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

"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

MER Article

The Middle East and Human Rights

Ibn Sina hospital, in a beautiful suburb of Rabat, is Morocco’s finest medical facility. It is the major teaching hospital of Morocco’s top medical school, a place where Moroccan and foreign medical experts carry on research and perform medical care at the highest level. Not long ago, a patient jum

James Paul, Joe Stork • 7 min read

MER Article

Pakistan's Movement Against Islamization

Nikki Keddie traveled to Pakistan in 1985 and 1986 to investigate groups that in various ways have worked against President Zia ul Haq’s attempts to “Islamize” Pakistan’s legal system. Many of these activists are from women’s organizations; the Shi‘i community and certain lawyers groups have also mo

Eric Hooglund, Joe Stork • 6 min read

MER Article

AWACS in the Gulf

The Airborne Warning and Control System (AWACS) aircraft that Pakistan wants to get from Washington has played an important part in the US military buildup in the Persian Gulf region. In 1978, the Carter administration sold seven of the planes to the Shah of Iran. One motivation was to reduce the un

Joe Stork • 2 min read

MER Article

Reagan Reflags the Gulf

As the Iran-Iraq war moves into its eighth year, it threatens to explode into a shooting war between Iran and the United States, a war that could involve the Soviet Union as well. Escalation of the US military presence in the Gulf involves more than the 11 Kuwaiti tankers now flying the stars and st

Joe Stork • 8 min read

MER Article

Interview with Mohamed Sid-Ahmed

Mohamed Sid-Ahmed is a Contributing Editor of this magazine and Managing Editor of Al-Ahali, the weekly of Egypt’s left opposition party, Tagammu‘. Joe Stork spoke with him in Washington in early May. You recently attended the Palestine National Council meeting in Algiers. What were your impress

Joe Stork • 6 min read

MER Article

Rescheduling the Camp David Debt

Egypt’s current debt crisis is one of the fruits of Camp David. Much of the principal and interest now in arrears or coming due was contracted in the heady days when oil prices were soaring and the treaty with Israel and military alliance with Washington certified Egypt as a credit-worthy customer f

Joe Stork • 3 min read

MER Article

"The US Must Start Negotiations with the PLO"

Gail Pressberg is the Middle East coordinator for the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC). Joe Stork spoke with her in Washington in late March 1987. Where is the peace movement at now with regard to Middle East issues?

Joe Stork • 9 min read

MER Article

"They Control the Hill, But We've Got a Lot of Positions Around the Hill"

Jim Zogby is the director of the Arab American Institute in Washington. He was a founder of the Palestine Human Rights Campaign (PHRC) and the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC). Joe Stork spoke with him on March 18, 1987. How did you get engaged in Middle East organizing?

Joe Stork • 14 min read

MER Article

Bullets, Banks and Bushels

Access to food, and at what price, is a potent political issue in the Middle East today. The question is posed most starkly in conditions of war and armed conflict. The recent blockade of Palestinian camps near Beirut over many months reduced the inhabitants to starvation and compelled Palestinian f

Karen Pfeifer, Joe Stork • 8 min read

MER Article

Arms Industries of the Middle East

Forty years ago, arms production in the Middle East was limited to a few small factories producing rifles and ammunition. Today, arms production has become a very big business in the region, with annual output worth more than $4 billion and rising. Of the 23 Third World countries with extensive mili

Joe Stork • 12 min read

MER Article

Political Violence Against Arab-Americans

Abdeen Jabara, a lawyer, is a long-time Arab-American activist from Detroit. He recently became president of the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) and is now working at their national office in Washington DC. Joe Stork interviewed him in September 1986 in Washington.

Joe Stork • 8 min read