religion

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Demographically, the 21st century will be the Muslim Century, as the Pew Research Center on Religion in Public Life has shown. Muslims will go from 24% of the world’s population today to 31% by 2060. I.e. they will equal the Christian population of the world by […]

Eastern Orthodox

Everyone could celebrate Easter in Jerusalem except Palestinian Christians

contributors

By IMEMC. | – – Thousands of Christian followers of the Orthodox and Catholic faiths from all over the world, gathering at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem’s Old City, celebrated Easter Holy Saturday with the emergence of the holy fire from the location of the tomb believed to be that of Jesus […]

Copts

Sharpening Contradictions: ISIL Strikes Egyptian Christians on Palm Sunday

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Daesh (ISIS, ISIL) claimed responsibility Sunday for two suicide bombings at Christian churches in Lower Egypt on Palm Sunday, which left over 40 dead and over 100 wounded. The death toll would have been higher except that an Egyptian policeman stopped the suicide bomber in Alexandria […]

Donald Trump

Why We Need Political Islam

contributors

By Shlomo Ben-Ami | (Project Syndicate) | – – MADRID – US President Donald Trump has put on the back burner an executive order that would designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist group. He should leave it there permanently. Inclusive governments that are seen to represent the overwhelmingly devout Muslim societies of the Arab […]

Bashar al-Assad

Al-Sadr: Russia, America and al-Assad should all get out of Syria!

Juan Cole

By Juan Cole | (Informed Comment) | – – Iraqi Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Saturday issued a broadside demanding that Russia and the United States withdraw from Syria and that strongman Bashar al-Assad resign as president. Al-Sadr’s stand against al-Assad is unusual among Shiite movements. The Lebanese Shiite militia, Hizbullah, has entered Syria to […]

Displaced and Refugees

Trump: Syrian Refugees can have Tomahawks but not Asylum in US

contributors

By Lyndal Rowlands | (Inter Press Service) | – – UNITED NATIONS (IPS) – U.S. President Donald Trump Thursday night described the deepening Syrian refugee crisis as partial justification for the first direct U.S. airstrike against the Syrian government, even though the United States still bans all refugees from Syria. Several rights groups responded Friday, […]

American Jews

What history reveals about surges in anti-Semitism and anti-immigrant sentiments

contributors

By Ingrid Anderson | (The Conversation) | – – This February, more than 100 gravestones were vandalized at the Chesed Shel Emeth Society Cemetery outside of St. Louis, Missouri and at the Jewish Mount Carmel Cemetery in Philadelphia. The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has called anti-Semitism in the U.S. a “very serious concern.” An ADL task […]

Donald Trump

Iranian Woman Visiting US arrested, taken to distant Jail Despite Valid Visa

contributors

TeleSur | – – Alia Ghandi was denied U.S. entry to visit her family in Portland. Although courts rejected the so-called “Muslim ban,” an Iranian tourist was detained at an airport and jailed “without cause” in Portland, Oregon. Regardless of the fact that federal courts have repeatedly outlawed U.S. President Donald Trump’s discriminatory anti-Muslim travel […]

Far Right

Populist Wilders may have come up short, but Dutch intolerance is still real

contributors

By Annemarie Toebosch | (The Conversation) | – – The Dutch elections on March 15 have received a lot of attention in the international media. The reason for the attention is clear: A Trump lookalike populist, Geert Wilders, was rumored to win big as part of a Western populist movement that some call the “Patriotic […]