MER Article Ajami, The Vanished Imam Fouad Ajami, The Vanished Imam: Musa al-Sadr and the Shia of Lebanon (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1986). As'ad AbuKhalil • 5 min read
MER Article CERMOC, Mouvements Communautaires et Espaces Urbains au Machreq Mouvements communautaires et Espaces urbains au Machreq (Beirut: Centre d’Etudes et de Recherches sur le Moyen-Orient Contemporain, 1985). One of the tragic ironies of the protracted Lebanese crisis is the fate of CERMOC and of Michel Seurat, one of the authors represented in this volume. Suerat wa (Author not identified) • 2 min read
Syria and Lebanon, 1943-1975 In their final years under French rule, Syria and Lebanon entered into an unprecedented cooperation in order to free themselves from France. The liberal nationalist regimes in Damascus and Beirut reinforced one another’s demands for complete political independence without first having to sign treati Philip Khoury • 2 min read
Syria in Lebanon Preeminent influence in Lebanon, both on the central government and between the various factions, is critical for Syria from defensive and offensive strategic perspectives, whatever one considers Syria’s role to be in the pan-Arab arena or in the Arab-Israeli conflict. From the defensive perspectiv William Harris • 15 min read
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
