( Tomdispatch.com ) – Killing from the sky has long offered the sort of detachment that warfare on the ground can’t match. Far from its victims, air power remains the height of modernity. And yet, as the monk Thomas Merton concluded in a poem, using the voice of a Nazi commandant, “Do not think yourself […]
Archives for August 2025
More Americans now Sympathize with Palestinians than with Israelis
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new opinion poll by the Sadat Center at the University of Maryland finds a sea change in the American public on the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. For the first time, the percentage of Americans who say they sympathize with Palestinians (28%) exceeds the percentage who sympathize […]
Gaza: US Forces Can Be Liable for Assisting Israeli War Crimes (HRW)
US Arms Transfers to Israel Are Internationally Wrongful Acts
Israel’s killing of Journalists follows a Pattern of silencing Palestinian Media that stretches back to 1967
By Maha Nassar, University of Arizona (The Conversation) – Five journalists were among the 22 people killed on Aug. 25, 2025, in Israeli strikes on the Nasser Hospital in the Gaza Strip. Following global condemnation, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu issued a statement saying Israel “values the work of journalists.” But the […]
There’s no Such thing as Someone Else’s Children*
Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Medford, a city of 60,000 people in Massachusetts, voted to pass an historic ordinance to divest from weapons companies that contribute to human rights violations. Their vote included Israel’s ongoing genocide, starvation and destruction of everything that makes life in Gaza possible. The Medford City Council passed […]
“Red Wine!” – the Nightingale cries to the Rose: FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:6
The sixth quatrain of Edward FitzGerald’s Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám continues with its celebration of wine-drinking in the morning. It connects ancient Iran’s language of Middle Persian or Pahlavi, spoken in the Sasanian Empire 224–651 AD with the biblical figure of David, said in the Qur’an to be the author of the Psalms. VI. And […]
Thugs R Us: How MAGA Uses Violence to Consolidate Power
( Tomdispatch.com ) – President Trump, his cabinet, and those who have profited from his rise seem to revel in public displays of cruelty. Take former Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) head Elon Musk, holding a chainsaw at a televised event to celebrate the firing of civil servants. Or Trump’s White House sharing a video […]
Don’t Blame Israel for Violating Jewish Ethics
( Times of Israel ) – Many people, both Jewish and non-Jewish, blame Israel for violating Jewish ethics. More erudite critics quote the Hebrew Bible, the Talmud and even codes of Jewish law to prove their point. This is a mistake. David Ben-Gurion, who directed the Zionist takeover of Palestine, answered such critics almost a […]
Dem Leaders Are Pretending that U.S. Weapons Don’t Enable the Slaughter in Gaza
San Francisco (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – This week will go down in history as a time when the governing body of the Democratic Party had a chance to oppose the U.S. government’s arming of Israel. But with the first Democratic National Committee meeting in seven months getting underway on Monday, the DNC’s leadership […]
© 2025 All Rights Reserved