Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Letters and Politics on KPFA with Mitch Jeserich: KPFA Special – The History Behind The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam – Interview with Juan Cole (Long excerpt of computer-generated transcript cleaned up by ChatGPT; caveat emptor): Mitch Jeserich: Good day and welcome to Letters and Politics. I’m Mitch Jeserich. “Since we […]
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Archives for 2025
NYC Comptroller Pursues Lawsuit Against Tesla and Musk for Stock Plunge
By Natalia Renta | – ( Inequality.org ) – In the wake of recent Tesla Takedown protests at hundreds of dealerships across the country, financial officers on both sides of the political aisle weighed in on how to address Tesla’s tanking share price. New York City Comptroller Brad Lander called for accountability from Elon Musk […]
South African Court said no to new Coal-fired Power: what’s behind the Ruling
By Melanie Murcott, University of Cape Town (The Conversation) – Three South African environmental and climate justice organisations took the South African government to court in November 2021, to challenge the authorisation of new coal-fired power as part of the country’s energy mix. Three years later, the court ruled that the government’s new coal plans […]
A Great Muslim Scholar of Jewish Heritage Passes: Abdallah Schleifer (1935 – 2025)
Middlebury, Vt. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Abdullah Schleifer, prominent Arab journalist and Professor Emeritus at the American University in Cairo, died last week at the age of ninety. The grandchild of European Jews who fled Europe and immigrated to the U.S. in the last quarter of the nineteenth century, Schleifer converted to Islam […]
What is the Israel Lobby – and Why is it so Anxious?
By Ned Curthoys, The University of Western Australia (The Conversation) – Last May, on a trip to the United States, world-renowned Israeli–Jewish historian Ilan Pappe was detained by Homeland Security and held for two hours. Aged 69 at the time, he was, among other things, asked about his views on Hamas and whether Israel’s actions […]
Condemnation of Trump targeting noncitizen Students, Researchers for Constitutionally protected Speech
Middle East Studies Association MESA Board Joint Statement with the TFCHR regarding deportations The MESA Board of Directors and the MESA Task Force on Civil and Human Rights condemn in the strongest terms the Trump administration’s targeting of noncitizen students and researchers for their constitutionally protected speech and advocacy. As part of an expansive […]
A Majority of Americans Views Israel Negatively in wake of Gaza Genocide
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Laura Silver at the Pew Research Center reports that 53% of Americans now have a negative view of Israel, a stark deterioration from 42% in spring 2022 before the Israeli total war on Gaza. Moreover, in just 3 years the percentage of Americans with very negative views of Israel has […]
Has Israel turned Gaza into a 21st Century Concentration Camp?
By Dr Mustafa Fetouri The basic definition of “concentration camp” is simple: a large place where a large group of people, usually civilians, are imprisoned without due process. There are various reasons as to why they are kept in confinement, including their ethnicity, religion or because they oppose the authorities ordering their imprisonment. Encyclopaedia Britannica […]
Trump Faces Palestine: The Colonial View of the World Never Dies
By Aviva Chomsky ( Tomdispatch.com) – In the colonial view of the world — and, in its own strange fashion, Donald Trump’s view couldn’t be more colonial — White European colonizers were embattled beacons of civilization, rationality, and progress, confronting dangerous barbaric hordes beyond (and even, sometimes, within) their own frontiers. Colonial violence then was […]