Juan Cole

The trial of suspected al-Qaeda member Mounir El Motassadeq for having been part of the Hamburg cell that planned and carried out September 11, now being held in Germany, may be transferred to the United States. This move is contemplated because it would allow prosecutors to call to the stand Ahmad Ressam, now in Federal […]

A summit has been set up between Pakistan, Afghanistan and Turkmenistan for the initialling of a deal to build a $3.2 bn. pipeline from Turkmenistan down to South Asia. It is scheduled for Dec. 26-27 in the Turkmenistan capital of Ashkabad (Ashgebot). The pipeline would stretch from Turkmenistan across Afghanistan to Gwadar, and will be […]

     The more the Kuwaiti government thinks about it the less it likes the speech Saddam Hussein gave the day before yesterday. All though it appeared to contain an grudging apology for the 1990 Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, it also contained lots of other, more sinister language.      The Kuwaiti officials now read it as a series […]

     Stinger shoulder-launched missiles are being sold in the bazaars of Kabul for $200,000 according to foreign observers in that city. The geniuses in the Reagan administration (who we now have with us at the top of the government, like Paul Wolfowitz) gave Islamic extremists about 400 stingers in the 1980s to use against Soviet helicopter […]

Saad Eddin Ibrahim has been freed from prison by an Egyptian appeals court, which nullified his earlier sentence of seven years of hard labor. But, it ordered a retrial rather than simply freeing him. (He was out for `Id al-Fitr, the holiday marking the end of the fasting month of Ramadan). A human rights activist, […]

Saad Eddin Ibrahim’s case will be decided today by the appeals court, which can set aside or confirm his sentence of seven years of hard labor. If the appeal is turned down and Saad Eddin serves that sentence, there is some question about whether his health will collapse altogether long before he is released. Hosni […]

It’s “Not Back to School” for Palestinian Children Children continue to be among the chief victims of the continuing conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians. Although it is natural to concentrate on the toll in lives taken by the struggle, among its biggest impacts have been psychological and educational. Over a million and a […]

At the request of a number of friends, I’m reprinting this piece here. —– Chronicle of Higher Education Tuesday, July 16, 2002 OPINION Why We Should Not Boycott Israeli Academics By JUAN COLE I thought the divestiture movement and the boycott of academic institutions in the old racist South Africa a good idea, and was […]

At a conference in South Africa, State Minister Ronny Kasrils, himself a Jew, condemned Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and said it was actually worse than the Apartheid government’s treatment of blacks in South Africa had been. He said Israel actively discriminated against the Palestinian people. The conference was focused on solidarity with the Palestinians and […]