Dear Friends and Comrades,

Today we’re sharing with you the 10 most-viewed articles we published in 2025. Each of these pieces provides crucial, current analysis of regional dynamics driven by Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza: from the impacts of AI as both a technology of war and tool to manage refugees to the infrastructures that sustain US security architecture to the longer history of Palestinian resistance as explored in the Academy-award nominated film Palestine 36. These articles engage a range of political actors and sites–from the Houthi movement in Yemen to the new government in Syria. Above all, they document and analyze the scale of devastation Israel has brought about in Gaza over the last two years. 

As we enter the end of year break, we hope you’ll take some time to revisit these pieces. We are proud to have brought them to you and, as always, could not have done so without your support. 

In Solidarity,

James Ryan
Executive Director

MERIP’s Top 10 Most Viewed of 2025

Israel’s War on Reproduction in Gaza
By Hala Shoman

Hala Shoman’s chronicle of reprocide in Gaza was our most viewed article of 2025. It serves as a powerful reminder that Israel’s genocidal campaign not only sought to make Gaza unlivable for present generations, but to make it impossible for new generations of Palestinians in Gaza to be conceived. 

Artificial Humanitarianism–The Data-Driven Future of Refugee Responses

By Samer Abboud

In a special report for Resistance–The Axis and Beyond, Samer Abboud laid out how the mass collection of biometric data from refugees, first piloted in Jordan’s Za’atari refugee camp over a decade ago, has completely reshaped the management of refugees in the region and across the world. 

Syria’s New Men
By Rahaf Aldoughli

After more than a decade of exile, Rahaf Aldoughli returned to Syria in early 2025, following the fall of Bashar al-Asad in December 2024. Aldoughli provided her initial reflections to MERIP, including her observations on the changes and continuities in the depiction of masculinity between Asad and his successor, Ahmad Al Sharaa.

Yemen’s Ansar Allah
By Helen Lackner

The role of Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, in the war in Gaza and resistance to Israeli violence has been poorly understood. Analyst Helen Lackner provided us with this helpful overview of their history and positionality in the ongoing war early in 2025, and followed up with a podcast interview with James Ryan in September. 

Power Struggles–Energy as a Weapon of War, Domination and Resistance in Palestine
By Zachary Cuyler

A critical aspect of Israel’s siege on Gaza was to severely limit the flow of electricity. Israel’s ability to regulate electricity in Gaza has a long history that is completely tied to its colonial domination of Palestinian territory – as historian Zachary Cuyler details in this essay.

The Abraham Accords and Sudan’s Global Counterrevolution
By Bayan Abubakr

In 2020, Sudan, represented by a post-revolutionary transitional government, became the third Arab-majority country to sign the Abraham Accords. While the 2021 coup d’etat halted further normalization, “the negotiations and the political bargains the Accords generated were part of the wider web that connects authoritarian regimes across the region” as Bayan Abubakr explains in this essay.

Hardwiring Normalization–Infrastructures, Extraction and Gaza’s Future
By Rafeef Ziadah
The lead article in our Summer/Fall double issue, “Hardwiring Normalization” is Rafeef Ziadah’s thorough overview of the infrastructural underpinnings of normalization, and what it portends for eventual reconstruction efforts in Gaza. 

The Military-Industrial Backbone of Normalization
By Tariq Dana

The groundwork for Israel’s genocide in Gaza was laid in arms deals. The trade in military technology and ballistics between Abraham Accords countries, as Tariq Dana details in this piece, paved the way for the destruction we’ve witnessed in Gaza, and the relative silence from so many Arab states. 

Palestine 36 and the Hard Facts of History
By Lori Allen

Annemarie Jacir’s sweeping epic of the 1936 Arab Revolt is an Oscar hopeful in 2026. Lori Allen’s review highlights how the film makes visceral the personal and political impact of colonialism.

Fiber Optics and the Hidden Politics of Connectivity
By Ned Leadbeater

In February 2024, after a British flagged cargo ship was hit by two Houthi missiles, its anchor severed three fiber optic cables that cut 25% of the internet traffic between Europe and Asia. This event brought the digital infrastructure of normalization to the surface, and in this essay and our latest podcast episode, Ned Leadbeater helps our readers understand how integral the geography of normalization has impacted how the world connects itself.