Featured

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says that 2023 is on track to be the hottest year ever recorded, i.e. in the past 174 years. In fact, it likely is hotter than at any time in 125,000 years. Ocean-surface temperatures were also at all time highs throughout the year. Although […]

Featured

Total War: Israeli Gov’t has Killed 4,037 students and 209 Teachers in Gaza, Demolished 92 Schools and Universities

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Gaza Ministry of Education, which is staffed by professionals rather than party cadres, said on Wednesday that “According to the Ministry of Education, between 7 October and 26 December, more than 4,037 students and 209 educational staff were killed, and more than 7,259 students and 619 teachers were injured […]

Drones

Will US get Drawn in? Houthis Support Gaza by Loosing 17 Drones on Red Sea Traffic, Hit Container Ship

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Houthi movement that rules northern Yemen announced Tuesday that it had again targeted a commercial vessel, the MSC United VIII, with a drone in the Red Sea. Sarea said that the vessel had refused to answer warnings by the Houthi navy three times. MSC Mediterranean said, according to Aljazeera, […]

Featured

Netanyahu Advocates Ethnically Cleansing Palestinians of Gaza: Believe him the First Time

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The extremist, fascist government of Binyamin Netanyahu continues to press its monstrous, illegal and most of all completely implausible plan to push the 2.2 million Palestinians of Gaza out of the Strip into Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula or into other Arab countries. Netanyahu also pledged to continue the high-intensity campaign against […]

Christianity

Pope and Pastor: “Prince of Peace rejected by the futile Logic of War;” “Christ in the Rubble”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – My mother was a Lutheran and the Coles were Catholics, though my grandfather fell away when he married a woman from the Brethren peace church. So it was striking to me that on this Christmas a Lutheran pastor in Bethlehem, Munther Isaac, and Pope Francis both made headlines with their […]

Christianity

A Merry Muslim Christmas from India’s Hyderabad, c. 1630: Jesus, the Dutch, and Diamonds

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The nativity of the Christ child is not solely an occasion of Christian spirituality, but has been celebrated through the ages by Muslim writers and painters, as well. As I have pointed out, the story of the Annunciation and the birth of Jesus is told in the Qur’an: Verses 19:17-35: […]

Featured

Israelis have killed the same Percentage of Gazans in 11 Weeks as Allies did Italians in all of WW II

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The UN reports figures from the Gaza Ministry of Health as of Friday: “between 7 October and 7:00 on 22 December, at least 20,057 Palestinians were killed in Gaza. About 70 per cent of those killed are said to be women and children. As of then, 53,320 Palestinians have been […]

Anti-War Movement

Just Say No: Biden Must Create Peace out of the Gaza Crisis and Rein in the Israeli Right

Lior Sternfeld

Take a Leaf from the Book of George H. W. Bush

Featured

If you Prick us, do We not Bleed? – Shakespeare in Gaza

Mark Karlin

(Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Is there a scale that can measure the value of 7,000 dead Palestinian children vs. 1200 dead Israelis? What is to be measured, the weight of their souls? Can such a scale ascribe the worth of one group of the dead as being of greater value than the other […]