MER Article Editor's Bookshelf Since late 1988, MAPAM (The United Workers’ Party) has been among the Israeli political forces favoring Israeli-PLO negotiations which might lead to the creation of a Palestinian state. Yossi Amitay’s Ahvat amim bamivhan: MAPAM 1948-1954: emdot besugiyot araviyei eretz yisra’el [Brotherhood of Natio Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article Blitzer, Territory of Lies Back in 1976, a college student acquaintance of mine, Jay Pollard, used to talk in great detail about his work for Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency. I listened for hours, even if I never quite believed his stories. Eleven years later, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger would tell the cour Jonathan Marshall • 8 min read
MER Article Gender in Hollywood's Orient From its very beginning, Western cinema has been fascinated with the mystique of the Orient. Whether in the form of pseudo-Egyptian movie palaces, Biblical spectaculars, or the fondness for “Oriental” settings, Western cinema has returned time and again to the scene of the Orient. [1] Generally thes Ella Shohat • 10 min read
MER Article Al Miskin Foreign Aid? In a story which the US media largely ignored, sources within the CIA say that the French government loaned two of its top chemists to Lebanese drug dealers early in 1988 as part of a deal to secure the release of three French hostages. The Toronto Star reported in mid-November 1989 tha Al Miskin • 3 min read
MER Article "We Discovered Our Nation When It Was Nearly No More" Elias Khoury is a Lebanese novelist, writer and critic. A lecturer at the American University of Beirut and the cultural editor of the Beirut daily al-Safir, Khoury is also a frequent contributor to literary and cultural journals throughout the Arab world. An English translation of his second novel, Barbara Harlow • 6 min read
MER Article "No Forum for the Lebanese People" Forty years of history and the issues appear to be remarkably the same: national identity, the confessional system, electoral reform, the viability of the state, economic reconstruction and ideological realignment. What is Lebanon? Does it exist? Can it survive? The questions are not new. More than irene gendzier • 9 min read
MER Article 'Akkar Before the Civil War The plain and mountains of the ‘Akkar are the northernmost part of the Lebanon, beyond Tripoli and the Koura region to its south and east. Partly because of the insistence of some influential Maronites, and with misgivings on the part of only a few French critics at the time, it was included in le G Michael Gilsenan • 8 min read
MER Article Class Formation in a Civil War The state is the cohesive factor in a social formation. But what happens to the social formation where the state disintegrates? This is not a mere polemical question if we consider the Lebanese experience. Nazih Richani • 12 min read
MER Article Primer: Lebanon's 15-Year War, 1975-1990 Lebanon’s people have paid a tremendous price for 15 years of invasion and civil war -- an estimated 150,000 killed, tens of thousands wounded, and hundreds of thousands displaced and left destitute. Lebanon is the only developing country in which, despite high birth rates, population growth has sta Martha Wenger • 8 min read
MER Article It Was Beirut, All Over Again It was Beirut, all over again, it was Beirut on the radio El Salvador on TV it was Sabra & Shatila in the memory it was Usulutan in the heart It was Beirut, again, when we thought Beirut went to rest, but Beirut will not sleep until El Salvador sleeps and San Francisco will not eat until Eritrea ea Etel Adnan • 2 min read
MER Article War in the City Nothing stays new for long in the torpor of Beirut, where everything is worn out by so much violence. If the word “ruin” suggests a comparison with the remains of ancient Tyre or Pompeii, it shouldn’t be used to describe Beirut, not even the blasted remains of the central city. The age and monumenta Ahmad Beydoun • 11 min read
