Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Black LIves Matter

Tracing the Historical Relevance of Race in Palestine and Israel
A woman takes pictures of her friend in front of the Israeli separation wall with a mural depicting Iyad al-Halaq, an unarmed Palestinian who was shot dead by Israeli police and referenceing George Floyd who was killed by police in the United States in May 2020. Bethlehem, West Bank. Mussa Qawasma/ReutersWorkers in the Athlit quarry during the construction of the Haifa harbor in the 1920s where the British proposed dividing Arab and Jewish workers into different skill categories along racial lines. Library of Congress, G. Eric and Edith Matson Photograph Collection.
MER Article

Tracing the Historical Relevance of Race in Palestine and Israel

The global conversation about race and racial oppression in recent years, which has reached new levels of visibility since the summer of 2020, has emerged largely as a reaction to police violence in the United States and the work of the Movement for Black Lives coalition. Its global reverberations h
Nimrod Ben Zeev • 21 min read
Anti-Racism and Political Contagion From Save Darfur to Black Lives Matter
People gather in front of Louisville City Hall during a protest against the deaths of Breonna Taylor by Louisville police and George Floyd by Minneapolis police, in Louisville, Kentucky, May 29, 2020. Bryan Woolston/Reuters
Current Analysis

Anti-Racism and Political Contagion From Save Darfur to Black Lives Matter

Fifteen years after his classic essay for Middle East Report, “Slavery, Genocide and the Politics of Outrage: Understanding the New Racial Olympics” Hisham Aïdi reflects on what has changed, and what has not, in the intertwined dynamics of Islamophobia, solidarity movements and anti-racism in the Un
Hisham Aïdi • 13 min read