The Middle East is a geopolitical region encompassing the Arabian Peninsula, the Levant, Turkey, Egypt, Iran, and Iraq. The term came into widespread usage as a replacement of the term Near East beginning in the early 20th century. The term "Middle East" has led to some confusion over its changing definitions, and being seen as too Eurocentric. The region includes the vast majority of the territories included in the closely associated definition of West Asia, but without the South Caucasus, and additionally includes all of Egypt and all of Turkey.
Anti-Arab racism includes opposition to, dislike, fear, or hatred of Arab people.
Bernard Lewis, was a British American historian specialized in Oriental studies. He was also known as a public intellectual and political commentator. Lewis was the Cleveland E. Dodge Professor Emeritus of Near Eastern Studies at Princeton University. Lewis's expertise was in the history of Islam and the interaction between Islam and the West.
Daniel Pipes is an American commentator on foreign policy and the Middle East. He is the president of the Middle East Forum, and publisher of its Middle East Quarterly journal. His writing focuses on American foreign policy and the Middle East as well as criticism of Islam.
Dennis B. Ross is an American diplomat and author. He has served as the Director of Policy Planning in the State Department under President George H. W. Bush, the special Middle East coordinator under President Bill Clinton, and was a special adviser for the Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia to the former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
Manucher Ghorbanifar is an expatriate Iranian arms dealer and former SAVAK agent.
The relations between Iran and Israel can be divided into four major phases: the ambivalent period from 1947 to 1953, the friendly period during the era of the Pahlavi dynasty from 1953 to 1979, the worsening period following the Iranian Revolution from 1979 to 1990, and the ongoing period of open hostility since the end of the Gulf War in 1991. In 1947, Iran was among 13 countries that voted against the United Nations Partition Plan for the British Mandate of Palestine. Two years later, Iran also voted against Israel's admission to the United Nations.
Michael Rubin is a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He previously worked as an official at the Pentagon, where he dealt with issues relating to the Middle East, and as political adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority. He writes frequently on issues relating to the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, Taiwan, and American diplomacy.
Zvi (Zvika) Yehezkeli is an Israeli television journalist and documentarian. He is an Arab affairs correspondent and head of the Arab desk at Israeli News 13, the news division of Israel 13.
The Begin–Sadat Center for Strategic Studies is an Israeli think tank affiliated with Bar-Ilan University and supported by the NATO Mediterranean Initiative, conducting policy-relevant research on Middle Eastern and global strategic affairs, particularly as they relate to the national security and foreign policy of Israel and regional peace and stability. The center's mission is to contribute to promoting peace and security in the Middle East, through policy-oriented researches on national security in the Middle East. It is located at the Social Sciences Faculty of Bar-Ilan University. The center was founded by Thomas Hecht, a Canadian-Jewish leader, and was dedicated to Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat, who signed the Egypt–Israel peace treaty, the first peace agreement ever signed between Israel and an Arab country.
All three major Abrahamic religions originated from the Middle East and are present in the Middle East. Islam is the most prevalent religion in the contemporary Middle East.
Christianity, which originated in the Middle East during the 1st century AD, is a significant minority religion within the region, characterized by the diversity of its beliefs and traditions, compared to Christianity in other parts of the Old World. Christians now make up approximately 5% of the Middle Eastern population, down from 13% in the early 20th century. Cyprus is the only Christian majority country in the Middle East, with Christians forming between 76% and 78% of the country's total population, most of them adhering to Eastern Orthodox Christianity. Lebanon has the second highest proportion of Christians in the Middle East, around 40%, predominantly Maronites. Egypt has the next largest proportion of Christians, at around 10% of its total population. Copts, numbering around 10 million, constitute the single largest Christian community in the Middle East.
Ze’ev Maghen is Professor of Arabic and Islamic History and former Chairman of the Department of Middle East Studies at Bar-Ilan University. He is a senior fellow at the Begin-Sadat Institute for Strategic Studies, as well as the creator of the Middle East and Islamic Studies program at the Shalem College in Jerusalem. He lectures regularly at Reichman University.
Muslim supporters of Israel refers to both Muslims and cultural Muslims who support the right to self-determination of the Jewish people and the likewise existence of a Jewish homeland in the Southern Levant, traditionally known as the Land of Israel and corresponding to the modern polity known as the State of Israel. Muslim supporters of the Israeli state are widely considered to be a rare phenomenon in light of the ongoing Israeli–Palestinian conflict and the larger Arab–Israeli conflict. Within the Muslim world, the legitimacy of the State of Israel has been challenged since its inception, and support for Israel's right to exist is a minority orientation. Pro-Israel Muslims have faced opposition from both moderate Muslims and Islamists.
Dr. Tsilla Hershco is an Israeli historian and political scientist. She specializes in France-Israel relations, EU-Israel relations, U.S.-France relations, France and the Mideast conflict, Jews and Muslims in France as well as the History of the Jews in France, the Holocaust in France and the Jewish resistance in France. She earned her Ph.D. at Bar-Ilan University and works as senior research associate at the Begin–Sadat Center for Strategic Studies (BESA) at Bar-Ilan University. She ia also a "Spiegel Fellow" at the Center of Holocaust research at Bar Ilan University. She is a member of the committee to Recognize the Heroism of Jewish Rescuers During the Holocaust (JRJ).
Ilan I. Berman is an American lawyer and policy analyst. He is the Vice President of the American Foreign Policy Council. He focuses on regional security in the Middle East, Central Asia, and the Russian Federation.
In the Arab world, racism targets non-Arabs and the expat majority of the Arab states of the Persian Gulf coming from South Asian groups as well as Black, European, and Asian groups that are Muslim; non-Arab ethnic minorities such as Armenians, Africans, the Saqaliba, Southeast Asians, Jews, Kurds, and Coptic Christians, Assyrians, Persians, Turks, and other Turkic peoples, and South Asians living in Arab countries of the Middle East.
Moshe Sharon is an Israeli historian of Islam.
Jonathan Spyer is a British-Israeli analyst, writer, and journalist of Middle Eastern affairs. He is director of research at the Middle East Forum, editor of Middle East Quarterly magazine, a fellow at the Jerusalem Institute for Strategy and Security, a freelance security analyst and correspondent for Jane's Information Group, and a columnist for The Jerusalem Post.
Yonah Jeremy Bob is an author and Israeli-based journalist who has worked at the Jerusalem Post since 2012 and currently serves as senior military correspondent, intelligence analyst and Literary Editor. He frequently lectures in Israel and the United States on security, spy wars, diplomacy and politics. His latest book, Target Tehran was released in September 2023 and deals with Israel's response to the Iranian nuclear program. A review in the Wall Street Journal by John Bolton said the book was "replete with anti-Iran cyber-warfare and sabotage successes."
