By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Meir Dagan, the former head of Israeli intelligence, has long been on the outs with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Now he is actively campaigning for the Israeli electorate to dump him as prime minister in the upcoming elections. Soon after leaving office four years ago, he broke longstanding […]
Leonard Nimoy’s Last Wishes for Israel and Palestine
Reprint edn. in honor of the passing of Mr. Nimoy, who inspired a generation. Leonard Nimoy, who played Mr. Spock on Star Trek, speaks out as a Jewish American in favor of a two-state solution and a divided Jerusalem. Nimoy said, ‘ “I reach out to you as someone who is troubled to see the […]
5 Surprising Ways Iran is better than Israel
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) I think I’m one of the few Americans who has been to both Iran and Israel. I like both countries and have a lot in common with thinkers in both. I love What I know of Tel Aviv’s cafe culture and the searing honesty and high ethics of the […]
Why Netanyahu’s Congress Speech will Fail: Iran Can’t be Stopped, only Monitored
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – The conspiracy hatched by Republican Speaker of the House John Boehner and Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to undermine President Obama’s negotiations with Iran over its civilian nuclear weapons program has a false premise that dooms it. Many Republicans, and Netanyahu, believe that Obama is negotiating a bad deal […]
Syria: Daesh/ ISIL takes 150 Christians Captive as 3,000 flee to Hasaka
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Al-Nahar (“The Day,” Beirut) reported that dozens of Assyrian Christians have been abducted by Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) in Hasakah Province, northeast Syria. Reuters later put the number at 150. The abduction occurred after heavy fighting by Kurdish YPG commandos that included allied Christian fighters versus Daesh attackers in […]
Renewable Energy skyrocketing, From Solar Mosques to Wave-Powered Naval Bases
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Here are some of the green energy good news stories of the past few weeks: 1. China put in a massive 21 gigawatts of new wind power in 2014, half of all the wind power installed in the entire world that year and four times as much as […]
In New Gilded Age, Social Protest dominates Academy Awards Ceremony
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – If social and economic inequality were a mine, and if America were deep in this mine with a canary in tow, the canary would long since have expired. Some 400 billionaires have more wealth than the bottom half of Americans. We lived through a year of dramatic incidents […]
Yemen: Saudi backs Sunni revolution against Shiite Houthi Rebels linked to Iran
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Yemen Voice reports that Wahhabi Saudi Arabia has launched an all out political offensive against the Shiite Houthi rebels who have taken over the north of the country. The Houthis took the capital last September but kept the government in place until recently, when they made a full […]
Top 5 Reasons Palestinian-Israelis Could shape the Israeli Election
By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Israel, despite the attempts of current Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu to cast it as a monochrome “Jewish state,” has a divided and complicated population. Some 21 percent or 1.7 million of the 8 million Israelis are of Palestinian heritage, the majority of those being Muslim. About 300,000 Israelis […]
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