Middle East

After the death of hundreds of people since the eruption of Iraq’s revolution in October, there is no return to the old system.

Featured

That’s not Good. Popular ToTok App is Emirates Spyware

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – ( Lily Hay Newman at Wired explores the implications of the revelation that the ToTok app is actually spyware for the United Arab Emirates. The app is fiendishly clever in the sense that there is nothing virus-like about it. It is just a communications application that wants to know who […]

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Under Int’l Pressure Israel reverses ban on Hundreds of Gaza Christians visiting Holy Sites, though Cruel Blockade Continues

Juan Cole

N.B. The day after we published this piece, the Israeli government reversed itself and issued permits to Gaza Christians to visit their holy sites at Christmas. Unfortunately, they haven’t reversed themselves about patient exit visas for medical care or the other blockade measures. Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israel is barring a few hundred Gaza […]

Israel/ Palestine

Dear Tourists: Palestine Still Throws the Best Christmas Party after 2,000 Years

The Conversation

By Dorina-Maria Buda | – There are often marches and demonstrations in support of Palestine in cities around the world, but for those who want to visit the region, a thriving tourism industry has emerged in recent years. “Solidarity tourists” arrive at all times of year to help improve the lives of ordinary Palestinians, with […]

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Could the Int’l Criminal Court brand Israel’s Netanyahu a War Criminal?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A prosecutor on the International Criminal Court, Fatou Bensouda, has opened an investigation into Israeli and Hamas war crimes, drawing a furious response from caretaker Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu. Palestine filed the case in some large part because of the Trump administration’s brutal policies against the Palestinians, in which […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israel is hoarding the Jordan River – The Palestinians and Jordan Need their Share

The Conversation

By Mark Zeitoun and Muna Dajani | – Two areas farmed by Israelis for more than 50 years have recently been returned to neighbouring Jordan. The first, al Ghamr (known in Israel as Zofar), is located south of the Dead Sea in the Naqab/Negev desert. The second, al Baqura (Naharayim) is found at the fertile […]

Donald Trump

A Feminist Alternative to Trump’s Sabre Rattling against Iran

Foreign Policy in Focus

Foreign policy should prioritize the needs of ordinary civilians and civil society — and wars of choice should always be off the table.

Israel/ Palestine

The Likud Gov’t in Israel’s International War against Human Rights

Asa Winstanley

( Middle East Monitor ) – Israel has a long record of camouflaging the truth where Palestine is concerned. Integral to this, in recent years, has been the growing war against human rights groups documenting Israel’s abuses against Palestinians and other Arabs. Israel’s hostility towards such groups is targeted, first and foremost, against Palestinians themselves. […]

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The Miseries of Settler Colonialism: Jeff Goldberg thinks Israelis are the Seminoles

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Phil Weiss at Mondoweiss, the most lucid and informed voice on the American Jewish left doing journalism critical of right wing Zionism, reports on remarks of The Atlantic editor Jeffrey Goldberg at a Jewish Community Center forum in Manhattan. In Weiss’s telling, Goldberg argued to his audience that Israelis are […]