By Melanie Murcott, University of Cape Town (The Conversation) – Three South African environmental and climate justice organisations took the South African government to court in November 2021, to challenge the authorisation of new coal-fired power as part of the country’s energy mix. Three years later, the court ruled that the government’s new coal plans […]
Archives for April 2025
A Great Muslim Scholar of Jewish Heritage Passes: Abdallah Schleifer (1935 – 2025)
Middlebury, Vt. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Abdullah Schleifer, prominent Arab journalist and Professor Emeritus at the American University in Cairo, died last week at the age of ninety. The grandchild of European Jews who fled Europe and immigrated to the U.S. in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Schleifer converted to Islam […]
What is the Israel Lobby – and Why is it so Anxious?
By Ned Curthoys, The University of Western Australia (The Conversation) – Last May, on a trip to the United States, world-renowned Israeli–Jewish historian Ilan Pappe was detained by Homeland Security and held for two hours. Aged 69 at the time, he was, among other things, asked about his views on Hamas and whether Israel’s actions […]
Condemnation of Trump targeting noncitizen Students, Researchers for Constitutionally protected Speech
Middle East Studies Association MESA Board Joint Statement with the TFCHR regarding deportations The MESA Board of Directors and the MESA Task Force on Civil and Human Rights condemn in the strongest terms the Trump administration’s targeting of noncitizen students and researchers for their constitutionally protected speech and advocacy. As part of an expansive […]
A Majority of Americans Views Israel Negatively in wake of Gaza Genocide
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Laura Silver at the Pew Research Center reports that 53% of Americans now have a negative view of Israel, a stark deterioration from 42% in spring 2022 before the Israeli total war on Gaza. Moreover, in just 3 years the percentage of Americans with very negative views of Israel has […]
Has Israel turned Gaza into a 21st Century Concentration Camp?
By Dr Mustafa Fetouri The basic definition of “concentration camp” is simple: a large place where a large group of people, usually civilians, are imprisoned without due process. There are various reasons as to why they are kept in confinement, including their ethnicity, religion or because they oppose the authorities ordering their imprisonment. Encyclopaedia Britannica […]
Trump Faces Palestine: The Colonial View of the World Never Dies
By Aviva Chomsky ( Tomdispatch.com) – In the colonial view of the world — and, in its own strange fashion, Donald Trump’s view couldn’t be more colonial — White European colonizers were embattled beacons of civilization, rationality, and progress, confronting dangerous barbaric hordes beyond (and even, sometimes, within) their own frontiers. Colonial violence then was […]
Macron: France to Recognize the State of Palestine amid Gaza “Crime”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – French President Emmanuel Macron visited El Arish in Egypt on Tuesday to see refugees from Gaza with his own eyes. He then announced that France would recognize the State of Palestine, probably in June. Mohamed Bouhafsi at French public television reports on remarks of French President Emannuel Macron on Gaza […]
Iran and US to enter high-stakes Nuclear Negotiations – hampered by a lack of Trust
ByAli Bilgic, Loughborough University (The Conversation) – The announcement of planned talks between the US and Iran in Oman signifies a crucial development – especially given the history of distrust and animosity that has characterised their interactions. There remains a degree of confusion as to whether the negotiations over Iran’s development of a nuclear capacity […]
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