US Foreign Policy

By Akshaya Kumar | (@AkshayaSays) | – ( Human Rights Watch ) – This week, United States President Joe Biden announced that his administration has “held up” at least one shipment of 3,500 bombs and artillery shells to Israel, saying the US wouldn’t transfer certain weapons to Israel if it proceeded with an assault on the city […]

Displaced and Refugees

How the US continues to provide Cover for Israel’s Genocide in Gaza

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu remains set in his plans to invade Rafah, with or without US assistance. Responding to US President Joe Biden’s warning earlier this week that arms supplies will be limited if Israel invades Rafah, Netanyahu responded, “If we must, we shall fight with our fingernails.” […]

China

Why are U.S. Sanctions against Iran’s Oil Exports Ineffective?

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By Kian Sharifi ( RFE/RL ) – Iran is one of the most sanctioned countries in the world. But restrictions imposed by the United States have largely failed to stymie Iran’s oil exports, the backbone of its flailing economy. U.S. sanctions have cut off Iran from most of its traditional customers, forcing Tehran to find […]

Featured

Tens of Thousands of Israelis Demonstrate against Netanyahu, Demand Hostage Exchange Deal, New Elections

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that tens of thousands of Israelis rallied Saturday night against the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Tel Aviv and other cities, including Jerusalem, Beersheba and Haifa. The protesters were responding in part to dueling news releases about the possibility of a breakthrough […]

Donald Trump

Top Ways MAGA and Right Wing Zionism Converge, and Why Smotrich is Embracing Trump

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Going back to the late nineteenth century, Zionism has had a complex and storied history, and there have been many strains of the ideology. Some early Zionists did not insist on colonizing Palestine, while others did (and colonizing it was the word they used). All agreed that the Jewish religion […]

Israel/ Palestine

Ukraine, Israel, and the Incoherence of U.S. Foreign Policy

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The process of crafting congressional legislation is often likened to sausage-making. Best not to look behind the scenes at the mechanics of the process, which is a bloody mess. But the analogy is not apt. Sure, sausage-making can be ugly. The end product, however, is presentable and usually […]

Anti-intellectualism

“Intifada” in Arabic just means Uprising or Mass Protest; it is used for the Jewish Warsaw Uprising

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A key feature of American bigotry toward people from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and toward Muslims more generally, has been the demonization by journalists, politicians and interest groups of ordinary, everyday Arabic words. Arabic words have a proud and positive history in the English language. Consider a […]

Democratic Party

Hubert Humphrey Redux? Biden is Risking Election and Country with his Embrace of Netanyahu’s War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – CNN reports ominously this week that “Biden is actually 11 percentage points behind Trump among young voters 18-34 in a head-to-head match in a CNN poll conducted by SSRS and released over the weekend.” CNN continues that 71% of Americans disapprove of his handling of the Gaza campaign! That rises […]

Donald Trump

Trump blew up the Iran Nuclear Deal, unleashing Tehran — Can Biden Fix it?

Bob Dreyfuss

By Bob Dreyfuss ( Tomdispatch.com ) – One, erratic and often unhinged, blew up the U.S.-Iran accord that was the landmark foreign policy achievement of President Obama’s second term. He then ordered the assassination of a top Iranian general visiting Iraq, dramatically raising tensions in the region. The other is a traditional advocate of American […]