Southwest Harbor, Maine (Special to Informed Comment) – When the Biden Administration announced it would no longer oppose suspension of Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) standards regarding production of COVID vaccines and therapies, there was joy in the world health lobby and anguish in the big pharma camp. Understandable as these reactions […]
Archives for May 2021
Why Palestinians Protest their Eviction by Israel: The untold story of Sheikh Jarrah
There are two separate Sheikh Jarrah stories. One is read about and watched on the news, the other receives little media coverage or due analysis. The obvious story is that of the nightly raids and violence meted out by Israeli police and Jewish extremists against Palestinians in the devastated East Jerusalem neighbourhood. For weeks, thousands […]
Why the Pentagon Budget Never Goes Down: Joe Biden’s First 100 Days Were a Pentagon Prize
By Mandy Smithberger | – ( Tomdispatch.com) – The first 100 days of President Joe Biden’s administration have come and gone. While somewhat exaggerated, that milestone is normally considered the honeymoon period for any new president. Buoyed by a recent election triumph and inauguration, he’s expected to be at the peak of his power when […]
What if Israelis attacked the Basilica of St. Peter on Easter? That’s how Muslims feel about Assault on al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – One of the most outrageous Israeli actions against the Palestinians of East Jerusalem during the past week has been the repeated Israeli assaults on worshipers in the al-Aqsa Mosque complex, which is sacred to 1.8 billion Muslims, a fourth of humankind. This would be as though Israeli commandos had invaded […]
Israeli Repression and Land Grabs, and the Palestinian Protests in Jerusalem
By Anjuman Rahman | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – Violence has become a permanent feature of Ramadan for the people of occupied Palestine. The first day of the fasting month this year began with the Israeli army breaking locks and cutting the wires to the loudspeakers at Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem to silence […]
Killing Schoolgirls in Afghanistan: Fundamentalist Attackers Target Girls Leaving Kabul High School
By Heather Barr | Interim Co-Director, Women’s Rights Division | – ( Human Rights Watch) – Scenes from Sayed ul-Shuhada High School in Kabul, Afghanistan, where as many as 85 people including many schoolgirls were killed in an attack this weekend, should break anyone’s heart. They certainly broke mine. In 2017 a filmmaker and I […]
Our Climate Future is on a Spectrum, Depending on What we Do Now; How Bad could it Get?
By Mark Maslin | – The climate crisis is no longer a looming threat – people are now living with the consequences of centuries of greenhouse gas emissions. But there is still everything to fight for. How the world chooses to respond in the coming years will have massive repercussions for generations yet to be […]
How Biden Enabled Israeli Ethnic Cleansing of Palestinian E. Jerusalem by affirming Trump move of US Embassy There
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The post of U.S. ambassador to Israel is still vacant, but the charge d’affaires, Jonathan Shrier, sent over some objections to caretaker Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu last month complaining about the Israeli construction of squatter settlements on Palestinian land in East Jerusalem. The “Green Line” that separates Israel within 1948 […]
Anti-Muslim Racism remains a Blind Spot in American Efforts for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion
(Special to Informed Comment) – When I first read Jack Shaheen’s seminal book, Reel Bad Arabs, which documents negative stereotypes of Muslims and Arabs in American film, I was shocked. Not shocked that such stereotypes have saturated film and television. Rather, shocked that I myself had seen several of these films and never noticed the […]