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

Pakistan's Nuclear Fix

Earlier this year, stories citing US intelligence documents reported that Pakistan now had the capacity to enrich uranium to 93 percent. In other words, Pakistan could produce its own weapons-grade nuclear material. This is perhaps the single most difficult step in manufacturing nuclear bombs. Few

Joe Stork • 7 min read

MER Article

Nuclear Shadow Over the Middle East

In the summer of 1984, Newsweek published the results of a Gallup poll of hundreds of top-ranking American military officers. Among the questions was this: where did they see the greatest threat of a conflict situation which might escalate to nuclear war? The majority responded clearly: the Middle E

Joe Stork • 11 min read

MER Article

Mad Dogs and Presidents

When Ronald Reagan ordered US warplanes to attack Libya on April 15, terrorism was the occasion rather than the cause. Like the electronic confetti spewed out to muddle Libyan radar screens, the terrorism issue was snow to disarm and deflect critics of American military intervention. Such interventi

Joe Stork • 15 min read

MER Article

Lackner, P.D.R. Yemen

Helen Lackner, P.D.R. Yemen: Outpost of Socialist Development in Arabia, (London: Ithaca Press, 1985). It is hard to imagine a more timely publishing event than the appearance of Helen Lackner’s new book on the People’s Democratic Republic of Yemen, given the crisis that engulfed that country this

Joe Stork • 2 min read

MER Article

The War of the Camps, the War of the Hostages

June 19,1985. In Beirut, TWA flight 847 stands desolate on the empty tarmac, a huge hulk of white metal shimmering in the heat, a picture off the cover of some bungled tourism brochure. Some 40 Americans are unwilling guests in the southern shantytowns known as the “suburbs” of Beirut. More than a h

Joe Stork • 14 min read

MER Article

Oil Find Could Alter YAR-Saudi Relations

In July 1984, the Hunt Oil Company announced it had struck oil in the Yemen Arab Republic. Tests so far suggest that the field will produce a minimum of 75,000 barrels per day (b/d). This would be the threshold for commercial exploitation, given the field’s location nearly 500 kilometers inland and

Joe Stork • 2 min read

MER Article

Ten Years After

It is still possible, even likely, that history will take note of the remarkable events of late 1973 and early 1974: Egyptian troops crossed the Suez Canal and penetrated the supposedly impregnable Bar Lev line in a matter of hours; the kings and presidents of the Arab oil producing states, led by F

Joe Stork • 13 min read

MER Article

Report from Lebanon

I flew into Beirut on May 17. As we descended over the city, what struck me was the many patches of vacant land, obvious gaps in the space of urban lives, large empty lots of red clay with milliards of glass and metal shards and slivers, glinting in the brilliant morning sun. Approaching the airport

Joe Stork • 37 min read

MER Article

US Aid to Israel

The General Accounting Office (GAO), often referred to as “the congressional watchdog agency,” began a full-scale investigation of US aid to Israel in early 1982, without any public announcement or official congressional sponsor. The report was completed in early 1983 and circulated to the relevant

Martha Wenger, Joe Stork • 9 min read

MER Article

Water and Israel's Occupation Strategy

The long conflict involving Israel, the Palestinians and neighboring Arab states has revolved around the elementary bonds of people and territory. Water is perhaps the single most important material resource determining the relationship of people to land. From the beginnings of the Zionist project t

Joe Stork • 18 min read

MER Article

Israeli Economy Struggles for Appearance of Solvency

In a year when much of the world endured a protracted economic crisis, and Israel itself was politically torn by the invasion of Lebanon, that country&rsquos economy appeared deceptively unruffled. True, inflation rebounded to a near-record level of 131.5 percent, [1] but most of the country’s citiz

Joe Stork • 7 min read

MER Article

Arms Sales and the Militarization of the Middle East

Over the last decade, the Middle East has become a focal point of the world arms buildup. Each year, the regional arsenal grows, as the United States, the Soviet Union, France, Britain and others ship billions of dollars worth of weapons to the countries there. During the 1970s, while the world arms

James Paul, Joe Stork • 19 min read