Middle East Report Online. Free, web-only news analysis and commentary in addition to the in-depth coverage found only in the print quarterly Middle East Report.

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Tehran, June 2009
Middle East Report Online
June 28, 2009
By Kaveh Ehsani, Arang Keshavarzian and Norma Claire Moruzzi

The morning after Iran’s June 12 presidential election, Iranians booted up their computers to find Fars News, the online mouthpiece of the Islamic Republic’s security apparatus, heralding the dawn of a “third revolution.” Many an ordinary Iranian, and many a Western pundit, had already adopted such dramatic language to describe the burgeoning street demonstrations against the declaration by the Ministry of Interior that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the sitting president, had received 64 percent of the vote to 34 percent for his main challenger, Mir Hossein Mousavi. But the editors of Fars News were referring neither to the protests, as were the people in the streets, nor to the prospect that the unrest might topple the Islamic Republic, as were some of the more wistful commentators. Rather, the editors were labeling the radical realignment of Iranian politics that they wish for. This realignment would complete the removal of the old guard, as did the “first” revolution of 1978-1979, and consolidate the rule of inflexible hardliners, as did the “second revolution” symbolized by the US Embassy takeover of 1979. Full Story>>

An Artist as President of the Islamic Republic of Iran?
Middle East Report Online
June 11, 2009
By Shiva Balaghi

Something’s happening here. In one of the largest street demonstrations in Tehran since the 1979 Revolution, thousands filled Vali Asr Street (formerly known as Pahlavi Street) on Monday, forming a human chain nearly 12 miles long and stopping traffic for nearly five hours. They wore strips of green cloth around their wrists and heads in support of presidential candidate Mir Hossein Mousavi. They sang “Ey Iran,” the unofficial national anthem composed in the Pahlavi era by one of the leading figures of classical Persian music, the late Ruhollah Khaleghi. Banned for a time by the Islamic Republic, the song’s lyrical melody touches a deeply patriotic vein. Full Story >>

On June 8, when all votes are cast and counted between the glitzy urban quarters of Beirut and the dusty hamlets of the Bekaa valley, the Lebanese elections will have produced one certain winner: the local advertising industry. Despite a newly imposed cap on campaign spending, candidates have been falling over each other to plaster the billboards along the roads and highways of this miniscule country with their oversized likenesses and airy slogans. Crowded out by the politicians, some peddlers of more pedestrian seasonal merchandise have retaliated in kind, with a brand of cheap fruit juice poking fun at notorious practices of vote rigging by promising democracy "extra," thus drawing attention to its product by the same name, while the only locally produced beer brand declared itself "victorious for lack of competition" already three months ago -- true to the form of much of the electoral contest. Full Story>>

The Shi‘a of Saudi Arabia at a Crossroads
Middle East Report Online
May 6, 2009
By Toby Matthiesen

Deep in the morass of YouTube lies a disturbing video clip recorded in late February at the cemetery of al-Baqi‘ and on surrounding streets in Medina, Saudi Arabia. An initial caption promises images of “desecration of graves.” Al-Baqi‘, located next to the mosque of the prophet Muhammad in the second holiest city of Islam, is believed to be the final resting place of four men revered by Shi‘i Muslims as imams or successors to the prophet: Hasan ibn ‘Ali, ‘Ali ibn Husayn, Muhammad ibn ‘Ali and Ja‘afar ibn Muhammad. The prophet’s wives, as well as many of his relatives and close associates, are also said to be buried here, making the ground hallowed for Sunni Muslims as well. Full Story>>

Pakistan’s Troubled “Paradise on Earth”
Middle East Report Online
April 29, 2009
By Kamran Asdar Ali

Tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in areas of Pakistan’s North West Frontier Province (NWFP) as the army has launched ground operations and air raids to “eliminate and expel” the Islamist militant groups commonly known as the Tehreek-e Taliban or the Taliban in Pakistan (TIP). The targeted districts border Swat, a well-watered mountain vale described as “paradise on earth” in Pakistani tourist brochures, where the provincial government tried to placate the Taliban by agreeing to implement Islamic law (sharia). The February agreement, the Nizam-e Adal regulation, was approved by the lower house of the Pakistani parliament on April 12 and signed into law soon afterward by the president, Asif Zardari. But since then, fighting has continued, with both sides accusing the other of breaching the peace. As of April 27, according to a cleric close to the TIP, talks with the provincial government about Swat are suspended. Full Story>>

