[Marxism] Ilya Budraitskis on the sentencing of Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == “Trial” Ilya Budraitskis July 24, 2014 OpenLeft.Ru Udaltsov: four and a half years in prison. Razvozzhayev: four and a half years in prison. “You were paid to come here, right?” the girl in uniform at the entrance to Moscow City Court asked out of habit. Then came the long hours of standing with sympathizers, acquaintances, and strangers listening as the sentence in the trial of Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev was read out. The Bolotnaya Square case is only two years old, but it seems a whole lifetime has passed. Slurring the words, Judge Alexander Zamashnyuk and his henchmen took turns reading out the full version of the idiotic detective story, a puzzle whose pieces have finally fallen into place: long-cherished dreams of violent revolution, the heady atmosphere of the Movement for Fair Elections, the connection with Georgian intelligence and clandestine seminars on how Maidan was organized (then it was still the previous Maidan), the columns of “anarchists and nationalists” on May 6, 2012, in Moscow, the “riots,” with all their participants and “hallmarks.” The absurd picture of a conspiracy, which just recently provoked laughter, now finds support and understanding in the eyes of the frightened and brutalized “new Putin majority,” who seemingly think it is nice everything ended on May 6, 2012, and that the prison sentences and frame-ups are the price that must be paid for perpetual Russian stability. Like the other Bolotnaya Square prisoners, Sergei Udaltsov is no longer a symbol of a movement that served its purpose but something much more than that. He is a reminder that resisting, dissenting, and undermining the false unity of the people and the state continue to be historical possibilities. Free Sergei Udaltsov and Leonid Razvozzhayev! Published at: http://therussianreader.wordpress.com/2014/07/25/ilya-budraitskis-trial/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] The one-sided war on free speech in Australia
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Free speech is important in Australia, but apparently only when you express conservative ideologies, writes John Passant in New Matilda. https://newmatilda.com/2014/07/25/one-sided-war-free-speech Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] On Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == On Jul 23, 2014, at 3:54 PM, Clay Claiborne via Marxism wrote: > It also means Russia shot down MH17 as part of its war of > aggression against Ukraine and thus even though it be an accident it was > manslaughter committed during the commission of a violent crime, meaning > Russia should be charged with 298 counts of murder in the first degree by > any laws I would respect. The NATO countries, of course, do not presently have the power to bring the Russian leaders to trial. Instead, the US and its allies are trying to bring pressure to bear through their control of the global financial system. The EU today adopted tougher sanctions in line with those adopted earlier by the Obama administration as part of a staged program designed to progressively squeeze the Russian financial system and cripple the economy. Do you support these efforts? * * * EU Tightens Screws on Russia By MATTHEW DALTON and LAURENCE NORMAN Wall Street Journal July 24 2014 BRUSSELS—The European Union is moving to place sanctions on a range of Russian economic sectors, EU diplomats said on Thursday, in what would be a significant escalation of the bloc's efforts to isolate Moscow for its alleged support of rebel groups in eastern Ukraine. The EU also added new names and companies to its sanctions list, including senior officials from Russia's security services, and prepared to place oligarchs close to the Russian leadership on the list as well. Thursday's moves, which came after all-day negotiations among EU ambassadors in Brussels, show that European nations are overcoming some of the political divides that have tempered the bloc's response to the Ukraine crisis. […] The EU on Thursday added 18 entities to its sanctions list, including the separatist groups People's Republic of Luhansk and Donetsk People's Republic and some half a dozen Crimea-based companies that benefitted from the Russian annexation of the region, the diplomats said. Also targeted were 15 individuals, including senior officials from the Federal Security Service, or FSB. The head of the FSB is one of the people added to the sanctions list, EU diplomats said. Those sanctions, which include a ban on travelling to the EU and an asset freeze, are expected to take formal effect on Friday evening. The proposals for broader economic sanctions, described in a document distributed to member states and seen by The Wall Street Journal, include trade and investment restrictions and a prohibition on listing Russian financial instruments on European markets or exchanges—measures that could hit Sberbank, Russia's largest bank and one of Europe's biggest financial institutions. The measures also include trade restrictions on arms, on technology used by the Russian military and on goods used for unconventional oil exploration. * * * EU to weigh far-reaching sanctions on Russia By Peter Spiegel in Brussels Financial Times July 24 2014 EU diplomats will weigh sweeping Russian sanctions on Thursday that include a proposal to ban all Europeans from purchasing any new debt or stock issued by Russia’s largest banks, according to a proposal seen by the Financial Times. The sanctions measure, contained in a 