MER Article Palestinian Land Documents Far from the glare of the media attention, on dusty shelves lining the basement of the Jordanian Department of Lands and Survey in Amman, lies a key to the political and economic viability of the Palestinian entity which may emerge out of the Oslo accords. Scores of folders documenting the details o Michael R. Fischbach • 3 min read
MER Article Contested Space Dispossession, displacement, migration and precarious living conditions are intimately connected phenomena. Lines of causality run in every direction. Those enduring such conditions, in their determination to establish some roots and some sense of community, somewhere, often find themselves in viola Omar Razzaz • 11 min read
MER Article Democracy Dilemmas in Jordan On September 2, 1991, the public liberties committee of the lower house of the Jordanian parliament, the Chamber of Deputies, issued a shocking report on torture of political detainees in Jordanian prisons. The shock was not that no one knew these things, but rather that the report had been issued Abla Amawi • 14 min read
MER Article Letter from Jordan “Can you help me get a job in the United States?” “We like Saddam because he is a man of his word: He stood up to the Kuwaiti cheaters and now he is standing up to foreign domination and US intervention in the Arab world.” I heard these two statements repeatedly -- often from the same person -- dur Karen Pfeifer • 3 min read
Jordan's Election The pundits got it wrong. They had predicted that the Jordanian general election of November 8 would result in the overwhelming return of traditional candidates with only a smattering of opposition deputies, enough to provide a vigorous, vocal check on government, but marginal in terms of setting a Philip Robins • 7 min read
MER Article Report from Amman When King Hussein announced last July that Jordan was severing its political ties with the West Bank, he implicitly acknowledged that his strategy of 20 years, to broaden and deepen his political base there, had been overtaken by the Palestinian uprising. The Palestinian revolt has asserted an indep Lamis Andoni • 5 min read
MER Article Police Riot in Yarmuk Just after midnight on May 15, 1986, some 75 Special Forces of the Public Security Department stormed a dormitory at Yarmuk University to put an end to a student demonstration. They tear-gassed and clubbed the students with “a zeal that bordered on the ruthless,” according to witnesses. At least thr Joe Stork • 1 min read
MER Article "A Policeman on My Chest, A Scissor in My Brain" On Wednesday, June 16, 1987, police units entered the offices of the Jordanian Writers’ Association, ordered all writers and employees out, then searched and sealed the premises. The order to disband the Association came directly from the desk of Prime Minister Zaid al-Rifa‘i. Under the martial law A Special Correspondent • 11 min read
MER Article Jordan's Plan for the West Bank Jordan and Israel together have destroyed the post-Lebanon strategy of the Palestinian movement led by Yasser Arafat. King Hussein’s $1.2 billion five-year development plan for the Occupied Territories, unveiled in mid-July, provides the velvet glove to accompany Israel’s iron fist. Kevin Kelly • 6 min read
Books on Jordan Uriel Dann, Studies in the History of Transjordan, 1920-1949 (Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1984). Paul A. Jureidini and R. D. McLaurin, Jordan: The Impact of Social Change on the Role of the Tribes (New York: Praeger, The Washington Papers 108, 1984). Clinton Bailey, Jordan’s Palestinian Challenge Mary C. Wilson • 4 min read
Squaring the Palestinian Circle Rashid Khalidi, a Palestinian scholar and close observer of PLO affairs, is presently a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson Center of the Smithsonian Institution, in Washington, DC. He recently completed a book on the PLO experience in Lebanon. Nubar Hovsepian and Joe Stork spoke with him in late January 1 Joe Stork, Nubar Hovsepian • 15 min read
The PLO and the Jordan Option The PLO stands at a crossroads. The battle of Beirut revealed the valiant and tenacious character of Palestinian nationalism and the corresponding paralysis of the Arab state system, but the forced withdrawal of the PLO from Lebanon presented the organization with the most serious challenge to its c Naseer Aruri • 21 min read
