MER Article From the Editors (November/December 1988) “The wars are winding down. The streets are heating up.” This was how Baltimore radio commentator Sean Connolly led off his “minimalist news” broadcast one day in mid-September. It is hard to find a more succinct way to describe the state of the world, the Middle East included, on the cusp of transi The Editors • 5 min read
MER Article From the Editors (September/October 1988) In June, the seventh month of the uprising, two of us -- Joe Stork and Jim Paul -- traveled to the West Bank, Gaza and Israel, along with photographer Rick Reinhard. We saw firsthand the extent to which this unfolding political event has transformed, and continues to transform, a balance of forces w The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article From the Editors (July/August 1988) This issue continues MERIP’s inquiry into the dynamic relationship of religion and politics in the Middle East. Our authors pay particular attention to the various ways in which Islam, the dominant religion in the region, enters into the equations of state power and popular opposition in countries a The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article From the Editors (May/June 1988) In the land of Palestine-Israel, the “generation of occupation” has rewritten the equations that will describe the dynamics of any future political equilibrium. Israeli rulers are determined to stand against this sea change. Defense Minister Yitzhak Rabin insists that the uprising will achieve no P The Editors • 2 min read
MER Article From the Editors (March/April 1988) The adversarial relationship between the United States and the Soviet Union, the two great powers of this era, is key to understanding Washington’s and Moscow’s policies in the Middle East. In the Persian Gulf, for instance, Washington’s secret arms sales to Iran and subsequent naval buildup were bo The Editors • 4 min read
MER Article From the Editors (January/February 1988) On November 19, we received a telegram from Kenny Rogers, the country singer, and his wife Marianne. Our March-April issue, “The Struggle for Food,” they told us, had won first prize along with Scientific American in the 1987 World Hunger Media Awards in the periodicals category. Jim Paul, Martha We The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article From the Editors (July/August 1987) At the beginning of June, a new, heavily armored Mercedes arrived in Cairo. It had been ordered for the new US ambassador to Egypt, Frank Wisner. Just a week earlier, in the heart of the crowded capital, a group calling itself Egypt’s Revolution had ambushed a car carrying three US Embassy staff, in The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article From the Editors (May/June 1987) The fate of Palestine seems strangely linked to years ending in seven. Theodore Herzl’s new Zionist movement held its first congress in Basel in 1897. In November 1917, the Balfour Declaration tried to define the Palestinians into oblivion as the country’s “non-Jewish inhabitants.” In July 1937, the The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article From the Editors (March/April 1987) For working people in the United States, April is the month for rendering unto Caesar. This is the time when we pay for things like the 82nd Airborne at Fort Bragg, the aircraft carriers cruising the Mediterranean and Indian Ocean, and weapons to Israel, Egypt, Turkey, Pakistan and a host of other w The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article From the Editors (January/February 1987) The scheme began to unravel last October 7. In Managua, the sole survivor of a downed American C-123 cargo plane full of weapons for the contras told a crowded press conference, “My name is Eugene Hasenfus.” In Washington, businessman Roy Furmark called on his old friend William Casey at CIA directo The Editors • 5 min read
MER Article From the Editors (November/December 1986) Top Reagan aides from the National Security Council and the CIA fly secretly to Iran atop crates of missiles, Bible in one hand and cake in the other. The image aptly captures the bizarre and dangerous character of Washington’s policies in the Middle East and Central America. Two of the men on the T The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article From the Editors (September/October 1986) The US Federal Reserve Bank recently reported that over one third of the wealth in the United States is currently held by only 1 percent of all families. And in recent years, it seems, concentration has actually been increasing. Wealth, and the power that goes with it, is in the hands of the very fe The Editors • 3 min read
