Dageher, Carole H.

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Dageher, Carole H.

(Carole Dagher)

PERSONAL:

Education: Attended St. Joseph Jesuit University of Beirut and the University of Nice, France; M.D.

CAREER:

Writer, journalist, and scholar. Journalist and political analyst with major daily newspapers and television stations in Lebanon, 1988-1998; Georgetown University, Washington, DC, research associate at the university's Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and visiting research fellow at the university's Woodstock Theological Center, 1998-99. Also editing committee member of the Observatory of Democracy, Lebanon.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Special Church award, 1995, for the coverage of the Synod on Lebanon.

WRITINGS:

Les Paris du Général (title means "The Challenges of the General"), Editions Fiches du Monde Arabe- FMA (Paris, France), 1992.

Proche-Orient—ces hommes qui font la paix, (title means "Those Men Who Make Peace"), Harmattan (Paris, France), 1995.

Bring Down the Walls: Lebanon's Postwar Challenge, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 2000.

SIDELIGHTS:

Carole H. Dagher has worked as a journalist and political analyst for media in Lebanon. In her 2000 book Bring Down the Walls: Lebanon's Postwar Challenge, Dagher discusses the aftermath of the sixteen-year-old Lebanese civil war and how it affected the area's Christian and Muslim communities. In addition to delineating the two groups' differences and commonalities, the author analyzes how the late Pope John Paul II helped the two groups reach some common ground and how the surrounding countries of Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq impacted the relationship and the Israeli-Arab peace process. Robert Brenton Betts, writing in Middle East Policy, commented: "The ‘post-war challenge’ in her title refers to the necessity for the Maronites [a Christian sect] to come to terms with their new diminished role and for the majority Muslim population to learn how to use its new, stronger voice in government—both in the executive and in parliament—to maximum effect." Betts also noted: "There is much to commend in this book, particularly its very perceptive analysis." Middle East contributor Fred Rhodes wrote that the author "presents an insightful account," adding that Dagher "draws crucial lessons from the recent history of Lebanon." In a review in the Middle East Journal, George Emile Irani commented that the book "is an attempt to restore to Lebanon its raison d'etre."