10-page options memo prepared by the European Commission and distributed to national capitals, also proposes barring the Russian banks from listing new issues on European exchanges, preventing them from using London or other EU stock markets to raise funds from non-Europeans. The proposal would not initially include a similar prohibition for Russian sovereign bond auctions out of fear the Kremlin could retaliate by ordering an end to Russian purchases of EU government debt, the document states. But it would still be far more extensive than sanctions imposed by the US this month which only targeted two Russian banks, Gazprombank and VEB, since the EU proposal would hit all banks with more than 50 per cent public ownership. […] The options paper, which was sent to national capitals on Wednesday night, for the first time shows how extensive the preparations are in Brussels to move towards sweeping penalties that could cripple the Russian economy. “Restricting access to capital markets for Russian state-owned financial institutions would increase their cost of raising funds and constrain their ability to finance the Russian economy, unless the Russian public authorities provide them with substitute financing,” the document reads. “It would also foster a climate of market uncertainty that is likely to affect the business environment in Russia and accelerate capital outflows. “ The existence of the document – titled “Outline of an initial package of targeted measures in the areas of access to
[Marxism] Why Chinese state capitalism won't suffer a Western finance capitalist crisis
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == (John Ross was a central leader of the Trotskyist International Marxist Group in Britain, later a key economic advisor to London mayor Ken Livingstone, and currently teaches at Renmin University in Beijing.) Why China won't suffer a Western type financial crisis By John Ross Key trends in globalization July 23 2014 Inaccurate articles sometimes appear claiming China faces a "severe debt crisis." Factually these are easily refuted. Changyong Rhee, the IMF's Asia and Pacific Department director, pointed out that China's national and local government debt is only 53% of its GDP, compared to U.S. government debt which is roughly as big as GDP, or in Japan where government debt is 240% GDP. Foreign debt is 9% of China's GDP – insignificant set against the world's largest foreign exchange reserves. Factually, it is therefore unsurprising that China's predicted "Lehman" or "Minsky" moment, a financial collapse, invariably fails to occur. But there is another, even more fundamental, reason why China's economy does not suffer severe financial crises of the type that struck the Western economies in 2008 or wracked the Eurozone. As this illustrates a way that China's economic structure is superior to the West's, it is worth analyzing. Starting with fundamentals, the way the argument is constructed that China faces a "serious debt crisis" violates the most elementary accounting rule – more precisely that of double entry book keeping, which was invented in Italy "merely" eight centuries ago! This is that for every debit entry there has to be a credit one, and vice versa. Discussion of only of one side of a balance sheet without the other is financial nonsense. Claims, such as in the Financial Times, that the big story of 2014 is "the black cloud of debt hanging over China" are financially meaningless given they do not discuss assets to be set against debt. To illustrate this elementary accounting principle, take a simple example. A company borrows $100 million at 5% interest, uses it to build houses, and sells them at 15% profit. To declare "there is a crisis – the company has a $100 million debt" is evidently nonsense. The company has debts of $100 million but assets of $115 million. It can repay $105 million and make $10 million profit – there is no "debt crisis" whatever. That its assets are greater than its debt illustrates why it is financially illiterate to discuss only debt without assets. A "balance sheet" is called that because it has two sides, not one. Apply this to China and the West's financial systems. Evidently no financial problem exists in either if a borrower makes a profit on a loan – they repay it. A problem only exists if the borrower does not make sufficient money to repay the debt. If the borrower is a small or medium one, again there is no difference between Western and Chinese financial systems. In both cases the borrower partially or fully defaults and, if necessary, goes bankrupt. Specific criticisms can be made, which this author would tend to agree with, that in the West's system companies are sometimes too easily allowed to use bankruptcy to escape debts, and China has propped up some companies that would have been better allowed to go bankrupt. But these are detailed points, not affecting the essence of the matter. China is also now taking a more robust line in forcing into default small and medium borrowers that cannot repay loans – recently Shanghai Chaori Solar Energy Science and Technology defaulted without a bail out. But, by definition, individual bankruptcies by small and medium companies do not affect the financial system's viability – they are a normal part of market functioning. The key difference between China's and the Western financial system comes with debts by large institutions – "system making" ones to use technical economic terms. Here Western and China's systems differ – and China's is superior. First take Western government debt. As Western governments ideologically oppose state investment, Western state borrowing is overwhelmingly used not to finance investment but consumption – via social security payments, unemployment pay etc. For example, in the United States at the depth of the post 2008 Great Recession, annual government borrowing was 13.6 percent of GDP but state investment was only 4.5 percent – borrowing overwhelmingly financed consumption. As Western government debt primarily finances consumption it therefore creates no lasting asset. That is why in the West it is not wholly misleading to look at state borrowing purely from the debt point of view – even if it is wrong conceptually. China is different. The bulk of borrowing, particularly by local government, is for investment, primari
