Current Analysis Not Much Better Than Bush President Barack Obama got it right [http://www.cnn.com/2014/06/19/politics/obama-iraq-transcript/index.html] when he declared: "There's no military solution inside of Iraq, certainly not one that is led by the United States." But his Iraq track record doesn’t mark much of an improvement over the m Amanda Ufheil-Somers • 2 min read
baeza_072214 Current Analysis Solidaridad con Gaza The brutal Israeli assault on Gaza, the fourth in less than ten years (2006, 2008-2009, 2012 and now again), has triggered a burst of solidarity in Latin America. Cecilia Baeza • 3 min read
Current Analysis Meanwhile, in Hebron... As Israel pounds Gaza by land, air and sea, we turn for a moment to the West Bank city of Hebron. In 1997, Israel withdrew its military from the majority of the city’s area, called “H-1,” which became part of “Area A,” the parts of the West Bank policed by the Palestinian Authority (PA). Israeli sol Yassmine Saleh • 7 min read
Current Analysis Gaza Notes I’ve been through wars before, two of them, in 2008-2009 and 2012. The difference this time around is that I am responsible for a six-month old daughter. I have to be strong for her. I have to be around her all the time. I have to be ready to make funny noises as soon as the Israeli F-16s resume th W S • 3 min read
Current Analysis MER 271: Fuel and Water: The Coming Crises For immediate release July 18, 2014 Middle East Report 271 Summer 2014 FUEL AND WATER: THE COMING CRISES • 2 min read
Current Analysis Judging the Judge On July 2, 16-year old Palestinian Mohammed Abu Khdeir was abducted, beaten and burned alive, apparently by a group of Jewish Israelis [http://www.timesofisrael.com/suspects-arrested-in-killing-of-east-jerusalem-teen/]. News of this “torture and murder by fire,” prominent American commentator Jeffre Jamie Stern-Weiner • 6 min read
Current Analysis Nowhere to Turn for Mosul's Refugees In 2006, 30,000 Iraqis arrived in Syria every month, seeking and receiving safe haven from US occupation and sectarian warfare [http://www.irinnews.org/report/79659/syria-unhcr-cash-for-iraqi-refugees-but-many-vow-never-to-return] as kidnappings, death threats, and bombings by air and land engulfed Sophia Hoffmann • 4 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
Current Analysis Still Between Iraq and a Hard Place The old joke about Jordan’s political geography -- that the country sits “between Iraq and a hard place” [http://www.merip.org/mer/mer215/betwewen-iraq-hard-place] -- seems morbidly, and not at all amusingly, appropriate once again. Violent conflict is intensifying on three borders: Syria is aflame, Curtis Ryan • 3 min read
MER Article Matthew Huber, Lifeblood Matthew Huber, Lifeblood: Oil, Freedom and the Forces of Capital (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2013). “The American way of life” -- is there another phrase that sounds so innocuous yet is so fraught? To most Americans, and admirers of the United States abroad, the four words evoke na Chris Toensing • 4 min read
MER Article Three Pawns in the “Great Game” Hugh Wilford, America’s Great Game: The CIA’s Secret Arabists and the Shaping of the Modern Middle East (New York: Basic Books, 2013). Middle East scholars have long been aware of the CIA’s power and swagger in the region, yet their studies rarely mention the Agency beyond passing references, and t David H. Price • 13 min read
Current Analysis New President, Old Pattern of Sexual Violence in Egypt On June 3, the day that the Elections Commission announced the victory of ‘Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi in Egypt’s presidential race, television announcer Radwa Ruhayyim covered the festivities in Tahrir Square. Surrounded by ululating revelers, she noted that, amidst the celebrations, several women had be Vickie Langohr • 12 min read
