MER Article From the Editors The disorder of George Bush’s “new world” did not take long to reveal itself: On the muddy mountainsides along Iraq’s borders with Iran and Turkey, hundreds of thousands of Kurds seek refuge from the depredations of Iraq’s army, while the rest of Iraq’s battered society confronts The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article From the Editors This issue of Middle East Report is about power, intent, imagery and deceit. We begin with a brief consideration of the impact of the first two weeks of the “allied” air war on civilian populations in Iraq. The antiseptic briefings from the Pentagon and from Gen. Schwarzkopf’s headquarters in The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article From the Editors The world is fortunate that it has taken the Pentagon nearly three months to dispatch a quarter million troops and the requisite heavy hardware to Arabia. The interval seems to have allowed for some salutary second thoughts about why they are there in the first place. But the logic of war still prev The Editors • 5 min read
MER Article From the Editors The United States and the Arab world are on the edge of war. What is at stake is no longer the fate of Kuwait’s privileged elite. Nor is it only the political future of Saddam Hussein’s regime. The US military intervention, unilateral in all but name, has transformed a regional crisis into a contest The Editors • 4 min read
From the Editors The Palestinian uprising, along with its other achievements, has enabled Palestinian voices finally to reach the United States. Among the most eloquent of these voices are the many different expressions of Palestinian culture. In theater, film, music, art and literature, Palestinian cultural product The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article From the Editors Events elsewhere in the world -- elections in Nicaragua, death squads in South Africa and recent decisions by the European Commission -- hold much instruction for people concerned with the Middle East. Elections, after all, are not the same as democracy. After ten years of US armed intervention and The Editors • 4 min read
MER Article From the Editors The government of Israel fiercely maintains its rejectionist stance toward any political accommodation with the Palestine Liberation Organization. This is not merely a diplomatic posture, but undergirds the ideological structure of its policies of dispossession and occupation. Ha’aretz reported last The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article From the Editors (November/December 1989) When the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund met in Washington in September, President Husni Mubarak was on hand to speak about the Third World debt crisis. For more than a year, Cairo has been negotiating a new $500 million agreement with the IMF that would allow Egypt to reschedule $10 The Editors • 4 min read
MER Article From the Editors (September/October 1989) Visiting Ankara in early December 1981, at a time when the European Common Market countries had halted more than $600 million of aid to the new Turkish junta for its human rights abuses, Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger told General Kenan Evren that “we admire the way in which the order and law h The Editors • 4 min read
MER Article From the Editors (July/August 1989) The events of the past year demonstrate the great need for independent critical reporting and analysis of the Middle East and US policy there -- reporting and analysis that only Middle East Report provides. The key word is independent. This is what allows Middle East Report to be critical, to speak The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article Palestine and Israel in the US Arena Ordinary children, women and men, a million and a half of them, have confounded the state of Israel, Washington’s major military ally in the Middle East, with their incredible courage and resourcefulness. Their resounding demand for political independence then prompted the Palestine Liberation Organ The Editors • 5 min read
MER Article From the Editors (May/June 1989) For all of us in MERIP -- the staff, the editorial committee, the board of directors -- the past few months have been a poignant and exciting time, a mix of fond regrets and great anticipation. With this page, in this issue, we make it official: Jim Paul, who has worked with us on staff for more tha The Editors • 2 min read