The Reawakened Specter of Iraqi Civil War
Middle East Report Online
April 17, 2009
By Michael Wahid Hanna

April has already been a cruel month in Iraq. A spate of bombings aimed at Shi‘i civilians in Baghdad has raised fears that the grim sectarian logic that led the capital to civil war in 2005-2007 will reassert itself. On April 6, a string of six car bombs killed at least 37 people; the next day, shortly after President Barack Obama landed in Baghdad, another car bomb killed eight; and on the morrow, still another bomb blew up close to the historic Shi‘i shrine in Kadhimiyya just northwest of the capital’s central districts, taking an additional seven civilian lives. Worryingly for Iraqis, the bombings occurred following gun battles between the security forces of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s Shi‘i-led government and Sunni Arab militiamen, fueling rumors that the disgruntled militiamen have spearheaded the violent campaign. Full Story>>

Bouteflika’s Triumph and Algeria’s Tragedy
Middle East Report Online
April 10, 2009
By Jacob Mundy

Shoes and pants soaked with rain, I tagged along with a journalist from the popular Arabic daily Echorouk -- his paper my umbrella -- while he visited polling stations in the Belcourt neighborhood of Algiers on the day of local elections in November 2007. At the first site, disgruntled party officials quickly ejected us. We did not have the right papers, they said, and the police who looked on bored were inclined to agree. At the second station, we kept our distance. Watching for half an hour, we could count the voters who entered on two hands. Next to us stood four youths, escaping the rain under a shop awning. They laughed at us when we asked if they were going to vote. Down the road we saw an older gentleman on his way back from voting. For the occasion, he had donned a woolen Nehru-type cap and a brown burnoose, to which he had proudly affixed a medal earned during the war for independence from France (1954-1962). Full Story>>

Introducing Algeria’s President-for-Life
Middle East Report Online
April 1, 2009
By Ahmed Aghrout and Yahia H. Zoubir

Across nearly the breadth of North Africa, the head of state enjoys a lifetime appointment. Morocco has a king. In Tunisia, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, president since 1987, pushed for a constitutional amendment removing term limits and has now announced a bid for a fifth term in office. President Husni Mubarak of Egypt, who assumed office in 1981, is already serving his fifth term. Libyan strongman Mu‘ammar Qaddafi, in power since September 1969, has never permitted a meaningful election. In March, during a visit to Niamey, Niger, where President Mamadou Tandja is also seeking to rescind term limits, Qaddafi denied that such measures are “anti-democratic,” declaring: “I am for freedom of popular will; the people must choose who should govern, even if it is for eternity.” Full Story>>

The Hazy Path Forward in Sudan
Middle East Report Online
March 24, 2009
By Sarah Washburne 

On the day after the International Criminal Court (ICC) issued an arrest warrant for Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir, the wanted man addressed a pre-planned rally of thousands in front of the presidential palace in Khartoum. Bashir was defiant, denouncing the warrant as “neo-colonialism,” and praising his supporters in Martyrs’ Square as “grandsons of the mujahideen,” a reference to the participants in the Mahdiyya uprising against Anglo-Egyptian rule in 1885. The atmosphere was almost one of jubilation; one might have mistaken the crowds for soccer fans celebrating a win. As Bashir condemned the ICC and the West from the microphone, the protesters waved the Sudanese flag and held aloft pictures of Bashir, as well as posters depicting the face of Luis Moreno Ocampo, the ICC prosecutor, superimposed upon the body of a pig. There were sporadic outbreaks of drumming, dancing and singing. Full Story>> 

Bring In the Dead: Martyr Burials and Election Politics in Iran
Middle East Report Online
March 19, 2009
By Rasmus Christian Elling

