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(Istanbul: Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – On October 22, Devlet Bahçeli, the leader of the far-right Nationalist Movement Party (MHP) and an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, made an unexpected statement suggesting that Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), could be allowed to speak in the Parliament if […]

Donald Trump

Echoes and Parallels from 1939 – Trump’s Nazi Rally at Madison Square Garden

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – On February 20, 1939, the German-American Bund held a rally at Madison Square Garden (MSG) called a “Mass Demonstration for True Americanism.” It was fueled by the pall of the Great Depression, which was still fresh in the American consciousness; and boosted by lingering economic struggles in […]

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More Genocide: Israel Bans UNRWA, Guaranteeing Further Spike in Maternal and Infant Deaths in Gaza

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli parliament on Monday passed legislation declaring the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, authorized by the UN General Assembly in 1949, to be a terrorist organization. It is an extraordinary and dangerous step for a UN member state. The legislation has the effect of preventing the Israeli government […]

Arab Americans

Palestinian-Americans Help Make the US Great: A Reply to Giuliani at the Trumpie Madison Square Garden Hatefest

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Great Trump Three Hours of Hate at Madison Square Garden on Sunday included a fatally unfunny comedian calling Puerto Ricans garbage and other racist swill directed at African-Americans, Hispanics and other groups. Trump alleged that a violent Venezuelan prison gang has taken over Times Square, which bears the same […]

Colonialism

Does Britain owe Reparations to the Palestinians for Engineering their loss of their Country?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ta-Nehisi Coates made the argument for US reparations for slavery in 2014 in The Atlantic. In that essay, he made an analogy with German reparations to Israel. In his new book, The Message, Coates expresses regret for the unexamined Zionist biases in that analogy, which obscured the dispossession of the […]

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Israel’s Limited Strikes on Iran show the Enormous Constraints faced by Netanyahu

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The limited strikes on Iran carried out by Israeli fighter-jets early on Saturday morning Tehran time above all demonstrated the constraints under which even this extremist Israeli government has to operate. The bombings are said to have been limited to military targets, including missile manufacturing facilities. The first constraint Israel […]

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Medicide: Israel’s Attacks on Clinics and Hospitals in Gaza are War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity: UN

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Earlier this month the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory issued a report demanding that Israel, in the words of Commission Chair Navi Pillar, “Israel must immediately stop its unprecedented wanton destruction of healthcare facilities in Gaza. By targeting healthcare facilities, Israel is targeting the […]

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The Yemen Model and Failed US Middle East Policy

Marc Martorell Junyent

Review of Alexandra Stark, “The Yemen Model: Why U.S. Policy Has Failed in the Middle East” (New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 2024). Munich, Germany (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) –– Yemen goes through a civil war that does not end, frequent cholera outbreaks, and acute malnutrition among children. These days, however, the southern […]

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If one Thing can Unite Sunnis and Shiites in Lebanon, it is Israeli Aggression

Mohamed Jegham

Istanbul (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Prior to the recent Israeli attacks on Gaza and Lebanon, the popularity of Hezbollah, within and outside of Lebanon had seen a steep decline over the years, mainly because of its governing policies inside Lebanon and its Iran-inspired foreign policy outside. However, over the last year, the continuous […]