By Juan Cole| (Informed Comment) | – – The Israeli press is reporting that Iran has made a firmer military alliance with the Russian Federation in Syria, and that Moscow is sending pilots to Damascus to fly missions in that country against Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) and other Muslim extremist groups. The Syrian regime of Bashar […]
Top 5 Green Energy Breakthroughs Today
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – – Switching to green energy sources like wind and solar is necessary to save the planet from increased concentrations of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, which cause global warming. But it will also save you money. How much? Citi Bank has a new estimate that going green will […]
Palestine overwhelmed by Illegal American Immigrants
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – If there were a Palestinian Donald Trump, he’d be fulminating against illegal immigrants swamping the Palestinian West Bank. And he’d be complaining that fully 1 in 6 of these undocumented squatters are Americans . Since Americans have trouble understanding the basic facts of the situation, it […]
Austrian Truck Tragedy echoes Palestinian Story, reminding us of 7 mn still stateless
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The gruesome discovery of an abandoned truck in eastern Austria with 71 dead refugees in it, 4 of them children, has horrified the world. But few will realize that the plot of this story was laid out in the 1960s by Palestinian writer Ghassan Kanafani, in […]
Egypt’s al-Sisi and Putin Pledge Common Front against Terrorism
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Egypt’s president Abdel Fattah al-Sisi met Wednesday for the third time in a year with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Moscow. Putin is attempting to draw Egypt into a common front against terrorism. He wants to fight Daesh [ISIS, ISIL]) in Syria, which is only a […]
Defending Natalie Portman on Holocaust: Sometimes it can be subverted to fear-mongering
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Actress Natalie Portman has kicked off a controversy with remarks about how to remember the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews, in which the National Socialists murdered 6 million. Her critics have run off on tangents and presented a lot of red herrings. Portman did not question […]
ISIL’s Assault on History: Blows Up 1st Century Baal Shamin Temple in Palmyra
RFE / RL | – – Gunmen from the Islamic State (IS) militant group have blown up a first century A.D. temple in the ancient city of Palmyra, Syrian government officials and a monitoring group have said. However, there is confusion over when the detonation is thought to have taken place. Syria’s directorate-general of antiquities […]
Coal Industry Collapsing in Appalachia, leaving behind Blighted Landscape
By Laura Gottesdiener. | (Tomdispatch.com) | – – In Appalachia, explosions have leveled the mountain tops into perfect race tracks for Ryan Hensley’s all-terrain vehicle (ATV). At least, that’s how the 14-year-old sees the barren expanses of dirt that stretch for miles atop the hills surrounding his home in the former coal town of Whitesville, […]
President of Israel declares Israeli Squatting in Palestinian West Bank a “Right”, key to Zionism
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Israeli President Reuven Rivlin on Monday declared Israeli squatting on the Palestinian West Bank a “right” and as an essential Zionist principle. Reuven, a former chairman of the far-right Likud Party now in power, is known to favor a paternalist form of the one-state solution. He […]
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