South-South Solidarity and the Summit of South American-Arab Countries
A sense of deep connection has reverberated between South America and Arab countries since the early waves of Arab migrations to South America in the late nineteenth century. The Arabic language also played an important role in Brazil’s history. Most of the Muslim...Divergent Histories and Converging Inequalities in the Middle East and Latin America
The field of Middle East studies likes to tell itself that the region is an anomaly within the global South. One peculiarity attributed to the region is a relatively low level of income inequality, purportedly due to a combination of redistributive traditions within...Puerto Rican Decolonization, Armed Struggle and the Question of Palestine
Lolita Lebrón, 24 years after unfurling the Puerto Rican flag and opening fire in the US House of Representatives in 1954, [1] once again cried out against Puerto Rico’s colonial status in 1978. “The liberation movement of the Nationalist Party of Puerto Rico,”...Latin America-Middle East Ties in the New Global South
Over the past several years, posters of a gray Chinese terracotta warrior have caught the eyes of travelers in international airports. Hung on walls alongside moving walkways, the posters advertise the London-based bank HSBC and feature photographs ironically labeled...From the Editors (Winter 2017)
This double issue of Middle East Report, “The Latin East,” is a collaboration with the North American Congress on Latin America (NACLA). We publish it in tandem with the current issue of NACLA Report on the Americas, which is available for free online. With the kind...Pennock, The Rise of the Arab American Left
Pamela Pennock positions her new book, The Rise of the Arab American Left, as a corrective to what she characterizes as a near omission of Arab American activism in histories of the left in the United States.
Europe Dispatch
In the post-September 11, 2001 landscape, the United States made clear its intent to go it alone—even if that meant operating outside the doctrines of international law and international institutions. While President Barack Obama, to some degree at least, endeavored to re-situate the United States within the international community, Trump has embraced Bush-era doctrines. This approach, combined with a US-Russia alliance and failure to understand the refugee crisis as a global crisis that requires a global plan, has had significant repercussions for Europe, which is keenly aware that the problem extends far beyond Trump.
Israel Dispatch
Among the numerous ideological affinities and governing styles shared by President Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is a commitment to the rhetoric of “fake news.” In the last year, Netanyahu has increasingly borrowed this Trumpian formulation in an attempt to quell dissent and undercut critical Israeli and international media scrutiny. Netanyahu is not unique in this regard. Over the course of the last year, authoritarian regimes across the globe—including Syria, Russia and Malaysia—have adopted the fake news script to silence detractors and critics, frequently in response to the charge of human rights violations.
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 therefore influence over Israel, Washington would be an effective mediator and as such serve as the midwife of Palestinian statehood. It was on this basis that Palestinians embraced the framework of exclusive American sponsorship of bilateral Israel-Palestinian negotiations divorced from the existing international consensus, devoid of a clear timeline or agenda, and lacking effective arbitration or meaningful enforcement mechanisms.
Morocco Dispatch
Moroccans have been consuming regular coverage of Donald Trump since the US presidential campaign heated up. I was here in Fez in December 2015 when candidate Trump called for the United States to bar entry to Muslims—his notorious “Muslim ban.” News of it spread quickly. Moroccan students asked me pointedly and poignantly what he had against Muslims, and why Islam was a special target of his campaign. But if they were aware of the Islamophobia sweeping America in 2015, they also were familiar with his reality show, Celebrity Apprentice.
Turkey Dispatch
Turkey’s Islamist hegemons in the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) have been losing their grip on reality for some time. Anti-Western conspiracy theories have multiplied in the country since the attempted coup by Turkish military officers on July 15, 2016. Members of the religious-political Gülen movement, which split from the AKP in 2013, were involved in the power struggle with the AKP government that culminated in the coup attempt. Since the leader of the Gülen movement, Turkish cleric Fethullah Gülen, is based in Pennsylvania, suspicion has also fallen on the United States. Further confounding the AKP-led government and President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan are the mixed messages coming out of Washington. Initially, the AKP believed that Trump as president would help their efforts to extradite Gülen. Yet, Turkey’s rulers cannot square their assumption of Trump’s sympathy for them with his decision to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel and his inability (or unwillingness, in Erdoğan’s eyes) to put an end to the politically sensitive US trial of Turkish banker Hakan Atilla.
Saudi Arabia Dispatch
President Donald J. Trump is known for breaking norms of domestic and foreign policy in his first year in office. In terms of US-Saudi relations, however, his policy has been relatively standard. Although he chose Saudi Arabia as his first international destination as president—breaking the pattern of a new president visiting either Canada or Mexico first—little else in the existing US-Saudi relationship has changed.
Iran Dispatch
Trumpism has discombobulated Iran. Revulsion against President Donald J. Trump’s rhetoric and policies has achieved the rare feat of unifying the disgruntled Iranian public and the fractious ruling elite. This nationalist backlash barely conceals the internal crises facing Iran at every level—social, political, environmental and economic.
Iraq Dispatch
I have been conducting research in Iraq—in Basra and the outskirts of Tikrit—for roughly the last six months. Since Donald Trump’s election as US president in November 2016, when someone discovers that I live and work in the US, I am usually asked, “That friend of yours [Trump], what’s wrong with him?” Regardless of a person’s politics and where one falls (or not) on the spectrum of confessional and sectarian identities in Iraq, the general consensus currently seems to be that President Trump is, at the very least, a bit odd as a person and, more importantly, as president.
Syria Dispatch
The Trump administration has thus inherited a basket of policies that were largely focused on narrowly targeted US military intervention against ISIS, and the acceptance of continued violence and instability in Syria even amidst Russian military intervention into the conflict. In the first year of the Trump administration, these policies, for the most part, have been continued and expanded.
Egypt Dispatch
Last April, an Egyptian court acquitted Aya Hijazi and seven others of charges related to their work with a charitable foundation for Cairo’s street children. After nearly three years in prison, Hijazi, a dual US-Egyptian citizen, was released and allowed to return to the United States where President Donald J. Trump welcomed her with a visit to the White House. “We are very happy to have Aya back home,” Trump exclaimed while seated next to Hijazi during a photo opportunity in the Oval Office. Even by the standards of an already unorthodox presidency, the scene was a strange one.
Lebanon Dispatch
Trumpism as experienced from Lebanon is inextricably linked to the effects of the Trump administration’s positions and policies in the broader Middle East. The complexities of Lebanese politics and intrigue, and the social and economic challenges faced by the Lebanese as well as the country’s huge refugee population, however, are of little interest to President Donald Trump and his inner circle. Their de-contextualized fixation on Hizballah reflects US domestic politics and parochial Israeli anxieties rather than broader US geopolitical interests.
Dispatches on Trumpland
Knowledge production about the Middle East, Edward Said argued, has been a geopolitical project of empire. This is why the following dispatches to Trumpland provide a crucial intervention. Collectively, the dispatches ask the following: What does Trumpism mean from...Being Muslim in the Trump Era
Moustafa Bayoumi is author of the award-winning books How Does It Feel to Be a Problem?: Being Young and Arab in America (2009) and This Muslim American Life: Dispatches From the War on Terror (2015). He is professor of English at Brooklyn College. In this interview with MERIP editorial committee member Alex Lubin, Bayoumi reflects on the changing nature of anti-Muslim racism and the so-called war on terror.
