Middle East

By Maya Abuali | – ( Middle East Monitor) – Lacking in 60 per cent of appropriate medicine and treatment protocols as a result of the siege, Gaza’s already deficient cancer care is slipping further into chaos as restrictions grow harsher. Beyond dealing with the Gaza Strip’s already uninhabitable living conditions, Palestinian cancer patients in […]

Israel/ Palestine

77% of the residents of the Israeli-Occupied Old City in Jerusalem are Muslims, But for How Long as Israelis demolish Silwan Homes?

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor) – An Israeli writer has said that “the statistical reality in the city of Jerusalem shows that 77% of the Old City’s residents are Muslim while only 10% are Jewish.” The writer observed that 24 per cent of the Old City’s territories in Jerusalem are owned by the Islamic Waqf (Endowment), […]

Authoritarianism

Is Tunisia’s president largely responsible for the disaster he says he is trying to fix with his Coup?

Middle East Monitor

By Adnan Hmidan | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The constitutionally-limited role of the president of the republic in Tunisia doesn’t encourage involvement or intervention in day to day affairs; that is the role of parliament and the government, headed by the prime minister. This has vexed constitutional law professor Kais Saied, who […]

Israel/ Palestine

Palestinian Students in Gaza Are Back after Israel tried to destroy their future

Middle East Monitor

By Wafa Aludaini | – ( Middle East Monitor) – As Palestinian high school students celebrate their success in the Tawjihi exams and plan for the future, those in Gaza are still trying to rebuild their lives after Israel’s brutal bombing campaign in May. The Tawjihi exams were held just one month after the ceasefire […]

Haredim

Israeli Olympic Gold Medalist Isn’t “Jewish Enough” to Marry in Israel

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment) – How convenient that the dynamic of sports and politics now collides with the question of “Who is a Jew?”* And just in time for the closing ceremonies of the 2020 Olympics. The prompt for this age-old dialectic comes back to who has a right to marry whom in […]

Authoritarianism

Tunisia: the complex issues behind the presidential power-grab

The Conversation

By Mariam Salehi | – Ten years on from the Arab uprisings, Tunisia has often been presented as a rare success story. Elsewhere Egypt sank into an army dictatorship, Syria, Libya and Yemen into bloody civil war. In other countries, meanwhile, such as Bahrain, the protests were put down with ferocity and the old regimes […]

Congress

In Bid to Recapture Congress’ Power to Declare War, Key Senate Committee advances Repeal of Iraq War Authorizations

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trish Turner at ABC News reports that the Senate Foreign Relations Committee has voted to repeal the two Authorizations for Use of Military Force in Iraq passed in 1991 for the Gulf War and in 2002 for George W. Bush’s war on Iraq. I’m personally happy about this, since I […]

Bashar al-Assad

Does Renewed fighting in Syria’s Deraa, Birthplace of the Revolution, Show Russia’s Weakness?

Nikola Mikovic

Belgrade (Special to Informed Comment) – Russia is making an effort to prevent wide-scale hostilities in Syria’s southern province of Deraa. The Kremlin reportedly aims to increase its influence in the war-torn country, but recent clashes in Deraa al-Balad – a southern district of Deraa city – between the Moscow-backed Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and […]

Featured

Trump’s Tehran Poison Pill: US Trade Embargo provokes Iranian Attacks in Gulf, Making Return to Nuclear Deal Harder

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The BBC reports that a bitumen tanker, the MV Asphalt Princess, was boarded by nine men on Tuesday and hijacked. It cites unnamed “analysts,” presumably MI6, to the effect that the hijacking was the work of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. The MV Asphalt Princess, owned by the United Arab […]