Beating their chests and wearing black, a procession of young men and women filed toward the gates of Tehran’s Amir Kabir Polytechnic University on February 23. The mourners -- drawn primarily from the ranks of the Basij militia and unaffiliated hardline Islamist vigilantes -- were carrying the remains of five unknown soldiers, martyred during the 1980-88 war with Iraq, to campus, where they intended to rebury them. Inside the gates, a gathering of angry students had assembled to protest what they saw as a blatant show of state force, and when the procession crossed onto campus, a confrontation ensued. Students claimed the fight pitted 1,500 protesters against a smaller group of mourners, most of whom were armed with clubs, knives and martial arts weapons. Security forces arrested more than 70 of their number, the students reported, and nine were hospitalized. In subsequent days, more student activists were picked up in police raids, and at press time, some of them were still in detention. Full Story>>

Assessing Italy’s Grande Gesto to Libya
Middle East Report Online
March 16, 2009
By Claudia Gazzini

Under a tent in Benghazi on August 30, 2008, Silvio Berlusconi bowed symbolically before the son of ‘Umar al-Mukhtar, hero of the Libyan resistance to Italian colonial rule. “It is my duty to express to you, in the name of the Italian people, our regret and apologies for the deep wounds that we have caused you,” said the Italian premier. Eastern Libya was the site of the bulk of the armed resistance to the Italian occupation, which lasted from 1911 to 1943. More than 100,000 Libyans are believed to have died in the counterinsurgency campaign, many in desert prison camps and in southern Italian penal colonies. Inside the tent, Berlusconi and Libyan leader Mu‘ammar al-Qaddafi signed a historic agreement according to which Italy will pay $5 billion over the next 20 years, nominally to compensate Libya for these “deep wounds.” The treaty was ratified by Italy on February 3 and by Libya on March 1. Full Story>>

The Song Does Not Remain the Same
Middle East Report Online
March 12, 2009
By Ramin Sadighi and Sohrab Mahdavi

Starting in the late 1990s, and especially following two stories by CNN's chief international correspondent, the British-Iranian Christiane Amanpour, Westerners were treated to a slew of articles and broadcast reports aiming to “lift the veil” on Iran. Amanpour’s second story revolved around “youth and the party scene.” She visited the house of another hyphenated Iranian to show a group reveling in youthful abandon, toasting each other with alcoholic drinks to the tune of playful music, and so consuming two illegal items of consequence in the Islamic Republic. With youth, it seemed, came merriment and rebelliousness. Full Story>>

Wanted: Omar al-Bashir—and Peace in Sudan
Middle East Report Online
March 5, 2009
By Khalid Mustafa Medani

For the first time, the international community has indicted a sitting president of a sovereign state. Omar al-Bashir of Sudan stands accused by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in The Hague of “crimes against humanity and war crimes” committed in the course of the Khartoum regime’s brutal suppression of the revolt in the country’s far western province of Darfur. Having indicted two other figures associated with the regime in 2007, ICC prosecutor Luis Moreno Ocampo began building a case against the man at the top, and on March 4, the court issued a warrant for Bashir’s arrest. Full Story>>

A Litmus Test for Iraq
Middle East Report Online
January 30, 2009
By Reidar Visser

Former Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari arrived in Basra on January 24. His mission in the southern oil port was to stump for his Reformist Front, a breakaway faction of the Da‘wa Party of the current premier, Nouri al-Maliki, ahead of Iraq’s January 31 provincial elections. His itinerary included visits to the Five Miles area -- often described as a stronghold of the movement loyal to the young Shi‘i leader Muqtada al-Sadr -- as well as a rally at a sports stadium. Only days earlier, he had been preceded by Maliki himself, and in the first days of 2009 numerous other national politicians trooped to Basra as well. Full Story>>

The Continuity of Obama’s Change
Middle East Report Online
January 27, 2009
By Mouin Rabbani and Chris Toensing

President Barack Obama’s campaign pledge that his administration would begin working for peace in the Middle East from its first day in office is one that he almost met. On January 21, a mere 24 hours after his inauguration, Obama placed phone calls from the Oval Office to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas, Egyptian President Husni Mubarak and Jordanian King ‘Abdallah II. The next day, together with Vice President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he visited the State Department to announce the appointment of former Sen. George Mitchell as the new special envoy for the Middle East. Full Story>> 

