Israel/ Palestine

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – It began in Hebron, which Palestinians call “al-Khalil,” the city of Abraham. Hundreds of thousands of Israel squatters had been enticed into this Palestinian city of 400,000 by the Likud government with cheap rent in cookie-cutter apartment buildings constructed on stolen Palestinian land. The raids on Palestinian olive […]

Israel

Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories ‘must end’ – White House chief of staff

contributors

RT | – US officials continue to maintain that American policy towards Israel will undergo changes in the wake of pre-election comments made by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, in which he stated that no Palestinian state would be established on his watch. Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories has lasted for nearly five decades and “must […]

Featured

All the Wars and Coups of President Ted Cruz

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Texas Senator Ted Cruz, one of three Cuban-Americans in the Senate, is throwing his hat into the ring for the 2016 presidential race today. Cruz has made a career out of slamming President Obama for being weak and presiding over the collapse of countries like Yemen (as though […]

Apartheid

Israeli control of their water a continuing threat to Palestinians: Report

contributors

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) — Palestinians are suffering from unfair distribution of water resources as Israel is consuming the vast majority of Palestinian water, Palestinian officials said Sunday. A Palestinian farmer harvests wheat during the annual harvest season in Tequa village in the West Banker city of Bethlehem on June 2, 2012. (MaanImages/File) The Palestinian Central Bureau […]

Barack Obama

Obama with Drama: Translating his comments on Israel’s Netanyahu from the Vulcan

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Now that Leonard Nimoy is most unfortunately no longer with us, Barack Obama is the primary exemplar in American popular culture of the maddeningly calm, excruciatingly logical way of speaking that Star Trek creator Gene Rodenberry forever associated with the alien race, the Vulcans and the character Mr. […]

Israel

Jerusalem a Tinderbox that could Explode: EU Report

contributors

BETHLEHEM (Ma’an) – A leaked EU report cautioned that Jerusalem has reached its highest point of “polarization and violence” since the Second Intifada in 2005, according to international news sources. Describing the upsurge of a “vicious cycle of violence … increasingly threatening the viability of the two-state solution,” the report blames increasing tensions on the […]

Barack Obama

Obama might stop vetoing UNSC Resolutions re: Israel after Netanyahu rejected Palestinian state

contributors

RT | – The US is “evaluating” its policy towards Israel in the wake of Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election and campaign statements. This could involve passing a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements. President Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to congratulate him on winning the March 17 election, and used the opportunity to […]

International Criminal Court

Will Palestine now take Israel’s Netanyahu to Int’l Criminal Court for War Crimes?

contributors

By Kate Shuttleworth and Joe Dyke | JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (IRIN) – Shortly before Israel’s elections on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that as long as he remained in power there would be no independent Palestinian state. “Whoever moves to establish a Palestinian state or intends to withdraw from territory is simply yielding territory for radical […]

Democracy

Mideast Reacts with Horror: “Israel has elected Extremism and Racism”

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Observers in the Arab press who contemplated the victory of far right Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu in the Israeli elections express emotions from “concern and anxiety” to out and out horror at the potentially destructive impact it will have on the region. Barhoum Jaraisi writes in the Jordanian […]