Featured

By Juan Cole Al-Zaman reports that a US drone hit mortar emplacements and F-18s struck artillery arrays and armored vehicles deployed by the so-called “Islamic State” (IS) in Kuwair east of Mosul on the way to the Kurdistan capital of Irbil, and near a major dam, some ares of which are controlled by the IS […]

Featured

Obama & Airstrikes to Protect Iraqi Kurds: 1991 Deja Vu all Over Again

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole During the Gulf War in early 1991, then-president George H. W. Bush called on Iraqis to rise up against Saddam Hussein and the Baath Party. In the Kurdish north and in the Shiite South, hundreds of thousands heeded his call. But after the short war was over in March, Bush appears to […]

American Jews

Is Zionism/ Jewish Nationalism a Political Cult? The Salaita Firing

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Liberal politics in the broad sense, in the tradition of Locke, Voltaire, Madison, Jefferson and John Stuart Mill, is rooted in a conviction that vigorous debate clarifies issues and makes for better public policy over time. This principle is often misunderstood by political partisans, who confuse analytical disagreement with simply being contrarian […]

Apartheid

Israel Still Holding Gaza Civilians Hostage, Doesn’t Get Geneva Conventions

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The Israeli government is saying that it will only let in building materials so that Palestinians in Gaza can rebuild or repair the some 40,000 buildings that have been damaged or destroyed if Hamas disarms. It is legitimate for Israel to seek the disarming of Hamas, but it isn’t legitimate or legal […]

Climate Change

Climate Change, Dirty Natural Gas, and the Gaza War

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole Calls by Israeli politicians in mainstream positions for the Palestinians to be ethnically cleansed from Gaza in part reflect frustration over the security issue many Israelis maintain the people of Gaza pose to Israel. (If the concern were justified, you’d think the death toll for the Israeli side would be much greater […]

Arab Spring

Q & A w/ Juan Cole on “The New Arabs”: If Elders in Mideast Can’t Get it Done, will the Youth?

Juan Cole

by *JOSEPH RICHARD PREVILLE and JULIE POUCHER HARBIN for ISLAMiCommentary Column » By the Book “Many Palestinians see the Israelis as aggressive colonizers of Palestinian land and resources or as jailers; many Israelis see the Palestinians as irrational, violent and a ticking demographic time bomb that endangers a Jewish-majority state between the Jordan and the […]

Apartheid

Top 5 Ways the US is Israel’s Accomplice in War Crimes in Gaza

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The US State Department became a little testy with Israel on Sunday over the 6th school shelling by the Israeli military, which killed 10, saying “The United States is appalled by today’s disgraceful shelling outside an UNRWA school in Rafah sheltering some 3,000 displaced persons, in which ten more Palestinian civilians were […]

BDS Occupied Territories

Boycott of Israel Spreads in European Civil Society over Gaza War, Could Cost $5 bn/ yr

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The ill-considered and remarkably brutal Gaza war likely will give further impetus to the Boycott, Sanction and Divestment movement by Western civil society to pressure Israel on its illegal actions toward the Palestinians. A thoroughgoing such European set of sanctions could cost Israel as much as $5 bn a year and more. […]

Featured

Are Israelis and Zionists really talking about a Final Solution of the Palestinian Problem?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole The Times of Israel published and then removed from its site an essay by Yochanan Gordon that openly called for genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza. A cached version is still on the internet as of this writing. Gordon’s logic, if one wants to dignify it with that term, is that Hamas […]