Place: Middle East

What does it mean to be a left anti-imperialist today? Stephen R. Shalom interviews Gilbert Achcar.

Where has Iran stood during the popular movements in Lebanon, Iraq, and Syria?

What does it mean to be a left anti-imperialist today? Stephen R. Shalom interviews Gilbert Achcar.

For the first time, the Democrats face a small but determined group within the party who demand a break from unconditional support for Israel and support for Palestinian rights.

Israel’s official discourse vehemently denies its “deeply ingrained institutionalized” anti-Arab racism and the settler-colonial nature of its state, although it is as blatant as could be and was even acknowledged by Zionism’s prominent historical figures.

This account of the fightback against the eviction of Palestinians from their homes in East Jerusalem was categorized as “hate speech” by Facebook and taken down after the author posted it there. We republish it in protest against this blatant censorship.

Talk of mass ‘joint struggle’ against the Zionist regime in the present circumstances is facile, but it is a mistake to think in a rigid static way.

The Israeli working class is a settler-colonial, active collaborator with Israeli capitalism in the continued ethnic cleansing and occupation project of Israeli apartheid.

The logic of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend” is a recipe for empty cynicism.

Disreputable writers and outlets, often operating under the aegis of “independent journalism” with purportedly “leftwing” views, are spreading corrosive propaganda and disinformation that aims to strip Syrians of political agency.

American socialists face the task of opposing American imperialism while showing internationalist solidarity with struggles for democracy, social reforms, and socialism in countries around the world.

Hal Draper proposed that Jews and Arabs could engage in “joint struggle from below, cemented by common national-revolutionary aims and common social interests.” What Draper contended in 1954 is still true today; the Zionist state has been a disaster for Israel’s Jews.

Palestine is one of the most controversial issues among liberals and even among some socialists. In the U.S., politicians and university administrators war against the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel, also labeling it as anti-semitic.

It’s time that the Zionists and the Israeli state (whose military developed from the Haganah) explain in full this incident, something that to all appearances looks like collaboration with German Nazis.

On December 21, 2020, the Iranian government sentenced Parvin Mohammadi, in absentia, to a year in prison on charges of “sedition.” She has refused to go to prison, continues to challenge the authorities, and has now gone into hiding.

Any group or entity that calls itself progressive must stand against oppression everywhere. An apologist for Assad’s genocidal regime and his Russian backers should not be normalized nor considered a valid source of information.

Last year a wave of militant protests spread across North Africa and West Asia, in a sustained, historic series of popular struggles. Emma Wilde Botta reviews “A Region in Revolt: Mapping the Recent Uprisings in North Africa and West Asia” edited by Jade Saab.

What can be done to show solidarity with Syrians who have risen up against their tyrannical government and its bloody allies? We in Promoting Enduring Peace thought a great gesture would be to give our Gandhi Peace Award to Syrians doing humanitarian work.

When a new “Progressive International” invited Syria’s Yassin al-Haj Saleh to join, he was happy to accept. When he then submitted this letter for their publication, they ceased contacting him without explanation.

Thousands of women and some men have started to speak publicly on social media about their experiences of sexual harassment, abuse, assault and rape.

The Jewish establishment has condemned the NYC Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) for asking candidates if they would forgo plans to take trips to Israel as an act of solidarity with Palestinians. Of course it’s a croc. It’s also hypocrisy.