By Juan Cole | — The Guardian reports that “A controversial bill that officially defines Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people has been approved by cabinet despite warnings that the move risks undermining the country’s democratic character. Opponents, including some cabinet ministers, said the new legislation defined reserved “national rights” for Jews only […]
Jerusalem: where religion divides but lives are entwined
By Wendy Pullan, University of Cambridge (The Conversation) The latest violent episode between Palestinians and Israelis has prompted Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to assert that Israel is in the midst of a “battle for Jerusalem”. This is a city divided along many lines, and while the latest attack has caused outrage and hostility, it […]
Iraq: Daesh/ISIL executes 26 Sunni Tribesmen in Campaign to Take Ramadi
By Juan Cole: Daesh (the Arabic acronym for ISIS or ISIL) has mounted a major offensive in a bid to take Ramadi, the capital of al-Anbar Province in western Iraq. Ramadi is due west of Baghdad past Fallujah. Iraqi eyewitnesses told the al-Arabiya satellite news channel that Daesh had taken over some of the neighborhoods […]
Top 6 Green Energy Good News Stories, November 2014
By Juan Cole 1. There has been a lot of reporting and angst over the possibility that India will turn to coal to electrify the country (many in India still lack electricity). While the government may well initially deploy coal in a kind of ‘all of the above’ strategy, the fact is that solar photovoltaic […]
Top 5 Ways Obama Punked the GOP on Immigration; and the 2016 Campaign
By Juan Cole | — The 2016 presidential election will be very different from the 2014 congressional midterms just held. In the off years, turnout is low (this time it was less than 36 percent) and the people who come out to vote are disproportionately older, well off, and of northern European heritage. That is […]
The Historical Drivers of Modern Day Developments in Iraq (Cole Interview)
By Juan Cole, interviewed by Bassam Haddad | — Bassam Haddad, a prominent Syria specialist at George Mason University, interviewed me this fall for the new web radio program Status Hour , on the Middle East. Do check out the range of important interviews already up at the site. My own audio interview is here. […]
3rd Possibility: Coming Civil War in West Bank/ Jerusalem?
By Juan Cole | — Observers of the evolution of the relationship between Israel and the Palestinians have long argued that there are only two likely outcomes of the alternating violence and diplomacy between the two sides that has gone on nearly 70 years now. One is a “two-state solution” wherein Israel accepts a rump […]
Americans 64 times more likely to be Murdered than die in Terrorism
By Juan Cole | — The Institute for Economics and Peace in the UK has released a report on terrorism in 2013, which it maintains was substantially up. There are virtues of the study. It shows that 80% of the victims of terrorism in the past year are Muslims living in just five countries– Nigeria, […]
Top 5 Ways Daesh/ ISIL is Losing, as it lashes out like a Cornered Rat
By Juan Cole Daesh is what ISIL is called in the Middle East by the vast majority that doesn’t like it. It has not had a good month, suffering substantial setbacks in Iraq and watching with concern as the Damascus regime of Bashar al-Assad looks set to retake the major northern city of Aleppo, to […]
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