Middle East

Why Irish Novelist Sally Rooney refused to License her Work in Israel: Apartheid treatment of Palestinians

( Middle East Monitor) -The pro-Israel crowd on social media was quick to pounce on award-winning Irish novelist, Sally Rooney, as soon as she declared that she had “chosen not to sell … translation rights of her best-selling novel, ‘Beautiful World, Where Are You’ to an Israeli-based publishing house”. Expectedly, the accusations centered on the […]

Featured

Will Israel’s Muslim Fundamentalists help Pass Marijuana Bill?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Jack Khoury and Noa Shpigel report at Haaretz that the Israeli government is advancing a marijuana bill that may gain the support of the United Arab List, a Muslim fundamentalist party that forms part of the 8-party coalition underpinning the government of Prime Minister Naftali Bennett. Although Mansour Abbas, the […]

Houthi

Saudi-Iranian Rapprochement would bring Stability to Mideast, but would it make America Irrelevant?

Middle East Monitor

By Mohammad Makram Balawi | – ( Middle East Monitor) – Since 1979, when Iranian students stormed the US Embassy in Tehran and held American diplomats captive, the US strategy towards Iran has been aggressive. The US led the whole world to isolate Iran, turning it into a pariah state even among its neighbours and […]

Afghanistan

Celebrating Rep. Barbara Lee, our Cassandra who warned against the Failed 20-Year Wars

Rebecca Gordon

( Tomdispatch.com ) – For decades, I kept a poster on my wall that I’d saved from the year I turned 16. In its upper left-hand corner was a black-and-white photo of a white man in a grey suit. Before him spread a cobblestone plaza. All you could see were the man and the stones. […]

Armenia

After Thirty Years, are Turkey and Armenia really Ready to Normalize Relations?

Global Voices

By Arzu Geybullayeva | – ( GlobalVoices.org) – Turkey closed its border with Armenia in 1993 during the first Karabakh war in a show of solidarity with its long-time ally Azerbaijan. Almost three decades later, Turkey is considering reopening that border in the aftermath of Azerbaijan’s victory in the second Karabakh war in 2020. During […]

Featured

Band of 30 militant Israeli Squatters attack Palestinian Farmers, Steal Olive Harvest in continued Sabotage that has seen 1 mn Olive Trees destroyed by Israelis since 1967

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Friday, some thirty militant Israeli squatters on Palestinian land in the West Bank attacked Palestinian farmers harvesting olives from their orchards at Salfit. At the same time the Israeli occupation army blocked other farmers from reaching their olive orchards near the large squatter settlement of Ariel, built on land […]

Hizbullah

Violence has broken out in Beirut Again, but it isn’t Senseless – it is caused by what Lebanon has not Done

Human Rights Watch

By Lama Fakih, Crisis and Conflict Division | – ( Human Rights Watch) – Scenes from Lebanon shocked residents and the world on Thursday when the streets of a residential and commercial district in Beirut descended into a level of violence last seen during the country’s the civil war: Families sheltering in hallways, bathrooms, and […]

Houthi

Yemen: Will talks between Saudi Arabia and Iran offer hopes for an end to bitter seven-year civil war?

The Conversation

By Simon Mabon | – Recent statements from Iran and Saudi Arabia have provided hope that a pathway might be emerging to an end to the bitter seven-year civil war in Yemen which has killed an estimated quarter of a million people and left millions more homeless. On September 21, officials from Saudi Arabia and […]

Featured

Is Sec. of State Antony Blinken as bad as Mike Pompeo? Silent on Israeli theft of Palestinian Land, Promoting Phony Abraham Accords

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Secretary of State Antony Blinken is shaping up to be as much of a disaster as secretary of state as Mike Pompeo. He appears to have nothing to say about Israel’s outrageous new plans to steal more Palestinian land and to further divide Palestinians into Bantustans as was done by […]