Shami 13Introduction
Seteney Shami
As 2008 was drawing to a close and this volume was being finalized, the
Middle East and North Africa region was once again gripped by a new
round of extreme violence with the air and ground Israeli attacks on the
Gaza strip. Arab populations poured into the streets in protest, as much
against their own governments as against Israel and its supporters in the
West, while Arab leaders crisscrossed the region in search of an elusive
common strategy and response. The U.N. Security Council held one dead-
locked session after another, while images of victims and fighters flooded
television screens around the world.
ce again, the repetitious media representations served to fix On
the Middle East as a theater of action, whose publics are revealed to the
globe only through violence, suffering and frustration. However, the well-
rehearsed statements by Western commentators concerning “cycles of
violence in the Middle East” masked important re-alignments of power
and public response in the region and beyond. Some Arab states were
coordinating action and reaction with Turkey, while others reached out
to Iran and the Muslim countries of South and Southeast Asia. The huge
Turkish public outcry over Gaza exceeded Arab and even Iranian pro-
tests. Much more visible than before was the international mobilization
of Arab, Middle Eastern and Muslim communities in Europe, North and
South America and Australia, many of whom seemed better allied than
previously with sympathetic political groupings in their host countries.