Middle East

Far Right Israeli PM Bennett slams Iran Nuclear Talks for Tehran’s Poor Rights Record (Israel has 200 Nukes and has Killed Thousands of Occupied Palestinians)

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – New extreme-right Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett came out on Sunday to argue that the election of an extreme-right Iranian cleric (Ebrahim Raisi) as president of that country should cause the Biden administration to back off reviving the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. Bennett called Raisi the “hangman of Tehran” and […]

Israel/ Palestine

Gaza’s Summer: Destruction, Pandemic, and Climate Change

Al-Shabaka

By Asmaa Abu Mezied | – ( Al-Shabaka ) – In 2013, the UNDP warned of the increasing occurrence of dangerous heatwaves in Palestine over the coming years as a result of climate change. Indeed, at the end of August 2020, the Palestine Meteorological Office issued a warning about an impending heatwave, where the temperature […]

Featured

What does the election of hard liner Raisi in Iran mean for Mideast Flashpoints?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Former chief justice of the Iranian judiciary, Ebrahim Raisi, won the presidential election, as expected, with over 60 percent of the votes. The problem was that less than half of eligible voters bothered to come out to the ballot box. The clerical establishment had so heavily vetted presidential contenders, barring […]

Israel/ Palestine

Imagine Thousands of Bigots Marching through Jewish Neighborhood chanting “Death to Jews” with Police, Political Support; Now substitute “Palestinians” for Jews

Asa Winstanley

( Middle East Monitor ) – Go along with me on a thought experiment for a few minutes. Imagine that British police forces permitted a crowd of thousands to march through an area of London with a high Jewish population chanting “Death to the Jews” and other similar violently bigoted obscenities. Imagine such a group […]

Featured

Iran’s Leading Candidate for President is a far right Notorious Hanging Judge

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Polling suggests that Ebrahim Raisi will likely win Iran’s presidential election. So who is he? An official Iranian point of view on Raisi goes this way: He was born in 1960 into a family of clerics claiming descent from the Prophet Muhammad in the Nowghan district of Mashhad, the largest […]

Israel/ Palestine

As new Israeli Gov’t Bombs Gaza, Relations with Palestine are on a Knife Edge– and will Stay There

The Conversation

By Tony Walker | – ( The Conversation) – The Israel-Palestine conflict has experienced its first violent spasm in the term of a new Israeli government. However, hostilities have since been contained, for the time being. Provocative demonstrations this week in Arab East Jerusalem involving Israeli proto-nationalists chanting “death to Arabs” were met with a […]

Israel/ Palestine

Right Wing Americans Tell me to Go Back Home; as a Palestinian, I wish I Could

Middle East Monitor

By Layla Darwish | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – I was taking part in a recent protest in California, proudly waving my Palestinian flag, when a couple drove past in a white pick-up truck and shouted, “Go back to your country!” A light breeze grazed my arms, so I decided to retrieve my […]

Haredim

The Real Danger of Israel’s New Government

Phyllis Bennis

By Phyllis Bennis | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – The new Israeli government takes office already largely paralyzed. With eight diverse parties, they agree only on two things. One, they want to get rid of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Check — that’s done. Two, given the unlikeliness of reaching agreement on any major […]

Featured

If Hard Liner Raisi wins Iran’s Presidential Election, he has Trump to Thank

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – June 18 is election day in Iran. There are two main candidates for president, the arch-conservative Ebrahim Raisi, Iran’s chief justice, and the centrist Abdolnaser Hemmati, an academic who served as chief of the national bank for the past three years. So it is sort of as though Chief Justice […]