Current Analysis Radix Malorum est Cupiditas The last three years have been a time of outright misery for most Yemenis as War, Pestilence, Famine and Death have stalked what used to be known as Arabia Felix. Thousands are recorded as having been killed; tens of thousands more are known to have died. Millions are starved by a siege, and—weakene James Spencer • 5 min read
Current Analysis Sisi’s Plebiscitary Election From day one of his July 3 coup, al-Sisi has directed a relentless campaign to depoliticize and incapacitate the population, riveting the old relations of deference and subordination between those who rule and those coerced to obey. But plebiscitary elections are part of a different type of autocrat Mona El-Ghobashy • 15 min read
MER Article Pennock, The Rise of the Arab American Left Pamela Pennock positions her new book, The Rise of the Arab American Left, as a corrective to what she characterizes as a near omission of Arab American activism in histories of the left in the United States. Jennifer Kelly • 5 min read
Current Analysis The Story Behind the Rise of Turkey’s Ulema The AKP, in pushing the expansion of the Diyanet for political purposes, also has enhanced the capacity of the institution to pursue its own agenda. Indeed, the unprecedented expansion of the Diyanet in recent years demonstrates its ability to seize opportunities arising from its common cause with A Ceren Lord • 19 min read
Current Analysis Yemen Dispatch The eruption of fighting by rival factions in Yemen’s southern city of Aden on January 28 provides distressing additional evidence that Yemen’s war is best understood as a series of mini-wars reflecting the intersection of diverse domestic drivers of conflict and Gulf regional fragmentation. Stacey Philbrick Yadav • 7 min read
Current Analysis How the Houthis Became “Shi‘a” It is wrong to code what is happening in Yemen as a Sunni-Shi‘i conflict. The Houthis are not an Iranian proxy but a predominantly local political movement founded in long-standing, Yemen-centric grievances and power struggles. The cynical use of sectarian language casts the conflict in Yemen as par Anna Gordon, Sarah Parkinson • 10 min read
Current Analysis A “Blue” Generation and Protests in Iran The protests reveal a widespread disaffection with all existing political factions. New slogans calling for the “death” of “the dictator” and for a “referendum” alternated with those in favor of the Pahlavi monarchist regime that ruled Iran before the 1979 revolution. This public enunciation of an a Aghil Daghagheleh • 9 min read
Current Analysis Onwards and Upwards with Women in the Gulf An examination of women’s struggles to gain the right to vote in Kuwait, and ongoing efforts to promote women’s football in Qatar, provide useful in-depth case studies. They cannot predict the future course of change in Saudi Arabia, but they illustrate the need for ongoing political engagement and Charlotte Lysa, Andrew Leber • 16 min read
Current Analysis Justice and/or Development Ash al shaab! Ash! Ash! [Long Live the People!] Ash! Ash! Maghariba mashi “awbash!” [We Moroccans are not “trash!”] Ra’s al-mal?! [Where’s our capital?!] -Hirak protest chants in Fez, June 2017 What began in late October 2016 with protests over the horrific death of Mohcine Fikri, a fish Emilio Spadola • 10 min read
MER Article Talhami, American Presidents and Jerusalem Jerusalem has been the focus of an increasing number of academic publications in the past several years. Most of these publications focus mainly on the city’s history, identity and changing architectural features since Israel occupied its eastern section after the June 1967 War. Few serious attempts Suheir Abu Oksa Daoud • 3 min read
Current Analysis Seeing Past the Rain of Light On November 11, 2017, the Louvre Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates opened its doors to the public, nearly ten and a half years after the initial announcement of the project. Social media was awash with pictures of visitors in the rays of sun filtering into the main atrium, Elizabeth Derderian • 3 min read
Current Analysis An Open Letter by Senior Middle East Scholars to the New York Times Regarding its Thomas Friedman's column, "Saudi Arabia's Arab Spring, At Last." We write as scholars of the Middle East and the Muslim world with long, collective experience on Gulf and Arabian Peninsula policy issues to express our amazement, concern and anger that the New York Times would publish Thomas Friedman's recent essay "Saudi Arabia's Arab Spring, Amanda • 3 min read
