine

by Gilbert Achcar

A leading international relations expert uncovers the key stages that led from the end of the Cold War to the War in Ukraine.

With the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, warnings of a new Cold War proliferated. In fact, argues Gilbert Achcar in this timely new account, the New Cold War has been ongoing since the late 1990s.

Racing to solidify its position as the last remaining superpower, the US alienated Russia and China, pushing them closer and rebooting the 'old' Cold War with disastrous implications. Vladimir Putin's consequent rise and imperialist reinvention, along with Xi Jinping's own ascendancy and increasingly autocratic tendencies, would culminate, respectively, in the invasion of Ukraine and mounting tensions over Taiwan and trade.

Was all this inevitable? What comes after Ukraine, and what might the contours of a more peaceful world look like? These questions and many others are addressed in this essential book by one of the most seasoned analysts of international relations.

With erudition and sobering analysis, Achcar argues that only by understanding this new landscape can we begin to imagine the contours of an alternative, more peaceful world.