Middle East

Is Netanyahu mainstreaming Israel’s Extremist Far Right, which dreams of Ethnically Cleansing Palestinians?

( Middle East Monitor) – Rabbi Meir Kahane is considered something of a prophet by the Israeli right-wing. He openly advocated expelling all Palestinians from historic Palestine between the river and the sea – what he called “the Land of Israel”. “The Jews and Arabs of the Land of Israel ultimately cannot coexist,” he wrote […]

Featured

Federal Court strikes down Arkansas’ attempt to Punish proponents of Boycotting Israel over its treatment of Palestinians

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Andrew DeMillo at the Associated Press reports that a 3-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis has struck down an Arkansas law requiring contractors with the state to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel. The alternative print monthly the Arkansas Times carried advertising […]

Arab World

Targeting Iran, Trump added Israel to the US Mideast Military Command; How will the Arab World Respond?

Middle East Monitor

By Nasim Ahmed | – ( Middle East Monitor) – A major reorganisation of US military operation in the Middle East was announced last month in a momentous decision reflecting the seismic geo-political shifts underway in the region. The move, the last of many gifts granted by Washington to Tel-Aviv under former President Donald Trump, […]

Feminism

Saudi Arabia releases Women’s Rights Activist Loujain al-Hathloul but Bans her Travel

Human Rights Watch

(Beirut) – Saudi authorities released from prison the prominent women’s rights activist Loujain al-Hathloul on February 10, 2021, Human Rights Watch said today. However, she is banned from travel and has a suspended sentence, which allows the authorities to return her to prison at any time for any perceived criminal activity. In late December 2020, […]

Featured

Top 5 Reasons for Biden to snub Israel’s Netanyahu, whom he still hasn’t Called

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Danny Danon, Israel’s former ambassador to the United Nations, impatiently tweeted a list of all the foreign leaders that President Joe Biden has already called in his one month in office, and suggesting it was time he called Binyamin Netanyahu. Biden is close to the Israel lobbies and had been […]

Authoritarianism

Saudi Arabia: Can America’s Favorite Police State ever Change?

Bill Law

( Middle East Monitor ) – The phone call to the family lasted just one minute. It came 23 months after aid worker Abdulrahman Al-Sadhan had been arrested at the offices of the Red Crescent in Riyadh, where he worked co-ordinating rescue operations and emergency relief. He was held incommunicado despite numerous efforts by the […]

Arab Spring

Mideast Regimes met the Arab Spring youth with Iron Fists and Sectarianization, but anti-Corruption Protests Continue

The Conversation

Simon Mabon | – As the popular refrain of “ash-shab yurid isqat an-nizam” rang out across the Middle East in the early months of 2011, the nature of political life and relations between rulers and ruled began to fragment. The chant – which roughly translates as “the people want the fall of the regime” – […]

astronomy and outer space

First Arab Muslim Satellite enters Mars Orbit: UAE’s Arabo-Futurism and its Princess Leias

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Americans who are used to imagining Arab Muslim civilization as backward or barbaric might be surprised to hear that the United Arab Emirates, a country made up of seven Gulf Arab Principalities, has become only the fifth country to place a satellite in orbit around Mars. The science team behind […]

Authoritarianism

Mr. Erdogan: Cease Turkish Gov’t Campaign against Boğaziçi University, Students, Faculty and Institutions

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom of the Middle East Studies Association of North America H.E. Recep Tayyip Erdoğan President of the Republic of Turkey T.C. Cumhurbaşkanlığı Genel Sekreterliği 06689 Çankaya, Ankara Turkey Dear President Erdoğan: We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) of North America and its Committee on Academic Freedom to […]