MER Article Editor's Picks (Spring 2005) Abu-Lughod, Lila. Dramas of Nationhood: The Politics of Television in Egypt (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2004). Beck, Lois and Guity Nashat, eds. Women in Iran from 1800 to the Islamic Republic (Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 2004). Btselem. Forbidden Roads: Israel’s Discrimin The Editors • 1 min read
MER Article Democracy, Deception and the Arms Trade The controversy over Iraq's alleged possession of weapons of mass destruction, the prime justification for the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq, has apparently been laid to rest. A succession of US-commissioned reports have failed to confirm the Bush administration's claims. irene gendzier • 15 min read
MER Article Transportational Contiguity Israel seems to have gotten the message that Palestinian land, in any final resolution to the conflict, cannot simply be divided into isolated cantons. But Prime Minister Ariel Sharon still intends to hold onto large chunks of the West Bank. How can Israel link Palestinian enclaves and dampen critic Robert Blecher • 3 min read
MER Article The Tar Baby of Foreign Aid In his 2005 State of the Union address, President George W. Bush, hailing “the beginnings of reform and democracy in the Palestinian territories,” pledged $350 million in US aid to the Palestinian Authority. One day before the heralded meeting of Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Palestinian P Charmaine Seitz • 14 min read
MER Article Faded Dreams of Contracted Democracy Iraq now has an elected provisional national assembly and elected provincial councils. In the end, the $467 million given to a US contractor to build democracy had little to do with these achievements. Kevin Begos • 9 min read
MER Article The Curious Case of Oil-Exporting Jordan From time to time, the boring economic data regurgitated by Jordan’s amply staffed ministries offers up a tantalizing mystery. In the Monthly Statistical Bulletin (May 2004) published by the Central Bank of Jordan, for example, one learns that Jordanian export of refined oil products increased 46 ti Pete Moore • 1 min read
MER Article QIZs, FTAs, USAID, and the MEFTA Jordan is the poster child for the Bush administration project of “transforming” the political order in the Middle East through free trade. If Jordan is any guide, however, economic liberalization does not lead inexorably to the diffusion of political power. Pete Moore • 12 min read
MER Article Slavery, Genocide and the Politics of Outrage In October 1999, PBS aired The Wonders of the African World, a six-part documentary produced by the renowned African-American intellectual, Henry Louis Gates, wherein the Harvard educator travels from Egypt to Sudan and down the Swahili coast of East Africa and up though parts of West Africa examining the encounter Hisham Aïdi • 48 min read
MER Article The Bush Team Reloaded On September 20, 2001, just nine days after the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) laid out a consensus agenda for President George W. Bush's “war on terrorism.” In addition to military action to oust the Taliban in Afghanistan Jim Lobe • 14 min read
MER Article Iraqi Elections Just once, one wishes, events in post-invasion Iraq could transpire without instantly being spun as helping or hurting President George W. Bush. There was no such luck after images of Iraqis cheerfully -- even joyously -- voting in the January 30, 2005 elections for a provisional national assembly z Chris Toensing • 3 min read
MER Article "The Future is on Our Side" Mustafa Barghouthi is the secretary and co-founder of the Palestinian National Initiative (Mubadara), formed in 2002 to advocate for an immediate end to the occupation of Palestinian territories occupied by Israel in 1967, a Palestinian state on those territories, and expedited reform of Palestinian Jimmy Bishara • 7 min read
MER Article Taha Sa'd 'Uthman Taha Sa‘d ‘Uthman (1916–2004), a life-long trade union and leftist political organizer, passed away at the age of 88 last November. His funeral in Cairo’s ‘Umar Makram mosque was attended by over 1,000 people representing the spectrum of Egypt’s progressive forces -- trade unionists, lawyers, human Joel Beinin • 1 min read
