US Foreign Policy

By Brett Murphy | – ( ProPublica ) – A special State Department panel recommended months ago that Secretary of State Antony Blinken disqualify multiple Israeli military and police units from receiving U.S. aid after reviewing allegations that they committed serious human rights abuses. But Blinken has failed to act on the proposal in the […]

Iran

Shadow War no more: With Direct Warfare between Israel and Iran, is there any going Back?

The Conversation

By Javed Ali, University of Michigan | – For decades, Iran and Israel have been engaged in a “shadow war.” Falling short of direct military confrontation, this conflict has been characterized by war through other means – through proxies, cyber attacks, economic sanctions and fiery rhetoric. Events over the last few weeks in the Middle […]

Featured

Netanyahu, Empowered by Biden’s Grant of Impunity, baits Iran into his genocidal Gaza War

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Despite all the hype about Iran’s largely symbolic barrage of over 200 drones and cruise and ballistic missiles, unleashed on the thinly populated Negev Desert (where it was mainly Palestinian Bedouins who were put in danger), the military significance of this action was minimal. An Israeli base was hit at […]

Featured

Cracks in Biden’s Zionist Wall: Warren, Powers admit “Genocide, Famine” in Gaza as Israeli Atrocities Continue

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Cracks are showing in the Iron Wall of the Biden administration knee-jerk support for the far-right, extremist Israeli government’s total war on Gaza. US AID Administrator Samantha Power admitted that Israel’s campaign in Gaza has produced a famine. And Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) admitted that Israel is committing a genocide […]

Israel

Are the United States and Israel heading toward a Divorce?

John Feffer

( Foreign Policy in Focus ) – Critics of Israel once occupied the fringes of the debate in the United States. Then, in 2007, J Street was founded as a loyal opposition to the kind of Israeli politics that received uncritical support from the U.S. mainstream. By organizing “pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy Americans” in favor of […]

Central Intelligence Agency

The Origins of the West’s Iran Crisis: Oil, Autocracy and Coup

Marc Martorell Junyent

Review of David S. Painter and Gregory Brew, The Struggle for Iran: Oil, Autocracy, and the Cold War, 1951–1954. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 2023. Munich (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The figure of Mohammad Mosaddeq, Prime Minister of Iran from 1951 to 1953, is an uncomfortable one for both sides […]

Displaced and Refugees

Not Enough: Biden decries Netanyahu Strategy as a “Mistake,” Mourns WCK dead, Calls for 6-8 Week Pause

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – President Biden granted the Spanish-language cable television channel Univision an interview that aired on Tuesday evening. Biden ranged widely, condemning his rival Donald J. Trump as a would-be dictator and praising Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador as a straight shooter. The mention of AMLO led interviewer Enrique Acevedo to […]

Featured

Nicaragua Sues Germany at Int’l Court of Justice to Halt Weapons to a “Genocidal” Israel

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Nicaragua’s opposition online newspaper, La Prensa , reported Monday that proceedings began at the International Court of Justice in Managua’s complaint against Germany for abetting Israeli genocide against the Palestinians of Gaza with its weapons shipments. Nearly half of arms shipments to Israel during the past six months have come […]

Featured

The U.S. used to Stand up to Israeli Expansionism: Time for Biden to Show Eisenhower’s Spine

Mohamed Jegham

Istanbul (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – President John. F Kennedy coined the term “special relationship” to describe the American-Israeli relationship. This “special relationship” has only continued to grow stronger, sometimes by fits and starts, since the inception of the Jewish state in 1948. Despite its support for Israel, when it came to the issue […]