Arab World

By Azeezah Kanji | (OpenDemocracy) | – – Israel invokes the privileges of engaging in international armed conflict but denies Palestinians their corresponding entitlements under the same body of law. This is the colonial nature of Israel’s legal logic. One year after the onslaught of violence Israel called “Operation Protective Edge,” Gaza is still in […]

Corruption

Youth Revolts are back– Lebanon, Iraq Shaken by demand for Services, end to Corruption

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – The master narrative of much Western journalism is that the youth protests of 2011 have been replaced by civil war and terrorism. But while there is plenty of both in Syria, Yemen, Iraq and Libya, in fact here and there in the region youth protests have […]

Apartheid

Israel issues demolition order for mosque in Palestinian East Jerusalem

contributors

Ma’an News Agency | – – JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — Israeli municipality officials delivered a demolition order Friday to the al-Qaaqaa Mosque, a house, and a studio apartment in the Silwan neighborhood of occupied East Jerusalem, local sources told Ma’an. Majdi al-Abbasi, from the Wadi Hilweh Information Center in Silwan, said that Israeli municipality members delivered […]

Authoritarianism

How Islamic State is moving its Egyptian battle from Sinai to Cairo

contributors

By Natasha Ezrow | (The Conversation) | – – Islamic State (IS) has claimed responsibility for a powerful car bomb detonated outside a state security building in northern Cairo which injured 29 people, including six policemen. The Egyptian ministry claimed that: “A man suddenly stopped his car in front of the state security building, jumped […]

Bashar al-Assad

Syria: Impose Arms Embargo on Regime Following Deadly Airstrikes

contributors

Human Rights Watch | – – (New York) – The United Nations Security Council should impose an arms embargo on the Syrian government following the government’s repeated air attacks on Douma’s popular markets and residential areas on August 16, 2015. The attacks killed at least 112 people, whom witnesses and first responders described as overwhelmingly […]

Authoritarianism

Crisis in Iraqi Kurdistan: Attacked by ISIL & Turkey; and Now Leaderless

contributors

Honar Hama Rasheed | Erbil | (Niqash.org) | – – As the issue of Iraqi Kurdistan’s vacant presidency heats up, delegations from the US, Turkey and Iran have all visited to have their say. But what do they really want? The current Iraqi Kurdish presidency officially ended yesterday. Massoud Barzani, who heads the Kurdish Democratic […]

Authoritarianism

Huge ISIL Blast at Cairo Security Bldg. Injures 29; Sisi Security Claims in Tatters

contributors

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – An enormous explosion damaged a building housing secret police in a northern district of Cairo (Shubra al-Khayma) on Thursday early morning, wounding nearly 30 persons, including 6 police personnel, who were transferred to hospital for treatment. Two different branches of Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) claimed responsibility, the […]

BDS Occupied Territories

Israel and the BDS debate: two scholars respectfully agree to differ

contributors

By Ingrid Matthews and James Arvanitakis | (The Conversation) | – – From Australia, we watch Israel at a great distance, safe in the knowledge that the regular and horrific levels of violence in the region are far from our shores. But we still find ourselves, like most of the world, asking: what can we […]

Archaeology

Syria: Daesh/ ISIL Kills aged Archeologist who refused to reveal hidden Palmyra Antiquities

contributors

AJ+ | (Video News Report) | – – “ISIS beheaded 82-year-old Khaled Al-Asaad on August 18, 2015, in the 2,000-year-old city he spent his life restoring. Syria’s most prominent antiquities scholar is the latest victim of the Islamic State group’s war on history.” AJ+: “ISIS Kills 82-Year-Old Scholar In Ancient City Of Palmyra He Helped […]