Middle East

US celebrates Nobel for Iran’s Narges Mohammadi, but We have Executions, Torture and Prisoner Abuse Too

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Norwegian Nobel Committee awarded the Peace Prize this year to Iranian feminist and human rights worker Narges Mohammadi, 51. It was the second time that an Iranian woman had won, the first having been attorney Shirin Ebadi in 2003. Mohammadi, although trained as a physicist, worked as a journalist […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israel’s Strategic Weaponization of Water Against Palestine is a War Crime

Middle East Monitor

by Anjuman Rahman AnjumanAleena ( Middle East Monitor ) – The universal human right to water, ensuring “sufficient safe, acceptable, physically accessible and affordable water for personal and domestic uses” is a principle upheld by international conventions. However, in the Occupied West Bank, this right is systematically violated through Israel’s targeted assaults on civilian water […]

Christianity

Extremist Minister Ben-Gvir opposes Jailing Ultra-Orthodox who spit on Christians in Jerusalem, as Pope Francis Fumes

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israeli journalist Nir Hasson at Haaretz put a spotlight on the disturbing practice of some Ultra-Orthodox Israelis of eastern European heritage of spitting on Christians in Jerusalem. The incident concerned what appeared to be Filipino pilgrims carrying a cross, but the people who suffer most from such forms of aggression […]

Israel/ Palestine

Palestinian Americans are Now Tourists in their own Land; Millions remain Exiled or Stateless

Human Rights Watch

Sari Bashi Program Director @saribashi ( Human Rights Watch ) – The Israeli government, motivated by the plum prize of joining a coveted U.S. visa waiver program and desperate for a public relations win in light of mass protests, launched a pilot program in July. The program makes it easier for Palestinians holding U.S. citizenship to […]

Climate Crisis

Arizona Dems Finally end GOP Sweetheart Deal for Saudis to exploit Arizona Water to Feed the Kingdom’s Cattle

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Arizona state government of Democratic Governor Katie Hobbs and Democratic Attorney General Kris Mayes are terminating the license of a Saudi company, Fondomonte, owned by Almirai, which had essentially given the company carte blanche to pump scarce Arizona water to grow alfalfa, which it then exported to Saudi Arabia […]

Featured

Memoirs of an Arab-Jew

Marc Martorell Junyent

Review of Avi Shlaim, Three Worlds: Memoirs of an Arab-Jew (London: Oneworld, 2023). Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Avi Shlaim is an Israeli-British scholar who has authored six books on the history of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the role played in it by the Kingdom of Jordan. His work has earned him a […]

Dissent

Iran’s Women, Digital Rights and Human Freedoms

Global Voices

Written byGuest Contributor This piece was first published by Alliance for Universal Digital Rights (AUDRi), on September 16, 2023, and was written by Emma Gibson, the global coordinator for AUDRi. An edited version is republished here with permission ( Globalvoices.org ) – September 16, 2023, marked a year since the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini […]

Climate Crisis

Devastating Earthquake showed Resiliency of Morocco’s Solar and Wind Farms, as it Meets its Paris Commitments

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – One advantage of solar and wind as renewable sources of energy is that they appear to be especially resilient in the face of natural disasters. A paradox of the battle against human-caused climate change is that some of our best tools, such as low-carbon hydroelectric power, are also the most […]