Birth Pangs of a New Palestine
Middle East Report Online
January 7, 2009
By Mouin Rabbani

Shortly after 11:30 am on December 27, 2008, at the height of the midday bustle on the first day of the Gazan week and with multitudes of schoolchildren returning home from the morning shift, close to 90 Israeli warplanes launched over 100 tons of explosives at some 100 targets throughout the 139 square miles of the Gaza Strip. Within minutes, the near simultaneous air raids killed more than 225 and wounded at least 700, more than 200 of them critically. These initial attacks alone produced dozens more dead than any other day in the West Bank and Gaza combined since Israel’s occupation of those lands commenced in June 1967. Full Story>>

Dangerous Liaisons: Pakistan, India and Lashkar-e Taiba
Middle East Report Online
December 31, 2008
By Graham Usher

The day after Christmas, the wires buzzed with reports that Pakistan was moving 20,000 troops from its western border with Afghanistan to locations near the eastern border with India. The redeployment, said Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Qureshi, came in response to “certain developments” on the Indian side of the boundary, one reportedly being that New Delhi might be considering military strikes on militant bases inside Pakistan. Pakistani security officials stressed that these moves were “minimum defensive measures”: No soldiers had been taken away from the theater of counterinsurgency operations against the Taliban and al-Qaeda, only from “snowbound areas” where the army sits idle. Still, the troop transfers marked another dip in relations between India and Pakistan since the November 26 massacre of over 170 people in the Indian metropolis of Mumbai. Full Story>>

Bypassing Bethlehem’s Eastern Reaches
Middle East Report Online
October 7, 2008
By Nate Wright

The town of Bayt Sahour spills down the hills to the east of Bethlehem, spreading out along ridges and valleys that mark the beginning of the long descent to the Dead Sea. Up the slopes the roads carve out twisting rivers of dirt and asphalt, wending their way through clusters of soft brown stone houses, but across the ridges they run straight and smooth. 

At the end of one of these roads lies a hill called ‘Ush Ghurab, known to Israelis as Shdema, the name of the military base that sat on the summit until 2006. Today there are only a few hollowed-out buildings, thick concrete blocks with gaping windows and doorways set low behind earthen walls, to remind visitors of the previous occupants. On the northern slope, small pillboxes stare out vacantly over Bayt Sahour and Bethlehem. Full Story>>

Livni in Principle and in Practice
Middle East Report Online
September 30, 2008
By Peretz Kidron

On the eve of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish new year, the sitting Israeli prime minister spoke more plainly than ever before in public about what will be required of Israel in a comprehensive peace with the Palestinians and Syria. In a September 29 interview with the newspaper Yediot Aharonot, Ehud Olmert said that, to achieve peace, “we will withdraw from almost all the territories, if not all the territories” that have been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 war, including most of the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Particularly coming from Olmert, who long opposed the notion of swapping land for peace, these words might have inspired hope that deals on the Palestinian or Syrian fronts were at hand. Full Story>>

Lebanon’s Post-Doha Political Theater 
Middle East Report Online
July 23, 2008
By Stacey Philbrick Yadav

After 18 months of political paralysis punctuated by episodes of civil strife, Lebanon finally has a “national unity” cabinet -- but the achievement has come at a steep price. Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and new President Michel Suleiman announced the slate for the 30-member cabinet on July 11, six weeks, and much agonizing and public criticism, after Lebanon’s major political factions agreed on Suleiman’s presidential candidacy and principles of power sharing at a summit in the Qatari capital of Doha. As with much else in Lebanon, however, the words “national unity” are sorely at odds with reality. If anything, the politicking behind the composition of this cabinet has deepened the polarization of the country. The battle lines are largely familiar: the classic sectarian divides, as well as economic and regional disparities sharpened by the lagging pace of reconstruction following the 2006 war. And the March 8 and March 14 forces, the two cross-sectarian blocs named for the protests organized by their respective camps during the 2005 “Beirut spring,” remain in polar opposition even as they sit together at the cabinet table. Full Story>>

