Middle East

( Middle East Monitor ) – As western countries are floating the theory that Russia could escalate its conflict with Ukraine to a nuclear war, many western governments continue to turn a blind eye to Israel’s own nuclear weapons capabilities. Luckily, many countries around the world do not subscribe to this endemic western hypocrisy. ‘The […]

Feminism

Headwear and Hegemony: how ‘Turban Tossing’ Protests are threatening Iran’s ruling Clergy

The Conversation

By Negar Partow, Massey University | – (The Conversation) – The ongoing protests in Iran over the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini while in the custody of the country’s “Guidance Patrol” (or morality police) have made world headlines. But there is another form of protest that has received less mainstream attention in Western media. Whereas […]

Featured

Israel: Netanyahu puts Homophobic Fundamentalist who doesn’t think most American Jews are Jewish in Charge of Office of Jewish Identity

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – So Noam is a far right Jewish fundamentalist party in Israel that has a connection to the Har Hamor seminary in Jerusalem. One of its leaders is Rabbi Zvi Tau, who seems to have a conspiracy theory that LGBTQ groups have prevented Israelis from implementing Jewish law, the Halakha. He […]

Israel

Israel Must not Include Fascist Parties in its New Government: L.A. Jews for Peace

contributors

LA Jews for Peace Policy Statement Los Angeles, CA. November 28, 2022 Contact: info@LAJewsforPeace.org Israel must not include Fascist Parties in its New Government LA Jews for Peace look on in horror as Benjamin Netanyahu is forming a majority Israeli government that will include the Religious Zionist Party. The Religious Zionist Party is led by […]

Featured

Could Iran’s Kurdish Protests and the Ayatollahs’ Determination to Crush Them Destabilize Neighboring Iraq?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The protests roiling Iran this fall have had an epicenter in Iranian Kurdistan in the west of the country. The death in the custody of the Shiite morality police of Tehran of a Kurdish young woman, Mahsa “Zhina” Amini, rallied Kurdish-Iranian subnationalism. Cities like Mahabad, Saqqez, and Sanandaj have seen […]

Culture

The Other Iran: Veiling and Puritanism vs. the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The ongoing rallies and demonstrations that have wracked Iran since mid-September have been many things. It is a women’s protest against severe patriarchy It is a Gen Z youth protest demanding greater personal freedoms from their 85-year-old Theocrat. It is an ethnic protest by Sunni Kurds and Baluch against Shiite […]

Featured

Israel: Ultra-Far-Right Ben-Gvir Given Nat’l Security Ministry – As though KKK took over Homeland Security in US

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports that the Likud Party of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu signed a deal on Friday with what the paper calls the “fascist” Jewish Power party of Itamar Ben-Gvir giving the latter the post of minister of national security. Jewish Power will also get the ministry […]

Authoritarianism

‘A Nightmare’: Iran Intensifies Deadly Crackdown In Kurdistan Region As Protests Rage

Golnaz Esfandiari

( RFE/RL ) – Iranian authorities have intensified their deadly crackdown in the country’s western Kurdistan region, which has been the epicenter of the anti-establishment protests that have raged for months. Human rights groups say government forces have killed more than a dozen people in predominately Kurdish cities in the past 24 hours. The bloodshed […]

Arab World

No more “Marry your Rapist”: Repeal Laws Discriminating against Women in the Middle East – ‘Equality Now’

Middle East Monitor

By Amelia Smith | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The women’s rights NGO, Equality Now, has released a policy brief to mark International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women on how inadequate justice for women and girls, and a lack of deterrents for perpetrators, has increased violence against women. According to […]