The Arabists: The Romance of an American Elite by Robert D. Kaplan New York: Free Press, 1993. 336 pp. $24.95 Wall Street Journal September 16, 1993 Reviewed by Daniel Pipes By the time the Reverend Benjamin Weir was taken hostage on the streets of Beirut in April 1984, he had lived thirty-one years in Lebanon, where he had taught theology, done charitable work, and spread the gospel. Over the decades, he and his wife Carol came totally to identify themselves with the Muslim Lebanese while at the same time disassociating themselves completely from the U.S. government (so much so, they...