Critical Review of Ilan Evyatar, Yonah Jeremy Bob and Jonathan Davis, Target Tehran: How Israel Is Using Sabotage, Cyberwarfare, Assassination – and Secret Diplomacy – to Stop a Nuclear Iran and Create a New Middle East. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2023. Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The book starts with a heist […]
Britain: Its Empire and Corporations, and Their Current Traces
Review of Philip J. Stern, Empire, Incorporated: The Corporations That Built British Colonialism. Cambridge (MA): Harvard University Press, 2023. Munich (Special to Informed Comment) – After the death of British monarch Elizabeth II in September 2022, then president of Kenya Uhuru Kenyatta ordered 4 days of national mourning. The president’s decision was not well-received among […]
A Divided European Union can’t Even Agree on need for Ceasefire in Israeli Campaign against Gaza
Munich (Special to Informed Comment) – The European Union’s initial response to the current Israel-Hamas war has been chaotic. Shortly after the Hamas terrorist attack in Israel – which left at least 1,400 Israelis dead – Olivér Várhelyi, the European Commissioner for Neighbourhood and Enlargement, announced the suspension of “all payments” by the European Commission […]
Memoirs of an Arab-Jew
Review of Avi Shlaim, Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew (London: Oneworld, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Avi Shlaim is an Israeli-British scholar who has authored six books on the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the role played in it by the Kingdom of Jordan. His work has earned him a […]
“Friends of Israel:” Trying to outlaw Solidarity with Palestine
Review of Hil Aked, Friends of Israel: The Backlash against Palestine Solidarity (London: Verso, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Amid Israel’s assault on the Jenin refugee camp in the West Bank in early July, the House of the Commons passed a bill with significant implications for the United Kingdom’s relations with Israel/Palestine. […]
How Lebanon was shaped by its Great Famine in WW I
Brand, Tylor. Famine Worlds: Life at the Edge of Suffering in Lebanon’s Great War. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023. Review of Tylor Brand, Famine Worlds: Life at the Edge of Suffering in Lebanon’s Great War (Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment) – Suez, Gallipoli, Kut al-Amara, and Jerusalem saw […]
The Existential Crisis of the Muslim Brotherhood
Review of Abdelrahman Ayyash, Amr ElAfifi, and Noha Ezzat, Broken Bonds: The Existential Crisis of Egypt’s Muslim Brotherhood, 2013-22 (Washington, DC: The Century Foundation, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment) – July 3, 2023, marked the tenth anniversary of the military coup that removed Egyptian President Mohamed Morsi from power, paving the way for the […]
A One-State Democracy for Palestine-Israel? A Review Essay
Review of Ghada Karmi, One State: The Only Democratic Future for Palestine-Israel (London: Pluto Press, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment) – Following the inauguration of a far-right government led by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in December 2022, the Israeli occupation machinery in Palestine has been turbocharged. In February 2023, the Israeli government approved the […]
How did Turkish President Erdoğan Survive the Strongest Challenge Yet?
Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Recep Tayyip Erdoğan won the elections in Türkiye. Again. In power for two decades, first as prime minister and then as president, Erdoğan and his Justice and Development Party (AKP) secured a relatively comfortable victory over Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu in the runoff election held on May 28. Kılıçdaroğlu, the […]