Pakistan Amidst the Storms
Middle East Report Online
June 27, 2008
By Graham Usher

Less than three months after being formed, Pakistan’s coalition government is in trouble. The leader of one of its constituent parties, Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N), is awaiting a decision from the country’s Supreme Court about whether he can run in parliamentary by-elections that began on June 26. The court is packed with judges appointed by President Pervez Musharraf, the ex-general who overthrew Sharif, a two-time prime minister, in a 1999 coup. Full Story>>

Lebanon’s Brush with Civil War
Middle East Report Online
May 20, 2008
By Jim Quilty

When Israel commenced its bombardment of Lebanon on July 12, 2006, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and his general staff declared that the air raids were provoked by Hizballah’s kidnapping of two Israeli soldiers that day. As the destruction piled up over the ensuing 33 days, then, Lebanese did not ask themselves, “Why is Israel bombing us?” Rather, the question in many Lebanese minds, those of ordinary citizens and analysts alike, was “Why did Hizballah provoke this? Why now?” The implicit answer -- that the Shi‘i Islamist party was acting in the interests of its friends in Tehran and Damascus rather than those of its constituents and compatriots in Lebanon -- has reverberated through the country’s political discourse ever since, with few bothering to recall the rhetorical and historical precedents for the abduction operation. Full Story>>

Underbelly of Egypt’s Neoliberal Agenda
Middle East Report Online
April 5, 2008
By Joel Beinin

It was business as usual for Orascom, a gigantic Egyptian conglomerate with major interests in everything from Cairene highway construction to Red Sea luxury resorts to cell phones in Iraq.

On February 26 Orascom Construction Industries, one of the Orascom family of enterprises, proudly announced that it had acquired the International Company for Manufacturing Boilers and Steel Fabrication (IBSF) for $13.6 million. The corporate press release trumpeted the doubling of Orascom’s steel capacity, but mentioned nothing about the fate of the firm’s workers or its recent history. Those stories, as told by a group of skilled IBSF workers -- a lathe operator, a machinery fitter, a welder and a storeroom supervisor, each with at least 20 years’ experience in the factory -- are the underbelly of the advancing neoliberal agenda in Egypt. Fearing reprisals from the firm, they asked that their names not be used and spoke in the name of their trade union committee and its president, Husayn Abu Dahab. Full Story>>

Debating Devolution in Iraq
Middle East Report Online
March 10, 2008
By Reidar Visser

In early August 2007, Jalal al-Din al-Saghir, a Shi‘i preacher affiliated with the Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq, made headlines with striking comments to a reporter for the Christian Science Monitor. The cleric revealed in an interview with Sam Dagher that “a massive operation” was underway to secure the establishment of a Shi‘i super-province in Iraq, to be named the “South of Baghdad Region,” and projected to encompass all nine majority-Shi‘i governorates south of the Iraqi capital. Saghir claimed that his party had already drafted detailed plans for how such a super-province would be governed -- plans of such importance to Iraq and the region that there was “no room for misadventures.” While Saghir did not mention a timeline for this remarkable undertaking, other Supreme Council supporters of the idea were less reticent: “The Shiite federal region will be announced in April 2008,” wrote one enthusiastic proponent. Full Story>>

Disengagement and the Frontiers of Zionism
Middle East Report Online
February 16, 2008
By Darryl Li

In mid-January, when Israel further tightened its blockade of the Gaza Strip, it hurriedly assured the world that a “humanitarian crisis” would not be allowed to occur. Case in point: Days after the intensified siege prompted Hamas to breach the Gaza-Egypt border and Palestinians to pour into Egypt in search of supplies, Israel announced plans to send in thousands of animal vaccines to prevent possible outbreaks of avian flu and other epidemics due to livestock and birds entering Gaza from Egypt. Medicines for human beings, on the other hand, are among the supplies that are barely trickling in to Gaza now that the border has been resealed. Full Story>>

In Annapolis, Conflict by Other Means
Middle East Report Online
November 26, 2007
By Robert Blecher and Mouin Rabbani

