Featured

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – It looks like the perverse romance between MAGA and Israel’s Likud Party is becoming frayed at the edges. Despite the long-standing, anti-Semitic undercurrents in American conservatism, the Republican Party has been a staunch supporter of Israel at least since the 1967 War. The far right Likud Party […]

Democratic Party

Democrats in Congress Are Out of Touch With Constituents on Israeli Genocide

Norman Solomon

San Francisco (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Last month, some House members publicly acknowledged that Israel has been committing genocide in Gaza. It’s a judgment that Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch unequivocally proclaimed a year ago. Israeli human-rights organizations have reached the same conclusion. But such clarity is sparse in Congress. And no wonder. Genocide denial is needed for […]

Featured

200 Luminaries from the Arts and Business World demand release of “Palestinian Mandela”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Patrick Wintour at The Guardian reports that some 200 prominent literary, cultural and political figures have signed an open letter demanding the release from Israeli prison of Palestinian activist Marwan Barghouti. Barghouti 66, is widely thought to be one of the few figures who could unite the Palestinians and lead […]

Climate Crisis

Have we Reached Peak Fossil Fuels? Wind & Solar met all New Energy Demand in Q1-Q3 ’25

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Richard Black and other analysts at the Ember energy consultancy find that all new electricity demand in the first three quarters of 2025 was met by solar and wind, mainly solar. That statistic requires us to conclude that there was no growth in fossil fuels globally during that period. Ember […]

Christianity

Pope Leo XIV: “We Know Israel does not … Accept” Palestinian State, But “We see it as the only Solution”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Pope Leo XIV flew from Turkiye to Lebanon on Sunday, and surprised the press corps flying with him by making some comments to them. His predecessor, Pope Francis, had been more engaged with the press in such situations. Justin McClellan at the National Catholic Reporter reports that Leo said that […]

Featured

Sorry, White Nationalists, Europeans were Black until the Rise of Rome, and Rome was Multiracial

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – We live in a time when a once level-headed anti-populist politician such as J. D. Vance has increasingly adopted the language of white nationalism, signing on to the Great Replacement theory that nefarious forces, often coded as Jewish, are bringing in immigrants to replace “white” Americans, attacking “multiculturalism” and aligning […]

Featured

Syrian FM: Israel’s deadly Incursion against Islamic Group a ‘War Crime’ after 13 killed

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israeli military forces made a raid into Syria on Friday that from what I can gather turned into a disaster for them. Israeli troops mounted an assault on the hamlet of Beit Jinn southeast of Damascus, where they maintained that three members of the Lebanon-based Islamic Group (al-Jama`ah al-Islamiyyah) constituted […]

Displaced and Refugees

Amnesty: So-Called Gaza ‘Ceasefire’ becoming Smokescreen for continued Israeli Genocide

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Amnesty International concludes that, over a month after a ceasefire was agreed upon in Gaza and all living Israeli hostages were returned, the Israeli authorities continue to pursue the textbook definition of genocide “by continuing to deliberately inflict conditions of life calculated to bring about their physical destruction.” Moreover, Israeli […]

Brazil

Accelerating Climate Change and Global Inequality: Indigenous People were the Heroes of COP30

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Contradictions pervaded the latest UN climate conference (COP30) held in Belem, Brazil. Progressive President Lula da Silva of Brazil proclaimed it would a positive turning point in progress, while he authorized his state-owned oil producer to do exploratory drilling for oil near the Great Amazon Reef System. […]