Middle East

Written byNurbek Bekmurzaev ( Global Voices ) – The Caspian Sea, the largest enclosed body of water in the world, faces a grim future in the form of significant desiccation, loss of flora and fauna, and large-scale pollution. All these processes have already started and their further deterioration poses immense risks for the economies and […]

Featured

On Int’l Women’s Day: In Memory of Iranian Women who have Struggled for Freedom

Fariba Amini

Newark, Delaware (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – When Ruhollah Khomeini was still in Neauphle-le-Château, in various declarations and interviews, he had promised that women would have the freedom to choose their attire. That they would have the same rights as men. “In an interview with a left-leaning Lebanese newspaper, he said that Islam believes in the total […]

Israel/ Palestine

From Gaza to Syria: The unyielding Reality of Israeli Settler-Colonialism

Ramzy Baroud

( Middle East Monitor ) – The conversation on settler-colonialism must not be limited to academic discussion. It is a political reality, demonstrated clearly in the everyday behaviour of Israel. The occupation state is not merely an expansionist regime historically; it remains actively so today. Moreover, the core of Israeli political discourse, both past and […]

Donald Trump

Egypt on edge: finding a delicate balance between Gaza and Trump

The Conversation

By May Darwich, University of Birmingham (The Conversation) – US president Donald Trump famously called Egyptian president Abdel Fattah el-Sisi his “favourite dictator” in 2019, but their relationship has been complex. Trump’s return to the White House for a second term has sent ripples of concern through Cairo. In January 2025, Trump proposed a resolution […]

Human Rights

Iranian Singer Mehdi Yarrahi Flogged Over Song Against Mandatory Hijab

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By RFE/RL’s Radio Farda ( RFE/RL ) – Pop singer Mehdi Yarrahi has been given 74 lashes for a song criticizing Iran’s mandatory dress code for women, ending a criminal case against him that also included a prison term. His lawyer, Zahra Minuei, wrote on X on March 5 that Yarrahi’s flogging sentence had been […]

censorship

Protesting to NY Gov. Hochul for Quashing the Palestinian Studies Post at Hunter College

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association | – The Honorable Kathy Hochul Governor of the State of New York Governor.Hochul@exec.ny.gov . . . Dear Governor Hochul, Chairperson Thompson and Chancellor Rodriguez: We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on […]

Israel/ Palestine

Gaza ceasefire Deal looks Doomed as Israel blockades Strip and bars Entry of Humanitarian Aid

The Conversation

By Scott Lucas, University College Dublin (The Conversation) – When Israel signed a ceasefire deal with Hamas in Gaza on January 15, the agreement was structured in three phases. Phase one, a six-week period in which Hamas would release hostages in return for Israel releasing Palestinians detained in its jails, ended on March 1. The […]

Featured

The Oscar-Winning Film “No Other Land” is about Palestinians who have no Place else to Go

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; feature) – The title of the Oscar-winning documentary, No Other Land, reflects the sad reality that these people have no place else to go. The residents are mostly goat and sheep herders, and endure snow-blanketed winters and oppressive summer heat. An aging woman whose home has just been bulldozed […]

Israel/ Palestine

“No other Land”: When Ordered to Destroy, we Sometimes have a Moral Obligation to Lie

Shamai Leibowitz

( The Times of Israel ) – You are ordered—like in the Oscar-nominated documentary No Other Land—to demolish the homes, schools, and wells of Palestinian families in Masafer Yatta, a community in the West Bank that has existed since the early 1900s. The official reason: to clear the land for a live-fire military training zone. But when […]