2023

Muslims are understandably Protesting Qur’an Burning in Sweden, but the Qur’an itself urges them to do so Peacefully

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Swedish police permitted the burning of the Muslim scripture, the Qur’an (Koran) in front of the Iraqi embassy in Stockholm, on the grounds that previous attempts to stop such acts have been overruled by the courts on freedom of speech grounds. Hate acts targeting minorities are not actually free […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israeli Officials Now Promoting Impunity for Settler-Colonial Violence

Ramona Wadi

Ramona Wadi walzerscent ( Middle East Monitor ) – If Israel’s National Security Minister, Itamar Ben-Gvir, can find excuses for the hilltop youth’s colonial violence, how much more is the concept of settler-colonial presence as a form of violence normalised? During a meeting called by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, Ben-Gvir described the hilltop […]

Climate Crisis

Renewables covered more than Half of German Electricity Consumption in the first half of 2023

Julian Wettengel

( Clean Energy Wire) – Wind, solar and other renewable energy sources covered 52 percent of German electricity consumption in the first six months of 2023, up from 49 percent in the first half of last year, preliminary data by the Centre for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research Baden-Wuerttemberg (ZSW) and energy industry association BDEW […]

Displaced and Refugees

Debunking Migration Myths: Why People really Move, and Why most Migration happens in the Global South

The Conversation

By Avery Anapol and Mend Mariwany | – (The Conversation) – Around the world, borders between countries are getting tougher. Governments are making it more difficult to move, especially for certain groups of vulnerable people. This comes with a message, subtle or not: that people are moving to higher-income countries to take advantage of the […]

African-Americans

SCOTUS Ruling on Race and College Admissions: We’ve already Seen this Movie in Michigan and it Doesn’t End Well

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Conservatives in the United States have a stealth function of supporting white supremacy, even if they deny it. Maybe some do not even realize that is what they are doing. People focus on process and not outcomes when thinking of fairness, but what they think of as fair processes don’t […]

Colonialism

Fascist Italy’s forgotten Concentration Camps in Libya

Middle East Monitor

Mustafa Fetouri MFetouri ( Middle East Monitor ) – On 30 August 2008, Italy and Libya signed their Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation and Partnership, ending their awkward past of feuding and diplomatic tensions over Italy’s colonisation of Libya from 1911 to 1943. Libya was seeking compensation, recognition of suffering of its people and, above […]

Arctic

Climate Crisis: Meltwater is Creating Millions of Hairline Cracks in Greenland’s Ice Sheet, Destabilizing it with a form of Hydro-Fracking

The Conversation

(The Conversation) – Alun Hubbard, University of Tromsø | – I’m striding along the steep bank of a raging white-water torrent, and even though the canyon is only about the width of a highway, the river’s flow is greater than that of London’s Thames. The deafening roar and rumble of the cascading water is incredible […]

Authoritarianism

American Inquisition: Field Notes from the Frontlines of the Government’s War on the Left

Tomdispatch

By Michael Gould-Wartofsky ( Tomdispatch.com) – “There must be some kind of way out of here…” As night fell over the South River Forest, the music festival was in full swing. Young and old swayed to the sounds of Suede Cassidy. Families gathered around the grill. Little ones frolicked in an inflatable bouncy house bedecked […]

Featured

A One-State Democracy for Palestine-Israel? A Review Essay

Marc Martorell Junyent

Review of Ghada Karmi, One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel (London: Pluto Press, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment) – Following the inauguration of a far-right government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December 2022, the Israeli occupation machinery in Palestine has been turbocharged. In February 2023, the Israeli government approved the […]

Archives for 2023