Middle East Research and Information Project

Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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MER Article

Turkey's Super-Rich

Turkey’s big businessmen are getting the best press they have had for decades. Their profiles are a regular feature in a number of publications. Nokta, the country’s most popular weekly, runs a yearly feature on Turkey’s 100 richest families. Businessmen exude a new self-confidence in public and are
Ömer Karasapan • 17 min read
MER Article

The Exile Bourgeoisie of Palestine

‘Umar ‘Aqqad is planning to export bottled water from Saudi Arabia. Not the kind of project you might expect in a desert kingdom where water is scarce. But then, ‘Aqqad is one of the shrewdest and most successful businessmen in the region. Not coincidentally, he is also a Palestinian. For Palestinia
Pamela Ann Smith • 14 min read
MER Article

The New Bourgeoisie of the Gulf

A blue helicopter flies out over the harbor at Nice, landing gently on an enormous yacht of teak and mahogany, swaying gently at anchor. The passengers step out: A correspondent and photographer from the Spanish photo magazine Hola! are arriving to get a feature story on ‘Adnan Khashoggi, flamboyant
James Paul • 10 min read
MER Article

Morocco's Bourgeoisie

From the elegant office towers of downtown Casablanca to the palatial villas on the outskirts of every major city, evidence abounds of Morocco’s owning class. The luxury cars of the bourgeoisie fill downtown streets. Nightclubs, posh restaurants and expensive boutiques flourish even in a time of nat
Jean-François Clement • 14 min read
MER Article

State and Capitalism in Iraq

Isam al-Khafaji’s article is the most interesting essay on Iraq that I have read in a long time. It sheds much light on the actual workings of Saddam Hussein’s regime. From the vantage point of 1985, it appears clear that the pattern of spending of state revenues, particularly from the middle 1970s
Hanna Batatu • 6 min read
MER Article

State Incubation of Iraqi Capitalism

The scene was the presidential palace in Baghdad, July 7, 1983. A campaign to solicit gold and money donations from ordinary citizens to support the Iraqi war effort had just begun. A furious Saddam Hussein was receiving a group of Iraqi contractors to convince them to increase their donations. He s
Isam al-Khafaji • 21 min read
MER Article

From the Editors (September/October 1986)

The US Federal Reserve Bank recently reported that over one third of the wealth in the United States is currently held by only 1 percent of all families. And in recent years, it seems, concentration has actually been increasing. Wealth, and the power that goes with it, is in the hands of the very fe
The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article

The CIA in Afghanistan

President Reagan’s campaign to fund the Nicaraguan contras has distracted public attention from the much larger covert war operation in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan funding is currently at least $275 million per year but it may be double that—the exact sums are discreetly hidden as “other procuremen
• 4 min read
MER Article

Helms, Iraq: Eastern Flank of the Arab World

Christine Moss Helms, Iraq: Eastern Flank of the Arab World (Washington, DC: The Brookings Institution, 1984).
Muhammad Ja'far • 2 min read
MER Article

Black, Garrison Guatemala

George Black with Milton Jamail and Norma Stoltz Chincilla, Garrison Guatemala (New York: Monthly Review Press, 1984).   A Chicana from California on a recent political study trip to Guatemala elicited a special tour from guards at Guatemala’s seat of government, the National Palace, by putting on
Martha Wenger • 1 min read
MER Article

Hussain, Political Perspectives on the Muslim World

Asaf Hussain, Political Perspectives on the Muslim World (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984).
Fred H. Lawson • 1 min read
MER Article

Vercellin, Crime de Silence

Giorgio Vercellin, Crime de Silence et Crime de Tapage: Panorama des lectures sur l'Afghanistan contemporain (Naples: Institute Universitario Orientale, 1985).   Giorgio Vercellin, of the University of Venice, has undertaken the unusual and difficult task of reviewing the mass of recent published
Fred Halliday • 1 min read

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Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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