Middle East

(Via AFP) Israel to build high rise in annexed E.Jerusalem area: NGO (via AFP) Jerusalem’s planning committee moved forwards on Wednesday with plans to build a nine-storey Jewish seminary in the heart of a densely-populated Palestinian neighbourhood near the Old City. Plans for the new tower block, to be built in the Sheikh Jarrah… […]

Dissent

Did Religious Extremism drive 2 Million Egyptian youth to Unbelief?

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) Egyptian journalist Hilmy al-Namnam said last fall that some researchers had concluded that there were 2 million Egyptian atheists. He blamed the rapid increase in unbelief among young people on the period of Muslim Brotherhood rule and the hypocrisy of television preachers. Educated young women are especially dismayed at the discourse on […]

Bashar al-Assad

Can Obama make a grand bargain with Iran over Syria?

contributors

(By Shahram Akbarzadeh) The last round of talks to bring some relief to the humanitarian disaster in Syria achieved remarkable nothing. The anti-Assad delegation traded barbed insults with the Syrian government delegation and all left the meeting with the reaffirmed conviction that the other side cannot be trusted. But something peculiar happened on the side […]

Human Rights

False Dawn: The 35th Anniversary of Iranian Revolution

contributors

(By Farhang Jahanpour) The Iranian revolution succeeded exactly 35 years ago this week. After 37 years of rule, Mohammad Reza Shah left Iran on 16 January 1979, never to return. His nemesis, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, who had waged a campaign against him mainly from his exile in Najaf in Iraq for 14 years returned in […]

Barack Obama

Obama & Hollande stress Hope for Iran Breakthrough

Juan Cole

(By Juan Cole) In his news conference with French President Francois Hollande, President Obama outlined four areas of diplomatic progress. The first is foreign policy, including Iran, Syria and the Israeli-Palestinian struggle. Re: negotiations with Iran, Obama said, “Our unity with our P5-plus-1 partners, backed with strong sanctions, has succeeded in halting and rolling back […]

Arab Spring

The Arts of the Arab Uprisings at the Arab-American Museum

Juan Cole

VOA interviews my colleague Christiane Gruber of the Art History Department at the University of Michigan on the exhibit she helped curate at the Arab-American Museum in Dearborn, Michigan, which came out of our symposium in November at which Arab bloggers and graffiti artists and other practitioners of the arts of protest presented alongside academics […]

Human Rights

Iraq illegally Jailed thousands of Women, Torture & Abuse Alleged

Juan Cole

(Human Rights Watch) (Baghdad) – Iraqi authorities are detaining thousands of Iraqi women illegally and subjecting many to torture and ill-treatment, including the threat of sexual abuse. Iraq’s weak judiciary, plagued by corruption, frequently bases convictions on coerced confessions, and trial proceedings fall far short of international standards. Many women were detained for months or […]

Economy

Brokers of Deceit: Massive US Aid to Israel has Enabled a Colonial Project

contributors

(By Chase Madar via Tomdispatch) We Americans have funny notions about foreign aid. Recent polls show that, on average, we believe 28% of the federal budget is eaten up by it, and that, in a time of austerity, this gigantic bite of the budget should be cut back to 10%. In actual fact, barely 1% […]

Human Rights

In midst of Alleged Peace Talks, Israel Announces Hundreds of new Squatter Homes in Palestinian East Jerusalem

Juan Cole

(via AFP) Israel approves 550 Jerusalem settler homes (via AFP) Israel expedited Wednesday plans for more than 550 new settler homes in east Jerusalem, in a move exacerbating tensions between Israel and the Palestinians as they hold US-backed peace talks. The city council said it had granted private contractors… —– Related video: Israel plans […]