Current Analysis Yemen Dispatch The eruption of fighting by rival factions in Yemen’s southern city of Aden on January 28 provides distressing additional evidence that Yemen’s war is best understood as a series of mini-wars reflecting the intersection of diverse domestic drivers of conflict and Gulf regional fragmentation. Stacey Philbrick Yadav • 7 min read
Current Analysis How the Houthis Became “Shi‘a” It is wrong to code what is happening in Yemen as a Sunni-Shi‘i conflict. The Houthis are not an Iranian proxy but a predominantly local political movement founded in long-standing, Yemen-centric grievances and power struggles. The cynical use of sectarian language casts the conflict in Yemen as par Anna Gordon, Sarah Parkinson • 10 min read
Current Analysis A “Blue” Generation and Protests in Iran On Friday, December 29, 2017, a protest suddenly broke out in the shrine city of Mashhad, one of Iran’s major urban centers located in the northeast of the country. Although evidence indicates that the protests were prompted by hardliners in order to undermine President Hassan Rouhani, they rapidly spread Aghil Daghagheleh • 9 min read
Current Analysis Onwards and Upwards with Women in the Gulf An examination of women’s struggles to gain the right to vote in Kuwait, and ongoing efforts to promote women’s football in Qatar, provide useful in-depth case studies. They cannot predict the future course of change in Saudi Arabia, but they illustrate the need for ongoing political engagement and Charlotte Lysa, Andrew Leber • 16 min read
Current Analysis Justice and/or Development Ash al shaab! Ash! Ash! [Long Live the People!] Ash! Ash! Maghariba mashi “awbash!” [We Moroccans are not “trash!”] Ra’s al-mal?! [Where’s our capital?!] -Hirak protest chants in Fez, June 2017 What began in late October 2016 with protests over the horrific death of Mohcine Fikri, a Emilio Spadola • 10 min read
MER Article Talhami, American Presidents and Jerusalem Jerusalem has been the focus of an increasing number of academic publications in the past several years. Most of these publications focus mainly on the city’s history, identity and changing architectural features since Israel occupied its eastern section after the June 1967 War. Few serious attempts Suheir Abu Oksa Daoud • 3 min read
Current Analysis Seeing Past the Rain of Light On November 11, 2017, the Louvre Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates opened its doors to the public, nearly ten and a half years after the initial announcement of the project. Social media was awash with pictures of visitors in the rays of sun filtering into the main atrium, Elizabeth Derderian • 3 min read
Current Analysis An Open Letter by Senior Middle East Scholars to the New York Times Regarding its Thomas Friedman's column, "Saudi Arabia's Arab Spring, At Last." We write as scholars of the Middle East and the Muslim world with long, collective experience on Gulf and Arabian Peninsula policy issues to express our amazement, concern and anger that the New York Times would publish Thomas Friedman's recent essay "Saudi Arabia's Arab Spring, (Author not identified) • 3 min read
Current Analysis A Century of Refusal On the centenary of the Balfour Declaration, there has been a flurry of commentary about the controversial announcement, contained in a letter sent by British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Balfour to Lord Walter Rothschild. A Conservative parliamentarian, Rothschild was also a leading British advocate for the establishment of a Jewish Lori Allen • 8 min read
Current Analysis Another Brick in the Wall At ten o’clock in the morning, Thursday October 5, 2017, about 500 teachers gathered in front of the Budget and Planning Office in Tehran. [1] They were joined by thousands of colleagues protesting in front of education offices in a reported 21 cities across the country. Turning Global Teachers’ Zep Kalb • 10 min read
Current Analysis Refugees or Migrants? Much of the media attention on global displacement currently focuses on the Syrian refugee crisis and refugees’ attempts to enter Europe through Eastern Mediterranean routes. Certainly, the large scale of displacement that has occurred as a result of the war in Syria (the number of registered refugees has surpassed five Parastou Hassouri • 10 min read
Current Analysis Fifty Years of Occupation June 5, 2017 is the fiftieth anniversary of the 1967 Arab-Israeli war, which culminated in the Israeli military occupation of the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights, among other transformations of regional politics. The post-1967 occupation and its consequences continue to structure the Alaa Tartir, Sara Roy, Neve Gordon, Sherene Seikaly, Lori Allen • 23 min read
