Featured

Oxford (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – On Tuesday afternoon (6 February 2024), U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken took part in a joint press conference with Qatari Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al Thani in Doha. The press conference was mainly about the war in Gaza and the possibility […]

Conspiracy Theories

Super Bowl Conspiracy: How the MAGA Republicans are (Taylor) Swift-Boating Themselves

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – I love how Republicans are using the romance of pop star Taylor Swift and football great Travis Kelce to forecast and promote their own political doom. They’re crying, “This is how we’re gonna’ lose and it’s not fair.” They are “swift-boating” themselves, and they have my permission. […]

Featured

Greater-Israel Advocates see Gaza Crisis as Opportunity for Expansion

Jeremy Pressman

Storrs, CT (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – The media rightly focused attention on a recent “packed gathering” of Israeli leaders and citizens discussing their support for returning Israeli settlers to the Gaza Strip, where they have not been since Israel’s disengagement in 2005. More generally, for the past four months, some ministers in the […]

Featured

New York Times’ Friedman hits new Low with Animalization of Arabs and Iranians

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – Calling people animals is a way to dehumanize them, and probably helps convince individuals that the other people around them approve of treating the animals badly. In ways that aren’t entirely clear, this way of speaking is certainly wrought up with violence and even genocide. Israel’s Defense Minister called the […]

Featured

Biden Isolated as 85% of Americans fear wider Mideast War, and 50% say Israel has gone Too Far

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – In a new NORC/ AP opinion poll, 50% of Americans say that they believe Israel has gone too far in its war on Gaza. That is up from 40% in November. Even though the US television news networks steadfastly decline to cover the Israeli war on Gaza in a concerted […]

Featured

Top 3 Things Biden could Do instead of intensively Bombing Iraq and Syria

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – The Biden administration launched 85 air strikes on Friday against small bases of the Party of God Brigades (Kata’ib Hizbullah), an Iraqi Shiite militia active in Iraq and Syria. The organization is likely the culprit in Sunday’s drone strike against the Tower 22 US base in the far north of […]

Constitution

US District Court Judge: “It is every individual’s obligation to confront the current siege in Gaza”

Juan Cole

Ann Arbor (Informed Comment) – U.S. District Judge Jeffrey S. White of the Northern District of California ruled Tuesday in a lawsuit brought by Palestinian-Americans and the Palestinian human rights group al-Haq against President Joe Biden, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin and Secretary of State Antony Blinken for their involvement in an Israeli genocide against […]

Featured

Juan Cole on the Mother of all Middle East Crises at “Intercepted”

Juan Cole

Jeremy Scahill and Murtaza Hussain interview Juan Cole at their superb Intercepted podcast at the Intercept . I come in about 12 minutes in. They write, “The killing of three U.S. soldiers at a remote military outpost in Jordan, claimed by Iraqi militia groups to be retaliation for U.S. support for Israel’s war in Gaza, […]

Antisemitism

Jewish American Dilemmas: Netanyahu’s War Crimes, Trumpian Antisemitism and the Fringe Left

H. Scott Prosterman

Oakland, Ca. (Special to Informed Comment; Feature) – Let’s face it. Israel under PM Benjamin Netanyahu (Bibi), isn’t helping the fight against global Antisemitism, and is fueling the BDS (Boycott, Divest, Sanction) Movement. The war crimes in Gaza have been augmented by a recent conference led by Bibi, to re-colonize Gaza with renewed Haredim settlements. […]