By Vanessa Newby, Leiden University and Chiara Ruffa, Sciences Po | – (The Conversation) – The death of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on September 27 has left the militant Lebanese organisation leaderless at a critical time. Two days earlier in a speech broadcast around the world, the head of […]
Archives for September 2024
The Battle for the Soul of American Science: The Pentagon goes to School
( Tomdispatch.com ) – The divestment campaigns launched last spring by students protesting Israel’s mass slaughter in Gaza brought the issue of the militarization of American higher education back into the spotlight. Of course, financial ties between the Pentagon and American universities are nothing new. As Stuart Leslie has pointed out in his seminal book […]
The Path to Nasrallah’s Assassination
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli assassination of Hassan Nasrallah has implications for the struggle of Iran and its alliance of resistance against Israel and the United States. But I would like to step back and look at how we reached this juncture. I lived in Lebanon on and off in the 1970s, when […]
The War of Legitimacy: How the International Criminal Court and the UN Gen. Assembly Challenged Israeli, US Impunity
( Middle East Monitor ) – Two historic events regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestine took place on 19 July and 18 September. The first was a most comprehensive “advisory opinion” by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which reiterated that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is illegal and must come to an immediate end. […]
Climate Change-Driven Hurricanes and Wildfires are causing Home Insurance Rates to Skyrocket
By Andrew J. Hoffman, University of Michigan | – (The Conversation) – Millions of Americans have been watching with growing alarm as their homeowners insurance premiums rise and their coverage shrinks. Nationwide, premiums rose 34% between 2017 and 2023, and they continued to rise in 2024 across much of the country. To add insult to […]
Water as a Weapon of War in Gaza (The New Lines Institute)
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Here are the first few paragraphs of my long essay for The New Lines Institute on the Israeli use of water as a weapon of total war in Gaza. Read the whole thing here . The Israeli use of water as a weapon of war in Gaza in 2023-2024 turned […]
Protesting the Firing of Tenured Professor Maura Finkelstein for Criticizing Zionism
Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association | – Dear President Harring, Provost Furge and Professor Dowd: We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our grave concern about the announcement by Muhlenberg College that it intends to terminate […]
Voting for the End of the World: How Trump would (Literally) sink the Planet
( Tomdispatch.com ) – Imagine yourself in space, looking down on our world and yet unable to return any time soon. Consider it our bad luck, in fact, that Barry “Butch” Wilmore and Sunita Williams were the two Americans sent to the International Space Station, 250 miles above this planet, for a few days in […]
Frederick Douglass: The Moral Physician for all Seasons
Los Angeles (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Racism, like cancer, seems incurable as it continues to ravage our nation; its social, cultural and political life imperiled by a relentless disease affecting millions, many of whom deny its very existence. Even so, we must continue to celebrate the undaunted courage and determination of our moral […]