The Muslim world and the west: patterns of conflict and avenues for convergence.

• Author: Ismael, Jacqueline S.

THE ARTICLES IN THIS ISSUE OF Arab Studies Quarterly were selected from the proceedings of a conference in March 2008 on relations between the West and the Muslim world organized by the University of Victoria and the International Center for Middle Eastern Studies. Revised and updated for inclusion in this issue, they provide an interdisciplinary examination of contemporary West-Muslim relations that encompasses both conflict and collaboration in an effort to balance the clash of civilizations image that dominates contemporary discourse. The extreme events of the last eight years cannot be allowed to define the possibilities of relations between the Christian West and the Muslim East.

The world at present stands in the shadow of George W. Bush's two-term Presidency. In the aftermath of the terrorist attacks of 11 September 2001, the United States under President Bush embarked on a self-styled global 'war on terror', culminating in the Western invasion and occupation of two Muslim countries, the emergence of an international network of extralegal and/or secret military prisons, and more generally, an unprecedented rise in tension between the 'West' and the 'Muslim' worlds. Indeed, given these bellicose times, many have succumbed to the tempting vision of cultural clash and separateness. Irrespective of this image, however, contemporary relations between the Christian West and the Muslim East are marked not only by cultural tension and violence, but also by continuing forms of cultural and economic interchange, present and prospective dialogue, and forms of social and civic collaboration.

In the realm of conflict, ASQ Volume 31, Numbers 1 and 2 begins with treatments of the most enduring manifestation of tension between the "West" and the Islamic world, namely the Palestinian conflict. Lawrence Davidson's "US Foreign Policy toward the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict and the Rise of Islamic Politics" considers the historic enmity of the US towards the Palestinian cause, whose resistance to Israeli domination has been consistently cast in terms "terrorist" and "fanaticism;" Davidson argues that with the rise of Palestinian Islamic movements, chiefly Hamas, this orientation has only been bolstered, given the long-standing Western identification of Muslims as an alien and dangerous "other."

Ghada Talhami's "The Islamic and PLO Agenda for Jerusalem" evaluates competing claims over the holy city of Jerusalem and the evolution of Zionist encroachments...