Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Gaza was a free-fire zone on Saturday and Sunday, with UN officials saying that no place in the Strip is safe. Hundreds were killed, almost all of them innocent noncombatants, and including a worrisome number of children. Although Israel tried to pull the stunt of issuing a map with supposedly […]
Palestinian-Israeli Leader Mansour Abbas: Nonviolent Struggle Necessary; Hamas’s Oct. 7 Atrocity Blasphemed against Islamic Values
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – They don’t often get a lot of attention in the US media, but the 2.1 million Israeli citizens of Palestinian heritage, 21% of the population, have also been victims of Hamas’s October 7 atrocities and of the subsequent political fallout. They are furious and outraged at Hamas, whose terror gangs […]
Did Israeli PM Netanyahu start Bombing Gaza Again to Stay out of Jail and Appease Fascists in his Cabinet?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The propaganda put out by the Biden administration would have us believe that the Israeli government, shocked by the horrid October 7 terrorist attack by Hamas, is turning Gaza into rubble in a quest to destroy Hamas and prevent the recurrence of such an assault. On December 1, the United […]
How War Criminal Kissinger paved the Way for a Genocidal Total War on Gaza’s Civilians
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Henry Kissinger’s death at 100 is an opportunity to consider the ways in which his lawlessness helped undermine International Humanitarian Law, the laws of war that responsible leaders attempted to erect to prevent the horrors of WW II from recurring. In his single-minded calculation of supposed “national” interest, which he […]
Three Young Men Shot down in the Name of an Anti-Palestinianism that cannot Be Named
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As Peter Beinart correctly argues, anti-Palestinianism is not a word in American English. I can tell since the internet helpfully underlines it in red to mark it for correction whenever I write it. Of course, it ought to be a word. It can become a word. It needs to become […]
Juan Cole: Infidel or Pagan? Understanding Kufr (كفر) in the Qur’an | Muhammad the Prophet of Peace
Gabriel Said Reynolds of Notre Dame writes: “In this video I interview Professor Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. We discuss the historicity of Muhammad’s raids as well as the picture of the messenger that is obtained when one focuses on the Qur’an alone. The bulk […]
The Past, Present and Future of Israel/Palestine – Juan Cole, Sherene Seikaly and Zachary Lockman
Massachusetts Peace Action: The Hamas attacks in Israel and Israel’s war on and invasion of Gaza are the latest rounds in a long-running conflict. In this webinar, three leading historians of the region will explore how we got here; what is fueling the present conflict; and what we in the United States can do. Speakers: […]
Juan Cole on Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” (StayTunedNBC)
Here is the interview Alex Greaney of StayTunedNBC did with Juan Cole about the Egypt scenes in Ridley Scott’s film, “Napoleon.” StayTunedNBC: “Juan Cole on Ridley Scott’s depiction of Napoleon in Egypt” I wrote a book about Bonaparte in Egypt for those of you who want to know more about the first major Western colonial […]
That Time when Napoleon Bonaparte’s Army in Palestine Burned Crops, Pounded Houses with Artillery, and Cut off Water to Cities
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On 24 June 1799 General Louis-Alexandre Berthier wrote a dispatch from Ottoman Palestine back to the French Ministry of War (people were more honest back then) about the French retreat from their failed attempt to take Ottoman Palestine. Since the army ravaged the Palestinian countryside with retaliatory attacks, given their […]
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