IN THIS ISSUE:
Marsha Pripstein Posusney
MERIP mourns the passing of Marsha Pripstein Posusney (1953-2008), a stalwart member of the editorial committee of Middle East Report from 1989-1994, a MERIP program committee member from 1996-2001 and our friend. An experienced teacher, Marsha was professor of political science at Bryant University and adjunct professor of international relations at the Watson Institute for International Studies of Brown University. An accomplished scholar, she was author of Labor and the State in Egypt: Workers, Unions and Economic Restructuring (Columbia, 1998), winner of the Albert Hourani Book Award of the Middle East Studies Association, as well as several edited volumes and journal articles. An untiring activist, she worked all her life to forward struggles for peace and social justice.
Khazzoom, Shifting Ethnic Boundaries and Inequality in Israel
Aziza Khazzoom, Shifting Ethnic Boundaries and Inequality in Israel: Or, How the Polish Peddler Became a German Intellectual (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2008).
The ethnic divide among Jewish Israelis is an elusive concept and a rarely acknowledged reality. There are no discriminatory laws that explicitly sustain it, as with the divide between Jewish and Arab citizens. And it is not institutionalized in parallel state-sponsored school systems, as exist for religious and secular Jews. Zionist ideology, whereby all Jews belong to one nation, may seem to have forged a melting pot.
Beyond the Bush Doctrine
Will the Bush doctrine come to an end on January 20, 2009, when President Barack Obama takes office? Surely, Obama will distance himself from regime change and preventive war. He has pledged to de-escalate the Iraq war with a phased redeployment and rebuild America’s alliances and image abroad through leadership and diplomacy. Most ambitiously, he has stated that American security and wellbeing depend “on the security and wellbeing of those who live beyond our borders…in the understanding that the world shares a common security and a common humanity.” These differences notwithstanding, will the next administration break dramatically from the patterns that have long defined the US approach to the Middle East? There is little reason to think so.
On Torture
BOOKS REVIEWED:
Darius Rejali, Torture and Democracy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2007).
Marnia Lazreg, Torture and the Twilight of Empire: From Algiers to Baghdad (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2008).
CURRENT ANALYSIS
COIN vs. CT?
On January 5, amid much pomp and circumstance, President Barack Obama released the newest version of the US Defense Strategic Guidance. The document delineated the future course of US defense strategy, reiterating the commitment of the US to its strategic partners — the oil sheikhdoms — in the Persian Gulf, and shifting its focus to conventional warfare and deterrence capabilities in East Asia. So far, so predictable. Also notable, however, is this paragraph:
The Siren Song of Ron Paul
Say Ron Paul were actually elected president. Say that, in his proverbial first 100 days, he used his bully pulpit to push for two things: deep cuts in aid to Israel and other US allies, and elimination of Federal subsidies for alternative energy research. Which of these two objectives would he be more likely to achieve? And, if he achieved both, which would his successor find it easier to reverse?
Better Ten Years Late Than Never
At long last, after a few false starts and much gnashing of teeth, MERIP is entering the blogosphere.
The blog is intended to be what most blogs run by publications are: a place for our editors and writers to post short pieces of analysis or commentary on important issues in the public eye. We will also use the blog as a way to point readers to valuable material that appears elsewhere. The blog will start small, with just a few contributors, and we will see where it goes.
There will be no comments section, but feel free to send us your feedback in any of the old-fashioned ways.
LATEST ISSUES
FEATURED PRIMER
Primer: Palestine-Israel
Read the newest iteration of MERIP’s Palestine primer. Published in March 2025, and updated to reflect developments in the ten years since our previous primer, it provides an overview of key actors, organizations, historic events, political developments and diplomatic initiatives that have shaped the status and fate of Palestinians and the State of Israel from the late nineteenth century to the present.
