Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

Joshua Stacher

Joshua Stacher is associate professor of political science at Kent State University and an editor of Middle East Report. He is author of Adaptable Autocrats: Regime Power in Egypt and Syria (Stanford, 2012).

Current Analysis

Running as Resistance in Occupied Palestine

The Palestine Marathon, like its counterparts elsewhere, is meant to be a feel-good event. But it also has a political point: to highlight restrictions on movement for all Palestinians under Israeli occupation.

Joshua Stacher • 5 min read

MER Article

Education Under Occupation

Most Palestinian universities are underfunded, but Hebron University is extreme in its needs. Compared to other institutions in Palestine, there are few buildings named for wealthy donors. Israeli restrictions on Palestinian movement mean that students rarely enroll in a university outside the vicinity where they were raised. Most of Birzeit

Joshua Stacher • 1 min read

MER Article

Hebron, the Occupation's Factory of Hate

What makes Hebron special is the religious-nationalist militancy of the Israeli settler projects in the city and its environs—along with the ferocity of the accompanying violence. In the province as a whole, the settlement pattern is the same as elsewhere in the West Bank—the inward creep of coloniz

Joshua Stacher • 11 min read

MER Article

Shenker, The Egyptians

Jack Shenker, The Egyptians: A Radical Story (London: Penguin, 2016). Jack Shenker’s book is the definitive account of the 2011 Egyptian uprising to date. Many scholars and journalists have taken as their point of departure the notion that the uprising was a one-off democratizing experiment that failed. With his

Joshua Stacher • 2 min read

Current Analysis

Egypt Running on Empty

An authoritarian regime may be unpopular, even loathed, but at least it has rules. The rules may bear little resemblance to the law, but relations between state officials and society come to have a predictable rhythm. People understand where the red lines are, and they can choose to stay within them

Joshua Stacher • 16 min read

Current Analysis

The Palestine Exception to Free Speech in America

Omar Shakir and Megan Marzec came to northeastern Ohio last week to discuss the constraints on speech about research and activism with regard to Palestinian rights. Their host was the Northeast Ohio Consortium on Middle East Studies (NOCMES).

Joshua Stacher • 1 min read

Current Analysis

Repression and Remembering in Kent and Cairo

Yesterday was the forty-fifth anniversary of the day [http://www.cleveland.com/metro/index.ssf/2015/05/45th_anniversary_of_kent_state.html] when Ohio National Guardsmen fired 67 rounds of live ammunition into a crowd of peaceful protesters at Kent State University. The crime took 13 seconds. The tra

Joshua Stacher • 3 min read

Current Analysis

Beinin, Beers and Israel-Palestine in Cleveland

MERIP contributing editor Joel Beinin [http://www.merip.org/author/joel-beinin] came to Cleveland in early March to discuss the popular struggle against Israeli occupation in the West Bank as well as what was at stake in yesterday’s Israeli elections. His host was the Northeast Ohio Consortium on Mi

Joshua Stacher • 1 min read

Current Analysis

The Sisi Shuffle

This morning Egypt’s military-installed cabinet resigned en masse [http://madamasr.com/content/beblawi’s-government-resigns ]. Initial comment implies that the resignations were a surprise but nonetheless fit into a pattern of events paving the way for a presidential run by Field Marshal ‘Abd al-Fat

Joshua Stacher • 2 min read

Current Analysis

True Democrats Don't Bankroll Juntas

The military’s coup in Egypt has placed the American political establishment in a bind. Many observers insist that the Obama administration must either formally condone the military takeover or call it a “coup,” which would require a cutoff of American aid, as Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) has advocated.

Joshua Stacher • 4 min read

Current Analysis

The World According to Beblawi

It took a day of back-room negotiations, but the powers behind Egypt’s throne finally settled on Hazem Beblawi [http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-23249049], an economist, as interim prime minister. Beblawi, 76, served as finance minister in 2011, when Egypt was under the direct rule of the

Joshua Stacher • 3 min read

MER Article

Establishment Mursi

On June 29, 12 days after he was elected president of Egypt, Muhammad Mursi ascended a Tahrir Square stage and issued a dramatic pledge to guard the revolution launched there the preceding spring. Mursi opened his jacket, revealing that he wore no bulletproof vest, thumped his chest and yelled, “I f

Joshua Stacher • 6 min read