I’m reprinting here my most recent Tomdispatch essay for The Nation Institute, on the possible emergence of a centrist Sunni bloc that aims to offset Israeli power in the region. Check out, as well, Tom Engelhardt’s essential introduction, here. At least one thing is now obvious in the Middle East: the Biden administration has failed […]
Month
Category
- Africa (253)
- Asia (1,253)
- Australasia (35)
- Authoritarianism (390)
- Canada (8)
- Culture (564)
- Economy (1,067)
- Agriculture (3)
- Banking (67)
- Boycotts (1)
- Carbon Footprint (6)
- Corporations (54)
- Cryptocurrency (2)
- Debt (21)
- Degrowth (1)
- Democratic Socialism (20)
- Demographic Decline (1)
- Development (26)
- Downward Mobility (1)
- Employment (118)
- Food Insecurity (21)
- Homelessness (16)
- Industry (5)
- Inequality (426)
- Inflation (5)
- infrastructure (10)
- Insurance (1)
- Investment (93)
- Market Crash (12)
- Middle Class (61)
- Monopolies (8)
- Neoliberalism (204)
- Plutocracy (631)
- Poverty (208)
- Poverty (15)
- Regulation (3)
- Retirement (1)
- Sanctions (4)
- Tariffs (3)
- Taxes (37)
- Technology (3)
- Trade (117)
- Weapons sales (7)
- Education (186)
- Energy (1,752)
- Batteries (52)
- Coal (140)
- Electricity Cost (2)
- Fossil Fuels (329)
- Fracking (50)
- Geothermal (7)
- Green ammonia (5)
- Green Energy (422)
- Green Hydrogen (8)
- Heat Pumps (6)
- Hydroelectric (1)
- Hydroelectric (15)
- Mining (1)
- Natural Gas (107)
- Nuclear Energy (159)
- Petroleum (302)
- Power Grid (12)
- Pumped Hydro (6)
- Solar Energy (421)
- Tar Sands (13)
- Wave Energy (9)
- wind energy (346)
- Environment (2,716)
- Climate Change (1,663)
- Acidification of Oceans (54)
- Agriculture (26)
- Biodiversity (13)
- Climate Refugees (4)
- CO2 (128)
- Dehydration (5)
- Denialism (149)
- Desalinization (4)
- Desertification (160)
- Divestment (2)
- Dust Storms (6)
- Environmental Investment (1)
- Extreme Heat (396)
- Extreme Weather (298)
- Flooding (138)
- Food Supply (3)
- Forests (18)
- Green New Deal (41)
- Green Recycling (2)
- Greenwashing (3)
- Mass Extinction (62)
- Methane (20)
- Net Carbon Zerio (8)
- Nitrous Oxide (2)
- Rainforests (19)
- Rivers (12)
- Sea Level (338)
- Soil Carbon Release (14)
- Super Storms (265)
- wildfires (240)
- Wood Buildings (1)
- Climate Crisis (1,349)
- Drought (295)
- Ecology (1)
- Ecology (10)
- Environmentalism (393)
- Green Transportation (256)
- Ice Melt (139)
- Invasive Species (2)
- Islands (1)
- Oceans (103)
- Oil Spills (8)
- Pollution (234)
- Water (96)
- wildlife (21)
- Climate Change (1,663)
- Europe (1,386)
- Featured (4,239)
- Haiti (1)
- Health (708)
- History (363)
- Human Rights (1,626)
- Apartheid (263)
- censorship (320)
- Death Penalty (30)
- Disappeared (4)
- Displaced and Refugees (581)
- Food Insecurity (30)
- Gay rights (29)
- Genocide (63)
- Human Rights Watch (90)
- Indigenous Rights (1)
- Migrants (4)
- privacy (21)
- Rights (90)
- Slavery and Trafficking (16)
- Starvation (4)
- Torture (102)
- Trans Rights (3)
- Transgender Rights (4)
- Unlawful Imprisonment (109)
- Unlwful Killing (80)
- War Crimes (421)
- War Rape (9)
- International Politics and Economy (2,124)
- Arms Sales (73)
- BRICS (3)
- Corruption (268)
- Crime (132)
- Democracy (336)
- Dissent (447)
- Domestic Terrorism (15)
- Drones (113)
- G20 (1)
- Guns (9)
- Hacking (8)
- Immigration (21)
- Immigration (4)
- Islamophobia (383)
- Migrants (2)
- military (125)
- nationalism (117)
- NATO (37)
- Neocolonialism (1)
- Peace (144)
- Policing (2)
- Politics (309)
- Politics&Culture (21)
- Propaganda (13)
- Smuggling (1)
- Juan Cole (270)
- Latin America (102)
- media (485)
- Middle East (10,001)
- Arab World (5,301)
- Iran (1,351)
- Israel (954)
- Israel/ Palestine (3,641)
- Israel/Palestine (9)
- Kurds (294)
- Red Sea (1)
- Turkey (601)
- Turkiye (128)
- Patriarchy (10)
- racism (472)
- religion (1,515)
- robots (3)
- Romance (1)
- science (174)
- Secular (West) (9)
- Secularism (30)
- Spirituality (22)
- Statelessness (15)
- Stranded Assets (1)
- Surveillance (280)
- Terrorism (1,096)
- Tolerance (6)
- Uncategorized (8,082)
- United Nations (177)
- Urbanization (4)
- US Foreign Policy (1,374)
- US politics (5,473)
- Anti-War Movement (13)
- Campaign Finance (31)
- Censors (22)
- Central Intelligence Agency (63)
- Charity (1)
- Civil Rights (96)
- Congress (80)
- Conspiracy Theories (23)
- Constitution (406)
- Courts (15)
- crime (12)
- Democratic Party (975)
- Democratic Socialists of America (22)
- Domestic Terrorism (20)
