Featured

Here is my essay for this week’s Tomdispatch.com . Check out the great Tom Engelhardt’s introduction at that site, where he reminds us of the eerie similarity of today’s Washington strategy toward the Middle East, of intensive bombardment, to that of Nixon-Kissinger in Southeast Asia. For people of my generation, it raises the sad question […]

Featured

The Sumud Aid Flotilla did more than Trump to Achieve Gaza’s Fragile Peace

Mohammad Eslami and Ibrahim Al-Marashi

Braga, Portugal and San Marcos, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – US President Trump arrived in Israel on Monday as the first hostages were released by Hamas, ostensibly to take credit for brokering the ceasefire, still hurt from the fact that he was not nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the Sumud Flotilla […]

Featured

Rashid Khalidi on the Gaza Ceasefire: The veil that has hidden the true nature of the Zionist project was shredded for good

Fariba Amini

Fariba Amini interviews Rashid Khalid, Edward Said Professor of History Emeritus, Columbia University on the Gaza Ceasefire

Democracy

Syria’s Parliamentary Election Results look Alarmingly like Iraq 2005, which produced a Civil War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Syria’s parliamentary elections on October 5 raised alarm flags for me on several grounds. First, they were not conducted on the basis of a direct vote. Sixty “constituencies” were established to elect 121 members of the People’s Assembly of Syria (only 119 were actually elected). Another 70 members will be […]

Climate Crisis

Wind and Solar Provide 40% of Brazil’s Electricity for first time

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – This month Brazil’s National Electric System Operator estimated that wind and solar are now producing nearly 40 percent of the country’s electricity. It was just in August of this year that the country’s wind and solar installations hit the milestone of generating over a third of the country’s electricity (some […]

Featured

Israeli Government Votes to Implement Trump Peace Plan for Gaza as Hamas Pledges to Uphold it

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – According to the Israeli newspaper Arab 48 , the Israeli government on Friday approved the ceasefire in Gaza and the hostage exchange, and agreed to begin withdrawing troops from the west of the Strip. The approval came after the arrival of President Donald Trump’s Middle East envoys Steve Witkoff and […]

Featured

As Ceasefire Looms, Gaza’s Children are Still Starving

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Trump peace plan has resulted in an agreement between Hamas and Israel to pause fighting and exchange prisoners. Other points in the plan, including an Israeli troop withdrawal and the laying down of arms by Hamas, appear still to be being negotiated, which is to say that we are […]

Climate Crisis

For First time in History, Renewables Overtook Coal in Global Electricity Production in H1

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Ember energy analysis firm has released its global electricity report for the first half of 2025, and it contains two big surprises. The first is that sustainable sources of energy have now overtaken coal for the first time since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. The second is that […]

Featured

No, Despite Hegseth, we Don’t need an even “More Lethal” NATO

Anne-Ruth Wertheim

By Pieter Smit and Anne-Ruth Wertheim | – Translated by Kevin Cook | – ( BNNVARA.NL ) – After Secretary-General Mark Rutte said in his concluding address at the NATO summit in The Hague on 24 and 25 June that NATO should become more lethal, there have been very few concerned responses in the Dutch […]