Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Looking Beyond the Struggle for Palestinian Statehood — Palestinians stand next to a section of the Israeli barrier with a mural depicting George Floyd, who died in Minneapolis police custody, in Bethlehem in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Mussa Qawasma/Reuters

MER Article

Looking Beyond the Struggle for Palestinian Statehood

It is difficult to overstate the crisis in which Palestinians find themselves over 100 years after the Balfour Declaration and over 70 years after the Nakba. Palestinians are living as refugees without civil rights in places like Lebanon. Refugees who had lived in relative stability in Syria have now been

Amahl Bishara • 10 min read

The Muslim Ban and Trump's War on Immigration — People protest against President Donald Trump’s travel ban on Muslim majority countries at the Los Angeles International Airport, January 28, 2017. Patrick T. Fallon/Reuters

MER Article

The Muslim Ban and Trump's War on Immigration

Within one week of taking office, President Donald Trump made good on his campaign promise to implement a “total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.” Clothed in the language of national security, Executive Order 13769, issued on January 27, 2017, immediately prohibited the entry of immigrant and

Louise Cainkar • 18 min read

Consequences of US Financial Warfare in the Middle East — MERIP-logo_black-red-dot-1024x657

MER Article

Consequences of US Financial Warfare in the Middle East

When the COVID-19 pandemic spiked in Iran in March 2020, calls for lifting financial restrictions to allow the import of much needed medical supplies fell on deaf ears in President Donald Trump’s administration. The White House had no intention of putting the brakes on an increasingly forceful tool

Hicham Safieddine • 10 min read

The Enduring Lessons of the Iraq Sanctions — Iraqis receive food rations in Baghdad, June 2000. Faleh Kheiber/Reuters

MER Article

The Enduring Lessons of the Iraq Sanctions

The economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the United Nations Security Council, from 1990 to 2003, may well lay claim to be the worst humanitarian catastrophe ever imposed in the name of global governance. The unconscionable human damage done by those sanctions is routinely dismissed as the unintended consequence of

Joy Gordon • 14 min read