MERIP
Media Resource List, October 8, 2004
AVAILABLE FOR INTERVIEWS
on the following topics:
- Tourists attacked in Egyptian resorts
KHALID M. MEDANI
Khalid M. Medani is assistant professor of politics at Oberlin
College and an editor of Middle East Report . Mr.
Medani's research interests include the relationship between
economic globalization, political Islam and civil conflict
in the Middle East and Africa. Commenting on yesterday's attacks
on tourists in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, he said today: "
These attacks point to two factors associated with recent
terrorist activities that are all but ignored while the focus
is on al-Qaeda and Iraq. The root causes of these kind
of attacks are usually domestic problems -- particularly the
increasing social inequalities associated with the tourist
industry in Egypt. Added to this, the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, which receives scant attention from US policy-makers,
demonstrates to militants the failure of Arab Islamic governments
to address crucial domestic and regional concerns -- the true
source of the animosity we are seeing now."
WALEED HAZBUN
Waleed Hazbun is assistant professor of political science
at Johns Hopkins University. Recent publications include "Mapping
the Landscape of the 'New Middle East': The Politics of Tourism
Development and the Peace Process in Jordan" in George Joffé,
ed. Jordan in Transition, 1990-2000 (Palgrave, 2002).
He is currently researching the impact of terrorism on American
tourists abroad. Commenting on the Sinai attacks he said today,
"These attacks may make the last few remaining popular destinations
in the Arab world for Jewish Israeli tourists seem out of
bounds. The Middle East's economically crucial tourism economy
continues to fragment. In the wake of 9/11 European and American
tourism to the Middle East has declined, and regional Arab
tourism has increased substantially as Arabs have felt discouraged
from visiting the United States and Europe."
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