Juan Cole

Food, Water Running out For Gaza’s Children The humanitarian crisis in a civilian Gaza under attack from Israel is worsening, according to United Nations agencies. They had already warned over the weekend that given that half of Gazans are children, that the adult unemployment rate is 40 percent, and that malnutrition had already been widespread, […]

At least 80 Dead in Civil War Bloodbath Government Forced to Depend on Local Gunmen “”We will complete the mission and I will make my judgments as to the troop levels necessary to achieve victory, not based upon political polls or focus groups, but based upon the measured judgment of our commanders on the ground […]

European Union Condemns Israeli Predations Israelis Kill Little Girl, Other Family Members 50,000 Turks Demonstrate The Daily Telegraph Reports: ‘Three Palestinian family members, including a six-year-old girl, were killed yesterday in an air strike near Gaza City as Israel rejected a call by Hamas Premier Ismail Haniya for a mutual ceasefire. The girl, her elder […]

National Unity Government on Vergeof Collapse As Sunnis Threaten Pull-out; A Million Sadrists Prepare for Samarra Trek Guerrillas killed 3 US troops and a female Iraqi translator for the US military on Saturday. Guerrillas detonated a car bomb outside a Shiite mosque in Baghdad Saturday evening, killing 3 persons. Also late Saturday evening, Iraqi troops […]

Rash of Mosque Bombings Samarra’i Demands Banning of Shiite Militias Qubanji accuses AMS of al-Qaeda Ties Reuters reports on the violence in Iraq on Friday: ‘In the village of Tal Banat near Mosul, a car bomb outside a mosque killed six and wounded 46, police said. Around the same time, a mortar attack and a […]

MESA & AAUP Condemn Violence Against Iraqi Academics Professors’ Associations Decry Violence Against Academic Colleagues in Iraq. Issued July 5, 2006 Washington, D.C., and Tucson, Arizona — The Middle East Studies Association and the American Association of University Professors jointly released the following statement, titled “Iraq: Higher Education and Academic Freedom in Danger,” on July […]

Two Minutes of Silence for London At noon on Friday, we should commemorate the deaths of the 52 persons in the 7/7 London underground bombings with two minutes of silence, as is being done (in a different time zone) in the UK itself. We should remember that this atrocity killed Muslims as well as Christians […]

Israel’s Failed-State Strategy: Cole in Salon My essay on the crisis between Israel and the Gaza Palestinians is out in Salon.com. Excerpt: The actions of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert seem intended to create a failed state in Gaza and the West Bank, thus rendering the Israeli claim that “we have no one to talk […]

50 killed, as a Raft of Bodies are Found in Baghdad Muqtada Begins Vigilante Movement to Repair Samarra Shrine Aljazeera is reporting clashes between US troops and Mahdi Army elements in East Baghdad early Friday morning, with some attendant deaths. The puritan Shiite Mahdi Army follows Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr. Al-Hayat reports that [Ar.] Prime […]