Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Joel Beinin

Joel Beinin is Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History and professor of Middle East History, Emeritus at Stanford University and a contributing editor of Middle East Report.

MER Article

The Egyptian Regime and the Left: Between Islamism and Secularism

In the spring of 1992, Cairo University’s administration declined to elevate Nasr Hamid Abu Zayd from assistant to full professor in the Department of Arabic Language and Literature after a member of the promotions committee of the Faculty of Arts reported that he is an unbeliever. Abu Zayd’s

Joel Beinin • 4 min read

MER Article

Rethinking Palestinian Politics

During the Gulf war the entire population of the West Bank and the Gaza Strip lived under total curfew for 36 days, with brief and erratic periods of relaxation toward the end of the ordeal. Most inhabitants had no secure supply of food and fuel, no gas masks and no

Joel Beinin • 5 min read

MER Article

Pushing Israel's Boundaries of Debate

Since expelling 415 Palestinians alleged to have been radical Islamic activists last December, the Israeli government, mass media and much of the Middle East studies establishment have intensified their campaign to demonize all forms of political Islam. On the academic front, Tel Aviv University’s Dayan Center for Middle East

Joel Beinin • 4 min read

MER Article

Money, Media and Policy Consensus

Although the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) was established only in 1985, by the time the Bush administration came to office in January 1989 it had become the non-governmental organization with the greatest influence over US Middle East policy. WINEP built its success on ample fun

Joel Beinin • 16 min read

MER Article

Aspects of Egyptian Civil Resistance

Several films with critical political content opened during the 1992 Ramadan season in Egypt. The most popular was al-Irhab wa al-Kabab (Terrorism and Kebab), directed by Sharif ‘Arafa and starring Egypt’s foremost comic actor, ‘Adil Imam. The protagonist repeatedly visits the hub of the central government bureaucracy -- a

Joel Beinin • 4 min read

MER Article

Peace Projects

We may come to recall 1992 as the year of the peace activist in the burgeoning literary and cinematographic record of the Palestinian intifada. By rupturing the structure of the occupation, Palestinian popular collective action and the decisions of the nineteenth Palestine National Council expanded

Joel Beinin • 4 min read

MER Article

Egyptian Women and the Politics of Protest

In recent years to veiling of Muslim women has become a common image associated with radical Islamist politics. Yet in Accommodating Protest: Working Women, the New Veiling and Change in Cairo (Columbia, 1990) Arlene Macleod demonstrates that lower middle-class women in Cairo who wear the hijab (new

Joel Beinin • 4 min read

MER Article

Assessing Storm Damage

Following upon the devastation of Iraq, the Gulf warmongers have attempted to articulate their vision of a Middle East dominated by Washington and its allies. In an effort to forestall the growing criticism of the “special relationship” between Israel and the US in policymaking circles, After the Storm: Challenges for

Joel Beinin • 4 min read

MER Article

How to Stop Shamir

Naomi Chazan is chair of the Truman Institute at Hebrew University, and author of Irridentism and International Policy (Lynne Rienner, 1991). Salim Tamari and Joel Beinin spoke with her in Jerusalem on December 30, 1991. What are the likely effects of the settlers’ move into Silwan on the peace neg

Joel Beinin, Salim Tamari • 10 min read

MER Article

Dangerous Asset

Two major schools of interpretation seek to explain why the United States grants Israel an annual subsidy of nearly $4 billion and consistently supports Israeli militarism and expansionism. The domestic politics approach attributes the “special relationship” to the political and financial power of the Zionist lobby and Jewish influence in

Joel Beinin • 4 min read

MER Article

Egypt from Outside and Inside

In May the group of 17 states known as the Paris Club decided to forgive (in stages) half of Egypt’s $20.2 billion government-to-government debt. Earlier, the US had agreed to write off $7.1 billion of Egypt’s military debt, and Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar canceled $6 bi

Joel Beinin • 4 min read

MER Article

War and Sexuality

The Gulf way may ultimately transform Arab politics even more radically than the political-military defeats of 1948 and 1967. Those experiences were the midwives of self-critical reassessments that, while severe, accepted the fundamental legitimacy of Arab nationalism and its political project. In t

Joel Beinin • 4 min read