(Informed Comment) – Equipped with the concept of the one-state reality, we can see in one particular feature of today’s political soap opera the seeds of profound and hopeful change. Politics in Israel, as elsewhere, can be approached as unfolding in three kinds of time: geological, strategic, and sports. States, peoples, and political systems appear, […]
Archives for October 2019
Is Allah God? A Christian Theologian Replies
Emir-Stein Center Video | Miroslav Volf | – “Is Allah God? If the answer to this question were simple, Professor Miroslav Volf would not have written a whole book on the subject. Still, in this engaging short video, Professor Volf provides a brief summary of the answer. Professor Volf is the Henry B. Wright Professor […]
Topsy-Turvy: Corporate Media Depict Bernie Sanders as “Extreme” and the Republican Party as Mainstream!
(Informed Comment) – Is a candidate a centrist? This question matters because many voters like to think of themselves as moderates or centrists. Other voters, not heavily engaged in the political process, are responsive to labels. Therefore the candidate who captures the label in the eyes of the corporate media has a leg up. But […]
US Militarism, having Provoked ISIL into Being, Kills Cult Leader Baghdadi
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – “Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi,” the nom de guerre of the notorious Iraqi terrorist Ibrahim al-Samarrai, is dead, killed in a US special forces raid on his compound in Syria’s northwest Idlib province. Declared a “caliph” in 2014, this minor cultist helped turn the Fertile Crescent into a charnel house. From a […]
The Ukraine Whistleblowers and the Question of Partisanship
By Hannah Gurman and Kaeten Mistry | – ( Foreign Policy in Focus) – This moment should spark a conversation about the place of national security whistleblowing in a democratic society. “We must determine the whistleblower’s identity,” tweeted Donald Trump, who has become obsessed with finding and punishing the individual(s) that blew the whistle on […]
Why Criticism of Israel Isn’t Antisemitism
AJ+ Video | Matt Lieb | – “Progressives criticizing Israel keep being painted as antisemites. Why? Because according to many American politicians, criticizing the right-wing government of Israel is anti-Semitic. Newsbroke’s Matt Lieb explains how this twisted conservative, catch-all defense actually upholds the white nationalist cause… in America.” AJ+ “Why Criticism Of Israel Isn’t Antisemitism” […]
Volcanoes and Climate History: What they Explain & What they Don’t
By Michael Petterson | – Everyone is going on about reducing our carbon footprint, zero emissions, planting sustainable crops for biodiesel etc. Is it true what the internet posts say that a volcano eruption for a few weeks will make all our efforts null and void? The pretext to this question is understandable. The forces […]
Did US Officials Manipulate Trump into Sending Back Troops from Iraq to Syria “for the oil”?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) | – NBC reports that a US convoy of light armored vehicles carrying special operations forces has been sighted heading from Iraq into northeast Syria and then south to the oil-rich Deir al-Zor province, with attack helicopters hovering above. You have to wonder if the Kurds pelted them with rotten vegetables […]
Nelson Mandela’s Church Joins Boycott, Divestment from Israel to Continue anti-Apartheid Struggle
By Asa Winstanley | @AsaWinstanley | – Nelson Mandela’s church, the Methodist Church of Southern Africa, this month endorsed Palestine’s Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). At a recent conference in Cape Town, the church denounced “Israel’s ongoing ill-treatment and oppression of Palestinian people, and the historic prophetic role played by the church and international […]