Featured

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Nadeem Badshah at The Guardian reports that British Prime Minister Keir Starmer is expected to recognize a Palestinian state today, Sunday. Spain, Norway and Ireland took this step in May 2024 when Israel disregarded the International Court of Justice’s preliminary injunction against continuing actions in Gaza that were plausibly genocidal, […]

Featured

Turkiye hosts Largest Solar Power Plant of any European Country, as its Solar Installations Surge to 3.1 GW in H1

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Turkiye [Turkey] is a European country, since part of its territory lies in Europe. So the following sentence is true: Turkiye hosts the largest solar power plant in any European country. The plant, however, is not situated in Turkiye’s European provinces but in the Karapinar Desert, about sixty miles east […]

Donald Trump

Riyadh-Islamabad “Islamic NATO” to Check Israel in Shadow of US Decline

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a dramatic signal that the Arab Gulf nations have completely lost faith in the American security umbrella, on Wednesday September 17, Saudi Arabia signed a mutual defense pact with Pakistan. Mirroring the language of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization charter, they announced that an attack on […]

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Smotrich’s Apocalyptic “Decisive Plan” for Gaza

Dan Steinbock

Bezazel Smotrich is one of political leaders of Israel’s Messianic far-right. But he is also a shrewd administrator executing a biblical “decisive plan” of ethnic cleansing in Gaza, which he is incorporating into Israel. New York (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Notorious as an extremist both in Israel and overseas, yet beloved as a […]

Featured

Assassinating Peace: How Bernadotte’s Murder Ended the Israel-Palestine Two-State Dream

Abdullah al-Ahsan

Chicago (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The UN General Assembly has just (September 12) endorsed the New York Declaration on the two-state solution between Israel and Palestine. A day earlier, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu vowed that a “Palestinian state will not be established.” Israel managed to secure 10 votes, including those of the United […]

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France and the UN ride to Save the 2-State Solution, but Netanyahu Buried it in Gaza’s Mass Graves

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – French President Macron is taking the lead in a doomed bid to keep a two-state solution alive. On September 12, the UN General Assembly passed the “New York Declaration” by a vote of 142 for, 10 against, with 12 abstentions. Sponsored by France and Saudi Arabia, it […]

Featured

Israel’s Netanyahu starves 1 in 5 Gaza Children

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) reports that 19 of every 100 Palestinian children in Gaza are malnourished. That is up from 15 in July. Even more worrying, UNICEF found an increase in cases of acute malnutrition. In July 8.5% of children examined manifested symptoms of the condition. In August, […]

Archaeology

Scientists Prove Justinian’s Plague, which Continued through the Rise of Islam, was Caused by Y. Pestis

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The first recorded world-historical pandemic took place in the Roman Empire and Sasanian Iran, as well as neighboring areas such as Arabia, 541- 750 CE. It began during the reign of Justinian (r.527 – 565) and continued during the rise of Islam and the fall of the Sasanian Empire in […]

China

Iran Seeks China’s help to Install 7 gigs of new Solar Capacity in “4th Industrial Revolution”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – With the prospect of new Iranian nuclear power plants looking dim after Israeli and American bombing of its civilian nuclear enrichment sites, and with a need to export its fossil gas rather than consuming it domestically, the Tehran leadership is at last turning to renewables for electricity generation. President Masoud […]