Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The climate crisis is the most serious challenge facing our globe, and it is natural to do some doom-scrolling about how we are failing to make the necessary changes fast enough to avoid catastrophe. But as climate scientist Michael E. Mann argues, concentrating on the negative actually promotes apathy and […]
Archives for January 2024
Legal Bullying Aims to Silence Campus Critics of Israel
Title VI was designed to end discrimination and harassment on campus, but the law can also be misused, as partisans of Israel have done, to protect Israel from criticism and stifle pro-Palestinian voices. By Michael Schwalbe | – (Commondreams.org ) – A sad fact of jurisprudence in an unequal world is that good laws created […]
Condemning Punitive Measures against Palestinian Students in Israeli Universities
Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association of North America | – Bar Ilan University Ben Gurion University of the Negev Hebrew University of Jerusalem Open University Reichman University Technion Tel Aviv University University of Haifa Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, pmoh@pmo.gov.il Minister of National Security Itamar Ben Gvir, sar@mops.gov.il Minister […]
How Israel’s Starvation of the Gaza Palestinians Has led Biden to try to Starve the Yemenis
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The British Royal Air Force and the American Air Force bombed the Yemeni capital of Sanaa again on Tuesday, in a campaign that President Biden admits has had no effect. Washington and London ordered the airstrikes, now being launched almost daily, in retaliation for the rockets being launched at Red […]
How much Influence does Iran have over its Strategic Allies — Hezbollah, Hamas and the Houthis?
By Sara Harmouch, American University and Nakissa Jahanbani, United States Military Academy West Point | – From attacks by rebels in the Red Sea to raids in northern Israel and the Oct. 7, 2023, assault by Hamas, Western analysts have pointed a finger of blame toward Iran. Regardless of how involved Tehran is directly in […]
Trump’s Far Right Allies Plot to Take over the European Union and Sink its Green Deal
( Tomdispatch.com) – It would be funny if it weren’t so potentially tragic — and consequential. No, I’m not thinking about Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential campaign but a related development: the latest decisions from the European Union (EU) about Ukraine. As 2023 ended, European nations failed to agree on a $54-billion package of assistance for […]
How Israel got Stuck in Orwell’s ‘1984’
Oakland, Ca. (Special for Informed Comment; Feature) – As state paranoia rises in Israel, civil liberties including freedom of the press have taken a huge hit. Indeed freedom of thought is under siege for Israeli Jews, not to mention the nightmare faced by Israeli Arabs, and those in the West Bank.* Israel has recently abused […]
DeSantis’ Legacy Lives on in Unconstitutional Bills Banning Free Expression, Campus Palestine Groups
By Diane Rado ( Florida Phoenix ) – From threatening students’ free speech on college campuses to making it easier for powerful people to sue for defamation, lawmakers have been filing bills in 2024 that are bad, according to Florida’s First Amendment Foundation. The foundation is tracking the proposals and fighting back, hoping to get […]
Why US strikes will only embolden the Houthis, not stop their Attacks on Ships in the Red Sea
By Sarah G. Phillips, University of Sydney | – As the Houthi militant group in Yemen ramps up its attacks on vessels in the Red Sea – ostensibly in response to what it calls Israel’s “genocidal crimes” in Gaza – the US and UK have responded with multiple military strikes in the last week. The […]