All Commentaries
Bin Laden’s Gift to Islam: Giving Muslims Religious License to Kill Each Other
Muslim soldiers, security officers, and government officials who support a tyrannical regime or an occupying force are legitimate targets for al Qaeda.
Interview with Christian Parenti
Tropic of Chaos, Christian Parenti’s excellent new book examining the intersections between climate change, neoliberal economic policy, and the spread of political violence, argues that the convergence of these threats to international security has set our world along a course that will result in a broken planet characterized by catastrophe, conflict, and xenophobic distrust. That is, unless meaningful action is taken immediately to reorient international relations away from this disastrous trajectory.
Israeli Parliamentarians Respond to Bid for Statehood by Calling for Annexation of West Bank
Knesset Deputy Speaker Danny Danon (Likud) announced that his bill to permit “full Israeli annexation of the West Bank” will be voted on in the Knesset at the end of October.
Vendetta, May 2006
I have held
my rage on a short
leash like a good,
mad dog whose bright
teeth could keep
the faces of our enemies
well lit.
Kaddish for Oslo
The Oslo Accords’ significance lay in the cover of global legitimacy they provided Israel while it continued to build settlements and make a two-state solution more and more unlikely.
Dale Carnegie of the Middle East
U.S. democracy promotion efforts in the Middle East have been based on a bizarre notion: that U.S. society can serve as a model for the region. Talk about a tough sell. Congress is a bruising rugby scrum, and the U.S. economy is a shambles. U.S. warplanes and drones target Muslims abroad, and Islamophobia permeates the political discourse at home. Washington has supported Arab dictators and stood by Israel through thick and thin. We’re telling the world about the benefits of fruits and vegetables and then turning around to sell what looks like wormy apples and rotten tomatoes. No wonder that U.S. public diplomacy has largely fallen flat in the Middle East.
Escaping Haqqanistan
Despite its brutality, corruption, and affiliation with al Qaeda, the Haqqani network is likely to inherit much of Afghanistan should the United States leave.
Drug War: Faster and More Furious
In early September, Mexican authorities arrested a U.S. citizen, Jean Batiste Kingery, for smuggling grenades across the border for the Sinaloa cartel. Astonishingly, U.S. agents had released Kingery a year before when he was captured for the same offense. U.S. law enforcement officials reportedly wanted to use him in a sting operation.
“Anti-Price Tag Patrol” Yet More Fuel for Israeli Right’s Fire
The Israeli right believe that anti-price tag patrols delegitimize Israel and enable the deaths of settlers at the hands of Palestinians.
The Balkanization of Somalia
Political instability within Somalia and the actions of the international community are closely connected. By supporting regional actors inside Somalia, instead of supporting the federal government, the international community is contributing to the centrifugal forces that keep the country weak, violent, and in a prolonged humanitarian crisis.