Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli parliament on Monday passed legislation declaring the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, authorized by the UN General Assembly in 1949, to be a terrorist organization. It is an extraordinary and dangerous step for a UN member state. The legislation has the effect of preventing the Israeli government […]
Palestinian-Americans Help Make the US Great: A Reply to Giuliani at the Trumpie Madison Square Garden Hatefest
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Great Trump Three Hours of Hate at Madison Square Garden on Sunday included a fatally unfunny comedian calling Puerto Ricans garbage and other racist swill directed at African-Americans, Hispanics and other groups. Trump alleged that a violent Venezuelan prison gang has taken over Times Square, which bears the same […]
Does Britain owe Reparations to the Palestinians for Engineering their loss of their Country?
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Ta-Nehisi Coates made the argument for US reparations for slavery in 2014 in The Atlantic. In that essay, he made an analogy with German reparations to Israel. In his new book, The Message, Coates expresses regret for the unexamined Zionist biases in that analogy, which obscured the dispossession of the […]
Israel’s Limited Strikes on Iran show the Enormous Constraints faced by Netanyahu
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The limited strikes on Iran carried out by Israeli fighter-jets early on Saturday morning Tehran time above all demonstrated the constraints under which even this extremist Israeli government has to operate. The bombings are said to have been limited to military targets, including missile manufacturing facilities. The first constraint Israel […]
Gaza Yet Stands: Juan Cole’s New Book
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Many observers have complained that our understanding of the current Mideast War too often begins with the horrendous Hamas attacks on Israelis on October 7, 2023. Historian, here, hand up. I’ve not only studied the history of Gaza and Palestine academically, I’ve been writing commentary on Gaza events for over […]
Medicide: Israel’s Attacks on Clinics and Hospitals in Gaza are War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity: UN
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Earlier this month the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Occupied Palestinian Territory issued a report demanding that Israel, in the words of Commission Chair Navi Pillar, “Israel must immediately stop its unprecedented wanton destruction of healthcare facilities in Gaza. By targeting healthcare facilities, Israel is targeting the […]
The Gazafication of Lebanon: Israel Blows up Nabatieh City Hall, kills Mayor and Aid Workers
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli military has begun giving southern Lebanon the Gaza treatment. Some 25% of Lebanese are under “evacuation orders,” which is to say that Israel is expelling them from their homes in preparation for further military operations against the Hezbollah Party-Militia. The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, Imran Riza, said […]
Blinken and Austin Scold Netanyahu over Gaza Atrocities, playing Cynical Presidential Politics
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Barak Ravid at Axios got the scoop. He was leaked a letter from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant accusing them of reneging on undertakings of last April to pursue their war on Hamas in […]
Nobel Prize-Winning Japanese survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki see themselves in the Palestinians of Gaza
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The decision of the Truman administration to use nuclear weapons on the civilian cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 is one of the great stains on the United States. There are other blots on our escutcheon, including the perfidious treatment of Native Americans and the enslavement of millions of […]