Current Analysis Grave Injustice On June 14, the Supreme Court buried the prospect of justice for Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen of Syrian origin who was “extraordinarily rendered” by the United States (via Jordan) to Syria in 2002. Arar was suing the US officials who authorized his secret transfer, without charge, to a country inf Lisa Hajjar • 20 min read
MER Article BDS in the USA, 2001-2010 On April 26, 2010, the student senate at the University of California-Berkeley upheld, by one vote, an executive veto on SB 118 -- the student body resolution endorsing divestment of university funds from General Electric and United Technologies, two companies that profit from the Israeli occupation Noura Erakat • 19 min read
Current Analysis Cast Lead in the Foundry A stopped clock, the saying goes, is right twice a day. The “senior Bush administration official” who chatted with the Washington Post on December 28 was right that Israel is “not trying to take over the Gaza Strip” with the massive assault launched the previous day, and correct that the Israelis ar The Editors • 10 min read
MER Article The Politics of Persecution The video opens with a young Sudanese boy being interviewed outside a hut. “They wanted me to become a Muslim,” he says through a translator. “But I told them I wouldn’t. I am a Christian.” “It was then,” a deep male voiceover intones, “that he was thrown on a burning fire.” The boy looks away from Melani McAlister • 26 min read
Current Analysis The Pakistan Taliban A severed head is waved before a baying crowd. The camera zooms in to show a second bloodied corpse, the eyes gouged out and a wad of cash stuffed in the mouth, swinging from a pole. He is one of 29 “criminals, drug pushers, bootleggers and extortionists” executed for running Graham Usher • 14 min read
Current Analysis Hizballah: A Primer Hizballah, the Lebanese Shi‘i movement whose militia is fighting the Israeli army in south Lebanon, has been cast misleadingly in much media coverage of the ongoing war. Much more than a militia, the movement is also a political party that is a powerful actor in Lebanese politics and a Lara Deeb • 20 min read
Current Analysis Letting Lebanon Burn Israel is raining destruction upon Lebanon in a purely defensive operation, according to the White House and most of Congress. Even some CNN anchors, habituated to mechanical reporting of “Middle East violence,” sound slightly incredulous. With over 300 Lebanese dead and easily 500,000 displaced, wi The Editors • 8 min read
Current Analysis Musharraf's Opening to Israel When George W. Bush arrives in Islamabad on March 4, 2006, his will be the first visit to Pakistan by a US president since Bill Clinton touched down there in March 2000. Aside from the coincidence of the month, the circumstances could hardly be more different. In 2000, Clinton stayed for barely five Graham Usher • 11 min read
Current Analysis Torture and the Lawless “New Paradigm” The president who campaigned on a pledge to “restore honor and dignity to the White House” has now been compelled to declaim: “We abide by the law of the United States, and we do not torture.” In the closing months of 2005, President George W. Bush has been forced to repeat this undignified denial s Lisa Hajjar • 14 min read
Current Analysis Banning Torture Affirms America's Humanity Torture, as President George W. Bush clearly knows, is against the law. The administration keeps reasserting this point because the US torture saga keeps deepening. Under fire for the “enhanced interrogation techniques” employed in secret CIA jails and at Guantánamo Bay, Bush rejoined that the US f Lisa Hajjar • 2 min read
Current Analysis Forecasting Mass Destruction, from Gulf to Gulf While internally displaced Americans were piled into an unequipped New Orleans sports stadium, the question on everyone’s lips was: where were the Louisiana National Guard and its high-water trucks when Hurricane Katrina struck? One answer, obviously, was that at least a third of the Guard’s human a Sheila Carapico • 9 min read
Current Analysis Bush's Flawed Flypaper Theory Forget for a moment how shamelessly President George W. Bush tried to manipulate Americans’ emotions by invoking September 11 six times during his recent prime-time sales pitch for staying the course in Iraq. There is no need to recall the reports finding no connection between that day’s terrorist a Chris Toensing • 2 min read
