MER Article The Routine of Repression By the end of summer, almost all the journalists were gone. They had descended en masse around June 5, the twentieth anniversary of the Israeli military occupation, crowding the streets of the West Bank and Gaza in quest of photogenic unrest. The preceding winter and spring had been tumultuous. Seve Penny Johnson • 17 min read
MER Article From the Editors (January/February 1988) On November 19, we received a telegram from Kenny Rogers, the country singer, and his wife Marianne. Our March-April issue, “The Struggle for Food,” they told us, had won first prize along with Scientific American in the 1987 World Hunger Media Awards in the periodicals category. Jim Paul, Martha We The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article Books on Lebanon Wade R. Goria, Sovereignty and Leadership in Lebanon 1943-1976, (London: Ithaca Press, 1986). Helena Cobban, The Making of Modern Lebanon, (Boulder: Westview Press, 1985). Carolyn L. Gates • 2 min read
MER Article Recent Films Aqabat Jaber: Passing Through. Directed by Eyal Sivan. Produced and distributed by Dune Vision, 1987. Rissala... Min Zamen al-Harb (Letter from a Time of War). Directed by Borhan Alaouie. Produced and distributed by France Media, 1986. Zahrat al-Kindoul: Women of South Lebanon. Directed by Jean Ch Miriam Rosen • 3 min read
MER Article Avishai, The Tragedy of Zionism Bernard Avishai, The Tragedy of Zionism -- Revolution and Democracy in the Land of Israel, (New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1985). Moshé Machover • 7 min read
MER Article Naji al-'Ali Remembered A ragged, barefoot boy, hands clutched behind his back, stands witness to the scene before him. The small boy in the cartoon is Naji al-‘Ali, popular cartoonist, at age 10, when he was expelled from his native Palestine to Lebanon in 1948. Naji used to say that the boy was a symbol of the Palestinia Joan Mandell • 3 min read
MER Article Germany's Greens and Israel The German Greens are having a hard time defining a Middle East policy. No wonder. Besides the usual difficulties of the whole European left, they are German. How hard it could be was brought home with a thud by the six Greens who toured Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel and the occupied territories i Diana Johnstone • 7 min read
MER Article Document: Testimony of a Syrian Censor He does not wish to be identified because he believes that the long arm of the Syrian government will reach him anywhere in the world. Take his word for it, he said, he knew them better than anyone else. He ought to; he was once a censor in the ministry of information. He is also a writer and journa (Author not identified) • 6 min read
MER Article Prison, Gender, Praxis Do you, too, believe that I betrayed my motherhood when I left you, against my will, to go to prison?…. I have read an article by the Moroccan writer Hadiya Sa‘id…she expressed a point of view maintained by some of our friends who love me and are concerned about you. She says that I must cease my po Marilyn Booth • 22 min read
MER Article Police Riot in Yarmuk Just after midnight on May 15, 1986, some 75 Special Forces of the Public Security Department stormed a dormitory at Yarmuk University to put an end to a student demonstration. They tear-gassed and clubbed the students with “a zeal that bordered on the ruthless,” according to witnesses. At least thr Joe Stork • 1 min read
MER Article "A Policeman on My Chest, A Scissor in My Brain" On Wednesday, June 16, 1987, police units entered the offices of the Jordanian Writers’ Association, ordered all writers and employees out, then searched and sealed the premises. The order to disband the Association came directly from the desk of Prime Minister Zaid al-Rifa‘i. Under the martial law A Special Correspondent • 11 min read
MER Article "The Lion's Right to Roar in His Cage" Nabil al-Hilali has been active as a labor and civil liberties lawyer in Egypt since the 1950s. He serves on the executive committees of the Egyptian Bar Association and the International Committee of Democratic Jurists. He ran as an independent in the parliamentary elections of April 1987. In 1986 Joe Stork • 6 min read
