Middle East

Iran’s Athletes, Including Soccer Players at World Cup, are Boycotting National Anthem to Support Protests

I’m RFE/RL correspondent Golnaz Esfandiari. Here’s what I’ve been following during the past week and what I’m watching for in the days ahead. ( RFE/ RL ) – A growing number of Iranian athletes are refusing to sing the national anthem or to celebrate their victories in solidarity with the months-long anti-establishment protests that have […]

Afghanistan

How the Bush “War on Terror” Fed US White Nationalism and brought the Terror Home

Andrea Mazzarino

( Tomdispatch.com ) – Recently, an agent of the Department of Homeland Security called me and started asking questions about a childhood acquaintance being investigated for extremism. I put him off. My feelings about this were, to say the least, complex. As a military spouse of 10 years and someone who has long written about […]

Displaced and Refugees

Anti-War Russians find a new Home in Turkey

Global Voices

By Arzu Geybullayeva | – ( Globalvoices.org) – In a lively neighborhood of Istanbul’s Kadikoy district, Grao Cafeteria is nestled in between local shops and restaurants. Grao’s owner is 32-year-old Igor, native of St. Petersburg. He arrived in Istanbul in March 2022 after a year of traveling abroad, visiting India, Nepal and Thailand. After a […]

Immigration

Is the Controversy over Qatar’s World Cup just More Orientalism and Islamophobia?

Mohammed Samaana

Belfast (Informed Comment) – The entire Arab world is excited as one of the world biggest sports events, the FIFA World Cup is held in an Arab Muslim country for the first time. This excitement is because of decades of collective feeling of frustration with being portrayed by Western media as backward, uncivilized and savage. […]

Featured

Violent Provocateur Ben-Gvir, Israeli Squatters, run Riot in al-Khalil/ Hebron, injuring Indigenous Palestinians and Israeli Troops

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israel’s new extremist far right-wing government is the gift that keeps on giving. Itamar Ben-Gvir, an ally of the new prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, led his violent followers to al-Khalil, the Palestinian city in the Palestinian West Bank named for Abraham that the Israelis term “Hebron.” Israel’s president Isaac Herzog […]

Arms Sales

Ukraine war ignites the Arms Race in the Middle East

Middle East Monitor

By Ibrahim Nawar | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – The Ukraine war has cast a shadow over the arms race in the Middle East and ignited it. The Iranian weapons supplies to Russia, the Turkish and Israeli weapons to Ukraine, and Germany’s request from Israel to provide it with a system of Arrow-3 […]

Authoritarianism

Social Media shows Iranian Crowds setting fire to Khomeini’s House, in Generational Rejection of Islamic Republic

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Reuters reports that social media sites carried video allegedly from Thursday night in the small town of Khomein in Iran, which appeared to show protesters setting fire to the childhood home of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the founder of the Islamic Republic of Iran. Khomeini died in 1989. The house had […]

Israel/ Palestine

Washington cares about Israel killing Palestinian-American Journalist Abu Akleh, but Not about dead unhyphenated Palestinians

Ramona Wadi

( Middle East Monitor) – Israel is once again, albeit temporarily, under the spotlight for the targeted killing in May of Palestinian American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh. This follows the revelation that the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is conducting an investigation into the crime. In September, after many denials, Israel conceded there was […]

Featured

Biden Administration Tells U.S. Court Saudi’s Bin Salman can’t be sued for Role in Murder because he is Head of State

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Stephanie Kirchgaessner at the Guardian reports that the Biden administration has made a filing with the U.S. court that was considering a civil suit against Mohammed Bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia, by the widow of slain Washington Post journalist Jamal Khashoggi, seeking damages for his involvement in […]