Middle East

By Paul Aufiero, Omar Shakir, and Abier Almasri | – ( Human Rights Watch ) This month marks the 15th anniversary of the Israeli government’s closure of the Gaza Strip, which effectively confines more than 2 million people into a 40-by-11-kilometer (25-mile by 7-mile) strip of land. Israeli authorities’ sweeping restrictions on the movement of […]

Modernism

New Identity: Religion, Nationalism and Foreign Policy in Turkey (Review)

Marc Martorell Junyent

Review of Filiz Çoban Oran, Religion, Nationalism and Foreign Policy: Discursive Construction of New Turkey’s Identity. London: I.B. Tauris, 2022. Tuebingen (Special to Informed Comment) – In 2009, US President Barack Obama advised Europe to welcome what was then called Turkey into its fold and benefit from the country’s “diversity of ethnicity, tradition and faith.” […]

Featured

Lutheran Church Denounces Killing of Abu Akleh, Calls for end of Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territories

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Lutheran World Federation Council has called for an end to the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinian Territories (Gaza and the West Bank). The statement said that “The Council is deeply concerned by the continued Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories and the recent escalation of violence, including the killing […]

Democracy

The fall of the House of Arslan: How a Lebanese political Newcomer ousted a Dynasty

Global Voices

By Omar Boutine | – ( Globalvoices.org ) – On May 15, 2022, Lebanese voters cast their ballots in the first parliamentary elections to be held in the country since the Beirut blast leveled the eastern half of the capital in August of 2020. Since then, a nation mired in an economic crisis the World […]

Featured

Al Jazeera: Image of Bullet that killed American Journalist Shireen Abu Akleh Proves it came from an Israeli M4

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Al Jazeera news network, based in Qatar, has received from the Palestine Authority an image of the bullet that killed American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh and has concluded that it was certainly fired from an Israeli M4 rifle. The green-tipped, 5.56mm caliber bullet is deadly when fired at a […]

Iran

Hello Commander: new Pop Song aims to steel Iranian youth against Temptations of American Culture

The Conversation

By Arshin Adib-Moghaddam, SOAS, University of London | – The Tehran Times recently hailed what it referred to as: “A new epic song themed with generational support for the Islamic Revolution…” Hello Commander, which is being sung by schoolchildren across the country, is an attempt by the current conservative government of Iran to unify the […]

Israel/ Palestine

Gaza: Israel’s ‘Open-Air Prison’ at 15: Israel, Egypt Restrictions Blight Palestinian Lives

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (Gaza) – Israel’s sweeping restrictions on leaving Gaza deprive its more than two million residents of opportunities to better their lives, Human Rights Watch said today on the fifteenth anniversary of the 2007 closure. The closure has devastated the economy in Gaza, contributed to fragmentation of the Palestinian people, and forms […]

Israel/ Palestine

Is it now a Crime to Support Palestinian Rights?

Yara Hawari

By Yara Hawari | – ( Al-Shabaka ) A new wave of repressive UK government policies aims to suppress protest and political expression, posing a direct threat to Palestine solidarity work. Al-Shabaka’s senior policy analyst, Yara Hawari, locates this latest crackdown within Britain’s enduring support for Zionism, and shows how only in broad, intersectional alliances […]

Bashar al-Assad

With Putin bogged down in Ukraine, will the Syrian Civil War Reignite?

Middle East Monitor

By Muhammad Hussein | – ( Middle East Monitor) – Pivotal moments in history rarely present themselves, but when they do, that is exactly what they turn out to be. The power dynamics of an entire region can be altered, the interests of governments can be shifted, and the geopolitical arena can be at least […]