Israel/ Palestine

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva stirred controversy when he said, “What is happening in the Gaza Strip and with the Palestinian people did not exist at any other historical moment. Or rather, it did: when Hitler decided to kill the Jews.” He continued, “It is not a war […]

Canada

Gov. Hochul’s Canada Genocide Fantasy and the War of 1812

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – New York Governor Kathleen Courtney Hochul, a sixth-generation Irish-American, spoke on Thursday to a Jewish philanthropy in her state. In the course of her remarks, she referred to Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas. She went on to say, “If Canada someday ever attacked Buffalo, I’m sorry my friends, […]

Israel/ Palestine

The leading ‘Day After’ Plans for Palestine-Israel are doomed: Progressives can Do Better

Waging Nonviolence

Andy Bichlbaum The Palestine solidarity movement has been an important voice for justice in recent months. It has mobilized millions behind the call for a desperately needed ceasefire, and has successfully pressured some key politicians, like Bernie Sanders, to take a stronger stand against Israel’s relentless bombing of Gaza. That said, the Palestine solidarity movement, […]

Democratic Party

A majority of Jewish Democrats and Muslim Democrats agree on one Thing: Immediate Gaza Ceasefire

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A new opinion poll conducted by the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding, a Muslim-American think tank based in Michigan, finds that half of Jewish Democrats and a majority of Muslim Democrats agree on the need for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. Some 78% of Muslim Democrats favored an immediate […]

Israel/ Palestine

International Court of Justice to Review 57-Year Israeli Occupation

Human Rights Watch

Human Rights Watch – (The Hague) – An unprecedented number of countries and international organizations are expected to participate in the International Court of Justice’s (ICJ) oral hearings on Israel’s occupation beginning February 19, 2024, Human Rights Watch said today. Fifty-two countries and three international organizations will participate in the oral proceedings, more than in […]

Children

Water Crisis and untreated Sewage could kill more Gaza Palestinians than Bombs: Threat of Infant Mortality

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Al-Arabi al-Jadid reports, “The streets of the Gaza Strip are witnessing a catastrophic environmental crisis due to the mixing of rainwater with sewage water, which is now flooding various roads as a result of a continuous overflow, resulting from the targeting of infrastructure [by the Israeli military], and the inability […]

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 […]

Displaced and Refugees

Gaza: Israeli Siege, Palestinian Starvation, and the pre-War Policies that made them Vulnerable

The Conversation

By Yara M. Asi, University of Central Florida | – The stories of hunger emerging from war-ravaged Gaza are stark: People resorting to grinding barely edible cattle feed to make flour; desperate residents eating grass; reports of cats being hunted for food. The numbers involved are just as despairing. The world’s major authority on food […]

Featured

Are there any innocent civilians among Palestinians in Gaza?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israeli President Isaac Herzog said last October that “It is an entire nation out there that is responsible. It is not true this rhetoric about civilians not being aware, not involved. It’s absolutely not true. They could have risen up. They could have fought against that evil regime which took […]