MER Article A Landscape of Uncertainty The events following the assassination of Rafiq al-Hariri and Syrian withdrawal from Lebanon have not discernibly changed the situation of Palestinians in Lebanon. While a surprising government edict has made it easier for Palestinians to get clerical and manual jobs, calls for disarming them and pe Laleh Khalili • 14 min read
MER Article Of Specters and Disciplined Commodities “Lebanon was built with Syrian muscles,” declared an elderly Lebanese in the early 1990s. He was referring to the hundreds of thousands of semi- and unskilled Syrians who have worked in Lebanon on a temporary basis in construction, agriculture, manufacturing and services since the mid-twentieth cent John Chalcraft • 15 min read
MER Article Beirut Diary: April 2005 PREFACE Like most places in the world that, time and time again, have been fit into the journalist's script or forced into the novelist's frame, Lebanon has been tirelessly taxed with metaphors and allegories. Simultaneously, it has been presented as the terrain for metaphorical and allegorical con Rasha Salti • 14 min read
MER Article Syria and Lebanon: A Brotherhood Transformed Unlike its incremental intervention in Lebanon throughout early 1976, Syria’s withdrawal from Lebanon in late April 2005 was swift, unplanned and humiliating. On both occasions, Lebanese, regional and international factors overlapped to shape Syrian behavior. But whereas the 1976 intervention consol Bassel Salloukh • 20 min read
MER Article From the Editors (Fall 2005) Mere months ago, devotees of President George W. Bush's Iraq adventure were positively giddy. Not only were they convinced that Iraq was on the fast track to peace, prosperity and perpetual friendliness with Washington, they believed that countries across the Greater Middle East were following close behind. Neo-conservative The Editors • 6 min read
Current Analysis Elections Pose Lebanon's Old Questions Anew Watching a wave of peaceful protests compel the Lebanese government to resign on February 28, 2005, State Department spokesman Adam Ereli hailed the victory of a “Cedar Revolution” in line with, among others, the Orange Revolution in Ukraine and “the Purple Revolution in Baghdad.” Ereli went on to claim that Sateh Nourredine, Laurie King-Irani • 11 min read
Current Analysis Commemorating Lebanon’s War Amid Continued Crisis At midnight on April 13, ringing church bells and the call to prayer echoed across Beirut. These haunting sounds intermingled over Martyrs’ Square, the unfinished main plaza of old Beirut where thousands of Lebanese have been mixing, day and night, since the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafiq al-Hariri in Laurie King-Irani • 14 min read
Current Analysis Lebanon Catches Its Breath The February 14 assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafiq al-Hariri has precipitated a rapid and dramatic transformation of Lebanon’s political landscape. In the six weeks following the assassination, the Lebanese government collapsed and Syria began the process of withdrawing its soldiers and intelligence officers from Lebanon, almost 30 Nicholas Blanford • 12 min read
MER Article Iran, the Vatican of Shi'ism? The Iranian state, controlled de facto by the conservatives in the government, promotes the idea that Iran is the center of Shi‘ism. It bases its argument on the fact that Iran is a Shi‘i-run state, whereas Shi‘i Muslims in other parts of the world live in states that are dominated by Sunnis, and so Roschanack Shaery • 11 min read
Current Analysis Hizballah and Syria's "Lebanese Card" The clock is ticking on a surprising UN Security Council resolution, passed on September 2, calling on Syria to cease its various forms of interference in Lebanon. France and the United States co-sponsored the call on "all remaining foreign forces to withdraw from Lebanon," which charged the UN Nicholas Blanford • 11 min read
MER Article Disavowed Homosexualities in Beirut Beirut can be perceived as a social body, with all the complexities of such an organism. Lebanon's capital provides, in fact, the stage for a panoply of moods and dispositions which are a dynamic result of particular histories and larger socio-cultural circumstances. As a body, Beirut is, of Sofian Merabet • 11 min read
Current Analysis Holding Syria Accountable, Though Selectively With George W. Bush stubbornly insisting that the US is making “progress” in the “central phase of the war on terror” in Iraq, pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans in Congress figure it is time for phase three. Some think tankers want to train Washington’s gunsights on Iran, but next week Congress w Chris Toensing • 3 min read
