Middle East

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – We saw a lot of pivotal developments in the Middle East this year, including the impact of climate change in the form of increasing aridity and massive dust storms. But there were also realignments of interests that affect the U.S. Here are some of them: 1. President Biden in July […]

Christianity

A Merry Palestinian Christmas in Bethlehem: Tourism and National Resistance

Juan Cole

Palestinian Christians Israeli Occupation

Bahrain

Are China’s increasing Economic ties with the Gulf states reducing the West’s Sway in the Middle East?

The Conversation

By Emilie Rutledge, The Open University | – At the end of November 2022, UK prime minister Rishi Sunak announced that the “golden era” between Great Britain and China was over. China may not have been too bothered by this news however, and has been busy making influential friends elsewhere. In early December, Chinese president […]

Authoritarianism

Families Of Slain Iranian Protesters Mark End Of Mourning Period With Defiance

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By Ardeshir Tayebi/ Radio Farda | – ( RFE/RL ) – The families of the victims of the recent nationwide protests in Iran have staged protests amid ceremonies marking the 40th day since the death of 10 protesters across the country. With police standing nearby in the southern Iranian city of Shiraz on December 22, […]

Israel/ Palestine

Netanyahu’s Empty Offer of “Self-Rule” without Land for Palestinians is just another form of Apartheid

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – A few days before the formation of his sixth government, Benjamin Netanyahu has defined his ceilings for the solution to the Palestinian issue: self-rule for the Palestinians and security and sovereignty for the Israelis. He did not mention Jerusalem, which has already been declared to be Israel’s “united eternal […]

Far Right

New Israeli Gov’t to un-ban Violent Racists from Parliament, and allow Discrimination against Women, Gays

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The new Israeli government, formed in the nick of time by incoming Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, is so morally compromised that even the country’s right wing is visibly uncomfortable with the agreements made by Netanyahu to allow him to come back to power. Iconic among those concessions was Netanyahu’s acquiescence […]

Israel/ Palestine

As NYT’s Friedman Laments end of Israel-Palestine Two-State Solution, the Bantustan Alternative Looms

Jeffrey Rudolph

Montreal (Special to Informed Comment) – In a New York Times Dec. 18, 2022, opinion piece, Thomas L. Friedman, echoing many other mainstream commentators, bemoans that Israel’s aggressive settlement policies and growing religious nationalism “could bury the two-state solution and the one-state solution in the same grave.” However, what Mr. Friedman and other commentators fail to […]

Authoritarianism

How Female Iranian Activists use powerful Images to Protest oppressive Policies

The Conversation

By Parichehr Kazemi, PhD Candidate, University of Oregon | – (The Conversation) – Images of unveiled Iranian women and adolescent girls standing atop police cars or flipping off the ayatollah’s picture have become signature demonstrations of dissent in the past few months of protest in Iran. Mass protests in Iran over death of Mahsa Amini […]

Featured

If the US Aim in Helping Ukraine is a Rules-Based International Order it must Condemn Israeli Annexation of Syria’s Golan and Occupation of Palestine

Juan Cole

Zelensky Ukraine War Syria Israel Golan Occupation International Law