Informed Comment Homepage

Thoughts on the Middle East, History and Religion

Header Right

  • Featured
  • US politics
  • Middle East
  • Environment
  • US Foreign Policy
  • Energy
  • Economy
  • Politics
  • About
  • Archives
  • Submissions

© 2025 Informed Comment

  • Skip to content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Jeffrey Rudolph

Jeffrey Rudolph , a college professor, was a regional representative of the East Timor Alert Network and presented a paper on its behalf at the United Nations. He was awarded the prestigious Cheryl Rosa Teresa Doran Prize upon graduation from McGill University’s faculty of law; has worked at one of the world’s largest public accounting firms; and, has taught at McGill University. His political quizzes are here.

Germany
Weimar’s Lesson: It’s the Violence, Not the Speech

Weimar’s Lesson: It’s the Violence, Not the Speech

Jeffrey Rudolph

( Detailed Political Quizzes ) – As comparisons between contemporary American politics and the rise of the Nazi Party are frequently invoked in the media, it’s crucial to draw one specific lesson from the history of Weimar Germany, the democratic state that existed from 1918 to 1933. The rise of Hitler and the Nazis was […]

Israel Lobbies
How AIPAC supports Israel's far Right Likud Party over Democratic America

How AIPAC supports Israel’s far Right Likud Party over Democratic America

Jeffrey Rudolph

( Detailed Political Quizzes ) – In a New York Times March 13, 2024, article (“Pro-Israel Lobby Faces Challenges Amid Gaza War and Shifting Politics”), it’s correctly pointed out that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) aggressively helps “fund electoral challenges to left-leaning Democrats it considers insufficiently supportive [of Israel].” However, the article misleads […]

Israel/ Palestine
Hamas: A 2023 Counterfactual

Hamas: A 2023 Counterfactual

Jeffrey Rudolph

  Detailed Political Quizzes Because facts matter ( Detailed Political Quizzes) – Hamas’s horrific October 7 terrorism should not be justified by any serious person. I have nothing to add to the intelligent writings of Professor Juan Cole on this matter. (For an illustrative example, please refer to Prof. Cole’s article dated October 16, 2023, […]

Israel/ Palestine
As NYT's Friedman Laments end of Israel-Palestine Two-State Solution, the Bantustan Alternative Looms

As NYT’s Friedman Laments end of Israel-Palestine Two-State Solution, the Bantustan Alternative Looms

Jeffrey Rudolph

Montreal (Special to Informed Comment) – In a New York Times Dec. 18, 2022, opinion piece,  Thomas L. Friedman, echoing many other mainstream commentators, bemoans that Israel’s aggressive settlement policies and growing religious nationalism “could bury the two-state solution and the one-state solution in the same grave.” However, what Mr. Friedman and other commentators fail to […]

Iran
Iran has Reached out to the US many Times, and often been Rebuffed by Washington

Iran has Reached out to the US many Times, and often been Rebuffed by Washington

Jeffrey Rudolph

( Detailed Political Quizzes) – In an August 14, 2022, New York Times Opinion piece (“How the United States Misunderstands Iran”), Karim Sadjadpour, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes that, “By and large, the United States has sought to engage a[n] [Iranian] regime that clearly doesn’t want to be engaged…” […]

Israel/ Palestine
Top Three Ways Israeli Policies Caused the Oslo Peace Accords to Collapse - According to former Shin Bet director Ami Ayalon

Top Three Ways Israeli Policies Caused the Oslo Peace Accords to Collapse – According to former Shin Bet director Ami Ayalon

Jeffrey Rudolph

By Jeffrey Rudolph | – ( Detailed Political Quizzes) – Ami Ayalon, a former director of Israel’s Shin Bet security agency, explains why Oslo failed in his 2020 memoir (co-authored with the academic Anthony David), Friendly Fire: How Israel Became Its Own Worst Enemy and the Hope for Its Future. Essentially, Ayalon argues that while […]

Primary Sidebar

Support Independent Journalism

Click here to donate via PayPal.

Personal checks should be made out to Juan Cole and sent to me at:

Juan Cole
P. O. Box 4218,
Ann Arbor, MI 48104-2548
USA
(Remember, make the checks out to “Juan Cole” or they can’t be cashed)

STAY INFORMED

Join our newsletter to have sharp analysis delivered to your inbox every day.
Warning! Social media will not reliably deliver Informed Comment to you. They are shadowbanning news sites, especially if "controversial."
To see new IC posts, please sign up for our email Newsletter.

Social Media

Bluesky | Instagram

Popular

  • Israel's Netanyahu banks on TACO Trump as he Launches War on Iran to disrupt Negotiations
  • A Pariah State? Western Nations Sanction Israeli Cabinet Members
  • Israel: Will Ultra-Orthodox Jews' Opposition to Conscription Bring down Netanyahu's Gov't
  • Women's Cancer Rates are Rising in the Oil Gulf: is Global Heating causing it?
  • Threat to Rule of Law: Sen. Padilla thrown to Ground, Cuffed at Noem DHS Press Conference

Gaza Yet Stands


Juan Cole's New Ebook at Amazon. Click Here to Buy
__________________________

Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires



Click here to Buy Muhammad: Prophet of Peace amid the Clash of Empires.

The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam


Click here to Buy The Rubaiyat.
Sign up for our newsletter

Informed Comment © 2025 All Rights Reserved