Middle East

Istanbul (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – As the conflict in Lebanon intensifies, Türkiye finds itself walking a diplomatic tightrope. While it has openly condemned Israeli airstrikes in Lebanon, Ankara has been careful to avoid statements that could be interpreted as direct support for Hezbollah. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has condemned Israeli airstrikes on […]

censorship

Protesting Wake Forest University’s Cancellation of a Lecture by Professor Rabab Abdelhadi

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association | – Dear President Wente and Provost Gillespie: We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our concern about Wake Forest University’s decision to cancel a scheduled lecture by Professor Rabab Abdelhadi, […]

Featured

Fundraising Appeal: Threatened Israeli (SLAPP?) Lawsuit attempts to bankrupt Informed Comment

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Running a small independent publication on controversial issues is fraught with problems. One of them is that people threaten to sue you. It happens time to time. For some reason the Israelis are particularly trigger-happy about threatening lawsuits. Many years ago the notorious MEMRI campaign to translate only the worst […]

censorship

Protesting Cornell University’s Suspension and threatened Deportation of graduate Student Momodou Taal for Protest

Committee on Academic Freedom

Committee on Academic Freedom | Middle East Studies Association | – Dear Interim President Kotlikoff, Provost Bala, Dr. Lombardi and Ms. Liang: We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our extreme concern about your decision to temporarily suspend Cornell graduate […]

Hizbullah

Hezbollah is not Finished Yet

Ibrahim Al-Marashi

( The National ) – The assassination of Hezbollah secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut will not diminish the group he once led. The killing demonstrates the counterintuitive notion that eliminating the head of an organisation does not always destroy it. Hezbollah has a bureaucratic set-up, with a robust ideology and communal support. Any armed […]

Hizbullah

Why an Israeli invasion of Lebanon is a Mistake

The Conversation

By Vanessa Newby, Leiden University and Chiara Ruffa, Sciences Po | – (The Conversation) – The death of Hezbollah’s leader, Hassan Nasrallah, in an Israeli airstrike in Beirut on September 27 has left the militant Lebanese organisation leaderless at a critical time. Two days earlier in a speech broadcast around the world, the head of […]

Featured

The Path to Nasrallah’s Assassination

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli assassination of Hassan Nasrallah has implications for the struggle of Iran and its alliance of resistance against Israel and the United States. But I would like to step back and look at how we reached this juncture. I lived in Lebanon on and off in the 1970s, when […]

International Court of Justice

The War of Legitimacy: How the International Criminal Court and the UN Gen. Assembly Challenged Israeli, US Impunity

Ramzy Baroud

( Middle East Monitor ) – Two historic events regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestine took place on 19 July and 18 September. The first was a most comprehensive “advisory opinion” by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which reiterated that the Israeli occupation of Palestine is illegal and must come to an immediate end. […]

Featured

Water as a Weapon of War in Gaza (The New Lines Institute)

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Here are the first few paragraphs of my long essay for The New Lines Institute on the Israeli use of water as a weapon of total war in Gaza. Read the whole thing here . The Israeli use of water as a weapon of war in Gaza in 2023-2024 turned […]