Middle East

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Susan B. Glasser reports at The New Yorker that after it became clear that Joe Biden had won the presidency, from November 7, lame duck Donald Trump desperately wanted to hold on to his office and contemplated a strike on Iran to bolster his position. Glasser writes that “the subject […]

Israel/ Palestine

Attack on Palestinian Gaza wasn’t a Victory for Israel — It underlined an Ongoing Dilemma

Middle East Monitor

By Adnan Abu Amer | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – Two months after the end of the last Israeli aggression on Gaza, Israel admitted that there is no simple solution to the situation in the strip. The instability of the current ceasefire entails Israel to discuss a number of necessary steps to weaken […]

Israel/ Palestine

Will the US Stand up to Israeli Theft of Palestinian East Jerusalem?

Ramona Wadi

( Middle East Monitor ) – Jerusalem is once again in the diplomatic crosshairs over US President Joe Biden’s intention to reopen the American Consulate in Jerusalem, which was closed by the Trump Administration in 2019. According to US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, reopening the consulate is “an important way for our country to […]

Afghanistan

Who Authorized America’s Wars? And Why They Never End

Tomdispatch

By Andrea Mazzarino | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – Sometimes, as I consider America’s never-ending wars of this century, I can’t help thinking of those lyrics from the Edwin Starr song, “(War, huh) Yeah! (What is it good for?) Absolutely nothing!” I mean, remind me, what good have those disastrous, failed, still largely ongoing conflicts done […]

Featured

100 Israeli Troops who Served in Occupied West Bank call on Defense Minister Gantz to Halt Settler Violence against Palestinians and against Israeli Police

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al-Quds al-`Arabi reports that some 100 Israeli troops who served in the Palestinian West Bank have called on Defense Minister Benny Gantz and on Minister of Public Security Omer Bar-Lev to intervene to halt the violence of Israeli squatter-settlers toward indigenous Palestinians, which they say they saw with their own […]

Israel/ Palestine

Family Separation Law: Israel’s demographic war on the Palestinians intensifies

Ramzy Baroud

( Middle East Monitor ) – When the Israeli Knesset (parliament) failed to renew what is commonly referred to as the Family Reunification Law, news reports and analyses misrepresented the story altogether. The even split of 59 MKs voting in favour of the law and 59 against it gave the erroneous impression that Israeli lawmakers […]

Iran

America’s Afghan War Is Over, So What About Iraq – and Iran?

Medea Benjamin and Ariel Gold

( Code Pink) – At Bagram air-base, Afghan scrap merchants are already picking through the graveyard of U.S. military equipment that was until recently the headquarters of America’s 20-year occupation of their country. Afghan officials say the last U.S. forces slipped away from Bagram in the dead of night, without notice or coordination. The Taliban […]

Featured

Palestinians appeal to the UN Security Council over further Israeli Land Theft, Squatter Settlement at Palestinian Beita

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett has agreed with Israeli squatter organizations on the Palestinian West bank to clear roughly 25 acres of land in the Palestinian-owned Jabal Sbeih hilltop area of the town of Beita between Ramallah and Nablus. The government […]

Human Rights

Saudi Arabia: New Details of Alleged Torture Leaked

Human Rights Watch

( Human Rights Watch ) – (Beirut) – New accounts have emerged of alleged torture of high-profile political detainees in Saudi prisons, Human Rights Watch said today. Saudi authorities failed to independently and credibly investigate allegations that Saudi authorities tortured Saudi women’s rights activists and others detained in early 2018, including with electric shocks, beatings, […]