Middle East Encounters

In 1977 David Balderstone, having researched conditions and calculated a budget, persuaded Greg Taylor, then Editor of Melbourne newspaper 'The Age', that 'The Age' should appoint an Australian journalist in the Middle East, writing for Australians, rather than relying on British and American correspondents. He took up the post on July 1, 1977 and was based in Amman, Jordan for the following six years. During this time he covered the historic visit by Egyptian President Sadat to Jerusalem in November 1977 and subsequent peace talks; Israeli incursions into southern Lebanon in response to Palestinian raids in March 1978; Iran after the fall of the Shah in 1979 and the subsequent American hostage crisis; ongoing troubles in Beirut, the siege of Beirut and expulsion of the Palestinians in 1982; the Iran-Iraq war from both sides; the military coup in Turkey; the Mecca mosque siege in Saudi Arabia; and Arab summits in Cairo, Baghdad and Morocco. In the process he interviewed political and religious leaders as well as ordinary people from communities on all sides of the conflicts.
This collection of some of his published articles interspersed with extracts from his letters home gives a picture of the area as it was at that time from his own unique perspective; picking up on local attitudes and eccentricities while homing in on the issues.
The seeds of recent and current movements for change in the Middle East - the so-called "Arab Spring" across North Africa and Egypt; the rise of ISIS in Syria and Iraq; the Houthis in Yemen and flares of insurgency in the Arabian Gulf States and Saudi Arabia can be detected in these accounts. They trace the events of an earlier period of upheaval growing out of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the civil war in Lebanon and the Islamic revolution in Iran. Summing up his six years covering the area, David made some chilling predictions that have proved remarkably prescient.