Israel/ Palestine

1. Tourism in Egypt and Tunisia, the economies of which heavily depend on it, is likely to take a nosedive this fall. It is a shame, because Tunisia had been hoping for a near return to 2010 levels of 7 million visitors this year. And Egypt’s tourism was up 16% over the previous year, though […]

Africa

South Africa: Label West Bank Squatter Products; Israel: You Apartheid State!

Juan Cole

Having Avigdor Lieberman as a foreign minister is one of the worst things that could happen to Israel. I was in Brazil last year this time when Lieberman visited, and parliamentarians were saying they would not meet with him because they consider him a racist. He has a long record of saying offensive and chauvinist […]

art and photography

Dear Mr. Romney: Palestinians are Poor Because You Stole from them and Kept them Stateless

Juan Cole

Mitt Romney, a privileged white man worth a quarter of a billion dollars who has sheltered his money from taxes in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands and Switzerland, and who never misses a square meal, stooped to a new obscene low in blaming the victim on Monday by slamming the Palestinians for not being richer. Palestinian […]

Israel/ Palestine

Romney on Jerusalem: A World of Hurt for America

Juan Cole

As expected, Mitt Romney in Israel tried his hardest to make casino mogul and Likud Party stalwart Sheldon Adelson happy. Adelson has pledged $100 million to Romney’s presidential campaign. Romney put all options on the table (a euphemism for illegally launching a war) with regard to Iran. But in an interview with Jim Muir of […]

Israel/ Palestine

Top Ten Most Distasteful things about Romney Trip to Israel

Juan Cole

The trip of Republic Presidential hopeful Mitt Romney to Israel is in bad taste for lots of reasons. 1. He is holding a fundraiser at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem. It is distasteful for an American political candidate to hold a high profile fundraiser abroad, implying a commitment to a foreign country as a […]

Israel/ Palestine

Hajizadeh: If Israel attacks Iran, it will be Destroyed

Juan Cole

On Sunday, Brigadier General Amir Ali Hajizadeh, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps Aerospace Force gave a speech about Iran’s ballistic missile capability. At the very end of it, he said that if Israel attacked Iran (as Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak have repeatedly threatened to do), Iran would […]

Israel/ Palestine

Planned Israeli Detention Camps for Africans Draw Human Rights Protests

Juan Cole

An Israeli law allowing the arrest and detention of illegal immigrants for up to 3 years without trial has been denounced as contrary to basic human rights by Human Rights Watch. Israel has about 60,000 illegal immigrants from Africa, nearly 1% of the population. Some are from Darfur and South Sudan, and came because they […]

Energy

Israel, Electric Cars, and Existential Threats

Juan Cole

Israeli entrepreneur Shai Agassi has launched an Israeli electric car, and also arranged for four recharging stations. Israel is a perfect place for this experiment, since it is a relatively small and compact country, so the present lack of range of most electric cars (70-150 miles) may not be an issue for a lot of […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israeli Squatters fire with Impunity at Palestinian civilians as Israeli Army watches

Juan Cole

The slow civil war in the Palestinian West Bank, occupied illegally by Israel, between the hundreds of thousands of Israeli squatters planted there by the Israeli government and the local people who are being displaced, is a daily affair. Armed Israeli squatters encroach on Palestinian water and land daily. In recent days, remarkably, video has […]