MER Article

On ISIS

In early June 2014 the world was shocked by news of the fall of Mosul, the third largest city in Iraq, to jihadi militants loyal to something called the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS. The conquest was rapid—soldiers of the Iraqi army dropped their weapons and fled rather than resist the I

The Editors • 17 min read

Current Analysis

Release Hossam Bahgat

UPDATE: Hossam Bahgat was released from detention [http://www.madamasr.com/news/update-hossam-bahgat-has-been-released-not-clear-if-charges-still-pending] at midday Cairo time on November 10. It is uncertain whether the charges against him are still pending. We will post further updates as warranted

The Editors • 2 min read

MER Article

Editor's Picks (Summer 2015)

Amiry, Suad. Golda Slept Here (London: Bloomsbury, 2015). Bowering, Gerhard, ed. Islamic Political Thought: An Introduction (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2015). Cuno, Kenneth. Modernizing Marriage: Family, Ideology and Law in Nineteenth- and Early Twentieth-Century Egypt (Syracuse, N

The Editors • 2 min read

Current Analysis

Urgent Need for Humanitarian Corridor in Yemen

The humanitarian emergency in Yemen continues to worsen. In Aden, the southern port city where local fighters are trying to fend off a Houthi takeover, several neighborhoods have no water or power. Hospitals are begging for basics like antibiotics and bandages. There is no sign of a pause in the co

The Editors • 1 min read

MER Article

From the Editors (Spring 2015)

It is easy to be rendered speechless, or cast into despair, by the sheer enormity of the conflagration in today’s Middle East. At year’s end in 2014, more than half of the countries this magazine covers were embroiled in wars within their borders or nearby. The Saudi-led assault on Yemen launched in

The Editors • 2 min read

Current Analysis

Palestine and the ICC

At the close of 2014, Mahmoud ‘Abbas, head of the Ramallah wing of the Palestinian Authority (PA), announced that he would sign the Rome Statute, the 2002 treaty establishing the International Criminal Court based in The Hague. This move opens the possibility that the Palestinians could ask the Cour

The Editors • 14 min read

Current Analysis

An Interview with Mohamed Elshahed

Mohamed Elshahed is a young, dynamic architect and researcher who is documenting changes to urban space in Egypt at his highly popular blog Cairobserver [http://cairobserver.com/]. Elshahed completed a doctorate in Middle East studies at New York University and is now a postdoctoral fellow at the Be

The Editors • 7 min read

MER Article

From the Editors (Fall 2014)

In the last week of August, after several false starts, a ceasefire finally halted the summertime slaughter in Gaza. Israel’s bombs stopped falling, Palestinians stopped dying and the world media stopped its round-the-clock coverage. And, just like that, Gaza was again yesterday’s news.

The Editors • 4 min read

Current Analysis

Sisi at the UN

This week ‘Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi paid his inaugural visit to the United States as president of Egypt. The occasion was the annual meetings of the UN General Assembly. We asked some veteran Egypt watchers and MERIP authors for their reactions. Mona El-Ghobashy [http://www.merip.org/author/mona-el-gh

The Editors • 6 min read

Current Analysis

State Department Taking Passports Away from Yemeni-Americans

Over the past year, dozens of Yemeni-Americans visiting their ancestral homeland have had their US passports summarily revoked or confiscated by the embassy in Sanaa without any clear legal basis, effectively stranding them outside the United States. Last month, a coalition of US civil rights groups

The Editors • 6 min read

Current Analysis

Gaza Is

“Gaza is Israel’s Soweto.” With those four words, Joan Mandell led her dispatch for Middle East Report [http://www.merip.org/mer/mer136/gaza-israels-soweto] in 1985. Visitors to Gaza cannot help but draw grim parallels. The place urges it upon them. Julie Peteet prefaced her 2009 piece [http://www.

The Editors • 4 min read

MER Article

From the Editors (Summer 2014)

Targeted killings. Ground operations. No option off the table. Once again, Israel is using the technocratic vocabulary of twenty-first-century warfare to obscure its colonization of Palestine, and, once again, the Western media is collaborating in the grand deception. It was predictable, sadly, tha

The Editors • 3 min read