Middle East

By Motasem A Dalloul | – ( Middle East Monitor ) – Massive demonstrations across Israel are calling for the unseating of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over corruption cases and his alleged mishandling of the coronavirus crisis. Worryingly for Netanyahu, the protests are growing, and look set to get even bigger, fuelled by hate speech […]

Donald Trump

A Warning Signal for US? Corruption, Gov’t Gridlock, Pandemic, drive half a Million Lebanese Children into Hunger

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Lebanon, a small country of 4.7 million citizens and another 1.5 million Syrian refugees and 400,000 Palestinian refugees, is facing a perfect storm. Its corrupt political elite has permitted a near-collapse of a once-solid banking system. Government services are paralyzed and there are electricity outages. The country, which is a […]

Donald Trump

Iran’s Khamenei: Not going to help Trump get Reelected by Negotiating, and besides, America is Collapsing

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Iran’s clerical Leader, Ali Khamenei, knows that Trump’s reelection campaign is in big trouble. And, he thinks Trump wants a dramatic foreign policy breakthrough to impress the American voter. There aren’t many foreign policy breakthroughs to be had nowadays. Iran is one of the few. A Pew Research Center poll […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israelis are Protesting Netanyahu, but He is merely the Symptom of a Jim Crow State

Ramzy Baroud

( Middle East Monitor) – Protests against Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, have raged on for weeks, turning violent sometimes. Israelis are furious at their government’s mediocre response to the coronavirus pandemic, especially as COVID-19 disease is experiencing a massive surge throughout the country. Netanyahu warned protesters, thousands of whom have been rallying outside his […]

Donald Trump

Trump’s Desperate, last-ditch Effort to Hike Tensions with Iran

Reese Erlich

( 48hills.org ) – During the past month, Iran has suffered a half-dozen explosions and fires at military and civilian sites. A bomb blew up near the Parchin missile base outside Tehran, Iran’s capital. Fires broke out at an electric power station and aboard seven ships in a southern port city. Iranian government authorities say […]

Syria

In northern Syria, COVID-19 Threatens Escalation of an already Dramatic Humanitarian Crisis

Global Voices

By Mousa Mohamed | – Translated by Mariam Abuadas | – ( GlobalVoices.org ) – The ongoing armed conflict in Syria has displaced over 1.6 million people who have fled mostly to the north of the country. The resulting catastrophic humanitarian crisis is now worsened by the impact of COVID-19 in the region. Photo of […]

Donald Trump

US Bases in Qatar, UAE go on Alert as Iran Fires Ballistic Missiles at Mock-up of US Aircraft Carrier

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Sepahnews quotes Brigadier Amir Ali Hajizadeh, commander of the Aerospace Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), as saying that his unit was able to launch ballistic missiles from bunkers the depths of the earth for the first time in world history. (He did not explain what he meant […]

Israel

Can Palestinian-Israelis, 20% of the Population, Preserve their Arab Identity?

Middle East Monitor

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Climate Crisis

3 Dead as Iraqi Crowds Protest Electricity Outages in 124° Heat; Have US and Climate Crisis left Iraq Unviable?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – On Tuesday, the temperature in Baghdad hit 124° F. (51.2°). Just for perspective, the all-time highest temperature recorded for Asia was in Kuwait five years ago, at 129° F. Scientists consider an average temperature of 95° the highest consistent with habitability. Since these temperatures and higher will become more and […]