At an intersection in front of Nablus city hall, a pair of women threaded a knot of waiting pedestrians, glanced left, then dashed across the street. “What’s this?” an onlooker chastised them. “Can’t you see the red light?” Not long after, his patience exhausted, the self-appointed traffic cop himself stepped off the curb and made his way to the other side of the boulevard. Such is life in the West Bank on the eve of the meeting in Annapolis, Maryland, where the Bush administration intends to create the semblance of a “peace process” between Israel and the Palestinians for the first time since it assumed office. There is excitement in Palestinian towns about the urban order newly emerging from years of chaos; there is a willingness to play by the rules even as many remain convinced that doing so will not get them very far; and, lastly, there is the reality that when the waiting grows tiresome, people will again take matters into their own hands. As for the Annapolis meeting itself, it is being greeted with indifference, with few believing it will lead to either meaningful change in their daily lives or substantive progress toward the end of an Israeli occupation now in its fifth decade. Full Story>>

War Is Peace, Sanctions Are Diplomacy
Middle East Report Online
November 23, 2007
By Carah Ong

The White House is pressing ahead with its stated goal of persuading the UN Security Council to pass far-reaching sanctions to punish Iran for refusing to suspend its nuclear research program. Sanctions are what President George W. Bush is referring to when he pledges to nervous US allies that he intends to “continue to work together to solve this problem diplomatically.” The non-diplomatic solution in this framing of the “problem,” presumably, would be airstrikes on nuclear facilities in the Islamic Republic. Full Story>>

The Militancy of Mahalla al-Kubra
Middle East Report Online
September 29, 2007
By Joel Beinin

For the second time in less than a year, in the final week of September the 24,000 workers of the Misr Spinning and Weaving Company in Mahalla al-Kubra went on strike -- and won. As they did the first time, in December 2006, the workers occupied the Nile Delta town’s mammoth textile mill and rebuffed the initial mediation efforts of Egypt’s ruling National Democratic Party (NDP). Yet this strike was even more militant than December’s. Workers established a security force to protect the factory premises, and threatened to occupy the company’s administrative headquarters as well. Their stand belies the wishful claims of the Egyptian government and many media outlets that the strike wave of 2004-2007 has run its course. Full Story>>

Rallying Around the Renegade
Middle East Report Online
August 27, 2007
By Heiko Wimmen

Back in the fall of 2006, student elections at the American University of Beirut produced an unexpected aesthetic: female campaigners for the predominantly Christian Free Patriotic Movement (FPM) of the ex-general Michel Aoun sporting button-sized portraits of bearded Hizballah leader Hasan Nasrallah on their stylish attire. “Hizballah stands for the unity and independence of Lebanon, just as we do,” went the party line, as reiterated by Laure, an activist business student clad in the movement’s trademark orange. “And imagine, the Shi‘a and us,” she mused, off-script and with a glance at her co-campaigners, covered head to toe in the black gowns of the staunchly Islamist party, but spiced up with bright orange ribbons for the occasion. “How many we will be.” Full Story>>

Boxing In the Brothers
Middle East Report Online
August 8, 2007
By Samer Shehata and Joshua Stacher

The latest crackdown by the Egyptian state on the Muslim Brotherhood began after a student demonstration at Cairo’s al-Azhar University. Dressed in black, their faces covered with matching hoods whose headbands read samidun, or “steadfast,” on December 10, 2006 several dozen young Muslim Brothers marched from the student center to the university’s main gate. Six of the masked youths, according to video and eyewitnesses, lined up in the middle of a square formed by the others and performed martial arts exercises reminiscent of demonstrations by Hamas and Hizballah. Full Story>>

Harbingers of Turkey’s Second Republic
Middle East Report Online
August 1, 2007
By Kerem Öktem

On July 23, the day after the ruling Justice and Development Party won Turkey’s early parliamentary elections in a landslide, Onur Öymen, deputy chairman of the rival Republican People’s Party (CHP), interpreted the results as follows: "If you are in need and hungry, if you are not at all content with your life, if you criticize the government every day from dusk till dawn and you then vote for the very same government, there must be something which cannot be explained with logic." Full Story>>

The Golan Waits for the Green Light
Middle East Report Online
July 26, 2007
By Nicolas Pelham

