Middle East Research and Information Project: Critical Coverage of the Middle East Since 1971
Abrahamian, Ervand. A History of Modern Iran (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008).
Bayoumi, Moustafa. How Does It Feel to Be a Problem? Being Young and Arab in America (New York: Penguin, 2008).
Bensahel, Nora et al. After Saddam: Prewar Planning and the Occupation of Iraq (Santa Monica, CA: RAND Corporation, 2008).
Cobban, Helena. Re-Engage! America and the World After Bush (Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2008).
Hillel Cohen, Army of Shadows: Palestinian Collaboration with Zionism, 1917-1948 (translated by Haim Watzman)(Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 2008).
Martin Evans and John Phillips, Algeria: Anger of the Dispossessed (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2007).
It is possible, in reviewing opinion polls, to pinpoint the incident that swung a divided US electorate firmly and permanently against President George W. Bush. That occurrence was not Hurricane Katrina—two weeks after the storm hit New Orleans, a CBS News poll found the country remained split on “Bush’s response,” with 44 percent approving of Bush’s job performance and 48 percent disapproving. Nor was it his admission in late 2005, after a fall filled with dire news, that the Iraq war was not proceeding according to plan. By the end of that year, nearly all the pollsters had his numbers in the mid-40s (after a dip into the high 30s in October).
“It is our great and historic responsibility,” intoned Egyptian President Husni Mubarak on December 26, 2006, “to achieve the essential goal of developing our democracy and political life, while avoiding drifting into uncalculated steps that could threaten the stability of our country and the success of our democratic experience.” The occasion for this solemn pronouncement was the introduction of 34 constitutional amendments, later passed by Parliament, aiming at tightening the regime’s grip on power. To the informed ear, Mubarak’s words were the same old mantra of Arab autocrats: Arab peoples are not prepared for real political reform. It is not time.
At a 2007 Harvard workshop focusing on sustainable architecture in the Persian Gulf, the assembled academics and practitioners quizzed a public relations official from a large Abu Dhabi real estate developer. The workshop participants, among them experts in the field of sustainable development, were curious to know how the developer could claim its projects—large enclaves of high-end retail, entertainment and tourism—were “sustainable.”
Grass, dry air, thorns, and cactus on the tracks
There, the shape of the object in the absurdity of non-shape is chewing its own shadow
There is nothingness there, tied and surrounded by its opposite
Two doves flying
over the roof of an abandoned room at the station
The station is like a tattoo which has dissolved into the body of the place
There are also two thin cypresses, like two long needles
embroidering a lime-yellow cloud
And there is a tourist photographing two scenes:
I will walk in my footsteps down the old path through the sea air
no woman will see me passing under her balcony
I have of memories only those necessary for the long journey
Days contain all they need of tomorrows
I was smaller than my eyelashes and my two dimples
So take my sleepiness
and hide me in the story of the tender evening
Hide me under one of the two date palms
and teach me poetry
So I can learn how to walk beside Homer
So I can add to the story a description of Akka
Our territory is inhabited by a number of races speaking different languages and living on different historical levels…. A variety of epochs live side by side in the same areas or a very few miles apart, ignoring or devouring one another…. Past epochs never vanish completely, and blood still drips from all their wounds, even the most ancient.
—Octavio Paz, Labyrinth of Solitude
Olive oil has been a central element of Palestinian agriculture for centuries. It is a relatively durable food commodity, unlike fresh produce such as strawberries or tomatoes, which rot quickly in the sun. Unlike wine, however, olive oil does not improve with age, and is best consumed within a year or two of its production. It is extremely sensitive to exposure to heat, air and light, which cause the quality of the oil to deteriorate rapidly. It is also expensive to store and ship; the days of the Roman terracotta amphorae are gone, and now olive oil is often stored in glass bottles, heavy and easily breakable.
Back before the 1991 Gulf war, Palestinians could move fairly easily between the cities and provinces of the West Bank. The trip from Ramallah, in the north, and Hebron, in the south, lasted 50 minutes at most. These days, the luckiest traveler will spend something like two hours on the road.
“They are stealing our time. Everything takes so long!” Muna lamented, referring to the Israeli system of permits and checkpoints that governs daily mobility in the West Bank and makes the normally short trip from Ramallah to Jerusalem a nightmare of delays. She had just been granted a one-day permit to travel those six miles, a requirement for West Bank Palestinians who want to enter Jerusalem. Obtaining such a pass requires advance preparation: a trip to the Palestinian office that coordinates with the Israeli office that confers travel documents. A wait of days or weeks then ensues, followed by another trip to pick up a permit that allows entry into the city for a delimited period of time.
Toward the end of January 2008, residents of Gaza living under a suffocating Israeli blockade managed to punch holes in the wall separating Gaza from Egypt. For a few days, thousands of Gazans were able to cross into Egypt and purchase needed supplies before Egyptian officials, bowing to US and Israeli pressure, moved to refortify the border.
On June 23, 2008, representatives of Iraqi Jewish communities in several countries met in London to form a new group, the World Organization of Jews from Iraq (WOJI). According to a press release issued shortly after the meeting, the purpose of WOJI was to “protect, preserve and promote Jewish communal assets remaining in Iraq and to protect, preserve and promote Iraqi Jewish heritage, including holy sites and shrines remaining in Iraq.” Iraq is home to the oldest continuously present Jewish community in the world.
Saudi Arabia, its image in need of polishing in the wake of the September 11, 2001 attacks, has opened itself up to foreign scrutiny of its notoriously poor human rights record. Members of Congress now make regularly scheduled stops in the kingdom; in February 2008, the Saudis welcomed a second two-week fact-finding mission of the UN special rapporteur on violence against women. The scrutiny tends to be tightly managed: A visit to the government’s Human Rights Commission or the National Society for Human Rights, an NGO, is de rigueur.
It’s easy to forget, but the United States has a pressing year-end deadline to meet in Israel-Palestine as well as in Iraq. At Annapolis in November 2007, President George W. Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas pledged to “make every effort” to hammer out a comprehensive peace accord “before the end of 2008.” For Bush, the joint statement underlined a previous vow, uttered soon after the 2004 election, “to use the next four years to spend the capital of the United States” on creating a Palestinian state.
Ali, Kecia. Sexual Ethics and Islam: Feminist Reflections on Qur’an, Hadith and Jurisprudence (London: Oneworld, 2006).
Al-Jawaheri,Yasmin Husein. Women in Iraq: The Gender Impact of International Sanctions (Boulder, CO: Lynne Rienner, 2008).
An-Na‘im, Abdullahi Ahmed. Islam and the Secular State: Negotiating the Future of Shari‘a (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2008).
Reidar Visser and Gareth Stansfield, eds., An Iraq of Its Regions: Cornerstones of a Federal Democracy? (London: Hurst and Company, 2007).
"And now no one wants to get married,” says Muhammad, describing the reaction among men at his mosque to Morocco’s 2004 reform of personal status law. “Everyone is afraid to.”
Herro Kader Mustafa is a Kurdish-American, originally from Iraq, who has built an impressive portfolio of responsibilities in the course of her career at the State Department and the National Security Council of the United States. She is currently the acting chief of staff for the undersecretary for political affairs at the State Department. Mustafa served as the senior US civilian official responsible for administering the Iraqi province of Ninawa—of which Mosul is the capital—in the aftermath of the 2003 war. She is the subject of an upcoming documentary entitled American Herro. In May 2008, Mustafa spoke to MERIP about her experiences.
When and under what circumstances did you and your family leave Iraq?
