MER Article On Gender and Citizenship in Turkey In the summer of 1993, True Path Party delegates -- 99.8 percent of them males -- selected Tansu Çiller as chairperson of their party and thus their candidate for prime minister. For the first time since 1934, when women gained the right to vote and to be elected to Parliament, a woman became prime Yesim Arat • 9 min read
MER Article Gender, Civil Society and Citizenship in Algeria In 1993, I attended a ceremony of trance dancing called “Benga,” organized by the only group still performing in the town of Tebessa where I then lived. [1] The Tidjania group of Tebessa is a residual branch of the larger African Islamic sect that has practiced trance dancing for healing purposes, i Boutheina Cheriet • 13 min read
MER Article Women and the Women's Equal Rights Law in Israel Israeli society, even prior to the formation of the state, has been permeated by a strong myth of sexual equality. Shortly after the establishment of the Jewish nation-state, the Israeli Knesset began intensive debates on a body of legislation that would guide and define subsequent discourse on issu Nitza Berkovitch • 6 min read
MER Article Women's Court in Beirut From June 28-30, 1995, under the slogan “See the World Through the Eyes of a Woman,” a women’s court on political and social violence against women was held in Beirut. Inspired by similar courts organized by the Asian Human Rights Council, the Beirut court -- the first of its kind in the Arab world Jehan Helou • 3 min read
MER Article For the Common Good? Gender and Social Citizenship in Palestine For almost half a century, to be Palestinian has meant the absence of formal citizenship, and the rights and duties it confers. While important elements of citizenship previously resided in membership in the Palestinian community and its institutions, the coming of the Palestinian Authority (PA) to Gaza and Jericho in Rita Giacaman, Islah Jad, Penny Johnson • 15 min read
MER Article Gender and Citizenship in Middle Eastern States The debate on citizenship in the Middle East was preceded by and now parallels the debate on civil society. In the West, discussion on these subjects often assumes Middle Eastern countries are incapable of sustaining democratic relations between state and society. [1] The citizenship debate question Suad Joseph • 17 min read
Recent Books on Palestinian Society Marianne Heiberg and Geir Ovensen et al, Palestinian Society in Gaza, West Bank and Arab East Jerusalem: A Survey of Living Conditions (FAFO, 1993). Ziad Abu-Amr, Islamic Fundamentalism in the West Bank and Gaza: Muslim Brotherhood and Islamic Jihad (Indiana, 1994). Baruch Kimmerling and Joel S. M Ellen Fleischmann • 6 min read
Palestine on the Edge Since Yasser Arafat returned to the Gaza Strip in July 1994 under the terms of the Israeli-PLO accords, many Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank find themselves worse off than before. Tens of thousands are out of work as a result of Israeli closures of its borders. Social services Dan Connell • 12 min read
MER Article Book Review Lila Abu-Lughod, Writing Women’s Worlds (California, 1992). Edmund Burke III, ed., Struggle and Survival in the Modern Middle East (California, 1993). Zjaleh Hajibashi • 5 min read
MER Article "Hassiba Ben Bouali, If You Could See Our Algeria" On January 2, 1992, Algerian feminists demonstrated against the Islamic Salvation Front (FIS) and their victory in the national elections of December 26, 1991. Their target was the Islamist assault on women’s rights and the threat of violence against women. One of their posters addressed a martyred Susan Slyomovics • 14 min read
MER Article An Islamic Women's Liberation Movement? Heba Ra’uf ‘Izzat, 29, is a teaching assistant in the Political Science Department at Cairo University. Active in the Islamist movement, she is known for her academic research on women’s political role from the perspective of political Islam and its theory. She edits the women’s page in al-Sha‘b, a Karim El-Gawhary • 4 min read
MER Article Women and Gender in the Middle East Nikki R. Keddie and Beth Baron, eds., Women in Middle Eastern History: Shifting Boundaries in Sex and Gender (Yale, 1991). Leila Ahmed, Women and Gender in Islam: Historical Roots of a Modern Debate (Yale, 1992). An eighteenth-century Ottoman woman left her urban household enshrouded in heavy veil Nancy Reynolds • 7 min read
