Featured

On October 7, 2023 – two years ago – the Hamas-led offensive was portrayed as “Israel’s 9/11” that came out of the blue. This assumption is not supported by the facts. The attack was avoidable. New York (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – After the Hamas-led assault, the Netanyahu cabinet and other high-level Israeli political, […]

Featured

The Mortal Sins of Patriarchy

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – How much are women and girls–half of humanity–valued? When men violate us for sex in prostitution. When nearly 1 in 3 of us worldwide are violated physically or sexually in our lifetime. When, despite having equal intellectual abilities and more developed social and emotional intelligence, we lack […]

Featured

It Doesn’t Have to Hurt: Sanjay Gupta on the New Neurobiology of Pain

Richard Penaskovic

BY Richard Penaskovic | – Review of Sanjay Gupta, It Doesn’t Have to Hurt:Your Smart Guide to a Pain-free Life. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2025), $30.00. Dr. Sanjay Gupta, associate professor of neurosurgery at The Emory Hospital of Medicine, is the best-selling author of four books. He explains that in the past ten years […]

Arab World

Why the Saudi-Pakistan Bilateral Defense Pact is unlikely to Revive Muslim Unity

Abdullah al-Ahsan

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – When Israel launched an attack on Doha in September 2025, Arab and Muslim leaders convened an emergency summit. They condemned Israel’s “blatant violation of international law” and praised Qatar’s restraint. However, the joint statement, like so many before it, contained no concrete measures. CNN called it a “wordy […]

Authoritarianism

As the Military Occupies your Town, Give them Flowers and a Note

Arnold Oliver

Tiffin, Ohio (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – During some of the large anti-war demonstrations during the 1960’s some of the protesters gave flowers to the troops faced off against them. In the 1967 March on the Pentagon it was the 503rd Military Police Battalion, and elsewhere the National Guard was deployed. An iconic photo from 1967 […]

Donald Trump

The Gulf Cooperation Council, NATO, and the Collapse of Collective Security

Ibrahim Al-Marashi

San Marcos, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Within the span of 24 hours in early September, Russia deployed drones into Polish airspace, and Israel launched an aerial attack in Doha, Qatar. Although few commentaries were made connecting the two events, both states deployed airpower to regional collective security organizations, specifically the Gulf Cooperation […]

Featured

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Abuse of History for Politics

Yoram Meital

Beersheba (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – After his address to an almost empty hall at the UN, Benjamin Netanyahu found a warmer reception at a Shabbat gathering in the Israeli Consulate in New York. There, the Prime Minister chose to “reveal” what he presented as a forgotten historical truth. “The Arabs expelled us from […]

Climate Crisis

Lebanon’s Solar Capacity surged since 2020 to 1.5 gigawatts, as Homeowners tired of Blackouts

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Lebanese Ministry of Energy has let three bids for new solar farms of 15 megawatts each, for a total of 45 MW, which will power 22,000 homes in the perennially electricity-poor country. The bad news is that 11 such bids were accepted in 2022 and nothing ever got done. […]

Donald Trump

Do UN “Snapback” Sanctions really Matter to the Iranian Economy and its Nuclear Program?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The E3 — France, Britain and Germany — successfully led a bid at the UN Security Council Friday to reimpose UNSC economic sanctions on Iran, which had been in place 2007-2015 but were lifted because of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal. That deal is now dead as a door nail. […]