Middle East

By Sarah Flatto Manasrah | – ( Waging Nonviolence) – One year after Israel gave the green light to demolish Khan al-Amar, the small Bedouin village survives thanks to a bold and creative women-led campaign. Just over one year ago, photos and videos of Israeli border police violently arresting a young Palestinian woman went viral. […]

Featured

Trump’s Saigon Evacuation Moment, as US Troops Flee and Syrian/Russian Forces are invited in by Kurds

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – For us oldsters, one of the iconic photographs of the twentieth century was the last US military helicopter taking off from the roof of the US embassy in Saigon, with desperate people hanging off it, fearful of what would happen to them when they fell into the hands of the […]

Kurds

As Turkish troops move in to Syria, the risks are great – including for Turkey itself

The Conversation

By Mehmet Ozalp | – Turkey did not waste much time in launching an attack on Syrian soil just days after US President Donald Trump announced he would withdraw US forces from northern Syria. As this development opens a new chapter in Syria, Turkey maybe unwittingly sinking deeper into that country’s civil war. This is […]

Featured

Kurds consider Asking for Russian No-Fly Zone as Moscow demands Foreign Armies leave Syria

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – A CNN exclusive by Barbara Starr and Ryan Browne reveals that Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi told the US, “I need to know if you are capable of protecting my people, of stopping these bombs falling on us or not. I need to know, because if you’re not, I need to […]

Featured

Turkey Shells position of US Special Forces in Syria, almost Provokes Firefight

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Tom O’Connor , James LaPorta AND Naveed Jamali at Newsweek report that the Turkish military subjected a position occupied by between 20 and 100 US special forces personnel embedded with the Kurdish Peoples Protection Units (YPG) to heavy artillery fire. Turkey has invaded northeast Syria for the purpose of ethnically […]

Donald Trump

Turkish Military Operation in Syria puts Large Numbers of Civilians at Risk

Human Rights Watch

Key Concerns Include Unlawful Attacks, Treatment of Displaced People, Arbitrary Arrests

Israel/ Palestine

South Africans advise Palestinians on how Apartheid can be Overcome

Middle East Monitor

Ramzy Baroud | @RamzyBaroud | – The way to truly defeat Apartheid: A conversation with Na’eem Jeenah and Salim Vally “Perhaps the time has come for Palestinians and justice-loving Israelis to imagine a new future,” wrote South African intellectuals and academics, Na’eem Jeenah and Salim Vally, in their essay, “Beyond Ethnic Nationalism: Lessons from South […]

Kurds

Turkish attack on Syria endangers a remarkable democratic experiment by the Kurds

The Conversation

By James L. Gelvin | – Turkey’s attack on Kurdish-run territory in northern Syria will likely snuff out a radical experiment in self-government that is unlike anything I have seen in more than 30 years studying the Middle East. In a surprise Oct. 6 statement, President Donald Trump announced the U.S. would withdraw its troops […]

Israel/ Palestine

An Expansionist State? Did Israel ever have any intention of honoring either the 1947 Partition Plan or 1967 borders?

Middle East Monitor

By Thomas Suárez | – Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu promised to annex parts of the occupied West Bank if re-elected in last month’s General Election, eliciting outrage from world leaders. However, that “promise” to usurp not just the West Bank, but all of Palestine, is century-old news, an ongoing promise being kept, and no […]