religion

By Marjorie N. Feld, Babson College | – Since October 2023, American Jews have been engaged in an intense, fractious debate over Israel’s war in the Gaza Strip. Media reports say that American Jews are experiencing “the great rupture,” widening “rifts,” and stand at a “moral, political crossroads.” While most American Jews remain broadly supportive […]

Arab Americans

Rupture and Repair: A report by the Stanford Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian Communities Committee

contributors

May 2024 Rupture and Repair is published in pdf format here. Below I excerpt a couple of pages in html with the permission of the authors. This report details a substantial rupture of trust between students, staff, and faculty in the Muslim, Arab, and Palestinian (MAP) communities and Stanford in academic year 2023-24. These communities […]

Climate Crisis

Climate Emergency strikes Islam’s Holy Ritual, with nearly 600 dead of Heat stroke at 124.24° F. in Mecca

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – As the temperature in Mecca reached 125.24° F. (51.8° C.) on Tuesday, word leaked out that nearly 600 pilgrims had died of heat stroke and 2,000 have been hospitalized for treatment. A virtual clinic treated more thousands remotely. Some 324 of the dead were Egyptians,, while dozens were from Jordan. […]

Anti-Zionism

Voices for Justice in Palestine

H. Patricia Hynes

Greenfield, Mass. (Special to Informed Comment, Feature) – They gather every Saturday morning on the Greenfield Common, Massachusetts from 11-Noon. Their signs and banners read: LET GAZA LIVE FREE PALESTINE CEASEFIRE – NO ARM$ TO ISRAEL NEVER AGAIN FOR ANYONE Why? Johanna (Jo) Rosen stands on the Common because she is “heartbroken and outraged by […]

Christianity

Supreme Court Upside Down, Driven by Christian Theocracy

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The US Supreme Court has an integrity problem, freshly illustrated by their decision to allow a clearly racially motivated South Carolina re-districting map to stand. Led by Justice Sam Alito, they argue that the redistricting map gives Republicans an advantage, but is NOT racially motivated! Have they […]

Anti-Zionism

Most Bigoted, Genocidal Representative in Congress smears Juan Cole as a Racist

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The House Committee on Education and the Workplace, headed by the increasingly unhinged Rep. Virginia Palmieri Foxx (R-NC), held another Stalin-style show trial on Thursday, grilling the presidents of Northwestern University, Rutgers University, and the University of California Los Angeles about how they dealt with campus student protests against the […]

Anti-Zionism

Weaponizing Antisemitism

Common Dreams

By Ellen Cantarow and Jennifer Loewenstein | – ( Commondreams.org ) – All of us—and we are legion across the worldmust keep our eyes on the genocide in Gaza, as well as on the vicious pogroms underway in the West Bank. A recent statement by James Elder of UNICEF reports that in Rafah, “The European […]

Anti-Zionism

Antisemitism and Antizionism: A Dangerous Conflation

Yakov M. Rabkin

Montréal (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Antisemitism is making the headlines. The Israeli Prime Minister describes as antisemitic the accusation that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, and even American students who are calling for a ceasefire. What Israel is doing does in fact provoke antisemitic acts against synagogues, Jewish schools and even individual […]

Arab World

Why are Algorithms called Algorithms? A brief History of the Persian Polymath you’ve likely never Heard of

The Conversation

By Debbie Passey, The University of Melbourne | – (The Conversation) – Algorithms have become integral to our lives. From social media apps to Netflix, algorithms learn your preferences and prioritise the content you are shown. Google Maps and artificial intelligence are nothing without algorithms. So, we’ve all heard of them, but where does the […]