Current Analysis

Afghanistan’s Present Failure Lies in its Past Design

Providing a vital historical perspective, Benjamin Hopkins explains how the failure of the American project in Afghanistan had little to do with Afghan corruption or lack of national unity as understood in Washington. While today the problems of the Afghan state—its dependence on foreign aid, lack o

Benjamin D Hopkins • 13 min read

MER Article

The Politics of Commemorating the Abolition of Slavery in Post-Revolutionary Tunisia

In 2019, eight years after the Arab Spring uprisings, President Béji Caïd Essebsi declared that Tunisians would commemorate the abolition of slavery on January 23 each year. It was on this date in 1846 that the then-governor of Ottoman Tunisia, Ahmad Bey, signed a decree authorizing enslaved Black p

M’hamed Oualdi • 9 min read

MER Article

Remembering Slavery at the Bin Jelmood House in Qatar

Memories of enslavement are often silenced and yet suffuse everyday life in the Gulf. As governments across the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries memorialize a maritime, pre-oil Indian Ocean past as part of their nation-building projects, the Bin Jelmood House—a museum in the heart of Doha—st

Nidhi Mahajan • 10 min read

Current Analysis

Memoir of a Jewish Arab

Hayoun identifies himself as a Jewish Arab and traces his family history to show how Jewish Arabs were maliciously separated from their societies and how their identities were used in a game of colonial domination.

Dana El Kurd • 11 min read

MER Article

Israel’s Vanishing Files, Archival Deception and Paper Trails

The Israeli government is keeping many of the state's archival documents classified, censored and out of the reach of potentially critical historians. But determined scholars continue to uncover tantalizing paper trails that challenge Israel's air-brushed official narratives.

Shay Hazkani • 14 min read

Current Analysis

What Is Wrong with What Went Wrong?

It is no exaggeration to say that Bernard Lewis is the most influential writer on Middle Eastern history and politics in the United States today. Not only has he authored more than two dozen books on the Middle East, he trained large numbers of two subsequent generations of historians of the region.

Adam Sabra • 15 min read

MER Article

Rediscovering Palestine

Beshara Doumani, Rediscovering Palestine: Merchants and Peasants in Jabal Nablus, 1700-1900 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995)

Ussama Makdisi • 2 min read