Featured

With Troops and Tanks, Israel gives the Gaza Treatment to West Bank Camps, Expelling 40,000 Palestinians

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The BBC reports that Israeli forces have invaded three Palestinian refugee camps in the Palestinian West Bank — Jenin, Tulkarm and Nur Shams — and expelled their inhabitants. The ghost towns will be occupied by the Israeli military for the next year, according to Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz. Prime […]

Antarctica

1/4 to 1/2 of Glaciers will Melt by 2100, raising Sea Level, As our burning of Fossil Fuels Heats Earth

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new multi-author study in Nature finds that the world’s 200,000 glaciers are melting at an increasingly alarming rate. If all of them melted, it would raise sea level by over a foot, a disaster for coastal communities around the world. And it isn’t just a matter of coasts — […]

Featured

Palestinian Life Expectancy in Gaza cut from 75.5 to 40.6 Years by Israeli Total War: The Lancet

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – An article just published in The Lancet by Prof Michel Guillot et al. found that the campaign against Gaza civilians of the extremist government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu lowered the life expectancy in the Strip during the first year of the war by nearly half. In 2023 the […]

Featured

Interview with Miko Peled, Director of Palestine House of Freedom

Fariba Amini

Interview by Fariba Amini with Miko Peled, Israeli peace activist and Director of Palestine House of Freedom. Photographs by Fariba Amini © 2025. F.A. You were raised in a Zionist family. You also served in the Israeli army. Your father, Matti Peled was a general during the 1967 war. You sister, Nurit who is an […]

African-Americans

Ta-Nehisi Coates: If Democrats can’t draw the Line at Genocide, they can’t Draw the Line at Democracy

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ta-Nehisi Coates and Angela Davis spoke at the University of Michigan’s Rackham Auditorium on February 19, 2025, interviewed by my colleague Angela Dillard, the vice provost for undergraduate education. The event was arranged by the Letters, Sciences and Arts Student Government. It was a wide-ranging conversation, and I only want […]

Featured

Lebanon at a Crossroads: Can Saudi Arabia Counter Iran’s Waning Influence?

Hamdullah Baycar

Trabzon, Turkey (Special to Informed Comment, Feature) – The recent visit of Saudi Arabia’s Foreign Minister Prince Faisal bin Farhan to Lebanon on 23 January marks a critical moment for Saudi Arabia-Lebanon bilateral relations. This visit comes after years of strained relations between Saudi Arabia and Lebanon, driven by the ongoing rivalry between Saudi Arabia […]

Featured

It is Time to Junk the “Munich” Analogy

Arnold Oliver

Tiffin, Ohio (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – No sooner had the announcement about a new policy for Ukraine from the Trump administration been made than the cries of “appeasement! Munich! Hitler! Neville Chamberlain” began to ring out from almost all corners of the mediaverse. The lessons to be learned from the events in Munich […]

Bill of Rights

For Trumpism “Free Speech” means Neo-Nazi Speech

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Convicted felon Donald Trump is eviscerating the US Constitution in a particularly insidious way. Previously, I have written about Trump’s efforts to hijack the Free Speech Movement, and invert it, thrusting us all down the Republican rabbit hole. This perversion of free speech takes a most precious, […]

Featured

Netanyahu’s Quest to Attack Iran with the Mother of all Bombs

Dan Steinbock

The emboldened Netanyahu cabinet is in a war path, again. It is mobilizing to attack Iran and lobbying President Trump into a plan that presumably would use the “Mother of All Bombs” Ever since his rise to power in the late 1990s, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has worked toward a war with Iran, presumably […]