Anthropology of the Middle East

This introduction is different from a usual editorial, which is basically about the articles in the issue. As we had sent a call for papers on the topic ‘Middle East in Turmoil’, this introduction includes not only an appraisal of our articles, but also the author's view of what has been produced by various anthropology associations in regard to the events ever since October 2023. We will see that some had been active before the above date, and we will discuss journals, publishers, university faculties and students. At the end, we pay more attention to prevalent terminologies, and we finish with two very famous poems.

This article examines Hamas's growth in Lebanon after the 1992 deportation of 415 members to the no-man's land between Lebanon and Israel, leading to ties with the Lebanese branch of the Islamic Brotherhood. Over time, Hamas developed a complex organization rivaling the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), with offices and representatives in Lebanon's refugee camps. The article argues that Hamas, rooted in the camps and driven by pragmatism, cannot be easily destroyed. Its claims to statehood, the right of return, and resistance, symbolized by Naji al-Ali's character Handala, embodies the enduring Palestinian nationalism. Despite the targeted killing of Hamas leaders, the movement's ideas persist, with poetry reflecting its deep connection to Palestinian social and political life, resistant to the military actions that has made Gaza a humanitarian disaster.

This article reviews orientalists’ misrepresentations regarding the Orient and Islam. Many Western scholars have touched on the differences between Westerners and Arab and Muslim Orientals. Orientalists have also drawn analogies between Christianity and Islam. In his book Orientalism, Said depicted the negative attitude of some orientalists’ texts towards Islam and the Orient. However, there are also literary works about the Orient in Western culture that employ objective criteria. The vision of Islam is analysed according to the orientalists whose names are mentioned in the book of Orientalism. However, other texts present greater equanimity. That vision is still present nowadays in the Western mindset towards the Middle Eastern situation. Said's approaches explain the issue brilliantly, and could provide some clues for solutions.

Panel E, ‘Orient’, at the Vienna Kunsthistorisches Museum (Museum of Art History) is the focus of my work in progress. I look into its presentation in the museum, and the collection of small portraits of which it is part. Panel E is composed of 34 portraits of rulers from the ‘Balkans and the Orient’. The portraits belonged to Habsburg Archduke Ferdinand II's (1529–1595) broad collection of wonders and objects, suits of armour, and biographies, which he put together in his homestead, Ambras Castle in Austria's Tyrol. My research looks at these little portraits in the changing context of their roughly 440 years of existence. What did they, their production, collection, inclusion and combination signify in the sixteenth century, and what in the twenty-first? The completed work is scheduled for publication in the Ottomania series by Hollitzer Wissenschaftsverlag, Vienna, in 2025.

This article is a reflection on the importance of ethnic and religious identity in defining a nation in the Mediterranean and Near Eastern world. Examples of tolerance towards differences are rare. We examine a marginal case of coexistence of opposing traditions in a universe where the rule, especially in the area of kinship, is the triumph of ethnic and religious affiliation. The presentation is based on examples from Mediterranean and Middle Eastern countries.

This December 2023 article, which analyses the Gaza crisis and explores ways out of it, is more relevant than ever. The most reactionary government in the history of the state of Israel is continuing its policy of ethnic cleansing. The people of Gaza are fleeing the bombs and facing starvation. The international community is divided and navigating in the fog. The risks of military escalation in the Middle East are increasing every day. Only the recognition of a sovereign and contiguous Palestinian state will resolve a 75-year-old conflict, at the cost of a mutually negotiated redistribution of the Palestinian land. The advent of a new generation of leaders on both sides is essential to this end.

The India–Middle East–Europe Economic Corridor (IMEC) aims to enhance trade between Asia, the Gulf and Europe. Geopolitical stability is crucial for its success, particularly with Israel as a key transit hub. This article examines the impact of Operation Al Aqsa Flood on IMEC, highlighting the risks posed by Israel's instability. It offers insights into potential disruptions and emphasises the need for strategic precautions. The research underscores the importance of developing alternative routes and contingency plans to mitigate the effects of geopolitical upheaval in Israel, ensuring IMEC can achieve its full potential.

This article analyses three recent works of cinema and television, produced by Owj Arts and Media Organisation, an Iranian pro-regime cultural institution. The works under examination are the film Khorūj, the series Āqāzādeh and the three-episode miniseries Rūz-e balvā. The article identifies a new trend in Iranian media production that explicitly addresses the pathologies and weaknesses of Iranian political reality. This represents a breach of the long-standing limitations on the critique of those in power in cinematography. However, given the regulatory context of censorship, the shifts in the Islamic Republic's cultural policy and the challenges posed by an image crisis facing the Iranian authorities, it can be proposed that, despite their transgressive nature and innovative narratives, all three analysed productions could in fact be considered to help reinforce and consolidate the stability of the regime and regain the confidence and legitimacy lost following the events of 2009.

Soraya Tremayne, Inconceivable Iran: To Reproduce or Not to Reproduce? (New York: Berghahn, 2023). 310 pp.

Nezar AlSayyad and Heba Safey Eldeen (eds), Cinematic Cairo: Egyptian Urban Modernity from Reel to Real (New York: American University in Cairo Press, 2022). 324 pp, 71 ill, ISBN 1649031335, $44.96.