Middle East

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The more genetic history that is done, the more it is clear that ancient ethnonyms, the names given supposed ethnicities, put a variety of peoples under a single rubric. I talked recently about how the Phoenicians, long thought to be what we would now call Lebanese, were actually a multi-ethnic […]

Displaced and Refugees

Making it official: Famine strikes Gaza City

Middle East Monitor

by Dr Binoy Kampmark ( Middle East Monitor ) – History shows that famines are, for the most part, engineered. Be it through carelessness, selfishness or plain malice on the part of officialdom, creating the circumstances under which a population expires to hunger is a matter of construction. As the economist and Nobel Laureate […]

Iran

Ancient Iran’s Paradise Pleasure Gardens: Unimaginable Beauty and Opulence

The Conversation

By Peter Edwell, Macquarie University (The Conversation) – Some of the most enduring ancient myths in the Persian world were centred around gardens of almost unimaginable beauty and opulence. The biblical Garden of Eden and the Epic of Gilgamesh’s Garden of the Gods are prominent examples. In these myths, paradise was an opulent garden of […]

Featured

Netanyahu far outscores Putin and George W. Bush in Killing innocent Civilians, at 83% of the Dead

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Political Scientist and liberal Zionist Michael Walzer gave an interview early in the Israeli campaign against Gaza in which he said, “It’s not easy for me to say such a thing, but if there were almost 10,000 Hamas fighters among the 30,000 Palestinians killed, it’s not a bad ratio for […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israel’s Plan for massive new West Bank Settlement would make a Palestinian State Impossible

The Conversation

By Leonie Fleischmann, City St George’s, University of London (The Conversation) – The Israeli government has approved a plan for construction of a massive new settlement bloc in the controversial E1 area in the occupied West Bank. In reviving a project first proposed in 1994, which will comprise about 3,500 new dwellings in a line […]

Academic Freedom

The Silence of the Scholars: How leading Academics gave Cover to Genocide in Gaza

Shamai Leibowitz

Silver Spring, Md. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The true measure of a scholar is not the number of books they publish or the titles they hold. It is whether they speak when human beings are starved, bombed, and erased as a people. By that measure, some of America’s most visible academics have failed. […]

Israel/ Palestine

‘All Eyes On Gaza City’ as Israel Ramps Up Campaign of Conquest and Ethnic Cleansing

Common Dreams

“The explicit goal of turning Palestine’s largest city into a wasteland has nothing to do with hostages or Hamas and everything to do with genocide,” said one critic. By Brett Wilkins | – ( Commondreams.org ) – Operation Gideon’s Chariots 2—Israel’s plan to conquer, occupy, and ethnically cleanse Gaza—intensified Thursday, with fugitive Prime Minister Benjamin […]

Climate Crisis

America may have invaded Iraq for its Oil, but Solar Power is what Iraqis now Want

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iraqi farmers, tired of high electricity bills and frequent blackouts, are turning to solar panels, according to Khalid Al-Mousuly at Reuters. Farmers need electricity to run water pumps for irrigation. It isn’t just the farmers. With nearly a gigawatt annually in solar panel imports, Iraq has emerged as the third-largest […]

Israel/ Palestine

Despite Efforts to Shift the Blame, Israeli Policies Are Starving Children

Human Rights Watch

Plight of Those with Disabilities Only Underscores the Unlawful Blockade Emina Ćerimović Associate Director, Disability Rights Division EminaCerimovic EminaCerimovic @eminacerimovic.bsky.social @eminacerimovic.bsky.social Embed from Getty Images Eighteen-month-old Muhammad Zakariya Ayyoub al-Matouq faces life-threatening malnutrition as the humanitarian situation worsens due to ongoing Israeli attacks and the blockade in Gaza City, Gaza, July 21, […]