Arab World

Human Rights Watch (Jerusalem) – A decision by the Trump administration to deny the reality of Israel’s occupation of the Golan Heights would demonstrate disregard for the protections due to the Syrian population under international humanitarian law, Human Rights Watch said. Particularly amid continuing, serious rights abuses by Israel in the Golan Heights, Syrian residents […]

Yemen

After School, Yemen’s Children seek Work at the Cemetery

AFP

By Abeer Ali | – Sanaa (AFP) – Barefoot in a blue striped shirt, Ahmed al-Hamadi walks from school to a cemetery in the Yemeni capital where he works to help his family survive. The 13-year-old makes his way through the cemetery, where graves are cramped together and overgrown with weeds. Hauling gallons of water […]

Donald Trump

How Trump’s Recognition of Israeli Usurpation of Syrian Golan Strengthens Iran, Russia in ME

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump’s call for recognition of Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Golan Heights, a part of Syria, is intended to help his and his donors’ ally Binyamin Netanyahu win the Israeli elections. It is another example of his uncanny ability to sabotage his own policies. Not to mention to sabotage any […]

Iran

Trump had to Sneak into Iraq. Iran’s Rouhani was Welcomed with Open Arms

Middle East Monitor

Dr Mustafa Fetouri | – US President Donald Trump had to sneak in to Iraq, a supposed US ally, arriving at the Ein Al-Assad airbase for an unannounced visit on 26 December. Not a single Iraqi official was there to welcome him. Instead, Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdel-Mahdi angrily snubbed him, refusing to travel to […]

Featured

How Bush’s War on Iraq Produced Trumpism, Instability, Refugees and Climate Catastrophe

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – George W. Bush is being rehabilitated in the age of Trump, as the second worst president in American history is burnished by the absolute worst. Much that is wrong with politics in the Trump era, however, was foreshadowed by Bush. It was Bush who practiced the Big Lie to take […]

Syria

Top Five Reasons the Syrian Revolution isn’t Actually Over

The Conversation

By Wendy Pearlman | – Bashar al-Assad has “won” the war in Syria – or so many analysts tell us. His regime has reconquered swaths of territory from rebel forces with starvation-and-surrender sieges, barrel bombs, chemical weapons and what one human rights investigator called “industrial scale” torture and killing of detainees. Still, the regime might […]

Syria

The Syrian Civil War Exiled Millions and Produced ISIL; But how did it Start?

The Conversation

By Wendy Pearlman | – Amid headlines about the Islamic State group and photographs of rubble, it can be easy to forget that the Syrian war began as a nonviolent uprising. March 15, the uprising’s eighth anniversary, serves as a reminder that any enduring end to the Syrian conflict must address the grievances and aspirations […]

Bernie Sanders

In Historic Rebuke to Trump, Senate invokes War Powers to Halt US aid to Saudi War on Yemen

Juan Cole

The US Senate voted 54 to 46 to invoke the 1973 War Powers Act and to end US support for the Saudi-led war on Yemen. The Yemen War has involved extensive war crimes, in which the US is complicit. Tens of thousands of people have been killed since the Saudis launched the war in spring […]

Egypt

What do Lonely Hearts Columns tell us about Social Crises in the Arab World?

contributors

By Andrea Rugh | – Recently an article by N. A. Hussein, “No Money; No Marriage” highlighted the costliness of marriage in Egypt. A problem long in the making, social issues like this rarely reach public attention until they are full blown crises. In this case, young men are calling for a boycott of marriage […]