By Juan Cole In the current round of fighting between mighty Israel and the little Gaza Strip, Israeli airstrikes have killed 53 Palestinians. The supposedly deadly little rockets fired from the Gaza Strip have killed or injured no Israelis, though they have done some property damage. In fact, those rockets have no guidance systems and […]
Bush Trifecta lands on Obama: Gaza, Iraq and Afghanistan Imploding
By Juan Cole President Barack Obama of Hawaii had fondly dreamed of bidding turbulent and unrewarding West Asia farewell and turning the attentions of American diplomacy to East and South East Asia. From his point of view, the Bush administration had unwisely entangled the US too deeply in the Middle East, where no good deed […]
Not Serious re: Terrorism: GOP House Cut out funding for al-Qaeda, Iraq Records & Research
Representatives on the Hill talk a good game about going back into Iraq or pursuing a global war on terror, but they aren’t actually very interested in all that. Exhibit A: they’ve applied the same austerity to the Conflict Records Research Center as they did to the working poor and Veterans on food stamps. This […]
Gaza by the Numbers: Who the People are, how They got There
By Juan Cole Population of Palestinians of Gaza: 1.7 million Number of Palestinians in Gaza whose families were expelled as refugees from their homes in what is now southern Israel: 1.2 million Number of Palestinians in Gaza still living in the 8 recognized refugee camps, “which have one of the highest population densities in the […]
5 Most alarming Developments in Iraq
By Juan Cole 1. Airstrikes killed 7 and wounded 30 in Mosul on Sunday. But it isn’t clear who was flying the planes! The US denies it was Americans, and the spokesman for the Baghdad government said he did not know anything about it. The Syrian and Iranian air forces are other possibilities. It is […]
Middle East Crisis: Juan’s “Ask Me Anything” at Reddit Discussion
By Juan Cole Mirrored from LevantineWar at Reddit.com I am Juan Cole, author of the new book The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East I teach Middle East at U of Michigan, and blog at juancole.com. AMA. (self.LevantineWar) submitted 12 hours ago by jricole Juan Cole – stickied post It […]
Bring Back our Children: Palestine-Israel Children’s Crusade by the Numbers
By Juan Cole The Israeli occupation of the Palestinian people and the conflict it produces has in the past week taken on a horror-film aspect, as reprisal killings against children and teens have proliferated. But these killings and clashes did not begin with the kidnapping and killing of three Israeli youth a week ago Rather, […]
In Midst of Tikrit Campaign, al-Maliki refuses to step Down
By Juan Cole Despite the Iraqi parliament’s failure to reach a quorum on Tuesday, in a clear slap in the face to Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and other incumbents running for another term, on Friday Mr. al-Maliki insisted that he remains a candidate for a third term as prime minister. Sunni and Kurdish parliamentarians on […]
Americans need to Answer: When Will Palestinians get their Fourth of July?
By Juan Cole Americans are commemorating the Fourth of July today, the anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The grievances that the four million inhabitants of British North America had in 1776 were not felt by them to be narrow or specific but rather universal, and so too was the remedy. They laid against the […]
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