International Politics and Economy

By Juan Cole Malala Yousafzai has become the youngest winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in history, sharing it this year with India’s Kailash Satyarthi, a children’s rights activist. Ms. Yousafzai, from Pakistan’s picturesque Swat Valley, was shot in the head by a member of the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP or Pakistani Taliban Movement) two […]

Iran

Is the new US airbase in Iraqi Kurdistan all about Iran?

contributors

By Hiwa Barznjy | Erbil | via Niqash.org NIQASH interviewed Safeen Dizayee, the spokesperson for the government of semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan. During a candid and wide ranging conversation, Dizayee spoke about why the US is building a new airbase in the region, where exactly Iraqi Kurdish oil is going and whether refugees in the region […]

Barack Obama

Is Obama worse than Nixon on Harassing Journalists? Committee to Protect Journalists Petition

contributors

Electronic Frontier Foundation p>A free press has always been an essential part of any democracy. That’s why repressive governments insist on state control over media. That’s why the very first addition to the Constitution, the First Amendment, protects freedom of speech. And that’s why EFF is joining over 60 organizations supporting the Committee to Protect […]

Asia

The Yasukuni Shuffle: China and Japan duke it out via T.V. Serials on the Wrongs of WW II

contributors

By Philip J Cunningham Everyday hundreds, if not thousands of Chinese and Japanese kill one another on Chinese television. Hundreds of Anti-Japan war dramas were churned out last year and the genre dominates China’s airwaves round the clock like never before, even though eight decades have gone by since Japan’s war of invasion. What’s more, […]

Colonialism

Lessons from French Morocco: “Fanaticism Anxiety” about Muslims has been with us since the Colonial Era

Juan Cole

By Edmund Burke III Today we hear a great deal about the question of what went wrong in Middle Eastern societies. For an historian of the early twentieth century world, it’s déjà vu all over again. Similar questions and similar anxieties were being voiced a century ago. Very much like fin de siècle Europeans, we […]

American Jews

Statement by Professors of Jewish Studies in North America Regarding the AMCHA Initiative

contributors

Received by email attachment) Statement by Professors of Jewish Studies in North America Regarding the AMCHA Initiative We the undersigned are professors of Jewish studies at North American universities. Several of us have also headed programs and centers in Jewish studies. Many of us have worked hard to nurture serious, sustained study of Israeli politics […]

Barack Obama

Drone Strikes as much an Obama Legacy as Health Care: John Oliver

contributors

John Oliver “The United States has launched a huge number of drone strikes under President Obama. It’s widely accepted and extremely terrifying” Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Drones (HBO)

Books

Where Books Are Banned, The Internet Can Be a Lifesaver

contributors

By Jillian York via EFF The censorship or banning of books is a phenomenon that occurs in countries around the world. Books that are considered “scandalous” or inciteful in some way are often targets of censorship by governments, schools, libraries and other entities. In the United States, as NPR explains, books have historically been banned […]

Barack Obama

Why Obama underestimated ISIL in Syria and Iraq

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole President Obama admitted on CBS’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday that the US had underestimated the military potential of ISIL. Obama understands that a generational struggle is going on in the Middle East, but some of his comments in the interview seemed to me to show insufficient appreciation for the true nature of […]