ABSTRACT
The Middle East recently has been associated with a dramatic rise in religious radicalism and extremist fundamentalism. Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution in Iran; the assassination of President Sadat in Egypt and the ferocious fundamentalist effort to bring down the Mubarak regime by terrorism; the violent eruption of Shiite terrorism in Lebanon; the rise to power of Sunni fundamentalists in Sudan; the bloody struggle of Islamic radicals in Algeria; and, most recently, the dramatic rise of Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorism among the Palestinians, have all contributed to the identification of the region with religious violence and fanatical terrorism.
