Arab World

On a fateful day in February 2022, Ibrahim al-Marashi found himself praying in two religions for two Marias. In a world where narcissism and conflict cause immeasurable hurt, humanity can triumph over division, he writes. “On 24 February 2022, while travelling to Lebanon to visit his great-aunt Maria in Lebanon, Ibrahim al-Marashi’s thoughts were with […]

Counter-Terrorism

Bombing Muslims for Peace: Isn’t It Time to Put Our Toy Soldiers Away (Along with Our Illusions)?

William J. Astore

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Like many American boys of the baby-boomer generation, I played “war” with those old, olive-drab, plastic toy soldiers meant to evoke our great victory over the Nazis and “the Japs” during World War II. At age 10, I also kept a scrapbook of the 1973 Yom Kippur War between Israel and […]

Egypt

Egypt Threatens Netanyahu with End of Camp David Peace Accords if he Invades Rafah

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – It is being widely reported based on press leaks that the Egyptian government of President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi has privately threatened Israel. Cairo is said to have warned that the 1978 Camp David Peace Treaty will be suspended “with immediate effect” if the government of Binyamin Netanyahu tries to take […]

Arab Spring

Why, Despite the Arab Spring and Mass Protests of the 2010s, People Got the Opposite of What they Wanted

Marc Martorell Junyent

Review of Vincent Bevins, If We Burn: The Mass Protest Decade and the Missing Revolution (New York: PublicAffairs, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – At the end of 2019, there was no shortage of articles looking retrospectively at the events that had shaped the decade of the 2010s. One of them was aptly titled “A […]

Iraq

Washington Chooses Genocide over Diplomacy in the Middle East

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink ) – On February 7, 2024, a U.S. drone strike assassinated an Iraqi militia leader, Abu Baqir al-Saadi, in the heart of Baghdad. This was a further U.S. escalation in a major new front in the U.S.-Israeli war on the Middle East, centered on the Israeli genocide in Gaza, but already also […]

Featured

Saudis Contradict Blinken: Want Actual Palestinian State now, not Vague ‘Peace Process’

Farhang Jahanpour

Oxford (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – On Tuesday afternoon (6 February 2024), U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took part in a joint press conference with Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha. The press conference was mainly about the war in Gaza and the possibility […]

Featured

New York Times’ Friedman hits new Low with Animalization of Arabs and Iranians

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Calling people animals is a way to dehumanize them, and probably helps convince individuals that the other people around them approve of treating the animals badly. In ways that aren’t entirely clear, this way of speaking is certainly wrought up with violence and even genocide. Israel’s Defense Minister called the […]

Arab World

The State of the Middle East Today – Juan Cole

Juan Cole

Mohammad A. Khalil interviews Juan Cole on the situation in today’s Middle East. MSU Muslim Studies Program: “The Middle East Today: A Conversation with Professor Juan Cole” (Recorded on 1/31/2024)”

Featured

Top 3 Things Biden could Do instead of intensively Bombing Iraq and Syria

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Biden administration launched 85 air strikes on Friday against small bases of the Party of God Brigades (Kata’ib Hizbullah), an Iraqi Shiite militia active in Iraq and Syria. The organization is likely the culprit in Sunday’s drone strike against the Tower 22 US base in the far north of […]