- Drone Warfare (27)
- Espionage (124)
- Ethnicities (393)
- Far Right (398)
- FBI (48)
- Federal Government (1)
- Foreign Policy (204)
- Gay Rights (17)
- Guns (97)
- Immigration (249)
- Israel Lobbies (130)
- Marijuana (4)
- Militarization (274)
- National Security State (477)
- Native Americans (40)
- Nuclear arsenal (7)
- penitentiaries (6)
- Pentagon (575)
- Police (43)
- prison reform (9)
- Private Prisons (2)
- Progressive Politics (13)
- Puerto Rico (30)
- Religious Right (15)
- Reproductive Choice (68)
- Republican Party (3,079)
- Supreme Court (133)
- Voter suppression (36)
- Whistleblowers (7)
- Xenophobia (9)
- Veterans (35)
- Voting Rights (16)
- War (618)
- White Supremacists (237)
- wikileaks (8)
- women (568)
- workers (234)
- Writing (5)
- Youth (216)
Featured
25% of 95K Injuries inflicted by Israel in Gaza are “Life-Changing;” Require Medical Care that Israelis Destroyed
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Monday, Israeli bombardments killed 38 people in Gaza. Based on past experience, we can expect a majority of those killed to have been women and children — at least 21 and maybe more. Photographs and video coming out of Gaza show dead children being carried in burial shrouds. For […]
Trump-Vance are doing to Haitians what the Israeli Right has done to Palestinians — Demonize a Whole People
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The vile and disgusting tactic of J.D. Vance and Don Trump of spreading false, racist charges against Haitians of eating the pets of suburbanites is nothing unexpected. The MAGA wing of the Republican Party thrives on finding poor, weak victims and demonizing them. First they manufacture an imaginary threat, then […]
International Pressure on Israel averted Widespread Gaza Famine this Summer, but the Danger is Back: RI
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Refugees International has issued a new report about hunger in Gaza. The authors say, “Contrary to the official Israeli pushback, research and analysis by Refugees International has corroborated evidence of a severe hunger crisis in Gaza and found consistent indications that famine-like conditions occurred in northern areas during the first […]
Eugene Rogan’s The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Making of the Modern Middle East
Review of Eugene Rogan, “The Damascus Events: The 1860 Massacre and the Making of the Modern Middle East” (New York: Basic Books, 2024). Munich, Germany (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) –– How did Ottoman Damascus descend into violence and looting in July 1860? Why did the Damascene masses fall upon the Christians, leaving around 5,000 […]
Woman, Life, Freedom: Rachel, Shireen, Mahsa and Ayşenur
Newark, Del. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – A few days before the invasion of Iraq by American forces under G.W. Bush, on March 16, 2003, a young woman from Seattle, Washington, who had gone to Rafah, in Gaza to help Palestinians halt the demolition of homes died under the bulldozer of the Israeli army. […]
Harris-Trump was the Worst Smack Down of a Republican Presidential Candidate since Kennedy-Nixon
Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Vice-President Kamala Harris held Donald Trump accountable for his record as president, and his promises (actually threats) about what another Trump presidency would bring. It was probably the most devastating debate defeat for a Republican presidential candidate since Richard Nixon, dogged by a five o’clock shadow and […]
The Morass of U.S. Middle East Policy was visible in the Harris-Trump Debate
ABC provided a transcript of the debate between Donald Trump and Kamala Harris. I have some thoughts on the Middle East dimension: On Gaza, Harris said, “Well, let’s understand how we got here. On Oct. 7, Hamas, a terrorist organization, slaughtered 1,200 Israelis. Many of them young people who were simply attending a concert. Women […]
“Entire Families Vanished:” Israeli Air Force Burns up 20 Refugee Tents, kills 40, in Strikes on Humanitarian Zone
Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al Jazeera Arabic reports that the Israeli occupation army committed yet another massacre on Monday evening, targeting a tent encampment of internally displaced refugees in the al-Mawasi area of the district of Khan Yunus in the south of the Gaza Strip. Civil defense said that 40 persons were killed, and […]
© 2025 All Rights Reserved