[Marxism] Fwd: A short history of the Syrian revolution | Louis Proyect: The Unrepentant Marxist
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://louisproyect.org/2014/07/24/a-short-history-of-the-syrian-revolution/ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Petition | Solidarity With the Syrian Struggle for Dignity and Freedom | Change.org
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == The petition is closed with 972 signatures (including Tariq Ali!) but it is worth viewing: http://www.change.org/petitions/solidarity-with-the-syrian-struggle-for-dignity-and-freedom Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Thoughts on Palestine and Syria
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Yes, I'm aware of his lack of principle on the subjects you've mentioned alongside Egypt. I mentioned him in regret that it's hard to find an anti-Zionist, anti-Assad analysis. Thanks for the blog! > On Jul 24, 2014, at 3:16 PM, Andrew Pollack wrote: > > Just remember, if you share Pham's post, what a dangerously unprincipled > opportunist he is. For instance, his latest post is about the FSA disowning > JAN (al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda group) for its atrocities -- yet Pham himself not > that long ago was denouncing leftists who criticized JAN! > > Not to mention his "hurrah" for the Zionist attack on Syria etc. etc. etc. > > If you want a genuine anti-Zionist, anti-Assad effort, check out > http://menasolnetus.wordpress.com/ and on Facebook the Syrian Revolution > Support Bases group. > > >> On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 12:54 AM, Anas via Marxism >> wrote: >> == >> Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. >> == >> >> >> I have read Binh's recent article >> (http://notgeorgesabra.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/selective-internationalism-an-activist-disorder/) >> on the relation between Palestine and Syria and saw a statistic from FP >> that more than 700 people have been killed in Syria between Thursday and >> Friday >> (http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/07/21/overlooked_syrian_conflict_hits_new_death_toll_record?utm_content=buffer89172&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer) >> >> Even facts like how Assad has substantially displaced more Palestinians than >> Israel has this year tend to be interpreted as apologetic for Israel. >> >> Fortunately, I had found this amazing line that seemed to really convey why >> the Palestinian struggle is famous in a recent article by Adam shatz.. This >> explanation can't be easily characterized as whitewashing Israel: >> >> "Do you know why we are so famous?" Mahmoud Darwish asks the Israeli writer >> Helit Yeshurun inPalestine as Metaphor. "It's because you are our enemy. The >> interest in the Palestinian question flows from the interest in the Jewish >> question…. It's you they're interested in, not me!… So we have the >> misfortune of having an enemy, Israel, with so many sympathizers in the >> world, and we have the good fortune that our enemy is Israel, since Jews are >> the center of the world. You have given us our defeat, our weakness, our >> renown." As Darwish suggests, this concern for the Palestinians is not a >> matter of anti-Semitism, as Israel supporters claim, so much as it is a >> reflection of self-absorption: the Palestinians are important to the West >> because, through their oppression by Israeli Jews, they have become >> characters in a Western narrative." >> >> (I encourage you to read the full article. We should have more writers on >> the region like Adam Shatz, and less of Chris Hedges and Robert Fisk (and >> plenty others in zmag, counterpunch) who view the Middle East as a >> geopolitical entity that revolves around America.) >> >> I'm afraid by the time the Syrian question becomes popular, all Syrians >> would be dead already. And it will stay unpopular for as long as the players >> involved aren't Israeli Jews or Westerners* as Mahmoud Darwich, in the usual >> Palestinian acerbic wit, demonstrates. >> >> http://m.thenation.com/article/180663-writers-or-missionaries >> >> *As western jihadists going to fight in Syria garner more discussion in >> western papers of record and media than the victims of the war >> >> Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu >> Set your options at: >> http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com > Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] "Democratic State" Bans a Party
