Middle East

Juan says: I’m honored to have an essay in this volume on threats to academic freedom and to free speech in the United States since 2023. I look at the crisis as it unfolded in is first months. All of the essays are urgent reading during America’s current Third Red Scare. I have been in […]

Arab World

Why Palestinian Statehood is a Prerequisite for Arab-Israeli Peace and Expansion of Abraham Accords

The Conversation

By Simon Mabon, Lancaster University (The Conversation) – Mohammed bin Salman wants to bring Saudi Arabia into the Abraham accords, the network of agreements to normalise relations between Israel with other countries in the Middle East and, increasingly, beyond. Donald Trump would have enjoyed hearing this when the Saudi crown prince visited the White House […]

Iran

“Your Reward is Neither Here nor There!” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:24

Juan Cole

Stanza no. 24 in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám makes fun, as A. J. Arberry pointed out, of theologians and philosophers who spoke of metaphysical certainties. Personally, I think there is something almost Buddhist about it (see below). XXIV. Alike for those who for to-day prepare, And […]

Iraq War

Is Venezuela the New Iraq?

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Richard W. Coughlin | November 18, 2025 ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Iraq and Venezuela share an obvious trait: they are oil-rich states whose resource nationalism puts them at odds with U.S. geopolitical ambitions. For George W. Bush, Iraqi oil was framed within the “peak oil” panic and U.S. dependence on foreign […]

Apartheid

West Bank: Israel Emptying Refugee Camps a Crime Against Humanity

Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch ) – Nadim M., a pseudonym for a 60-year-old father of four, was forced to flee Tulkarem refugee camp in the West Bank of the Occupied Palestinian Territory in January 2025 when Israeli military forces raided the camp and stormed his home. He told Human Rights Watch that Israeli soldiers restrained […]

Genocide

Why Israeli Soldiers and their Leaders are increasingly at Risk of Arrest Overseas

The Conversation

By Shannon Bosch, Edith Cowan University (The Conversation) – In late December 2008, then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert authorised Operation Cast Lead in response to rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled territory in Gaza. The three-week military assault killed around 1,400 Palestinians, including more than 300 children. Thousands of homes were destroyed, and hospitals, UN shelters, power […]

Donald Trump

Who is Ready to Die for Trump’s Gaza Plan? So Far, Nobody

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink ) – On November 17th, 2025, the UN Security Council passed a resolution to endorse President Trump’s plan for Gaza, including a transitional government headed by Trump himself and an International Stabilization Force (ISF) that is expected, among other tasks, to disarm Hamas, a task that Israel has failed to do through two years of […]

Canada

Protesting Canada’s Detention of Former UN Special Rapporteur Richard Falk over Palestine Rights Advocacy

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association of North America | – Letter regarding the detention at the Canadian border of Emeritus Professor Richard Falk The Right Honourable Mark Carney Prime Minister of Canada pm@pm.gc.ca mark.carney@parl.gc.ca The Honourable Anita Anand Minister of Foreign Affairs Anita.Anand@parl.gc.ca . . . Mme. Erin O’Gorman President, Canada […]

Academic Freedom

Trump using Jews to Ban Free Speech: The Ultimate in Antisemitism

Tomdispatch

By Mattea Kramer ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Rooting out terrorism and antisemitism was the supposed reason that plainclothed ICE agents arrested doctoral student Rümeysa Öztürk on a street in Somerville, Massachusetts, after she coauthored an op-ed calling on Tufts University to divest from companies with ties to Israel due to the killing and starvation of […]