Seeing Arabs through an American School

About the Book

The author encountered the Arab world´s full complexity while heading the largest American independent school abroad, International College, Beirut, Lebanon. The College serves 3500 Arab students, preschool through high school. Its nonsectarian program accommodates Muslim, Druze and Christian families. The author worked to strengthen the school´s American attributes in an atmosphere beclouded by Israeli air attacks, Hezbollah´s resistance, Syria´s occupation, and allegations of CIA involvement. Indigenous ways of management that had become entrenched during wartime as well as board governance from afar added complications. Despite everything, the school is a model that deserves replication elsewhere in the Middle East, especially after September 11. A reviewer in Connecticut observes: "As our national attention focuses more and more closely on that deeply troubled region, Mr. Ober´s experiences as president of a large private school take on increased relevance. Collectively, his descriptions develop a complete picture of an ancient and proud culture that is only glimpsed in other parts of the world amid dramatic news copy and images of violence" (Litchfield County Times, November 21, 2003).

About the Author

Robert F. Ober Jr. concentrated on Communist affairs in a 26-year diplomatic career that included three assignments in Moscow. He also served in Athens, Delhi, Hamburg, Warsaw and Washington; negotiated with Russians in Kabul and Prague; and was a Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. Mr. Ober describes the policies he advanced; the ambassadors and officials with whom he served; and the friends he and his wife Liz made behind the Iron Curtain. He discusses Nixon and Kissinger’s “détente”; their neglect of U.S. families divided by Soviet restrictions; Brezhnev’s era of stagnation; and Gorbachev’s reforms.