MER Article Living on the Edge The transfer of the Palestinians has begun. Piling their furniture and personal belongings into a truck, the last residents of Yanoun abandoned their West Bank village on October 18, 2002. "Our life here is more bitter than hell," said one villager, lamenting years of attacks, recently intensified, from Robert Blecher • 17 min read
Current Analysis Snipers and the Panic Over Five Percent Islamic Hip-Hop A number of media stories have raised the possibility that certain clues indicate a connection between arrested sniper suspects John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo and an African-American Islamic group calling itself the Nation of Gods and Earths but commonly known as the Five Percenters. These clues are also Ted Swedenburg • 7 min read
MER Article Jihadis in the Hood In his classic novel Mumbo Jumbo, Ishmael Reed satirizes white America's age-old anxiety about the "infectiousness" of black culture with "Jus Grew," an indefinable, irresistible carrier of "soul" and "blackness" that spreads like a virus contaminating everyone in its wake Hisham Aïdi • 24 min read
MER Article American Justice, Ashcroft-Style The Bush administration's large-scale detentions of Arab and Muslim men -- without charge -- and draconian immigration restrictions are only two of its initiatives to erode civil liberties, civil rights and norms of procedural justice under cover of the "war on terrorism." Many initiatives were enab Keith Feldman • 6 min read
MER Article No Longer Invisible Unlike other ascribed and self-described "people of color" in the United States, Arabs are often hidden under the Caucasian label, if not forgotten altogether. But eleven months after September 11, 2001, the Arab-American is no longer invisible. Whether traveling, driving, working, walking through a Louise Cainkar • 16 min read
MER Article Arabs, Race and the Post-September 11 National Security State In the face of a post-September 11 wave of racially motivated attacks against people from the Middle East and South Asia, the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division announced in a September 13, 2001 press release that "any threats of violence or discrimination against Arab or Muslim Americans or Salah Hassan • 14 min read
