Middle East

East Lansing, MI (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – For 176 days, the world has borne witness to Israel’s use of disproportionate, and arguably, genocidal force against the people of Gaza. The civilians, children, sons, daughters, sisters, brothers, mothers, fathers, grandparents, and neighbors of Gaza. As of the time of this writing, Al-Jazeera reports that […]

Food Insecurity

Starvation in Gaza: The World Court’s Latest Intervention

Middle East Monitor

( Middle East Monitor ) – Rarely has the International Court of Justice (ICJ) been so constantly exercised by one topic during such a short space of time. On 26 January, the World Court, considering a filing made the previous December by South Africa, accepted Pretoria’s argument that the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment […]

Displaced and Refugees

GOP Congressman calls for Gaza genocide: “It should be like Nagasaki and Hiroshima: Get it over Quick”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – US Representative Tim Walberg (R-MI), a former pastor, called this week for a genocide, the Final Solution of the Palestinian Problem.. Michigan’s 5th congressional district stretches across the far bottom of the state, encompassing cities such as Albion and Jackson and abutting Ohio and Indiana. I don’t have any reason […]

Israel/ Palestine

The Most Dangerous Wars: When Local Conflicts become Geopolitics

Foreign Policy in Focus

By Walden Bello ( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – The three major wars or conflicts that are ongoing today demonstrate the volatility of the intersection between the local and the global. In the Hamas-Israeli conflict, we see how the maintenance of the Israeli settler-colonial state is intertwined with the preservation of the global hegemony […]

Featured

Could the Israeli Supreme Court’s decree that ultra-Orthodox be Conscripted bring Down Netanyahu?

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Israeli newspaper Arab 48 reports on the conscription crisis that may cause the Netanyahu government to fall and tear Israeli society apart. The Israeli Supreme Court issued the ruling on Thursday evening, which freezes — as of April — the funds for ultra-Orthodox Jewish schools, the students of which […]

Israel

The US Administration’s Hypocrisy and Israel’s Cockiness

Gilbert Achcar

( Middle East Monitor ) – It is truly astonishing that Washington abstained in voting on the resolution adopted by the UN Security Council on Monday, although the resolution is consistent with the US position that rejects the call for a permanent ceasefire, as it only calls for “an immediate ceasefire for the month of […]

Featured

“It is Criminal..Show some Humanity!” Ireland will Join ICJ case against Israel on Gaza Starvation, Genocide

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Irish government has decided to intervene in the court case at the International Court of Justice against Israel on grounds of the commission of genocide. The complaint had been brought by South Africa, and the court found the charge of genocide plausible on January 26. It issued a preliminary […]

Far Right

Israel’s ‘Iron Wall:’ A Brief History of the Ideology Guiding Benjamin Netanyahu

The Conversation

By Eran Kaplan, San Francisco State University | – (The Conversation) – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has signaled that Israel’s military will soon launch an invasion of Rafah, the city in the southern Gaza Strip. More than 1 million Palestinians, now on the verge of famine, have sought refuge there from their bombed-out cities farther […]

Displaced and Refugees

State Department finding Israel not in Violation of Int’l Law Contradicted by Resigning Official

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – US arms transfers are conditioned by federal law, as the Congressional Research office explains, which “prohibits security assistance to ‘any country the government of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations of internationally recognized human rights.’” (Foreign Assistance Act of 1961, as amended in 1976 with Section 502B(a)(2) […]