MER Article New Enemies for a New World Order There is considerable evidence that the Bush administration saw the Persian Gulf war of 1990-1991 as, among other things, the conflict that could define a new politico-military strategy for the 1990s. The war with Iraq would be the emblematic contest for the post-Cold War period, what the Korean War Joe Stork • 18 min read
MER Article The False Promise of Operation Provide Comfort The US-led response to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait has had many immediate repercussions on the international humanitarian network set up at the dawn of an earlier “new order” -- the close of World War II. It also has more than a few similarities to the protection scheme set up then to assist and prote Bill Frelick • 12 min read
MER Article State Terror and the Degradation of Politics in Iraq The degradation of Iraqi politics and society under the Baathist regime is a story that can now be pieced together from documents that just a few months ago no one would have dreamed having access to. Baghdad’s brutal repression turned the March uprising in Iraq into another tragic episode, Isam al-Khafaji • 20 min read
MER Article Why the Uprisings Failed In March 1991, following Iraq’s defeat in the Gulf war, the Kurds of northern Iraq and Arabs of the south rose up against the Baath regime. For two brief weeks, the uprisings were phenomenally successful. Government administration in the towns was overthrown and local army garrisons were left in dis Faleh A. Jabar • 33 min read
MER Article Letters ARAB WOMEN AT THE MARGIN? Here we are again! It is 1991, but Arab women researchers and writers continue to be placed at the margin of the theoretical enterprise, to borrow a metaphor used by African-American writer Bell Hooks to describe how women of color are ghettoized by white feminists, who re (Author not identified) • 6 min read
MER Article Photos and Art from Palestine John Running, Pictures for Solomon (Northland, 1990). Phyllis Bennis and Neal Cassidy, From Stones to Statehood (Olive Branch, 1990). Kamal Boullata, Faithful Witnesses: Palestinian Children Recreate Their World (Windrush, 1990). Lisa Frank • 6 min read
MER Article Sprinzak, Ascendance of Israel's Radical Right Ehud Sprinzak, The Ascendance of Israel’s Radical Right (Oxford, 1991). Most of the sociopolitical and historical research on Israel to date has oddly concentrated on the so-called left-wing sections of this polity. Even when recently some researchers (like Shapiro, Heller or Shavit) deal with the Baruch Kimmerling • 3 min read
MER Article Romann and Weingrod, Living Together Separately M. Romann and A. Weingrod, Living Together Separately: Arabs and Jews in Contemporary Jerusalem (Princeton, 1991). After armies come the academics. Usually the first wave comprises archaeologists and historians who wish to legitimize a particular excursion or expansion. These are followed by econom Mick Dumper • 6 min read
MER Article Assessing Storm Damage Following upon the devastation of Iraq, the Gulf warmongers have attempted to articulate their vision of a Middle East dominated by Washington and its allies. In an effort to forestall the growing criticism of the “special relationship” between Israel and the US in policymaking circles, After the Storm: Challenges for Joel Beinin • 4 min read
MER Article Algeria's Democracy Between the Islamists and the Elite Algeria’s experience over the past three years has shown that in a Muslim land the process of democratization gives rise to currents that seek to destroy it. But neutralizing these currents by force entails halting the democratization process and encloses society in repression. Society can escape th Lahouari Addi • 8 min read
MER Article Al Miskin DANGEROUS For decades, Muhammad Madbouli’s bookshop in the center of Cairo has been one of that city’s -- and Egypt’s -- major cultural landmarks. Egyptians and foreigners alike knew that Madbouli had the city’s best array of Arabic books of every kind, including those which aroused the ire of the Al Miskin • 4 min read
MER Article How Israel Gets Its Credit Rating A “C” rating from the US government credit evaluators, coming after Washington has held up the $10 billion loan guarantee for more than four months, must come as something of a shock for Israel. Only last September Jacob Frenkel, governor of the Bank of Israel, told the Financial Times that a “good Fareed Mohamedi • 4 min read
