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“I and the public know/ What all schoolchildren learn/ Those to whom evil is done/ do evil in return.” — W. H. Auden | Orono, Maine (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – There were elements in Ireland whose anger against Britain overwhelmed any other sentiment. Three hundred years of settler colonialism, dispossession and denigration of […]

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Israel’s Colonial Revenge Genocide in Gaza is only the latest in a Long History of such Massacres

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – I find peculiar the conviction of so many politicians in Europe and North America, not to mention Israel itself, that the Hamas attacks of October 7 and after justify the casual murder of thousands of Palestinian noncombatants in Gaza by the Israeli armed forces, including through aerial bombardment on densely […]

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Israel in Palestinian Gaza: Revenge is more satisfying than Peace

Richard Forer

(Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Over the years, the United States has endowed Israel with more than $150 billion in assistance, making it possible for the Jewish state to maintain its occupation, its ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people of the land, its unremitting seizure of territory, and its settlement project, the latter of […]

Climate Crisis

We can still avoid “Catastrophic Inundation” if we Slash Carbon Pollution – Michael E. Mann’s “Our Fragile Moment”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Informed Comment is pleased to present below an interview with climate scientist Michael E. Mann, Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth & Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania. He is one of my heroes. As a young scholar, he co-authored a key paper in which he and his colleagues presented […]

Climate Crisis

Getting Mad and Getting Even: Is California’s Climate Lawsuit against Big Oil a Gamechanger?

Juan Cole

Reprinted from Tomdispatch.com : See the original site for Tom Engelhardt’s crucial introduction. ( Tomdispatch.com ) – The depths of depravity into which unvarnished capitalism can plunge mortal souls is incalculable. It should come as no surprise then that oil company executives and the officials of petrostates like Saudi Arabia have so assiduously lied to […]

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Can Hamas Survive the Stupidity of its ISIL-Style Tactics in its Drive against the Grey Zone?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Hamas leaders have said they were driven to their attack on Israel this weekend by two major considerations, the danger posed by right wing religious Zionism to the al-Aqsa mosque complex, the third holiest shrine for 1.8 billion Muslims, and a wave of Israeli squatter attacks on Palestinian hamlets in […]

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Tribalism versus International Law in the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict

Juan Cole

William Roper: “So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!” Sir Thomas More: “Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?” William Roper: “Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!” Sir Thomas More: “Oh? And when the last law was […]

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New Gaza Conflict shows that “Abraham Accords” can’t bring Peace as Long as Israelis keep Palestinians Occupied and Stateless

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The conflict that broke out on October 7, 2023, between Palestinian militants and Israel underlined once again that the status quo, with Israel occupying 5 million stateless Palestinians, is unsustainable. In the midst of the 2012 presidential campaign, Republican standard-bearer Mitt Romney was recorded giving a fundraising speech in which […]

Death Penalty

US celebrates Nobel for Iran’s Narges Mohammadi, but We have Executions, Torture and Prisoner Abuse Too

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize this year to Iranian feminist and human rights worker Narges Mohammadi, 51. It was the second time that an Iranian woman had won, the first having been attorney Shirin Ebadi in 2003. Mohammadi, although trained as a physicist, worked as a journalist […]