Arab Countries

Robert Satloff is executive director of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. His new book, Among the Righteous: Lost Stories from the Holocaust's Long Reach into Arab Lands, is about the Arabs who protected or aided Jews in North Africa during World War II.

Journalist Hugh Miles is the author of Al-Jazeera. Al-Jazeera, the premier news channel in the Arabic-speaking world, plans to launch an English channel sometime in the next few months.

New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman. He covered the Middle East for many years, work that won him two Pulitzer Prizes. He's also the author of the book, From Beirut to Jerusalem. The book looked at the inside of Arab and Israeli power circles, and examined the intefadeh and the perceptions American and Israeli Jews have of each other.

Journalist Youseff Ibrahim, reporter at "The New York Times" since 1977. He has been the regional Middle East correspondent for the paper for seven years. He talks about the current debates among Arab intellectuals about the current political and cultural trends in the region.

Iraqi dissident writer Kanan Makiya wrote, under the pseudonym Samir al-Khalil, the book "Republic of Fear," about Saddam Hussein's regime. It was one of the first alarms about the brutality of Hussein's regime. Makiya has a new book, "Cruelty and Silence: War, Tyranny, Uprising and the Arab World," in which he criticizes Arab intellectuals for keeping silent over escalating cruelties in the Arab world.

New York Times reporter Chris Hedges is based in Cairo, where he covers the Middle East. Terry will talk with him about the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in countries like Sudan, Algeria, Egypt, and Jordan. She'll also talk with Hedges bout being held captive at the end of the Gulf War by Saddam's Republican Guard. He was held along with NPR's Neil Conan.

Joe Stork discusses how the region's political powers have shifted since conflict in Iraq has ended.

Fresh Air producer Amy Salit interviews Joe Stork, the editor-chief of "Middle East Report." He'll discuss the unequal distribution of wealth in the Middle East. Kuwait's has a strong economy tied to their oil production; their reluctance to share it with other, poorer, Arab countries has been cited as one of the motives behind Iraq's invasion.