Middle East Research and Information Project

Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971

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Mouin Rabbani

Mouin Rabbani is a senior fellow at the Institute for Palestine Studies and a contributing editor of Middle East Report.

The Enduring Question of Palestine — MERIP Reports, no. 116, July-August 1983. Cover by Jim Richter.

MER Article

The Enduring Question of Palestine

The guiding mission of MERIP’s founders was not centered around cultivating a better understanding of the Palestinian struggle for self-determination. Rather, their magazine consciously emphasized the range and diversity of progressive and revolutionary struggles throughout the Middle East and North Africa. Yet the centrality of the Palestinian cause and

Mouin Rabbani • 5 min read

Current Analysis

The Manufactured Controversy About Ilhan Omar and the Israel Lobby

The firestorm that greeted newly elected Congresswoman (D-MN) Ilhan Omar’s tweets about the Israel lobby’s clout in Congress reveals as much about her critics as it does about the rising tide of progressive politicians who no longer show deference to establishment prohibitions on criticizing Israel.

Joel Beinin, Noura Erakat, Omar Baddar, Mouin Rabbani • 21 min read

MER Article

Palestine Dispatch

Palestinian adherents of what is known as the peace process never quite entertained the illusion that the United States is a neutral arbiter, let alone honest broker in matters Israeli-Palestinian. Rather, they allowed themselves to believe that, precisely on account of its close relationship and th

Mouin Rabbani • 4 min read

Current Analysis

Round Two to Arafat

The release of the Swiss Institut de Radiophysique’s Experts Forensic Report [http://www.theguardian.com/world/interactive/2013/nov/06/yasser-arafat-report-swiss-institut-radiophysique-full-text] Concerning the Late President Yasser Arafat has lent further credence to the proposition that the iconic

Mouin Rabbani • 3 min read

Current Analysis

Four More Years

The 2012 US presidential election elicited less interest among Palestinians than any such contest in living memory. While most Israelis, and their government in particular, expressed a clear preference for a Republican victory, Palestinians seemed resigned to continuity in US foreign policy irrespec

Mouin Rabbani, Chris Toensing • 11 min read

Current Analysis

Palestine at the UN: An Alternative Strategy

As Israeli-Palestinian negotiations lurch from crisis to crisis, Palestinian Authority (PA) leaders have been suggesting they may go to the United Nations to seek resolutions confirming the illegality of Israel’s settlements in the Occupied Territories and recognizing a reality of Palestinian stateh

Mouin Rabbani • 3 min read

Current Analysis

Human Rights Watch Goes to War

The Middle East has always been a difficult challenge for Western human rights organizations, particularly those seeking influence or funding in the United States. The pressure to go soft on US allies is in some respects reminiscent of Washington’s special pleading for Latin American terror regimes

Mouin Rabbani • 16 min read

Current Analysis

The Continuity of Obama's Change

President Barack Obama’s campaign pledge that his administration would begin working for peace in the Middle East from its first day in office is one that he almost met. On January 21, a mere 24 hours after his inauguration, Obama placed phone calls from the Oval Office to Israeli Prime Minister Ehu

Mouin Rabbani, Chris Toensing • 11 min read

Current Analysis

Out of the Rubble

Speaking to his people on January 18, hours after Hamas responded to Israel’s unilateral suspension of hostilities with a conditional ceasefire of its own, the deposed Palestinian Authority prime minister Ismail Haniyeh devoted several passages of his prepared text to the subject of Palestinian nati

Mouin Rabbani • 5 min read

Current Analysis

Birth Pangs of a New Palestine

Shortly after 11:30 am on December 27, 2008, at the height of the midday bustle on the first day of the Gazan week and with multitudes of schoolchildren returning home from the morning shift, close to 90 Israeli warplanes launched over 100 tons of explosives at some 100 targets throughout the 139 sq

Mouin Rabbani • 24 min read

Current Analysis

In Annapolis, Conflict by Other Means

At an intersection in front of Nablus city hall, a pair of women threaded a knot of waiting pedestrians, glanced left, then dashed across the street. “What’s this?” an onlooker chastised them. “Can’t you see the red light?” Not long after, his patience exhausted, the self-appointed traffic cop himse

Mouin Rabbani, Robert Blecher • 14 min read

Current Analysis

Forty Years of Occupation

An outpouring of retrospectives—good, bad and indifferent—has marked the fortieth anniversary of the June 1967 Arab-Israeli war. Predictably, and perhaps appropriately, most looks backward have also attempted to peer forward, and consequently most have focused on the impasse between Israel and the P

Jeremy Pressman, Samera Esmeir, Yoav Peled, Mouin Rabbani, Robert Blecher, Lori Allen • 14 min read