Sarah van Gelder | (Yes! Magazine) The election divided the year into “before” and “after.” But there remain signs of hope for 2017. It was a year blown up by the election results. There are now two very different 2016s—the one before and the one after we learned that Donald Trump would become president of […]
The Chinese Solar Juggernaut that Trump Can’t Stop
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Donald Trump has pronounced solar power “too expensive” and has pledged to revive the use of coal. The former is a falsehood, the latter a genocide. (Coal kills people with lung disease and global warming). Moreover, Trump keeps complaining that China is eating Americans’ lunch with […]
Erdogan-Putin Syria Bromance as Turkey accuses US of backing ISIL
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Turkey and Russia are announcing they have reached a cease-fire deal in Syria. The ceasefire reached in Aleppo will be continued past December 28, and will be expanded to other parts of the country Russia is representing the government of Bashar al-Assad, which its air force […]
Now is the time for Obama to Recognize Palestine
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – I’d like to return today to an argument I made two years ago in The Nation, which is that President Obama should recognize Palestine before he goes out of office. For different but related reasons, Jimmy Carter made a similar plea last month. One of the […]
Israel’s Netanyahu et al. Throw Trump-like Tantrums after UNSC Slam
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – PM Binyamin Netanyahu of Israel and his cabinet ministers are trying to punch above their weight. He wants to punish the UN, and apparently even the United States. Netanyahu has forbidden Israeli officials to travel to 12 of the countries on the UN Security Council who […]
Top Five ways Jesus was not White
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Given the alarming rise of white nationalism in the United States and the ways in which it is often entangled with Christian nationalism, it is worthwhile remembering whose birth, exactly, is being commemorated today. The association of Christianity with whiteness is relatively new in history, as […]
Why the UN Resolution on Israeli Squatting didn’t Go Far Enough
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The United Nations Security Council on Friday passed a resolution with 14 member states in favor and 1 abstaining (the US), condemning Israeli government support for Israeli squatters who steal Palestinian land and squat on it in the Palestinian West Bank. Since Israel is in severe […]
With Fall of Aleppo, will a Russo-Iranian Middle East challenge Trump?
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – On Thursday, the Syrian government announced that the last of those who wanted to be evacuated from the East Aleppo pocket had been bused out, and that the Bashar al-Assad regime had reestablished complete control over the entire city of Aleppo. Bashar al-Assad in his remarks […]
Trump blames Muslim immigrants for Turkey, Berlin Violence
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – After the assassination of the Russian ambassador to Turkey by a member of the Ankara police force who appears to have gone over to some form of al-Qaeda-like radicalism, one person on the internet said that Turkey should never have let Muslims into its country. I […]