By Jonathan Power Editor’s Note: This commentary was first published three years ago. It is being republished because British-American filmmaker Christopher Nolan has recently released The Odyssey to widespread acclaim, while also attracting criticism over its historical inaccuracies. In this essay, Jonathan Power revisits what he believes Nolan missed—or chose to avoid—in his Oscar-winning film Oppenheimer, which chronicles […]
How Hakeem Jeffries and J Street Teamed Up for Arming Genocide
By Norman Solomon* SAN FRANCISCO, USA | 28 July 2026 (IDN) — When House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries sent out a recent “Dear Colleague” letter, its second sentence cited “the position articulated by…pro-peace organisations like J Street.” The congressman and J Street were opposing an amendment to block $3.3 billion in military shipments and other aid […]
Trump’s Authoritarian Play Against Foreign Journalists
By Alon Ben-Meir* For nearly a century, foreign correspondents have come to the United States precisely because this country prided itself on welcoming scrutiny. Now, the Trump administration proposes to turn that legacy on its head—by transforming visas for international journalists into instruments of control. NEW YORK | 26 July 2026 (IDN) — Under a […]
Genocides Are No Bargaining Chips
By Benoit Lannoo* ANTWERP, Belgium | 25 July 2026 (IDN) — The relations of the State of Israel with Türkiye and Azerbaijan have been under great tension since the Israeli government submitted a bill recognising the Armenian Genocide to the parliament, the Knesset, at the end of June. The government of Benjamin Netanyahu did not […]
War-War and Jaw-Jaw
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 22 July 2026 (IDN) –Donald Trump will find out the hard way in Iran that, as Winston Churchill famously observed, “Jaw-Jaw is better than War-War.” If war can be avoided through a warm, lengthy, private conversation—without advisers, accompanied by generous gestures and promises of international recognition when his opponent, […]
The New UN Resident Coordinator System Still Needs to Prove Itself
A Rushed Restructuring May Make Things Worse By Mohammed Chiraz Baly The writer is a staff representative and former General Secretary of the CCISUA staff union federation. He is also a data analyst at UNCTAD focusing on investment financing in developing countries. GENEVA, Switzerland | 20 July 2026 (IDN) — Resident coordinators represent the UN […]
Politicians Should Stop Hiding Behind the “Two-State Solution” Fantasy
By Norman Solomon* SAN FRANCISCO | 18 July 2026 (IDN) — Creation of a Palestinian state next to Israel seemed feasible when President Bill Clinton hosted the signing of the Oslo Accords at the White House in September 1993. The goal was reaffirmed in 2011 when 90 per cent of the Senate co-sponsored a resolution […]
Football Is More Than a Game
By Hervé Verhoosel* GENEVA | 17 July 2026 (IDN) – FIFA must now demonstrate through its actions that football’s greatest strength lies not in yielding to political pressure, but in its unique ability to make a positive difference in the world. I have never been a footballer. Yet during nearly twenty years at the United […]
Truth Before Power: Shakespeare on Judgment
By Sam Ben-Meir* NEW YORK | 16 July 2026 (IDN) – Few literary works have generated as many competing interpretations as Shakespeare’s Hamlet. Psychoanalytic critics have found an Oedipal drama. Existentialists have found a meditation on freedom and death. Feminist critics have found a tragedy of patriarchal domination. The feminist reading has become particularly influential in […]
We Should Question US “Soft Power”
By Jonathan Power LUND, Sweden | 15 July 2026 (IDN) – Is the world being captured by what the late Harvard academic, Joseph Nye, has termed American “Soft Power”? President Donald Trump says he’s pushing for this. The debate about American influence on the world at large is not new. Charles Dickens, the great British […]