Featured

Under Int’l Pressure Israel reverses ban on Hundreds of Gaza Christians visiting Holy Sites, though Cruel Blockade Continues

N.B. The day after we published this piece, the Israeli government reversed itself and issued permits to Gaza Christians to visit their holy sites at Christmas. Unfortunately, they haven’t reversed themselves about patient exit visas for medical care or the other blockade measures. Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israel is barring a few hundred Gaza […]

Featured

Could the Int’l Criminal Court brand Israel’s Netanyahu a War Criminal?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A prosecutor on the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, has opened an investigation into Israeli and Hamas war crimes, drawing a furious response from caretaker Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Palestine filed the case in some large part because of the Trump administration’s brutal policies against the Palestinians, in which […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Crisis Rages in Australia, with 14 of 15 hottest Places in World and Sydney Fire-Besieged

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Australia has been turned by the climate crisis into a huge oven. On Wednesday, 14 of the hottest places in the world were in Australia. Firefighters are combating 100 wildfires in New South Wales (NSW), with some of them encroaching on Sydney, Australia’s largest city. NSW declared a 7-day state […]

Featured

The Miseries of Settler Colonialism: Jeff Goldberg thinks Israelis are the Seminoles

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Phil Weiss at Mondoweiss, the most lucid and informed voice on the American Jewish left doing journalism critical of right wing Zionism, reports on remarks of The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg at a Jewish Community Center forum in Manhattan. In Weiss’s telling, Goldberg argued to his audience that Israelis are […]

Congress

Why Dems Missed a Real Opportunity by not Including Trump/ Stormy Daniels in Impeachment

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Early twentieth century humorist Will Rogers once remarked, “I am not a member of any organized political party. I am a Democrat.” Nearly a century later, the observation is still true. The Democrats should have added a charge in the impeachment of Trump for the Stormy Daniels scandal. Trump paid […]

Featured

Israeli Blockade of Gaza Causing Contaminated Water, 25% of Illnesses and 12% of Infant Deaths

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Abeer Butmeh writes at Al Jazeera English that because of the Israeli blockade on Gaza, equipment for water purification has not been imported and 97% of the Strip’s water is now polluted. Gaza has a population of about 2 million, equivalent to that of the entire state of Nebraska. Only […]

Afghanistan

In Wake of “Afghanistan Papers” Scandal, Trump to Yank Out 4,000 Troops

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – VOA reports that Trump will pull 4,000 US troops from Afghanistan, leaving less than 9,000 in country. Of the 13,000 US troops now in Afghanistan, 8,000 are training the Afghanistan National Army, while 5,000 are actively engaged in counter-terrorism operations. Last week Secretary of Defense Mark Esper said that any […]

Featured

Fossil Fuels cause Climate Crisis and Wars: Turkey forces Israeli Ship to leave research on Cyprus Undersea Gas

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Daily Sabah is reporting that a couple of weeks ago the Turkish navy made an Israeli research vessel leave the territorial waters off Turkish Cyprus. The island has been divided politically into a Greek-speaking Cyprus and a Turkish province since the 1974 Turkish invasion. Since 2011 there have been […]

Democracy

From Tory Landslide to Trump non-Impeachment: Can Filthy Rich Liars sink Democracy in Britain and the U.S.?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The danger to democracy posed by our new information system plus our new levels of wealth concentration cannot be overestimated. The degree of inequality both in the US and the UK is now virtually unprecedented, as is media consolidation. That is, fewer and much wealthier people own more and more […]