Middle East

By Tutku Ayhan and Güneş Murat Tezcür | – It’s been five years since the Islamic State killed 3,100 Yazidi people in Iraq – mostly men and the elderly – forced 6,800 women and children into sexual slavery, marriage or religious conversion and sent hundreds of thousands fleeing. The Islamic State saw the Yazidis as […]

Israel/ Palestine

Stateless, Occupied Palestinians can’t vote in Next Israeli Election, but Have the Greatest Stakes

Middle East Monitor

By Adnan Abu Amer | @adnanabuamer1 | – With the declaration of the leaders of Israel’s two major parties, Likud led by Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue-White led by Benny Gantz, about their failure to form the next government, despite the expiry of the deadline allocated to them, Israel seems to soon head towards holding a […]

Featured

Expelling Human Rights Watch: Israel Joins Burundi, Uzbekistan and other Authoritarian States

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israel on Sunday expelled the in-country director of Human Rights Watch from the country. Israel thereby joins dictatorships such as Uzbekistan, Burundi, Azerbaijan, and Egypt, which have also expelled HRW human rights workers. Breathless headlines in the US are saying that Israel became the first democracy to do so, but […]

Iran

Iran’s Gasoline Rebellion as a Crisis of Representation

Open Democracy

By Rahman Bouzari | – (OpenDemocracy) – The recent round of spontaneous protests against the petrol [gasoline] price hike has to be contextualized as part of the “long-term revolutionary process” in Iran. The 2017-18 uprisings changed the Iranian political landscape for good. Since then, the Islamic Republic has entered into an ‘organic crisis’ par excellence. […]

Christianity

Can Christianity Survive in Turkey, the Birthplace of the Holy Roman Empire?

The Conversation

By Ramazan Kılınç | – Vowing to better protect Christians, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan told media at the White House recently that Turkey will restore churches damaged during the civil war in northeastern Syria. With this statement, Erdoğan might have hoped to send signals addressing western concerns about the vulnerabilities of Christians in his […]

Lebanon

Lebanon’s October Revolution: Resistance and Popular Culture

Middle East Monitor

By Amal Ghazal | – I am following Lebanon’s October Revolution from Vancouver. Between me and the revolution stand two continents, an ocean, a sea and a 10-hour time difference. However, the connections between me and what I watch on my screen render time and space irrelevant. In fact, the distance draws me closer to […]

Israel/ Palestine

Now that Trump deems Israeli Squatting Legal, will More Palestinians be Kicked off their Land?

The Conversation

By Anne Irfan | – When US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced that the US government will no longer view Israeli settlements in the West Bank as illegal, it was a dramatic departure from the stance of previous US administrations. His predecessors held to the State Department’s 1978 legal opinion that the settlements are […]

Donald Trump

What does Fraud and Bribery trial of Israeli PM Netanyahu tell us about Trump Impeachment?

Juan Cole

Revised By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Israel’s attorney general, Avichai Mandelblit on advice from the police, indicted caretaker Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu on fraud and bribery charges Thursday. On Friday, he refused to step down. Netanyahu is charged in three cases. In Case 4000, Netanyahu is accused of giving the […]

Featured

Israeli “Crime Minister” Netanyahu Indicted, Political System in Freefall

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Israel’s attorney general has indicted prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu, Ari Shapiro and Daniel Estrin report at NPR, on charges of “bribery, fraud and breach of trust.” Israeli protesters against the far right and openly racist Likud leader have for some time chanted against him as the “crime minister.” Netanyahu lost […]