MER Article The Resistance Front in South Lebanon Though it fell like a piece of ripe fruit into the hands of the Israelis, southern Lebanon rapidly became a quagmire for the most powerful armed forces in the Middle East. An armed resistance developed, which by early 1984 was carrying out two attacks daily. Popular mobilization did not diminish in Samir Kassir • 8 min read
MER Article Eyewitness to the Iron Fist Jim Yamin is Middle East program coordinator for Grassroots International, a relief organization based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, with programs in Lebanon and the Horn of Africa. He spoke with Joan Mandell and Kathryn Silver in April, 1985. You’ve just spent ten weeks in south Lebanon. What were Joan Mandell • 8 min read
MER Article A Lebanon Primer Lebanon is a microcosm of the peoples, cultures and religions found in the Middle East region as a whole. Under Ottoman rule from the 16th century until World War I, that province of mountainous eastern Syria known as Mt. Lebanon was home and refuge for various religious and ethnic communities. Leba Tom Russell • 8 min read
MER Article Roots of the Shi'i Movement Many saw the Shi‘i revolt in west Beirut and its southern suburbs in February 1984 as the sudden and unexpected mass uprising of a rapidly expanding social group in the midst of a tumultuous religious revivalism. But the February uprising was a significant social movement, with roots in the profound Salim Nasr • 24 min read
"Sidon, 'Ain al-Hilweh and the villages are only the beginning" This article, by the Lebanese novelist and literary critic, Elias Khoury, appeared in the Beirut daily, al-Safir, on February 18, 1985, immediately following what Israel has termed the first stage of its withdrawal from Lebanon. Khoury highlights the contradictions of the current situation in the re Elias Khoury • 6 min read
MER Article From the Editors (January 1985) We would like to begin this first issue for 1985 with heartfelt thanks to our readers for your very strong support over the past year. Your unprecedented generosity in response to our fundraising appeals was essential to our work, and we appreciate very much the confidence this expresses for MERIP’s The Editors • 3 min read
MER Article From the Editors (June 1984) For just the space of a day in mid-May, the shroud of silence that has enveloped occupied south Lebanon was lifted by the Israeli army raid on ‘Ayn al-Hilwa, the large Palestinian refugee camp that has been rebuilt outside Sidon. Events leading up to this encounter vividly illustrate the dynamic of The Editors • 4 min read
MER Article Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth-Century Beirut Leila Tarazi Fawaz, Merchants and Migrants in Nineteenth-Century Beirut (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1983). Carolyn L. Gates • 1 min read
MER Article Randal, Going All the Way Jonathan Randal, Going All the Way: Christian Warlords, Israeli Adventurers and the War in Lebanon (New York: Viking Press, 1983). Eric Rouleau • 6 min read
MER Article Pictures from the North Nadia Fifty-two years old, with an opulent and well-rounded shape. A head of hair that once tried to be reddish. Despite her weight, an energy and dynamism that say a lot about her will. She is a woman who is mistress of her surroundings, who dominates places -- in this case, the Villa Nadia. Marie-Christine Aulas • 7 min read
MER Article Campaign of Terror On September 17, 1981, a car booby-trapped with 300 kilograms of TNT exploded in front of the Joint Forces headquarters in Sidon, killing 21 people and wounding 96. Within the next three days, three other serious explosions occurred throughout Lebanon: a bomb in the grounds of a cement factory in Sh Lee OBrien • 12 min read
MER Article "There Is No Room for Any Palestinian in Lebanon" Abu Arz (“father of the cedar”) is the symbolic name taken by Etienne Saqr, born in Haifa to Lebanese parents, leader and commander-in-chief of the Guardians of the Cedars. The Guardians of the Cedars were born with the Lebanese civil war, out of the Party of Lebanese Renewal, itself established in A Special Correspondent • 6 min read
