Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

Joshua Stacher

Joshua Stacher is associate professor of political science at Kent State University and an editor of Middle East Report. He is author of Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt and Syria (Stanford, 2012).

Current Analysis

Running as Resistance in Occupied Palestine

The Palestine Marathon, like its counterparts elsewhere, is meant to be a feel-good event. But it also has a political point: to highlight restrictions on movement for all Palestinians under Israeli occupation.

Joshua Stacher • 5 min read

MER Article

Education Under Occupation

Most Palestinian universities are underfunded, but Hebron University is extreme in its needs. Compared to other institutions in Palestine, there are few buildings named for wealthy donors. Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement mean that students rarely enroll in a university outside the vicinity where they were raised. Most of Birzeit

Joshua Stacher • 1 min read

MER Article

Hebron, the Occupation's Factory of Hate

What makes Hebron special is the religious-nationalist militancy of the Israeli settler projects in the city and its environs—along with the ferocity of the accompanying violence. In the province as a whole, the settlement pattern is the same as elsewhere in the West Bank—the inward creep of coloniz

Joshua Stacher • 11 min read

MER Article

Shenker, The Egyptians

Jack Shenker, The Egyptians: A Radical Story (London: Penguin, 2016). Jack Shenker’s book is the definitive account of the 2011 Egyptian uprising to date. Many scholars and journalists have taken as their point of departure the notion that the uprising was a one-off democratizing experiment that failed. With his

Joshua Stacher • 2 min read

MER Article

Establishment Mursi

On June 29, 12 days after he was elected president of Egypt, Muhammad Mursi ascended a Tahrir Square stage and issued a dramatic pledge to guard the revolution launched there the preceding spring. Mursi opened his jacket, revealing that he wore no bulletproof vest, thumped his chest and yelled, “I f

Joshua Stacher • 6 min read

MER Article

Egypt's Generals and Transnational Capital

Before and after the ejection of Husni Mubarak from office, the size of the Egyptian army’s share in the economy has been a subject of great debate. The army is known to manufacture everything from olive oil and shoe polish to the voting booths used in Egypt’s 2011

Joshua Stacher, Shana Marshall • 19 min read

MER Article

Mohamed el-Sayed Said

Mohamed el-Sayed Said, a long-time contributing editor of this publication, died at the age of 59 on October 10, 2009. He was buried in his native Port Said. The intellectual elite of Egypt attended his funeral.

Jason Brownlee, Joshua Stacher • 2 min read

MER Article

The Brothers and the War

The shoes thrown by Muntadhar al-Zaydi at George W. Bush during the former president’s farewell tour of Iraq have added an icon to the international culture of protest. During Israel’s wintertime war on Gaza, which, according to the Palestinian Authority Ministry of Health, killed more than 1,300

Joshua Stacher • 18 min read

MER Article

Damanhour by Hook and by Crook

On a November day in the sleepy Egyptian Delta town of Damanhour, around 1,000 townsfolk gathered in the central square to listen to Mustafa al-Fiqqi of the ruling National Democratic Party explain why they should vote for him as their parliamentary representative in two days’ time. Al-Fiqqi is a fo

Joshua Stacher • 6 min read

MER Article

Rhetorical Acrobatics and Reputations

The inaugural report of Egypt's state-sponsored National Council for Human Rights raised eyebrows when it was released in April 2005. The 358-page document acknowledged claims of torture in the country's police stations and called for an end to the emergency laws that have effectively suspended the

Joshua Stacher • 17 min read