Juan Cole

1 month ago | countercurrents.org | Juan Cole |Phil Pasquini |Lawrence Wittner |Kim Petersen

The opening weeks of the second Trump administration have produced daily headlines that read — no, this is not hyperbole! — like science fiction. The spectacle of a South African tech billionaire and his cronies staging a twenty-first-century cybercoup with the acquiescence of an aging lunatic of a president beggars belief.

Jan 8, 2025 | nationofchange.org | Juan Cole

Gaza’s Ministry of Health today announced that 35-day-old Yousef Kalloub froze to death because of the lack of sufficient winter clothes and suitable living conditions in the enclave as a result of Israel’s genocidal war. Yousef became the eight baby to freeze to death in Gaza. In a statement yesterday, the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) warned that “cold weather and lack of shelter are causing the death of newborns in Gaza, while 7,700 newborns lack life-saving care.

Dec 20, 2024 | nationofchange.org | Juan Cole

Obeida Arnaout, the spokesman for the Sunni fundamentalist Levant Liberation Council (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or HTS) gave an interview on Wednesday with the Lebanese Al-Jadid channel that provoked a firestorm of protest among Syrian women and, well, non-fundamentalists.

Dec 7, 2024 | znetwork.org | Juan Cole

The strategic situation in Syria is dire for the Baathist government of Bashar al-Assad. Typically in military history, if an invader takes the capital of the other country, it secures its victory. Damascus is the prize. Damascus has an Achilles heel. It is landlocked, deep in the south of the country, and far from the port of Latakia that supplies it. The other nearby port, Beirut in Lebanon, is a shadow of its former self, and the Lebanese government has closed the borders with Syria.

Dec 5, 2024 | nationofchange.org | Juan Cole

Amnesty International has just put out a detailed report based on its own fieldwork and masses of other evidence finding that Israel is committing a genocide against Palestinians in Gaza. The organization joins several other international bodies in coming to that conclusion, and it is one that I endorsed in my recent book, Gaza Yet Stands.