Israel/ Palestine

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The process of crafting congressional legislation is often likened to sausage-making. Best not to look behind the scenes at the mechanics of the process, which is a bloody mess. But the analogy is not apt. Sure, sausage-making can be ugly. The end product, however, is presentable and usually […]

Education

The Right is weaponizing Antisemitism to Distract from Israel’s Atrocities and Smear Campus Protests

Tomdispatch

By Helen Benedict ( Tomdispatch.com ) – Helicopters have been throbbing overhead for days now. Nights, too. Police are swarming the streets of Broadway, many in riot gear. Police vans, some as big as a city bus, are lined up along side streets and Broadway. Outside the gates of the Columbia University campus, a penned-in […]

Dissent

I was Arrested at Columbia University in 1968: I am Cheering on the Students of Today

Bob Stein

New York (Special to Informed Comment) – Earlier this week Columbia University started suspending the students who refused to leave the encampment they built to protest Columbia’s support of Israel’s war against Palestinians. The students had responded by occupying Hamilton Hall, mirroring the action that initiated the 1968 protests against the Vietnam War which ended […]

Featured

This is Why the Students are Protesting: Eyes on Israel’s Killing Fields in Gaza

Janelle Carlson

Bayreuth, Germany (Special to Informed Comment- Feature) – Lisa Hajjar has compared what is happening in Gaza to the Killing Fields of Cambodia. Yet where she argues that “Unlike the Khmer Rouge, the Israeli government’s exterminationist policy is not fueled by an ideological vision to remake Gaza anew. Total destruction is the goal.” As has […]

Israel/ Palestine

Birding in Gaza amid a Nightmare of War

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – He’s a funny little chap: a sharp dresser with a sleek grey jacket, a white waistcoat, red shorts, and a small grey crest for a hat. With his shiny black eyes and stubby black beak, he’s quite the looker. Like the chihuahua of the bird world, the tufted titmouse has no […]

Anti-intellectualism

“Intifada” in Arabic just means Uprising or Mass Protest; it is used for the Jewish Warsaw Uprising

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A key feature of American bigotry toward people from the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), and toward Muslims more generally, has been the demonization by journalists, politicians and interest groups of ordinary, everyday Arabic words. Arabic words have a proud and positive history in the English language. Consider a […]

Children

Israeli Violence against Palestinian Children is rooted in Viewing them all as Dangerous Adults

Global Voices

Written by Safa A playground in the West Bank. Picture taken by Justin McIntosh, August 2004. Wikimedia Commons. (CC-BY-2.0). ( Globalvoices.org ) – Since Israel’s latest aggression on Gaza began in October — described as “a mass assassination factory” — the literal and actual dehumanization of Palestinians has intensified. UNICEF has labeled Gaza “a graveyard […]

Displaced and Refugees

What Causes Famines? In Gaza and Elsewhere, Outside Pressure and Vulnerability can lead to Hunger and Death

The Conversation

By Paul Howe, Tufts University | – The United Nations’ latest report on hunger makes for grim reading. On April 24, 2024, the international body released its annual Global Report on Food Crises, showing that 281.6 million people faced acute hunger in 2023. And indications for 2024 suggest worse may be to come. In March, […]

Democratic Party

Hubert Humphrey Redux? Biden is Risking Election and Country with his Embrace of Netanyahu’s War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – CNN reports ominously this week that “Biden is actually 11 percentage points behind Trump among young voters 18-34 in a head-to-head match in a CNN poll conducted by SSRS and released over the weekend.” CNN continues that 71% of Americans disapprove of his handling of the Gaza campaign! That rises […]