MER Article Zionism, Anti-Semitism and Jewish Identity in the Women's Movement Zionism made its first entry into global feminist debate at the founding UN Decade for Women conference in Mexico City in 1975. There, during discussions of the introduction to a program of action for the decade, the conference passed wording that called for “the elimination of colonialism and neo-c Ellen Cantarow • 20 min read
MER Article Who's Afraid of Mahmoud Darwish? Under normal circumstances, Arabic literature of any kind passes virtually unnoticed in Israel, despite the fact that a few of the most well-known contemporary Arab writers are Israeli citizens. But the publication of “Those Who Pass Between Fleeting Words,” a poem by Mahmoud Darwish, the Palestinia Ammiel Alcalay • 9 min read
MER Article Those Who Pass Between Fleeting Words O those who pass between fleeting words Carry your names, and be gone Rid our time of your hours, and be gone Steal what you will from the blueness of the sea and the sand of memory Take what pictures you will, so that you understand That which you never will: How a stone from our land builds the ce Mahmoud Darwish • 2 min read
MER Article Notes on Palestinian Political Leadership The question of Palestinian leadership in the West Bank and Gaza is one of the key issues in the effort to resolve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. Israel has systematically suppressed political expression in the Occupied Territories, deporting or imprisoning local leaders as they emerge. The Pales Ziad Abu 'Amr • 8 min read
MER Article The PLO and the Uprising For many years, for many people, the Palestinian-Israeli conflict consisted primarily of the struggle between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and Israel, a struggle waged mainly outside of Palestine. The uprising in the Occupied Territories has firmly fixed the attention of the world on Rashid Khalidi • 8 min read
MER Article Palestine for Beginners After World War I, the League of Nations (controlled by the leading colonial powers of the time, Britain and France) carved up the territories of the defeated Ottoman Empire. The territory now made up of Israel, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and Jordan was granted to Great Britain as a Mandate (a qu Lisa Hajjar, Joel Beinin • 8 min read
MER Article Points of Stress Eight months into the intifada, Israel’s occupation appears as unyielding as the rocky hills of Palestine. Bolstered by arms and funds from the United States and supported by a rightward-leaning public, the Israeli political establishment stands utterly intransigent, opposed to any political comprom James Paul • 14 min read
MER Article The Significance of Stones Visitors to the West Bank and Gaza get a very immediate, sensory grasp of the significance of stones. In the West Bank, the main cities and towns and many larger villages lie along the ridge of hills and plateaus running north to south and forming a sort of geological spine between the Mediterranean Joe Stork • 21 min read
MER Article From the Editors (September/October 1988) In June, the seventh month of the uprising, two of us -- Joe Stork and Jim Paul -- traveled to the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, along with photographer Rick Reinhard. We saw firsthand the extent to which this unfolding political event has transformed, and continues to transform, a balance of forces w The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article Letter (July/August 1988) I would appreciate your publishing in Middle East Report the information that Zed Books has agreed to withdraw from circulation and pulp all remaining copies of Bantustan Gaza by Richard Locke and Anthony Stewart. This action has been taken at my request on the grounds that substantial portions of t (Author not identified) • 1 min read
MER Article Editor's Bookshelf (July/August 1988) The defeat of the Arab states in the June 1967 war was more than a military setback. It was also a blow against the radical nationalist project and its modern and secular cultural orientation which bonded the Arab world and the West even as it provided a framework for resistance to Western economic, Joel Beinin • 5 min read
MER Article Lessing, The Wind Blows Away Our Words Doris Lessing, The Wind Blows Away Our Words (London: Picador and NY: Random House, 1987). The travel book that touches on the political is a tricky genre. At its best it enables the author, freed from the constraints of formal narrative and factual analysis, to present a special insight into a Fred Halliday • 2 min read
