Middle East

President Biden needs to Dump his War Hawks and Turn to Peace Work if he wants to Salvage his Presidency

Grand Blanc, Mi. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – It has been clear since the horrid terror attack of October 7 by Hamas that President Joe Biden has been getting dreadful advice from his top officials, whether at the State Department, the CIA or the National Security Council. The president’s refusal to draw any red […]

Climate Crisis

A Slow-Motion Gaza: Or how to Carbonize the Planet Earth

Tom Engelhardt

( Tomdispatch.com) – Imagine this: humanity in its time on Earth has already come up with two distinct ways of destroying this planet and everything on it. The first is, of course, nuclear weapons, which once again surfaced in the ongoing nightmare in the Middle East. (An Israeli minister recently threatened to nuke Gaza.) The […]

Israel/ Palestine

A Humanitarian Pause or a Surge in Human Rights Violations?

Ramona Wadi

by Ramona Wadi ( Middle East Monitor ) – After much useless public debate over Israel’s alleged right to defend itself, the international community regained its footing as the humanitarian paradigm, once more, comes within reach. A four day pause after an agreement reached by Israel and Hamas which would also see the release of […]

Christianity

Juan Cole: Infidel or Pagan? Understanding Kufr (كفر) in the Qur’an | Muhammad the Prophet of Peace

Juan Cole

Gabriel Said Reynolds of Notre Dame writes: “In this video I interview Professor Juan Cole, the Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. We discuss the historicity of Muhammad’s raids as well as the picture of the messenger that is obtained when one focuses on the Qur’an alone. The bulk […]

Islam

Never Forget: Jews and Muslims have Often imagined themselves in History as Siblings and Allies

Anouar Majid

Excerpted from Tingis. Historically, and even theologically, Jews have always been closer to Muslims than they were to Christians. It was in Muslim lands, the late eminent historian Bernard Lewis told us, that Arabic “became the language of science and philosophy, of government and commerce, even the language of Jewish theology when such a discipline […]

Israel/ Palestine

The Past, Present and Future of Israel/Palestine – Juan Cole, Sherene Seikaly and Zachary Lockman

Juan Cole

Massachusetts Peace Action: The Hamas attacks in Israel and Israel’s war on and invasion of Gaza are the latest rounds in a long-running conflict. In this webinar, three leading historians of the region will explore how we got here; what is fueling the present conflict; and what we in the United States can do. Speakers: […]

Featured

How Long will Palestinians go on being Scapegoats for the West’s Atrocities in WWII?

Sara Jamshidi

Seattle, Wa. (Special to Informed Comment; Featured) – If an Arab writer would create a Palestinian version of Schindler’s List, and if an Arab, or a filmmaker sympathetic to Arabs, would create the movie, I wonder what the story would look like. I wonder what the writer would write. I wonder what the filmmaker would […]

Colonialism

Juan Cole on Ridley Scott’s “Napoleon” (StayTunedNBC)

Juan Cole

Here is the interview Alex Greaney of StayTunedNBC did with Juan Cole about the Egypt scenes in Ridley Scott’s film, “Napoleon.” StayTunedNBC: “Juan Cole on Ridley Scott’s depiction of Napoleon in Egypt” I wrote a book about Bonaparte in Egypt for those of you who want to know more about the first major Western colonial […]

art and photography

How I express my diasporic Palestinian Grief through Art

Waging Nonviolence

Liz Bajjalieh November 14, 2023 ( Waging Nonviolence ) – I woke up on Oct. 7 to a Facebook timeline full of friends posting about how the world is just so cruel. Confused, I scrolled a bit further, and read what Western newspapers were saying: Israel and Hamas were targeting each other again. The heaviness […]