Middle East

Israeli Youth Protest Israel-UAE Oil Pipeline that Endangers Climate, Key Coral Reefs: The Dark Side of “Abraham Accords”

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The so-called Abraham Accords, which take the patriarch’s name in vain, were about many things, but genuine peace was not one of them. The were a series of bilateral horse trades with no implication for Israeli-Palestinian peace. Now it turns out that they were in part a plot against the […]

Featured

Palestinian Parties, Organizations Greet Abbas’s Pledge to take Israel to Int’l Court as “Historic” and Roadmap

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – al-Quds [Jerusalem] reports that Palestinians in the West Bank greeted President Mahmoud Abbas’s UN speech, in which he pledged to take Israel to the International Court of Justice at the Hague* if its squatter-settlements weren’t withdrawn within a year, with widespread acclaim.* The ICJ “is the principal judicial organ of […]

Featured

Palestine President Mahmoud Abbas gives Israel a Year to Withdraw from Palestinian Territories or he will go to the Int’l Court

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – According to Al Jazeera, Mahmoud Abbas, the president of Palestine, gave an uncharacteristically vehement speech at the UN General Assembly on Friday. He said, “The crimes against the Palestinians in their own country committed by the Israeli Occupation authority will not halt their struggle to achieve liberty on their land.” […]

Arab World

As Biden prepares to declare US 20-year War over at U.N., Remembering the Bush Lies that Started it all

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Aamer Madhani and Josh Boak at the Associated Press report that President Biden in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly this year will seek to bring the curtain down on 20 years of American war, and will argue that instead the US will wage a multilateral campaign against […]

Israel/ Palestine

Restricting US Military Aid to Israel in the Age of Normalization

Al-Shabaka

By Nadya Tannous | ( Al Shabaka ) – With the rise in global solidarity with Palestinians since the May 2021 Unity Intifada, United States policymakers and activists are calling for conditioning and halting US military aid to Israel. Al-Shabaka’s US policy fellow, Nadya Tannous, examines this shifting tide and offers recommendations for how policymakers, […]

Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia’s first batch of women military graduates encourages more debate on gender roles

Global Voices

By Rahma Alattar | – ( Global Voices.org) – Earlier this month, Saudi Arabia celebrated the graduation of its first-ever cohort of women military recruits, opening the door to a debate on the kingdom’s latest move to narrow the once-gigantic gender gap. In loose and long military fatigues, with their heads and sometimes faces covered […]

Australia

Is US-Australia Nuclear Sub Deal a Proliferation Danger, and does it Justify Iran’s Civilian Enrichment Program?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Alexander Ward and Quint Forgey at Politico raise a crucial question about the AUKUS alliance among the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia that involves providing Australia with nuclear submarines. Is it a form of proliferation and does it provide justification for Iran’s civilian nuclear enrichment program? Nuclear submarines […]

Israel/ Palestine

The Pogrom at Sabra and Shatila

contributors

By Donald Wagner | – See Journeyman Pictures documentary – Informed Comment . ( Electronic Intifada) – The US withdrawal from Afghanistan marks the end of the latest in a long list of disastrous American military interventions. A quick review of the past 50 years reveals a dismal pattern of American betrayal and lack of […]

Arab Spring

What does the future hold for Middle Eastern states?

The Conversation

By Mohamad Moustafa Alabsi | – From independence until the advent of the Arab Spring, Middle Eastern states have suffered due to their constituting principle, a notion that can be traced back to the motivations and arrangements of former colonial powers. Independence may have satisfied the demands of the region’s inhabitants for autonomy, Arabness and […]