Letters re: Humanitarian Drones

by The Editors | published May 1, 2012 - 11:06am

Andrew Stobo Sniderman and Darryl Li square off re: “Some Bad Ideas Can’t Be Shot Down,” Li’s post about Sniderman’s January 30 op-ed, “Drones for Human Rights,” in the New York Times:

Darryl,

I’m glad you took the time to criticize my op-ed in your post, because I’m more than glad to have it torn down publicly and brutally if it’s a bad idea.

Fighting Mush

by Chris Toensing | published April 19, 2012 - 1:07pm

Lamped USA

by David McMurray | published April 11, 2012 - 8:03pm

Amanda Ufheil-Somers has ably described how refugee flows from the uprisings in North Africa to the Italian island of Lampedusa have pushed the strained infrastructure and the residents’ hospitality to the breaking point. The islanders aren’t the only ones at wit’s end: In protest, refugees burned the holding facilities in September 2011 and again just the other day.

No Clean Break

by Amanda Ufheil-Somers | published April 6, 2012 - 5:20pm

Renewed conflict along the border between Sudan and South Sudan follows a predictable pattern, says MERIP editorial committee member Khalid Medani in an interview with KPFA radio.

Despair and Continuity

by Joshua Stacher | published March 23, 2012 - 10:09am

Actions always speak louder than words, even if words also act.

The Problem of Privilege

by Shira Robinson | published March 22, 2012 - 11:41am

“To believe in a democratic Jewish state today is to be caught between the jaws of a pincer,” writes Peter Beinart in his widely circulated and hotly debated op-ed. Indeed -- but it was ever thus.

Today the pincer is not, as Beinart would have it, the incongruity of the “democratic Israel” inside the Green Line and the “undemocratic Israel” outside it. It is the discrepancy between the notions that Israel -- whether a Greater Israel encompassing West Bank settlements or the pre-1967 Israel for which Beinart pines -- is both “democratic” and a “Jewish state.”

Clooney's Arrest Dwarfs Sudan Agreement

by Amanda Ufheil-Somers | published March 21, 2012 - 3:49pm

The casual Sudan observer might conclude from recent news stories that George Clooney's arrest at the Sudanese embassy in Washington on March 16 has been the most significant event of the past week. It takes some digging to find any coverage of the preliminary agreement signed by representatives of Sudan and South Sudan in Addis Ababa on March 13, which is at least a step toward the settlement of disputes over borders, citizenship and oil revenues that have sustained diplomatic tensions and cross-border violence between the two states since the South's secession in July 2011.

Patti Smith Remembers Operation Iraqi Freedom

by Ted Swedenburg | published March 20, 2012 - 11:45am

On September 8, 2011, just a few days before the tenth anniversary of 9/11, the intrepid rocker Patti Smith performed at Webster Hall in New York City.

Beinart's Boycott

by Joel Beinin | published March 19, 2012 - 7:07pm

The New York Times has done it again. For the second time in a month its op-ed page features an article calling for a (qualified) boycott of Israeli products. The latest installment, “To Stop Israel, Boycott the Settlements,” is from Peter Beinart, former editor of The New Republic, former senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and now senior political writer at the Daily Beast. In addition to Beinart’s impressive credentials as a left-of-center Establishment thinker, he is also a practicing Orthodox Jew and sends his children to Jewish school, as his article informs us.