Middle East

By Jasmin Lilian Diab, Lebanese American University | – (The Conversation) – The escalation of hostilities between Israel and Hezbollah since September 2024, and Israel’s bombing of civilian areas across Lebanon, have unleashed a profound humanitarian disaster. The mass displacement of over 1 million people, including Lebanese citizens, migrant workers and Syrian and Palestinian refugees, […]

China

China’s Green Energy Wave enters the Middle East

Neil Thompson

London (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Facing rising trade barriers and diplomatic tensions with the US and the EU, Chinese renewable energy companies are turning to Middle Eastern states as an alternative market for goods including electric vehicles (EVs), lithium-ion batteries, and solar panels. The US, the EU and Canada have all imposed tariffs […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israel’s War on the World

Medea Benjamin and Nicholas J.S. Davies

( Code Pink ) – Each new week brings new calamities for people in the countries neighboring Israel, as its leaders try to bomb their way to the promised land of an ever-expanding Greater Israel. In Gaza, Israel appears to be launching its “Generals’ Plan” to drive the most devastated and traumatized 2.2 million people […]

Featured

The Gazafication of Lebanon: Israel Blows up Nabatieh City Hall, kills Mayor and Aid Workers

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli military has begun giving southern Lebanon the Gaza treatment. Some 25% of Lebanese are under “evacuation orders,” which is to say that Israel is expelling them from their homes in preparation for further military operations against the Hezbollah Party-Militia. The U.N. Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon, Imran Riza, said […]

Israel/ Palestine

Israel Should End Campaign to Destroy Lifesaving UN Palestinian Aid Agency

Human Rights Watch

Louis Charbonneau ( Human Rights Watch ) – Israeli authorities should withdraw proposed legislation in parliament aimed at preventing the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) from operating in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and halt their campaign to destroy the UN’s most important aid agency for Palestinian refugees in Gaza and elsewhere. UN Secretary-General […]

Israel/ Palestine

My Sister was the 166th Doctor to be Murdered in Gaza

Ramzy Baroud

( Middle East Monitor ) – “Your lives will continue. With new events and new faces. They are the faces of your children, who will fill your homes with noise and laughter.” These were the last words written by my sister in a text message to one of her daughters. Dr Soma Baroud was murdered […]

Featured

Blinken and Austin Scold Netanyahu over Gaza Atrocities, playing Cynical Presidential Politics

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Barak Ravid at Axios got the scoop. He was leaked a letter from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin to Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Yoav Gallant accusing them of reneging on undertakings of last April to pursue their war on Hamas in […]

Israel

Israel’s actions against UN Peacekeepers suggest it may seek to Occupy Southern Lebanon

The Conversation

By Vanessa Newby, Leiden University and Chiara Ruffa, Sciences Po | – (The Conversation) – The United Nations security council has expressed strong concern for the safety of peacekeepers in Lebanon after a series of incidents over the past week in which UN positions have come under fire from the Israel Defense Forces as they […]

Featured

Nobel Prize-Winning Japanese survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki see themselves in the Palestinians of Gaza

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The decision of the Truman administration to use nuclear weapons on the civilian cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 is one of the great stains on the United States. There are other blots on our escutcheon, including the perfidious treatment of Native Americans and the enslavement of millions of […]