As Iran and the United States, a key member of the P5+1 world powers, inch toward deicing their 35-year-old frosty and at times traumatic relations, jockeying from all sides of political spectrum target the direction of this process and whether the icy relations should ever start to melt. Regional opponents of improved ties between Iran […]
The Economist released an interesting chart on global military spending this week showing the increased spending on military assets by countries that have been considered in the past to not be pro-Western or an ally of the United States or EU. The largest spending boom was made by China. China has openly shown the People’s […]
Convicted spy Jonathan Pollard has been a thorn in the sides of U.S. and Israeli administrations for 25 years. Since his conviction of sending classified information to Israel when working for the U.S. Navy, the Israeli public and politicians have repeatedly called for Pollard’s release, with their request falling on deaf ears at the White […]
Starting with the Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s signing of 15 international conventions, the dramatic events over the past week indicate that Israeli-Palestinian peace talks have reached yet another impasse. Several officials on U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry’s senior staff and inside the White House believe “it’s time to say enough.” According to them, […]
Rights American and other Western women enjoy are still hopes for women throughout the world. While Western women undoubtedly still struggle for things like job and pay equality, the ability to acquire an education and work are fundamental rights that, among others, are liberties women throughout the world do not yet enjoy. Saudi Arabia is […]
On Wednesday, Mar. 26, United States Secretary of State John Kerry cut his trip to Italy short to fly to Amman in hopes of keeping the Palestinian-Israeli peace process on track. Kerry met with Jordan’s King Abdullah before a long dinner with Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. On the three-hour flight to Amman Kerry spoke […]
Gareth Porter, author of Manufactured Crisis: The Untold History of the Iranian Nuclear Scare, is a renowned investigative journalist and historian on U.S. national security policy. Porter was the 2012 winner of the Gellhorn Prize for journalism awarded by the Gellhorn Trust in the U.K. His previous book was Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and […]
In recent months, Turkey—more specifically, Prime Minister Recep Tayyib Erdogan and his Justice and Development party (AKP)—has been the center of controversy and the subject of passionate debates. The other side of this political controversy is the spiritual leader of the Hizmet or Gulen Movement, Fethullah Gulen. However, as with all matters political; things are […]
On Monday, December 16, the American Studies Association voted to boycott Israeli academic institutions. Members of the ASA voted by a ratio of more than two to one to endorse the boycott in online balloting that concluded Sunday night, the group said. The election was a response to the ASA National Council’s announcement on December […]
Being an American professor living in Africa and teaching international relations, I have been involved in numerous debates about my country and its foreign policy. Obviously you get your mix, some pro-U.S. and some not. To try and make better sense of the situation, I decided to embark on a little pet project in […]
A unique humanitarian effort to shed light on and offer hope to those affected by the ongoing conflict in Syria harnessed the power of art. From November 3-6, areas along the Syrian border became canvases for international graffiti artists. In this demilitarized zone between Israel and Syria, deep in the area known as the Golan […]
The Syrian conflict has displaced in excess of 6.5 million people over the past two years, and tragically ended the lives of more than 100,000 others. As fighting continues, the international community seems numb to reports of chemical attacks, bomb explosions, and other horrific events that unfold almost daily. However, amidst headlines that highlight the […]
To say this documentary puts the Israelis in a bad light is a great understatement. It is hard, watching this film, to not want to ally oneself with the Palestinians portrayed in it. The documentary is about the erection of the wall Israel was building in 2002 that hems in the West Bank. We see […]
Below is an article by Roger Cohen in the New York Times, which favorably references an op-ed by David Harris, the head of the American Jewish Committee. Cohen means to demonstrate that even Harris thinks that Netanyahu “blustered” too much about Iran in his speech before the United Nations General Assembly this week. (Incidentally, he […]
Credit: Wikimedia Commons An Arabic-language professor at San Diego State University (SDSU) recently handed out an interesting map of the Arabic-speaking world to students on the second day of class. In it, the territory that makes up the state of Israel, the West Bank, and Gaza Strip was labeled simply as “Palestine.” This provoked several […]