Middle East

Here is my essay for this week’s Tomdispatch.com . Check out the great Tom Engelhardt’s introduction at that site, where he reminds us of the eerie similarity of today’s Washington strategy toward the Middle East, of intensive bombardment, to that of Nixon-Kissinger in Southeast Asia. For people of my generation, it raises the sad question […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israel is still not allowing International Media back into Gaza, despite the Ceasefire

The Conversation

By Colleen Murrell, Dublin City University (The Conversation) – The world’s media are currently busy recording the tales of released Israeli hostages, freed Palestinian prisoners and their families after a ceasefire came into effect for the war in Gaza. But they are doing so while still being held at a distance from the centre of […]

Featured

The Sumud Aid Flotilla did more than Trump to Achieve Gaza’s Fragile Peace

Mohammad Eslami and Ibrahim Al-Marashi

Braga, Portugal and San Marcos, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – US President Trump arrived in Israel on Monday as the first hostages were released by Hamas, ostensibly to take credit for brokering the ceasefire, still hurt from the fact that he was not nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. However, the Sumud Flotilla […]

Iran

“Ah, my Belovéd, fill the Cup that clears:” FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám 1:20

Juan Cole

Stanza no. 20 in in the first edition of Edward FitzGerald’s The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám celebrates wine as a means of escaping lingering shame and the dread of an unknown future. It is about, as the hippies used to say in the 1960s, “being here now,” with a little help from a mind-altering substance. […]

Israel

Lebanon: Seek Justice for Journalists Killed by Israeli Forces

Human Rights Watch

2 Years since Killing of Issam Abdallah; Attacks on Civilians, Media Continue Human Rights Watch – (Beirut) – Lebanon’s announcement on October 9, 2025, that it has tasked the Justice Ministry with assessing the legal measures that may be taken following Israeli attacks on journalists during the last war offers a fresh opportunity to achieve […]

Featured

Rashid Khalidi on the Gaza Ceasefire: The veil that has hidden the true nature of the Zionist project was shredded for good

Fariba Amini

If I must die, You must live To tell my story To sell my things To buy a piece of cloth And some strings…. – Refaat Alareer, Palestinian writer, poet, professor and activist, killed in an Israeli air strike in Gaza on December 6, 2023 Interview by Fariba Amini Professor Rashid Ismail Khalidi is the […]

Feminism

Iran’s Streets ‘Transformed’ As More Women Shun The Mandatory Hijab

Radio Free Europe Radio Liberty

By Fereshteh Ghazi and Farangis Najibullah ( RFE / RL ) – Iranian journalist Zeinab Rahimi has refused to wear the mandatory hijab for over two years, despite the risk of arrest and imprisonment. She is among a growing number of women and girls who have stopped covering their head in public, in direct defiance of […]

Israel/ Palestine

Daring to Dream after Two Years under Fire: Life in Gaza

Open Democracy

For two years, our lives have been on hold amid constant air strikes and fighting. Now, we finally have reason to hope By Hassan Herzallah ( OpenDemocracy.net ) – Growing up in Gaza, my friends and I often heard older relatives’ stories of the Nakba; learning about the homes that Israeli troops forced them out […]

Democracy

Syria’s Parliamentary Election Results look Alarmingly like Iraq 2005, which produced a Civil War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Syria’s parliamentary elections on October 5 raised alarm flags for me on several grounds. First, they were not conducted on the basis of a direct vote. Sixty “constituencies” were established to elect 121 members of the People’s Assembly of Syria (only 119 were actually elected). Another 70 members will be […]