MER Article Editor's Picks (Summer 1998) Arat, Zehra F. Deconstructing Images of “the Turkish Woman” (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998). Bengio, Ofra. Saddam’s Words: Political Discourse in Iraq (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998). Carapico, Sheila. Civil Society in Yemen: The Political Economy of Activism in Modern Arabia (Cambrid (Author not identified) • 1 min read
MER Article Letter I am writing in connection with Eugene Rogan’s article, “No Debate: Middle East Studies in Europe,” which appeared in Middle East Report 205 (October-December 1997). Below, I comment on aspects of that article and contrast several others with the experience expressed in Lisa Hajjar and Steve Niva’s (Author not identified) • 4 min read
MER Article To Clear the Minefield Irene Gendzier, Notes from the Minefield: United States Intervention in Lebanon and the Middle East, 1945-1958 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1997). With the February 1998 news that the Clinton administration was preparing unilateral military action against Iraq, sectors of the US public see Karen Pfeifer • 6 min read
MER Article From Schmaltz to Sacrilege Yaron Ezrahi, Rubber Bullets: Power and Conscience in Modern Israel (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1997). Rebecca L. Stein • 8 min read
MER Article Tensions in Iran The May 1997 election of Mohammad Khatami as president of Iran was a watershed event in the history of the almost 20-year-old Islamic Revolution. While the current on-the-ground situation in Iran remains confusing, it is not for lack of information. During the last year, the press has blossomed with Olivier Roy • 12 min read
MER Article Column: Happy Anniversary! HAPPY ANNIVERSARY! On the occasion of Israel’s fiftieth anniversary, a Bar Ilan University poll found that kibbutzniks were considered to be the most Zionist by respondents asked to pick among 11 different categories. Myths of the heroic pioneers live on, despite the fact that kibbutzniks have not Al Miskin • 3 min read
MER Article The Enigmas of Shas On April 23, 1997, the general secretary of Israel’s Sephardi orthodox Shas movement, Rabbi Aryeh Deri, was carried shoulder high above the roar of more than 20,000 adoring supporters gathered in the Givat Ram sports stadium in West Jerusalem. “We are all Deri,” was one chant; “Deri equals Dreyfus” Graham Usher • 8 min read
MER Article The Contradictions of Economic Reform in Israel Half a century ago Israel was a poor new state hopelessly indebted to the outside world. Fifteen years later, it could be described as a rapidly growing developing country undergoing successful industrialization. By the early 1980s, it was an extreme case of an economically overburdened state incapa Michael Shalev • 10 min read
MER Article US Aid to Israel Not long ago right-wing Israel backer William Safire wrote in his column in the New York Times that the Palestinians had to recognize that their “100 million-plus [dollars] annual financial support from the European Union had ties to mutual movement” in the Oslo process. [1] On a certain level of ab Phyllis Bennis • 5 min read
MER Article Between a Rock and a Hard Place There is a bill pending in the Israeli Knesset that would allow women the option to use the country’s civil courts for personal status matters. Liberal Israeli feminists see this as promoting “women’s rights” by loosening the grip of religious authorities over women’s personal lives. But Israel is n Lisa Hajjar • 2 min read
MER Article The Myth of Gender Equality and the Limits of Women's Political Dissent in Israel The profuse media coverage showered upon Israel on its fiftieth anniversary largely failed to consider more critical perspectives that might have cast a different light on the celebrations. While some commented on the familiar divisions between secular and religious Jews, left and right, or immigran Simona Sharoni • 10 min read
MER Article Dis/Solving the "Refugee Problem" “A displaced person owns nothing but the spot where he is standing, which is always threatened.” -- Murid Barghouti Israeli power, US backing, Palestinian weakness, Arab complicity -- these are the basic ingredients for a coercive settlement of the “refugee problem” based not on refugees’ rights bu Rosemary Sayigh • 12 min read
