In July 2025, the UK government designated Palestine Action as a proscribed terrorist under the Terrorism Act 2000, making it a criminal offence to be a member of, or provide support to, the group. The decision followed...
There are two posts I could have written about the latest Eurovision song contest. One would focus on another controversy over Israel’s participation and high vote count. The other would focus on...
Much of the discourse about the recent UK local elections had to do with the decline of Labour under Keir Starmer and the worrisome rise of the far-right Reform Party. This is obviously important,...
The US and Israel’s war on Iran and regional instability threatens to disrupt critical global migration patterns. These serve as vital pressure release valves for overcrowded and socio-economically...
And in despair I bowed my head; "There is no peace on earth," I said;"For hate is strong, And mocks the song Of peace on earth, good-will to men! Thanks for reading The Duck of Minerva! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work. -Henry Wadsworth Longfellow My family and I go to our church’s Christmas morning service, in addition to the Christmas eve service. It’s a short service, with light attendance, but it helps to remind of us the point of the holiday. When I heard about Trump’s air strikes on Nigeria—meant to help Nigerian Christians—the Christmas carols we sang were...
On November 1, 2025, President Donald Trump threatened to end all U.S. assistance to Nigeria and — if he deemed it necessary — launch a military attack against insurgents in the country. As National Public Radio reported: “If the Nigerian Government continues to allow the killing of Christians, the U.S.A. will immediately stop all aid and assistance to Nigeria, and may very well go into that now disgraced country, ‘guns-a-blazing,’ to completely wipe out the Islamic Terrorists who are committing these horrible atrocities,” Trump posted on social media. “I am hereby instructing our...
After years of calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, a ceasefire was recently announced and…those calling for the ceasefire are upset about it. There are some valid reasons to hold off on celebrating, but I worry this represents a deeper issue with how we conceive of peace and how we study the Middle East. And this will only hurt the Palestinians these voices claim to champion. The ceasefire The ceasefire the Trump Administration negotiated—or pushed on Netanyahu, which may be more accurate—is supposed to be step one of a “20 point” peace plan. The immediate steps involve Israel withdrawing from...
Debates about Israel and Palestine have, as one scholar remarked to me, become the “third rail” in British academia. That needs to change. The terror attack in Manchester makes clear that UK academics must engage in a public, thoughtful, and careful discussion about Jews, Israel and Palestine. On October 2nd, 2025 — on the holiest day of the Jewish calendar, Yom Kippur — a Synagogue in Manchester was attacked in what has been officially labelled a terrorist incident. Subsequent reporting indicates that some in the UK Jewish community were not surprised; as the Chief Rabbi put it, such an...
The Republic as we knew it is over. The fight now is whether the new one will be a fascistic, competitive authoritarian regime or a pluralist democracy that, one hopes, is better than what came before.
The UN General Assembly meeting has seen a growing number of states recognizing a state of Palestine, including Western powers like France, the United Kingdom and Canada. Debate has swirled over why they are doing this: is it a principled stand, an attempt to gain international or domestic clout, etc.? But there's a bigger question over whether this matters and when it may matter: that is, at what point does the informal recognition of an entity as a state lead to actual changes in international relations? A few scenarios are possible. Maybe there is a tipping point, where enough countries...
Drew Hogan answers 6+1 questions about how the United States does, and does not, support its overseas citizens.
I've had four potential posts on Israel, anti-Israel actions and antisemitism this week. As new events occur, the old post falls to the wayside. I was stuck on whether I should pick one, or try to weave the events together into some kind of narrative and draw conclusions. I've decided I can't, or don't want to, do either. And I wonder how much of the morass Israel-Palestine discourse feels stuck in is due to our compulsion to create such a narrative. A horrifying terrorist attack The first, and most recent, incident, was the tragic murder of Sarah Milgrim and Yaron Lischinsky by an...