Middle East

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – Nearly 500 people died in the campaign by Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) to take the Syrian city of Palmyra, including 49 who were executed before the fundamentalists reached the city center. On Thursday, they are alleged by the Syrian Observatory on Human Rights to have beheaded at least […]

Bashar al-Assad

As Palmyra Falls, Who Supports Bashar al-Assad in Syria? (Charles Glass)

contributors

VICE News | (Video) “VICE News and the New York Review of Books have partnered to create Talking Heads, a series about the big issues of the day as seen by the Review’s distinguished contributors. In this episode, Charles Glass discusses his essay “In the Syria We Don’t Know.” He drove through Syria in October […]

Apartheid

Digital Militarism: Israel’s Occupation in the Social Media Age

contributors

by JULIE POUCHER HARBIN, EDITOR, ISLAMiCommentary — Q & A with REBECCA STEIN: Digital Militarism: Israel’s Occupation in the Social Media Age (Stanford University Press, April 2015), by scholars Adi Kunstman and Rebecca Stein, has been called “a pioneering book, showing how information and communication technologies have turned into wartime arsenals, and the Internet and […]

al-Qaeda

Washington asks, “Who lost Ramadi?” But Washington never had Ramadi

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | — The inside-the-Beltway debate set off by the fall of the Iraqi city of Ramadi to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) on Sunday is, as usual, Dadaistic in its disconnection from reality. Republican talking points blame Barack Obama for withdrawing US troops from Iraq in 2011, as though Daesh suddenly […]

Apartheid

Israel: Court Permits Discriminatory Evictions of Palestinian-Israeli Villagers

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – Arab Villages in Israel, West Bank Face New Displacement (Jerusalem) – Separate Israeli Supreme Court decisions issued on May 5, 2015, open the way for state authorities to forcibly evict residents of two Arab villages from their homes. The inhabitants of both villages, one in Israel and the other in […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syrian Opposition, Caught between Assad & Extremists, Despair at World’s Neglect

contributors

By Haroro J. Ingram with L. T. Anthony | (The Conversation) | – Syrian civilians are trapped in the middle of a holocaust: prizes in a ruthless contest for popular support and cannon fodder mercilessly slaughtered by forces with little regard for human life. Despite many groups being implicated in actions targeting civilian populations, the […]

Featured

Iraq: 25,000 Shiite Militiamen gather for Battle of Ramadi

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | — Al-Zaman (The Times of Baghdad) reports that Iraqi Prime Minister Haydar al-Abadi met Tuesday with leaders of the Shiite militias to plan the retaking of Ramadi, a Sunni Arab city about 78 miles due west of Baghdad that fell on Sunday to Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) as the […]

Christianity

Vatican recognition of saints symbolic victory for Palestinians

contributors

By: Charlie Hoyle BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — The grounds of the Carmel Convent in Bethlehem, home to blue-shuttered stone buildings on a hilltop facing the Nativity Church, are adorned with the image of Mariam Bawardy, one of two Palestinian nuns canonized by Pope Francis in Rome on Sunday. Tucked away from the traffic-filled streets of central […]

Bush

2007: Progress Continues in Ramadi, Mullen Notes During Visit

contributors

Just to show Iraq’s ups and downs, here is a celebratory article from the US Department of Defense about the apparent rollback in Ramadi of al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia (the parent organization of Daesh/ ISIS/ ISIL) from 2007 DoD News By Jim Garamone American Forces Press Service RAMADI, Iraq, Dec. 19, 2007 – Driving through downtown […]