Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The compounding tragedies in Israel and Palestine lead to a sad and harsh realization: Today’s mutant form of Zionism has morphed into a genuine threat to democracy in Israel, the US and elsewhere. Under Donald Trump’s leadership, our “Shining Beacon on the Hill” has been badly dimmed […]
Archives for November 2023
Israel-Hamas Conflict puts China’s Strategy of ‘Balanced Diplomacy’ in the Middle East at Risk
By Andrew Latham, Macalester College | – On Oct. 30, 2023, reports began to circulate that Israel was missing from from the mapping services provided by Chinese tech companies Baidu and Alibaba, effectively signaling – or so some believed – that Beijing was siding with Hamas over Israel in the ongoing war. Within hours, Chinese […]
Palestine’s Obituary
Bob Scheer interviews Juan Cole at Scheerpost. [Radio]. Scheerpost: Palestine’s Obituary (w/ Juan Cole) [YouTube Video] Transcript: Robert Scheer: Hi, this is Robert Scheer with another edition of Scheer Intelligence, where the intelligence comes from my guest, and I say that every week but wow, this week it’s really true. You know, Juan Cole, I’m […]
Juan Cole: The Rise and Fall of Oil and the US Invasion of Iraq
Here is the closing plenary panel of a conference held in mid-September by the Qatar branch of Georgetown University on “The Invasion of Iraq: Regional Reflections.” Juan Cole is the first speaker in the video below, on the changing relationship of the United States to Iraq and to energy markets in the Bush, Obama, Trump […]
How a Big Pharma Company Stalled a Potentially Lifesaving Vaccine in Pursuit of Bigger Profits
By Anna Maria Barry-Jester | – ( ProPublica) – Ever since he was a medical student, Dr. Neil Martinson has confronted the horrors of tuberculosis, the world’s oldest and deadliest pandemic. For more than 30 years, patients have streamed into the South African clinics where he has worked — migrant workers, malnourished children and pregnant […]
Yemen’s Houthis enter the Israel-Gaza Conflict: What Impact on US and Saudi Arabia?
By Mahad Darar, Colorado State University | – Yemen’s Houthi movement launched missiles and drones at Israel on Oct. 31, 2023 – provoking fears of a dangerous escalation of the Middle East conflict. With the militia – which controls part of the Arabian Peninsula state – vowing further attacks, Israel countered by sending missile boats […]
The Invisible Slaughter of Palestinian Children
Berkeley, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – According to our most reliable news sources, the children of Gaza are being slaughtered at a horrific rate. No, you will not find the terms “slaughter” or “horrific” in Western media accounts of Israel’s current assault on the Palestinians residents of Gaza (these terms are reserved for […]
From Armenia to Gaza: War, Crimes, Truth and Denial
By Arnold Isaacs ( Tomdispatch.com) – This month’s catastrophic violence in Israel and Gaza — specifically, the contradictory statements from each side on the other’s war crimes — has taken me back to a revealing personal moment almost exactly 18 years ago, recalling a different war in a different part of the world. That day […]
We Need an Immediate Ceasefire in Gaza
By Phyllis Bennis | ( Otherwords) – The violence in the Middle East is bringing horrifying new levels of human suffering to both Israelis and Palestinians. We need an immediate ceasefire right now. Both sides have committed heinous violations of international law. But if we’re serious about preventing such horrors in the future, we have […]