Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Prominent foreign policy journalist Colum Lynch has an exclusive at the Devex site, which is devoted to economic development news and has a special relationship to the US Agency for International Development. Lynch has seen a memo entitled “Famine Inevitable, Changes Could Reduce but Not Stop Widespread Civilian Deaths,” which […]
No President of a Major American University has Deplored the Israeli Destruction of all Gaza Universities
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – American campuses are being roiled by student and faculty protests against the ongoing Israeli atrocities in Gaza, which the International Court of Justice has found to be plausibly described as a genocide. These harmless student demonstrations, of a sort that have been normal throughout the past sixty years, have been […]
US House awards Israel $26 Billion so it can go on Killing or Wounding a Palestinian Child every 10 Minutes
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The US House of Representatives voted $26 billion for Israel on Saturday to reward it for its ongoing war crimes against Palestinians. Some 58 members voted against the measure, including 37 Democrats. It was the House of Representatives’ most decisive vote of confidence in genocide since the Indian Removal Act […]
In Fit of anti-Palestinian Hatred, Congress tries to Outlaw “From the River to the Sea, Palestine will be Free”
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Wednesday the House of Representatives passed a resolution condemning the chanting of the phrase “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Since Congress, which appears to have a disproportionate number of genocidal maniacs in its ranks, is all right with the Palestinians being subjected to mass […]
Playing Russian Roulette with our Only Planet: Middle East Gets Failing Grades on Climate Action
This is my latest column for Tomdispatch.com. Do check in over there for Tom Engelhardt’s essential introduction. ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Last September witnessed what used to be a truly rare weather phenomenon: a Mediterranean hurricane, or “medicane.” Once upon a time, the Mediterranean Sea simply didn’t get hot enough to produce hurricanes more than […]
Palestinian History: Understanding the Past, Engaging with the Present
My 20-minute presentation on Israel Palestine is the first segment in the below below. In recognition of Arab American Heritage Month and in light of the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, UM-Flint, in partnership with the Arab American Heritage Council, invited historians Juan Cole, University of Michigan Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History, and […]
The NYT’s Palestinian-Israeli Lexicon: Special Edition of the Ghoul’s Glossary
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – American humorist and, oddly, horror author, Ambrose Bierce (d. 1913), produced a serial, staccato newspaper column consisting of humorous and sardonic definitions of words, which he later published as a book, The Devil’s Dictionary. (He initially had to entitle it “The Cynic’s Wordbook,” which doesn’t have the same ring, because […]
Israeli Massacres Continue in Gaza, as Returnees to North are Targeted and Refugee Camp is Bombed
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The brief interlude of the Iranian rocket attack on Israel, in which almost all the projectiles were shot down or intercepted, did nothing to slow the Israeli assault on Gaza. Unfortunately for the Palestinians, no helpful foreign power is intercepting Israeli rockets fired at dense urban neighborhoods with deadly effect. […]
Netanyahu, Empowered by Biden’s Grant of Impunity, baits Iran into his genocidal Gaza War
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Despite all the hype about Iran’s largely symbolic barrage of over 200 drones and cruise and ballistic missiles, unleashed on the thinly populated Negev Desert (where it was mainly Palestinian Bedouins who were put in danger), the military significance of this action was minimal. An Israeli base was hit at […]