The Cultural Heritage of Arabs, Islam, and the Middle East
William (Bill) Baker was born in Pampa, Texas, in 1949. His parents moved the family to Nazareth, Israel, in 1950 where he lived and attended a local private Arab school until 1961. He spent his high school years in the Hebrew speaking region of Israel where he continued to study Arabic and Hebrew. Professor Baker is a native Arabic and Hebrew speaker, and reads and writes both.Following the 1967 Six-Day War, Professor Baker returned to the United States to complete high school and attend Baylor University. He was commissioned a Second Lieutenant in the United States Air Force and served twenty-seven years, retiring in the year 2000 as a Lieutenant Colonel. His overseas assignments included embassy tours of duty as an Assistant Air Attache in Tel Aviv, Israel, from 1988 to 1991; acting Air Attache in Riyadh Saudi Arabia, from 1996 to 1997; and Defense and Air Attache in Doha, Qatar, from 1997 to 1999. Professor Baker has worked and traveled extensively throughout the Middle East and North Africa.Professor Baker has a Bachelor’s degree in Foreign Service from Baylor University, and a Master’s degree in Political Science from Southwest Texas State University. He is a graduate of the Armed Forces Air Intelligence School, Air Force Squadron’s Officers School, Air Command and Staff College, Armed Forces Staff College, and the Joint Military Attache School. As a Political-Military Affairs Officer, Professor Baker has served as Senior Middle East Intelligence Analyst at the Pentagon, Adjunct Lecturer in International Affairs at the Air Force Special Operations School, Assistant Professor of Arabic at the United States Air Force Academy, and has taught seminars on Middle East wars, contemporary Arab Culture, Middle East History and the Arab-Israeli conflict. He is currently a lecturer in Arabic and Middle East Studies at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.