Since their government has not, Shoshi Anbal and a posse of her fellow Tel Aviv housewives are preparing to engage in diplomacy with Syria. On May 18, they assembled along the Israeli-Syrian frontier to applaud what at the time was Syrian President Bashar al-Asad’s latest iteration of his call for negotiations to end the 40-year standoff over the Golan Heights, occupied by Israel in 1967, and indeed the legal state of war prevailing between the two states since 1948. “Asad! Israel wants to talk,” the women chanted. And, less reverently, “Let’s visit Damascus -- by car, not by tank." Full Story>>

Iran's "Security Outlook"
Middle East Report Online
July 9, 2007
By Farideh Farhi

Widespread apprehension attended the June 2005 election of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran, at least among those Iranians who had approved of the country’s direction under the reformist clerics led by President Mohammad Khatami. Their worries had little to do with Ahmadinejad’s signature campaign issue, the flagging Iranian economy, and much to do with potential reversal of the political and cultural opening under Khatami, now that hardline conservatives controlled every branch of the government. The opening had begun to close long before the hardliners’ accession to power, of course, but many Iranians feared that Ahmadinejad would seal it tight, by shuttering the remaining opposition or independent publications, for instance, or by censoring books, music, film and theater, dismantling satellite dishes, imprisoning political activists and more rigorously imposing an “Islamic” dress code. Full Story>>

The Collateral Damage of Lebanese Sovereignty
Middle East Report Online
June 18, 2007
By Jim Quilty

Residents of Lebanon might be forgiven for wanting to forget the last 12 months. The month-long Israeli onslaught in the summer of 2006, economic stasis, sectarian street violence, political deadlock and assassinations -- most recently that of Future Movement deputy Walid ‘Idu, who perished along with ten others in a June 13 car bomb explosion -- have weighed heavily upon the country. It is as if the dismembered corpse of the 1975-1990 civil war -- assumed to be safely buried -- has been exhumed and reassembled, all the more grotesque. Since May 20, the Palestinians in Lebanon, too, have been made to relive past nightmares. Full Story>>

Forty Years of Occupation
A Middle East Report Online Forum
June 6, 2007

An outpouring of retrospectives -- good, bad and indifferent -- has marked the fortieth anniversary of the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Predictably, and perhaps appropriately, most looks backward have also attempted to peer forward, and consequently most have focused on the impasse between Israel and the Palestinians. This question, though predating 1967 and not the only one left unresolved by the war, is nearly synonymous with “the Middle East” in the global media. Plentiful as the 1967 commentary has been, the relative silences have also spoken volumes. Middle East Report asked six critically minded scholars and analysts for their reflections on what has been missing from the conversation about Israel-Palestine occasioned by the passage of 40 years since that fateful June. Full Story>>

Strikes in Egypt Spread from Center of Gravity
Middle East Report Online
May 9, 2007
By Joel Beinin and Hossam el-Hamalawy

The longest and strongest wave of worker protest since the end of World War II is rolling through Egypt. In March, the liberal daily al-Masri al-Yawm estimated that no fewer than 222 sit-in strikes, work stoppages, hunger strikes and demonstrations had occurred during 2006. In the first five months of 2007, the paper has reported a new labor action nearly every day. The citizen group Egyptian Workers and Trade Union Watch documented 56 incidents during the month of April, and another 15 during the first week of May alone. Full Story>>

Behind Turkey’s Presidential Battle
Middle East Report Online
May 7, 2007
By Gamze Çavdar

“This is a bullet fired at democracy,” snapped Recep Tayy?p Erdo?an, Turkey’s prime minister and chairman of the country’s ruling party, in reaction to the May 1 ruling by the Constitutional Court. The court had validated a maneuver by the opposition party in Parliament to block the nomination of Erdo?an’s foreign minister, Abdullah Gül, to accede to the presidency of the Turkish Republic. To deny the ruling party the quorum it needed to make Gül president, the opposition deputies simply stayed home. The pro-government parliamentarians voted on the candidate anyway, but the Constitutional Court agreed with the opposition’s contention that the balloting was illegal -- and thus null and void. After Parliament tried and failed again to elect Gül president on May 6, he withdrew his candidacy. Full Story>>

