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San Marco, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – In early February 2023 a 22-year-old Iraqi YouTube star, Tiba Al-Ali was strangled by her father in an “honor killing,” part of the quotidian violence the nation has endured over the last two decades. In November 2023 Giulia Cecchettin, a 22-year-old engineering student from the Venice region […]

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Tempest in a Teapot: British Illusions and American Hegemony from Iraq to Yemen

Marc Martorell Junyent

Review of Tom Stevenson, Someone Else’s Empire: British Illusions and American Hegemony.. London: Verso, 2023. Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Everything is going well in the “Special Relationship” between the US and the UK. After an American chemist dared to suggest that adding salt to the quintessential British cup of tea could represent an […]

Donald Trump

Trump, Like Biden, supports Israeli Campaign against Gaza: “You’ve got to finish the Problem”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Trump telephoned in to “Fox and Friends” on Tuesday, breaking his long silence on Israel’s campaign against Gaza. So reports Sanjana Karanth at HuffPost. One host, Brian Kilmeade, asked Trump, “Are you on board with the way the IDF is taking the fight to Gaza — in Gaza?” Trump replied, […]

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As Palestinian Children Die of Hunger, US blows ineffectual Kisses with Air Drop

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The known deaths from starvation of Palestinian children in Gaza hospitals rose to 16 on Monday. This is a fraction of the actual such deaths, since Israel has put most of the Strip’s hospitals out of commission and many infants and children are dying of malnutrition at home. In February, […]

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Is Tehran Winning the Middle East? How the Gaza Conflict Made Democracy’s Name Mud for Millions

Juan Cole

Here is my latest column for Tomdispatch.com. Do check out Tom Engelhardt’s important introduction over there at the original site. ( Tomdispatch.com ) – In the midst of Israel’s ongoing devastation of Gaza, one major piece of Middle Eastern news has yet to hit the headlines. In a face-off that, in a sense, has lasted […]

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War, Trauma, and Forgetting

Hugh J. Curran

Orono, Maine (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Our memories are often suppressed by trauma, a word derived from “Traumatiko”, a wound or mental shock. Examples of traumatic events are people being compelled to leave their homes due to war, disease, drought, famine or similar events. Recent sociological studies on the after-effects of war reveal […]

Dissent

Aaron Bushnell Sacrificed himself to Stop Gaza Genocide: “I won’t be Complicit”

Azam Saeed

Connecticut (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Despondence, mixed with commitment, courage, and action, can be a starter for epochal change. Aaron Bushnell set himself afire on Sunday, a telling decision by a serving USAF airman, saying that he refused to be complicit in the Gaza genocide. His martyrdom could well make such a contribution […]

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Black Thursday: Israel’s Great Flour Massacre in Gaza kills over 100 Civilians, wounds Hundreds

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports on the Great Flour Massacre committed by the Israeli army on Black Thursday, February 29, 2024 in the south of Occupied Gaza City at Dawar al-Nabulsi, Rasheed Street. OCHA says that the Gaza Ministry of Health “reported that 104 Palestinians […]

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Half a Million People in Gaza face Starvation, as 1 in 6 Children are Wasting Away

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reports that Israel only allowed half as many aid trucks into Gaza in February as had been in January. The Gaza Ministry of Health said that two infants died on Tuesday at the Kamal Adwan hospital in northern Gaza of dehydration […]