MER Article Border Regimes and the New Global Apartheid Catherine Besteman analyzes the new form of global intervention that is taking shape in the rise of militarized borders, interdictions at sea, detention centers, indefinite custody and the generalized criminalization of mobility around the world. The Global North—the United States, Canada, the Europ Catherine Besteman • 14 min read
MER Article Israel’s Permanent Siege of Gaza The devastating human and health consequences of intervention by deprivation are noted in Ron Smith’s account of Israel’s decade-long siege of Gaza, whose dynamics are similar to the catastrophic sanctions regime imposed by the United States on Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War and the siege warfare util Ron Smith • 15 min read
MER Article The UAE and the Infrastructure of Intervention Rafeef Ziadah investigates the rise of humanitarian logistics hubs such as Dubai International Humanitarian City, which, although ostensibly humanitarian, have become a key mechanism of intervention and increasingly a central element in the projection of power for the Gulf regimes such as the United Rafeef Ziadah • 9 min read
MER Article Humanitarian Crisis Research as Intervention Sarah Parkinson describes the growing popularity of extreme research—scholarly research conducted in crises zones amongst conflict-affected populations in the Middle East and North Africa—and shows how this research is a mode of intervention that can impose serious harm on individuals, communities, Sarah Parkinson • 15 min read
MER Article The Palestinian McCity in the Neoliberal Era Sami Tayeb examines how a multitude of privately financed urban development projects in the Israeli-Occupied West Bank are creating a form of colonization that parallels that of Israel. Unlike Israel’s settler-colonial urbanism, however, this form of urban colonization is driven by global, and parti Sami Tayeb • 14 min read
MER Article Urban Interventions for the Wars Yet to Come In a wide-ranging interview, Hiba Bou Akar shows how urban planning is being used to turn some neighborhoods and urban peripheries in the Middle East into militarized frontier zones between competing political, military and sectarian organizations guided by the dystopian logic of a war yet to come. Hiba Bou Akar • 11 min read
MER Article The Shifting Contours of US Power and Intervention in Palestine Lisa Bhungalia Jeannette Greven and Tahani Mustafa argue that the Trump administration’s maximum pressure campaign against the Palestinians—which gives Israel free reign to violently dispossess Palestinians while simultaneously withdrawing US aid for food, schools and hospitals—has both worsened Pal Lisa Bhungalia, Jeannette Greven, Tahani Mustafa • 18 min read
MER Article Iraqibacter and the Pathologies of Intervention Omar Dewachi traces the rise of antibiotic resistant bacteria in war-related wounds—which US military doctors labelled Iraqibacter—to the biological legacy of decades of sanctions, war and intervention in Iraq, and how antibiotic resistance is increasingly being found in other militarized interventi Omar Dewachi • 13 min read
MER Article The Globalized Unmaking of the Libyan State The current disorder in Libya is not merely the result of a failed humanitarian intervention, which allegedly collapsed the state. Global currents and processes have also combined with local forces to unmake the Libyan state. Like the other cases of globalized state unmaking in the region, a new pha Jacob Mundy • 14 min read
MER Article The New Landscape of Intervention Even as the 2000’s saw the return of traditional forms of imperial intervention—with the US deployment of military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq in pursuit of a quixotic and unwinnable War on Terror—there are increasingly new forms of intervention that must be understood, assessed and mapped. The Editors • 5 min read
