Middle East

I’m Frud Bezhan, regional desk editor for Iran, Afghanistan, and Pakistan. Here’s what I’ve been following and what I’m watching out for in the days ahead. ( RFE/RL) – Fewer Iranians have protested on the streets in recent days, more than three months after the nationwide antiestablishment demonstrations erupted. From the outset, the authorities responded […]

Featured

“Execution of the Palestinian People”: Netanyahu vows Massive Israeli Squatting on Palestinian Land, and ultimate Annexation

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As part of his bargain with the fascist blocs of Religious Zionism and Jewish Power, according to the Israeli newspaper Arab 48, incoming Prime Minister Netanyahu spoke of an “exclusive Jewish right” to expand settlements inside Israel praper, in Galilee and the Negev, as well as to plant squatters in […]

Far Right

The Unbearable Whiteness of Being French: Murderer of Kurds ‘William M.’ Treated with kid Gloves

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Last Thursday, one “William M.,” a retired French train conductor, went to the Kurdish Cultural center in the 10th Arondissement of Paris with a gun and shot six people, killing three and wounding three others, all Kurds. Some were in a hairdresser’s shop. So write Nathalie Birchem et Denis Peiron […]

Authoritarianism

Iran: ‘Bloody Friday’ Crackdown This Year’s Deadliest

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch ) – (Beirut) – Iranian security forces using unlawful lethal force, killed and wounded several dozen protesters in Zahedan on September 30, 2022, killing the most people during the protests on a day being called “Bloody Friday,” Human Rights Watch said today. The newly established United Nations fact-finding mission on Iran should […]

BDS

Challenging Israel-inspired Anti-Boycott Legislation in the US

Al-Shabaka

By Tariq Kenney-Shawa | – ( Al-Shabakah) – The Israeli regime’s defenders across the US are ramping up efforts to criminalize the constitutionally protected right to boycott. Beyond violating the rights of Palestine solidarity activists, this threatens to undermine the tenets of a healthy democracy. Al-Shabaka’s US Policy Fellow, Tariq Kenney-Shawa, examines this development and […]

Featured

Top 8 Political and Geopolitical Shifts in the Middle East in 2022

Juan Cole

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, […]