Communications

The Journal welcomes comments from its readers. All communications should be addressed to the Editor and bear the full name and address of the writer. A selection of those received will be published periodically in these columns. When a comment is received regarding an article or review published in the Journal, and we feel it merits serious consideration, the author will be given the option to respond in kind. As a matter of policy, such exchanges are normally limited to one round. The Journal reserves the right to edit or abridge all contributions. In addition to letters of comment, communications on other information of interest will be printed as space is available.

To the Editor:

I wish to correct an error and clarify a point raised in Ami Pedahzur's review of my book Israel under Siege: The Politics of Insecurity and the Rise of the Israeli-NeoRevisionist Right (Georgetown University Press, 2017), published in the Autumn 2017 issue of The Middle East Journal (Vol. 71, No. 4, pp. 679–80).

First, regarding the sources I consulted, the book does contain numerous references to Hebrew-language documents — mainly official Israeli documents, newspaper articles, NGO reports, and some public opinion polls. References to these documents can be found in the endnotes of chapters 1 to 4.

Second, my title and affiliation were not accurately represented in the review. I am Associate Professor of Middle East Studies at SAIS Europe, The Johns Hopkins University. I am certainly not an activist.

RAFFAELLA A. DEL SARTO

Ami Pedahzur was offered the opportunity to respond, but he declined. To the Editor:

I am writing with regard to the review of my second book, Copts and the Security State: Violence, Coercion, and Sectarianism in Contemporary Egypt (Stanford University Press, 2016), which was written by Sebastian Elsässer and published in the Summer 2017 issue of The Middle East Journal, (Vol. 71, No. 3, pp. 492–93).

I felt sorry to read that Dr. Elsässer has not been able to understand the coherence of my book. I was also surprised that, in 2017, he carelessly situated this work in the current growing literature on the Copts, whereas this book has first been published in French in 2012, and the results of this research have been widely shared as early as 2010, first and foremost with Dr Elsässer.

LAURE GUIRGUIS

Sebastian Elsässer was offered the opportunity to respond, but he declined.