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Archives for May 2011

Islamophobia
Salaita: Dressing like a Terrorist

Salaita: Dressing like a Terrorist

Juan Cole

Steven Salaita writes in a guest column for Informed Comment Dressing Like a Terrorist Like many others, I was dismayed to learn of the two imams wearing traditional Muslim garb who were forcibly removed a couple of weeks ago from an airplane that was to carry them to a conference on Islamophobia (the irrational fear […]

Uncategorized
Drake the Heroic Whistleblower

Drake the Heroic Whistleblower

Juan Cole

Is Thomas Drake, the National Security Agency whistleblower a hero or a criminal? A hero, obviously. Drake revealed to the Baltimore Sun how how the NSA abandoned a legal and promising data mining program for an intrusive, unconstitutional and ultimately useless one. For telling the public how its rights had been violated and its money […]

Libya
Tripoli’s Gradual Collapse:  ICC Indictment of Qaddafi and Ghanem’s Defection

Tripoli’s Gradual Collapse: ICC Indictment of Qaddafi and Ghanem’s Defection

Juan Cole

Libyan Oil Minister Shukri Ghanem has defected from the Qaddafi regime and fled to Tunisia. This defection is a big deal. Ghanem had been at OPEC when Libya was under economic sanctions, and his return to Libya as prime minister and head of the ruling party in 2003 was intended to signal Muammar Qaddafi’s return […]

Israel/ Palestine
Shihade: A New Era for Palestinians

Shihade: A New Era for Palestinians

Juan Cole

Magid Shihade writes in a guest column for Informed Comment The Palestinian Unity Agreement and the Beginning of New Era The agreement of reconciliation between Fatah and Hamas, ending years of Palestinian political divisions and paralysis, was signed last week. The reasons for signing the unity agreement at this point are many including local, regional […]

Libya
Arabs:  90% say Qaddafi illegitimate, 75% Want him Forcibly Removed

Arabs: 90% say Qaddafi illegitimate, 75% Want him Forcibly Removed

Juan Cole

I received this press release from the Doha Debates (a member of the Qatar Foundation) by email. The results vis-a-vis Libya are not surprising, since Qaddafi is widely hated in the Arab world and everyone watched in horror as he had tank salvos and cluster bombs fired at non-combatants. But that last bit about being […]

Israel/ Palestine
Meyer: After Bin Laden: Israel & Middle East Peace

Meyer: After Bin Laden: Israel & Middle East Peace

Juan Cole

Carlyn Meyer writes in a guest column for Informed Comment: I recently returned from a trip to Israel and the West Bank. I am not Jewish but work with JStreet, the trip’s sponsor, because it is the only group in the US actively lobbying Congress and the Administration for a two-state solution to the Palestine/Israeli […]

Israel/ Palestine
The Arab Spring comes to Israel

The Arab Spring comes to Israel

Juan Cole

Contrary to the line taken by the Israeli leadership, the Palestinian protests on May 15, Nakba Day, were not an Iranian or Syrian plot but rather the grassroots protests of a dispossessed and displaced people that refuses to accept its fate as flotsam of the earth, deprived of their identity and dignity by the great […]

Iraq War
Why was Strauss-Kahn Arrested but W. & Cheney went Free?

Why was Strauss-Kahn Arrested but W. & Cheney went Free?

Juan Cole

What is it about the United States that makes for harsh prosecutions over sex crimes but lets leaders off the hook when it comes to war crimes? New York police rushed to arrest Dominique Strauss-Kahn , the head of the international Monetary Fund, on Saturday on learning of charges against him by a hotel maid […]

Pakistan
Pakistani Parliament Reacts against US Incursions

Pakistani Parliament Reacts against US Incursions

Juan Cole

Pakistan’s elected parliament held a 10-hour session on Friday and decided at the end of it that US incursions, including drone strikes, into Pakistan must cease. The American drone strikes in the northwest, in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas have long been unpopular in parliament and with the general public (though in some of the […]

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