Egyptian Textile Workers Confront the New Economic Order
Middle East Report Online
March 25, 2007
By Joel Beinin and Hossam el-Hamalawy

For the last ten years Muhammad ‘Attar, 36, has worked in the finishing department at the gigantic Misr Spinning and Weaving Company complex at Mahalla al-Kubra in the middle of the Nile Delta. He takes home a basic wage of about $30. With profit sharing and incentives, his net pay is about $75 a month. His 33-year-old wife, Nasra ‘Abd al-Maqsoud al-Suwaydi, makes about $70 a month working in the ready-made clothing division of the same firm. Full story>>

Western Sahara Between Autonomy and Intifada
Middle East Report Online
March 16, 2007
By Jacob Mundy

In late February 2007, Western Saharan nationalists celebrated the thirty-first anniversary of their government, the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic. The official ceremonies did not take place in Laayoune, the declared capital of Western Sahara, but in the small outpost of Tifariti near the Algerian border. This is because most of Western Sahara is under the administration and military occupation of Morocco, which claims the desert land as its own. The Western Saharan independence movement, led by the POLISARIO Front and the Saharan Arab Democratic Republic, exists largely in exile, as does nearly half the native population. Roughly 100,000 Sahrawis have lived in refugee camps in the southwest corner of Algeria, near Tindouf, since POLISARIO proclaimed an independent republic in 1976. A generation has come of age in the camps, knowing nothing but refugee life and cut off from contact with their homeland. The other half of the population, those Sahrawis living under Moroccan occupation, have become a minority in their own country, pushed to the margins by three decades of “Moroccanization.” Full story>>

Turkey, Cyprus and the European Division
Middle East Report Online
February 25, 2007
By Rebecca Bryant

More than three years after the opening of the ceasefire line that divides Cyprus, the island is closer than ever to rupture. When the Green Line first opened in April 2003, there was an initial period of euphoria, as Cypriots flooded in both directions to visit homes and neighbors left unwillingly behind almost three decades before. But a year later, when a UN plan to reunite the island came to referendum, new divisions emerged. While Turkish Cypriots voted in favor of the plan, their Greek Cypriot compatriots rejected it in overwhelming numbers. Visits stalled, and today social relations are mired in an increasingly divisive politics. Recent polls indicate that more Cypriots on both sides of the line favor partition than reunification, while Turkish Cypriots are anxious about a spate of lawsuits over property that they occupied when the island was divided. They perceive these suits as a direct threat to their existence in the absence of an acceptable plan for reunification. Full Story>>

The Pigeon on the Bridge Is Shot
Middle East Report Online
February 16, 2007
By Ayşe Kadıoğlu

“Sometimes they ask me what it is like to be an Armenian. I tell them that it is a wonderful thing and I recommend it to everyone.” These were Hrant Dink’s opening remarks at a conference entitled “Ottoman Armenians During the Collapse of the Ottoman Empire,” held in Istanbul on September 24 and 25, 2005. Those of us lucky enough to hear the mischievous introductory lines received them with joyous laughter, but we also knew we were witnesses to a lecture of historic significance, a momentous step forward in the efforts of Armenians and Turks to come to terms with the horrors of the past. Full Story>>

The Pakistan Taliban
Middle East Report Online
February 13, 2007
By Graham Usher 

A severed head is waved before a baying crowd. The camera zooms in to show a second bloodied corpse, the eyes gouged out and a wad of cash stuffed in the mouth, swinging from a pole. He is one of 29 “criminals, drug pushers, bootleggers and extortionists” executed for running “dens of iniquity,” says the voiceover on the videotape. The last reel shows a mess of bodies, some headless, being hauled in a pickup truck along a muddy street. Young men with shaggy black hair and guns slung over their shoulders are seen watching the lynchings. “The Taliban have done the job the ‘enlightened moderates’ refused to do. May God provide us with leaders like Mullah Omar,” concludes the narrator. Full Story>>

There and Back Again in Somalia
Middle East Report Online
February 11, 2007