By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – World leaders signed the COP21 Paris climate accord on Friday, Earth Day. Whether it will be meaningful in stopping carbon dioxide emissions and emissions of other dangerous greenhouse gases that are warming our planet remains to be seen. But there is some good news on the […]
Prince’s Islamophilia as a Problem: “It’s fun to be in Islamic Countries”
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – in a 2011 interview in The Guardian, the late musician Prince said something that surprised his interviewer, Dorian Linskey: “It’s fun being in Islamic countries, to know there’s only one religion. There’s order. You wear a burqa. There’s no choice. People are happy with that.” Mr. […]
Top 7 ways Harriet Tubman is the most Badass Spy & Warrior ever to grace US Currency
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Despite US schools’ tendency to give students several years of American history, over and over again, most of us probably have only a foggy idea who Harriet Tubman, chosen to replace Andrew Jackson on the $20 bill, was. That she was an abolitionist and helped out […]
What GOP New Yorkers just voted for: Torture, Syria Intervention, murder of innocents
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – In the wake of his big win in New York, I want to push back once more against the normalization of Trump as a legitimate presidential candidate, given his policy positions. Let us remember what the Republicans of New York voted for (there are hardly any […]
6 Policies Obama wants Saudi Arabia to Change
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – After his critical comments in an interview in The Atlantic last month, Barack Obama’s visit to Saudi Arabia is going to be awkward, as DPA rightly says. The president accused the Gulf states of always trying to push the US into war for the accomplishment of […]
Top 7 Reasons Israel must give back the Occupied Golan to Syria
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The far right wing regime of Binyamin Netanyahu pulled the stunt of holding its first cabinet meeting in the Occupied Golan Heights on Sunday, and Netanyahu engaged in some grandstanding, declaring that Israel will never relinquish this patch of Syria. Israeli propaganda maintains that Israel is […]
Arab-Americans, including ‘Watan’ Newspaper, Endorse Bernie Sanders
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Many Arab-Americans want the Jewish candidate to be president. The prominent Arabic-language newspaper for that community in Southern California, Watan (“A Nation”), has endorsed Bernie Sanders. This outcome is not as strange as it might appear. Arab-Americans (who include Christians and Muslims) had been split between […]
Saadi on Impatient Love (Poem of the Day)
By Muslih al-Din “Saadi” Mushrif ibn Abdullah Shirazi | Trans. Reynold A. Nicholson | – – The heart that loves with patience — a stone ’tis, not a heart; Nay, love and patience dwell of old a thousand leagues apart. O brethren of the mystic path, leave blame and me alone! Repentance in the way […]
Thousands protest Gov’t in Egypt over Saudi Hegemony
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Thousands of Egyptians came into the streets Friday in the first major demonstrations in 2 and a half years, to protest the bestowal of the islands of Tiran and Sanafir on Saudi Arabia. Many Egyptians believe that the islands belong to Egypt, and it is unconstitutional […]
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