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
Current Analysis A New Normal for Iraqi Kurds? At first glance, the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) seems to have come out ahead from the takeover of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, by the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS). Taking advantage of the power vacuum left by the flight of the Iraqi security forces from Mosul and its envir Denise Natali • 8 min read
Current Analysis Egypt's Government by Baltaga Most reactions to the farcical convictions [http://www.madamasr.com/content/3-jazeera-journalists-given-7-10-year-sentences] of Australian journalist Peter Greste [http://www.abc.net.au/foreign/content/2014/s4032290.htm], Egyptian-Canadian Mohamad Fadel Fahmy and Egyptian Baher Mohamad express shock Andrea Teti • 4 min read
Current Analysis What About 'Abd al-Rahman al-Awlaqi? The US government wanted to kill Anwar al-Awlaqi long before [http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/world/middleeast/anwar-al-awlaki-a-us-citizen-in-americas-cross-hairs.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0] a CIA-JSOC drone strike actually succeeded in doing so on September 30, 2011. Before and after that deadly s Lisa Hajjar • 3 min read
Current Analysis Under-the-Radar Palestinian Connections With intensity unknown since the second intifada [http://www.merip.org/mer/mer217] and at a daily cost of $12 million to the Hebron economy alone, Israel is cracking down on the West Bank in its search for three missing Israeli settler youth. The result is a growing Palestinian chorus: Stop Israeli- Raja Khalidi • 4 min read
