Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

Joe Stork

Joe Stork was the editor of Middle East Report until 1995 and deputy director of Human Rights Watch's Middle East and North Africa division from 1995 to 2017. He is currently chair of the advisory board of the Gulf Center for Human Rights.

MER Article

An Interview with Azmi Bishara

Azmi Bishara, a Palestinian citizen of Israel, teaches at Birzeit University. Joe Stork spoke with him in Jerusalem in late October 1993. How do you assess the present situation? For or against the agreement is no longer relevant. But I don’t think there’s anything to celebrate. So you don’t thin

Joe Stork • 7 min read

MER Article

After Oslo

By shaking hands on September 13, 1993, Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin jointly revised the parameters of political possibilities in the Middle East. Whether these possibilities include a just peace and comprehensive reconciliation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is, four months later, far from certain. In the first week of December,

Beshara Doumani, Joe Stork • 9 min read

MER Article

Gender and Civil Society

Suad Joseph, an editor of this magazine, teaches anthropology at the University of California-Davis and is a founder of the Association of Middle East Women’s Studies and the Middle East Research Group in Anthropology. She has published extensively on sectarianism, gender and the family, and constru

Joe Stork • 11 min read

MER Article

The Intervention in Somalia: What Should Have Happened

John Paul Lederach directs the International Conciliation Service of the Mennonite Central Committee, and has been working closely in the past five years with Somalis in North America, Europe and Somalia, in particular with a Somali forum, Ergada. He also teaches at Eastern Mennonite College in Harr

Joe Stork • 11 min read

MER Article

Politics and Media in the Arab World

Hisham Milhem is the Washington correspondent of the Beirut daily al-Safir. Born in Lebanon, Milhem has lived and worked in Washington since 1976. Joe Stork and Sally Ethelston spoke with him in Washington in September 1992. What are the salient features of the power structure of the Arab media? Wh

Sally Ethelston, Joe Stork • 10 min read

MER Article

Power Structure of the American Media

me•di•a pl. of medium 2. an intervening thing through which a force acts or an effect is produced 3. any means, agency or instrument; specif., a means of communication that reaches the general public and carries advertising. —Webster’s New World Dictionary

Laura Flanders, Joe Stork • 12 min read

MER Article

Making War Difficult: Cooperative Security in the Middle East

John Steinbruner is director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Joe Stork and Yahya Sadowski spoke with him in March 1992. Could you describe the concept of cooperative security? How is it different from collective security? They are not mutually exclusive, b

Joe Stork, Yahya Sadowski • 9 min read

MER Article

New Enemies for a New World Order

There is considerable evidence that the Bush administration saw the Persian Gulf war of 1990-1991 as, among other things, the conflict that could define a new politico-military strategy for the 1990s. The war with Iraq would be the emblematic contest for the post-Cold War period, what the Korean War

Joe Stork • 18 min read

MER Article

Palestinian Self-Government Proposal

On January 14, in the second round of direct talks between Palestinian and Israeli negotiators in Washington, DC, the Palestinian side presented a draft outline of a Palestinian Interim Self-Government Authority (PISGA). Media accounts of the talks barely noted this unprecedented development, but this is one document that should not

Joe Stork • 3 min read

MER Article

"The Regime Has Simply Barricaded Itself in Khartoum"

Bona Malwal was elected to the Sudanese parliament in 1968. He was minister for culture and information from 1972 to 1978 and minister of finance and economic planning for the south from 1980 to 1981. His English-language newspaper, the Sudan Times, was banned when the current regime seized power in

Joe Stork • 9 min read

MER Article

The US in the Persian Gulf

The scale of the US military deployment in the Persian Gulf -- half of all US combat forces worldwide -- is something of a shock, even to the Pentagon. “Nobody ever thought they’d be free to commit all those forces,” one military official said.

Martha Wenger, Joe Stork • 8 min read

MER Article

A New Balance of Forces

Samih Farsoun, a contributing editor of this magazine and professor of sociology at American University, recently visited the Middle East. He spoke with Joe Stork in early November 1990. What is your assessment of the impact of this crisis on the balance of forces in the region?

Joe Stork • 9 min read