Middle East

RT | – The US is “evaluating” its policy towards Israel in the wake of Benjamin Netanyahu’s re-election and campaign statements. This could involve passing a UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements. President Obama called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday to congratulate him on winning the March 17 election, and used the opportunity to […]

International Criminal Court

Will Palestine now take Israel’s Netanyahu to Int’l Criminal Court for War Crimes?

contributors

By Kate Shuttleworth and Joe Dyke | JERUSALEM/BEIRUT (IRIN) – Shortly before Israel’s elections on Tuesday, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that as long as he remained in power there would be no independent Palestinian state. “Whoever moves to establish a Palestinian state or intends to withdraw from territory is simply yielding territory for radical […]

Displaced and Refugees

Iraq: Shiite Militia atrocities During Fight Against ISIL & Iraq’s Response

contributors

Human Rights Watch | (New York) – Militias, volunteer fighters, and Iraqi security forces engaged in deliberate destruction of civilian property after these forces, following US and Iraqi air strikes, forced the retreat of Islamic State fighters (also known as ISIS) from the town of Amerli and surrounding areas in early September 2014, Human Rights […]

Featured

Tom Friedman & funding ISIL: Israel/Iran Derangement Syndrome

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Being a liberal Zionist was always a tough thing to pull off, but it is becoming increasingly just impossible. The intrinsic contradiction between wanting social justice and equity at home and supporting a militaristic and Apartheid Israel abroad produces what psychologists call cognitive dissonance. It is hard to […]

Democracy

Mideast Reacts with Horror: “Israel has elected Extremism and Racism”

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) – Observers in the Arab press who contemplated the victory of far right Likud leader Binyamin Netanyahu in the Israeli elections express emotions from “concern and anxiety” to out and out horror at the potentially destructive impact it will have on the region. Barhoum Jaraisi writes in the Jordanian […]

Syria

Growing Up in Syria: Children Images and War

contributors

Asaad Al-Saleh | (Informed Comment) When I wrote my book, “Voices of the Arab Spring” (Columbia UP, 2015), I did not feature testimonials by children. Though the book surveys participants from various backgrounds—in age, politics, and education— – children were excluded for a proper reason. They should stay out of politics, though adults in the […]

al-Qaeda

Will Terrorist attack on Tunisia Museum-goers Test Gov’t’s Commitment to Rights?

contributors

Human Rights Watch | (Tunis) The despicable attack in the Bardo Museum in Tunis on March 18, 2015, killing at least 19 foreign tourists and Tunisians, will test efforts by the Tunisian authorities to build a rights-respecting society, Human Rights Watch said today. No one has yet claimed responsibility for the assault at the museum, much […]

Democracy

The Palestinian-Israelis’ Selma Moment?

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) Ayman Odah, leader of the Joint Arab List, the party representing Palestinian-Israelis and elements of the Israeli left, responded late Tuesday to the news that Israelis of Palestinian descent came out in droves to vote. Their turnout in the last Israeli election had only been 56%. Odah said from […]

Apartheid

United Nations: 100,000 Gazans Still Homeless Since Summer Attack

contributors

By IMEMC News & Agencies | – The official UN death-toll for the 2014 war shows that 1,549 Palestinian civilians were killed in comparison to four Israelis, and 504 Palestinian children were killed for one Israeli child. PNN reports that, in the Gaza Strip, the seven weeks of hostilities between Palestinian armed groups and the […]