MER Article

Covering Surveillance, Struggles and Solidarity in the Arab American Community

Although issues of domestic surveillance and discrimination faced by Arabs living in the United States became more prominent after the attacks of September 11, 2001, MERIP has been covering them continuously since the organization was founded 50 years ago. Arguably the most incisive report in any publication about the US

Pamela Pennock • 4 min read

Current Analysis

Covering Surveillance, Struggles and Solidarity in the Arab American Community

Although issues of domestic surveillance and discrimination faced by Arabs living in the United States became more prominent after the attacks of September 11, 2001, MERIP has been covering them continuously since the organization was founded 50 years ago. Pamela Pennock surveys how MERIP has writte

Pamela Pennock • 3 min read

MER Article

Countering the Surveillance State

While investigating the harmful impact of government surveillance on an Arab-American community a filmmaker turns the tables by offering a primer on counter-surveillance research.

Andy Clarno • 6 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

MER Article

The Ties That Bind

Yemeni-American activist Rabyaah al-Thaibani was born in Ta‘izz, Yemen’s largest city, in 1977. She moved to the United States as a child to join her father, who was working nights cleaning office buildings in Manhattan. She grew up in Brooklyn, attended Columbia University and since has worked in c

Stacey Philbrick Yadav • 9 min read

MER Article

Becoming Arab American

Scholars have long found that while pan-Arab organizations in the United States called themselves Arab American, few individuals adopted that appellation as a personal identity, preferring Iraqi, for instance, or Syrian. So I was struck, while interviewing 45 Palestinian Americans attending high school in Palestine, that so many of them

Louise Cainkar • 10 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

Justice for Rasmea Odeh

This past winter, I was privileged to participate in several events in Chicago organized by Rasmea Yousef Odeh, associate director of the Arab American Action Network [http://www.aaan.org/] and leader of that group’s Arab Women’s Committee [http://www.aaan.org/?cat=27]. The events brought together a

Nadine Naber • 5 min read

Current Analysis

The Rites and Rights of Citizenship

On Tuesday I became a citizen of the United States. Almost ten years ago, I was granted permanent residency. Between my Green Card and my naturalization certificate lies the seemingly endless decade of the “war on terror.”

Moustafa Bayoumi • 8 min read

MER Article

Shoring Up the National Security State

Many expected the Obama administration to slow or altogether stop the growth of the national security state that its two predecessor administrations brought into being, but just the opposite has occurred. Prisoners are still held without charge at Guantánamo Bay; the Patriot Act is still the law; t

Nina Farnia • 10 min read

Current Analysis

Sects and the City

I had almost forgotten I’d sent in an application when the e-mail message appeared, like Mr. Big, out of nowhere. “Hi, Moustafa,” it began, as if we were old friends. “Thank you for e-mailing us regarding your interest in working on ‘Sex and the City 2.’ ”

Moustafa Bayoumi • 3 min read

Current Analysis

The Race Is On

“We are so racially profiled now, as a group,” the Arab-American comedian Dean Obeidallah says in his routine, “that I heard a correspondent on CNN not too long ago say the expression, ‘Arabs are the new blacks.’ That Arabs are the new blacks.” Obeidallah continues:

Moustafa Bayoumi • 32 min read