Through Different Eyes: Two Leading Americans, a Jew and an Arab, Debate U.S. Policy in the Middle East

Bookbinder is chairman of a coordinating body of Washington representatives of 25 leading Jewish organizations. Former senator James Abourezk is founder-chairman of the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee. In the first section of this provocative and illuminating volume each separately addresses the question, ""Is U.S. policy in the Middle East in America's best interest?'' This is followed by a rebuttal by each to the other's statement. The final section is an edited transcript of their face-to-face debate. This is a remarkable confrontation between two experts whose views differ drastically. Bookbinder and Abourezk discusswith occasional fireworkssuch issues as the legitimacy of the state of Israel, the rights of the Palestinians, the relevance and nonrelevance of the Holocaust in the debate, the validity or unfairness of the media's presentation of good-guy Israeli and bad-guy Arab, and the influence on Congress of the Jewish lobby. (October 20)