1967 war

* Israel withdrawing water from the Jordan River.
* Arabs Build dam that would divert water. 1965.
* Israelis bomb dam.
* Israeli boat hits mine. 1966.
* Syrians and Israelis fire at each other. Both sides claim it was in response.
* Israelis invade West Bank. Battle ensues.
* President Lyndon B. Johnson says he thinks the invasion was disproportionate and bad for U.S.
* Jordan under pressure militarizes.
* Egypt and Syria sign defense pact.
* Aerial battle over Syria Golan Heights.
* Israelis start farming land in disputed demilitarized zone
* Syria shells tractors
* Israel brings armored tractors and Air force and army.
* Soviet Union fed false information to Syria that Israel was to invade Syria. Syria tells Egypt. Egypt closes straits of Tiran to Israeli ships.
* Israel uses closure as a reason to launch Pre Emptive strike on surrounding arab forces.

2008-09 Gaza War.
* Blockade
* Blockade not lifted
* Israel strikes tunnels on November 4.
* Hamas launches rocket
* Israeli Airstrikes
* More rockets.
* More cross exchange.
* Israel launches strike.

One closure of a strait equals justification of a pre emption. Continuing blockade of a people is worse than that.
Two standards.

The Arab world translates about 330 books annually, one fifth of the number that Greece translates. The cumulative total of translated books since the Caliph Maa'moun's time is about 100,000, almost the average that Spain translates in one year.

"Arab countries produced 6,500 books compared to 102,000 books in North America and 42,000 in Latin America and the Caribbean". Still drawing on UNESCO figures, the 2003 Report claimed:
Book production in Arab countries was just 1.1 per cent of world production, although Arabs constitute 5 per cent of the world's population. The publication of literary works was lower than the average level of book production.


In 1996, Arab countries produced no more than 1945 literary and artistic books, which represents 0.8 per cent of international production. This is less than what a country such as Turkey produces, with a population about one-quarter that of the Arab countries. In general, Arab book production centres mainly on religious topics and less on other fields such as literature, art and the social sciences.


The Arab book, the 2003 Report concludes, is a 'threatened species' and the challenges faced by Arab book publishing are very real. Print runs of books are low, ranging for the average novel from 1,000-3,000 copies. "A book that sells 5,000 copies is considered a bestseller" it states. With fewer books being published and small runs, publishing runs the risk of becoming "economically unfeasible".

Five times as many books are translated into Greek (spoken by just 11 million people) as Arabic.

The 2002 Arab Human Development Report was a landmark document. Written by Arab social scientists, it was the first auto-critique to address the challenges faced by the Arab world at the start of a new century.