War Crimes

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The vote in the Canadian parliament this week to halt new arms exports to Israel is of great symbolic importance in ways that may not be apparent on the surface. The measure called for no new arms and military technology transfers to Israel, for support for the International Court of […]

Displaced and Refugees

UN and EU slam Israel: Imposing on Palestinians ‘Levels of Food Insecurity never Recorded anywhere in the World’

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The European Union’s Vice-President of the European Commission, Josep Borell and the European Commissioner for Crisis management Janez Lenarčič, issued a statement on Monday on the findings of a UN-backed report that found that Israel’s total war on Gaza has put the remaining Palestinian population in imminent risk of starving […]

Displaced and Refugees

S. Africa Will Arrest Dual Nationals Fighting in Gaza, Demands Halt to Starvation of Palestinians

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – South Africa’s Townpress reports that Naledi Pandor, the country’s foreign minister, pledged this week to arrest any South African/ Israeli dual citizen who fought in Gaza. She said at a pro-Palestinian gathering in Pretoria attended by a number of officials from the ruling African National Congress, “I have already issued […]

Featured

Biden owes an Apology to the Volunteers of the Mavi Marmara, the First Aid Flotilla to Gaza

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Biden owes an apology to fellow American Furkan Doğan, whom Israeli commandos murdered on May 31, 2010, as he videoed their illegal attack in international waters on the aid ship Mavi Marmara. At the time, Biden justified the massacre. Doğan and other volunteers were trying to bring food and […]

Food Insecurity

Joe Biden’s Gaza Aid Pier isn’t Enough: 6 More Things that Must be Done

The Conversation

By Sarah Schiffling, Hanken School of Economics and Foteini Stavropoulou, Liverpool John Moores University | – (The Conversation) – In his State of the Union address, Joe Biden announced an idea to alleviate the desperate humanitarian situation in Gaza. The American president said he is “directing the US military to lead an emergency mission to […]

Displaced and Refugees

UN-Appointed Human Rights Experts Demand Halt of Arms Shipments to Israel for Violations of Laws of War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – More than thirty independent experts appointed by the Office of the High Commission on Human Rights of the United Nations said Friday that arms exports to Israel must cease immediately, given Israeli violations of the international laws of war and the government’s announced intention to invade Rafah in south Gaza, […]

Displaced and Refugees

UN Human Rights Experts Blast Israel over “credible” Reports of Rape, Sexual Abuse, Arbitrary Imprisonment of Palestinian Women

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli Newspaper Arab 48 reports that United Nations officials have expressed the utmost anxiety about information that has reached them concerning “rape and threats of sexual assault” by Israeli forces during their arbitrary imprisonment of Palestinian women and girls. International rights experts called for an independent investigation into Israeli […]

Apartheid

Brazil’s Lula compares Netanyahu to Hitler: How Fascist is Israel’s War on Palestinians?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stirred controversy when he said, “What is happening in the Gaza Strip and with the Palestinian people did not exist at any other historical moment. Or rather, it did: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.” He continued, “It is not a war […]

Displaced and Refugees

Gaza: Israeli Siege, Palestinian Starvation, and the pre-War Policies that made them Vulnerable

The Conversation

By Yara M. Asi, University of Central Florida | – The stories of hunger emerging from war-ravaged Gaza are stark: People resorting to grinding barely edible cattle feed to make flour; desperate residents eating grass; reports of cats being hunted for food. The numbers involved are just as despairing. The world’s major authority on food […]