The Military-Industrial Backbone of Normalization
The booming weapons industry made possible by the Abraham Accords.
The Limits of Protection and Profits—Five Years into the Abraham Accords
A Review of Elham Fakhro’s ‘The Abraham Accords: The Gulf States, Israel, and the Limits of Normalization.’
Sami Zubaida
Sami Zubaida, an exceptional scholar of Middle Eastern political sociology, law and culinary culture, passed away in London on April 6, 2025. Born to an Iraqi Jewish family, Sami left Iraq to pursue higher education in the United Kingdom. He received his BA degree...Deportation as Punishment and the Everyday War on Migrants from Turkey to the United States
At dawn on December 9, 2024, hundreds of Syrian refugees gathered at Turkey’s Cilvegözü and Öncüpınar border crossings into northern Syria to return home following the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government. Wrapped in blankets and clutching their children...Unpacking the Gender ‘Paradox’ Behind Arab Women in Tech
Compared to women in the United States and most European countries, Arab women are highly represented in Information and Communication Technology (ICT) and related computing fields. In fact, six of the ten countries with the highest rates of women studying ICT are in...Courts of Exclusion—Working-Class Masculinity and Anti-Afghan Racism in Iran
In 2016, Gol Agha, a ball boy and worker at a private tennis club in Tajrish—an affluent neighborhood in northern Tehran—went to an administrative office in Karaj to receive a headcount slip. There, Gol Agha was told by employees at the registration desk that the...Women and Politics in Post-Jina Iran
The past and present of Woman, Life, Freedom. Featuring an update from Iranian civil society on Israel’s expanding war.
Syria’s New Men
Masculinity and the post-Asad political order.
Shifting Feminist Narratives in Sudan—A Conversation with Raga Makawi
Women and the gender dynamics behind Sudan’s revolution and war.
Israel’s War on Reproduction in Gaza
On reprocide as a tactic of eliminationist violence.
Gender, Politics and Scholarship—A Roundtable
On March 3, 2025, MERIP and the University of Exeter’s Institute of Arab and Islamic Studies partnered with Georgetown University’s Center for Contemporary Arab Studies to host a roundtable on the past, present and future of feminist approaches to Middle East...Issue 314 (Spring 2025) Masthead
Middle East Report, “New Gender Frontlines,” Spring 2025, No. 314, Vol. 54 No. 1 Executive Director James Ryan jamesryan@merip.org Executive Editor Katie Natanel katienatanel@merip.org Managing Editor Marya Hannun maryahannun@merip.org Photo Editor...A Note on the Cover Image
Raed Issa’s 2024 series, Faces from My Homeland, illuminates the cover of MER issue 314 “New Gender Frontlines.” The work—a mix of charcoal, coffee, pomegranate and hibiscus painted on repurposed medicine packages from Gaza—depicts a grid of women’s faces, spanning...Israel’s War on Reproduction in Gaza
Hala Shoman reports on reprocide as a tactic of eliminationist violence.
Deportation as Punishment and the Everyday War on Migrants from Turkey to the United States
A special report.
Syria’s New Men
Gender and the post-Asad political order.
Breaking the Fourth Wall—Reading Sadallah Wannous in a Time of Genocide
Robert Myers and Nada Saab, Sentence to Hope: A Sa’dallah Wannous Reader, Yale University Press, 2019. At the end of Sadallah Wannous’ 1970 play, The Adventures of the Mamlouk Jabir’s Head, the action takes an abrupt, dark but entirely predictable turn. Wannous—a...Artificial Humanitarianism—The Data-Driven Future of Refugee Responses
In Jordan’s Za’atari refugee camp, to pay for food at one of the World Food Programme (WFP)’s distribution centers, Syrian refugees must lean into an iris scanner that registers their biometrics. The scanner then logs their transaction onto the program’s blockchain...Narratives of ‘the Oppressed’—The Dialectic of Resistance Behind the Axis
Since its formation, the Axis of Resistance has embodied a defiant stance against imperialism and Zionism. The phrase itself first circulated in the English-language media, in the early 2000s—a response to then-President George W. Bush’s ominous talk of the “axis of...Hanging by a Thread—The Red Sea Blockade and Jordan’s Fragile Garment Industry
Houthi attacks have revealed an industrial paradox.