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://revolting-europe.com/2014/05/21/ukrainian-democracy-under-threat-as-interim-government-moves-to-ban-communist-party/ Don't personally give a squat about the fate of this so-called "communist" party. The point is, this is what happens to blandly tossed out facile characterizations in order to avoid in-depth analysis that might surface facts inconvenient to certain talking points. Reality comes along and negates the facile formulation. The very next day. Not to mention its substantive negation in the bloody military assault in the east of the country. That includes the airline downing, fundamentally Kiev's responsibility (its their airspace, their traffic control, their territory), even if Putin personally pushed the button on the BUK1. It was Kiev that created the condition of all out war in Donbass in the first place, just as it was the neo-fascist wing of Maidan that got the ball rolling with armed building and armory seizures. It is a shame that Marxmail appears to miss the big story of our time: The accelerating unraveling of U.S. imperialism in the wake of its failed attempt at world hegemony (1992-2005, RIP). Perhaps we are at a tipping point. What we are seeing in its wake, to one extent or another, are the various epiphenomena of that process. For Washington, Ukraine is a "last ditch" to recoup what has already failed, hence the "maximalist" hysterics coming from that quarter. That includes even where the US has no real involvement (Thailand), a measure of its gross over-extension. If so, it has obviously huge implications of world-historical proportions. Let's not take our eyes off the Prize. -Matt Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Thoughts on Palestine and Syria
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Just remember, if you share Pham's post, what a dangerously unprincipled opportunist he is. For instance, his latest post is about the FSA disowning JAN (al-Nusra, the Al Qaeda group) for its atrocities -- yet Pham himself not that long ago was denouncing leftists who criticized JAN! Not to mention his "hurrah" for the Zionist attack on Syria etc. etc. etc. If you want a genuine anti-Zionist, anti-Assad effort, check out http://menasolnetus.wordpress.com/ and on Facebook the Syrian Revolution Support Bases group. On Wed, Jul 23, 2014 at 12:54 AM, Anas via Marxism < marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu> wrote: > == > Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. > == > > > I have read Binh's recent article ( > http://notgeorgesabra.wordpress.com/2014/07/22/selective-internationalism-an-activist-disorder/) > on the relation between Palestine and Syria and saw a statistic from FP > that more than 700 people have been killed in Syria between Thursday and > Friday ( > http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2014/07/21/overlooked_syrian_conflict_hits_new_death_toll_record?utm_content=buffer89172&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer > ) > > Even facts like how Assad has substantially displaced more Palestinians > than Israel has this year tend to be interpreted as apologetic for Israel. > > Fortunately, I had found this amazing line that seemed to really convey > why the Palestinian struggle is famous in a recent article by Adam shatz.. > This explanation can't be easily characterized as whitewashing Israel: > > "Do you know why we are so famous?" Mahmoud Darwish asks the Israeli > writer Helit Yeshurun inPalestine as Metaphor. "It's because you are our > enemy. The interest in the Palestinian question flows from the interest in > the Jewish question…. It's you they're interested in, not me!… So we have > the misfortune of having an enemy, Israel, with so many sympathizers in the > world, and we have the good fortune that our enemy is Israel, since Jews > are the center of the world. You have given us our defeat, our weakness, > our renown." As Darwish suggests, this concern for the Palestinians is not > a matter of anti-Semitism, as Israel supporters claim, so much as it is a > reflection of self-absorption: the Palestinians are important to the West > because, through their oppression by Israeli Jews, they have become > characters in a Western narrative." > > (I encourage you to read the full article. We should have more writers on > the region like Adam Shatz, and less of Chris Hedges and Robert Fisk (and > plenty others in zmag, counterpunch) who view the Middle East as a > geopolitical entity that revolves around America.) > > I'm afraid by the time the Syrian question becomes popular, all Syrians > would be dead already. And it will stay unpopular for as long as the > players involved aren't Israeli Jews or Westerners* as Mahmoud Darwich, in > the usual Palestinian acerbic wit, demonstrates. > > http://m.thenation.com/article/180663-writers-or-missionaries > > *As western jihadists going to fight in Syria garner more discussion in > western papers of record and media than the victims of the war > > Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/acpollack2%40gmail.com > Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Israel losing the media war
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == http://www.salon.com/2014/07/23/%E2%80%9Cthe_more_the_dead_the_better%E2%80%9D_israel%E2%80%99s_crumbling_media_war/?source=newsletter Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
Re: [Marxism] Israel is being defeated in Gaza as it was in Lebanon
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Well, Lüko, this is not entirely accurate. There are some Irish and Puerto Rican's who might disagree. Secondly, it's a ridiculous statement anyway: that in the end the people win. Wowso? We're supposed to sit back and wait? So far the Palestinians have been fighting for almost 80 years (if we use the 1936 Uprising against the British as a starting date for Palestinian nationalism). It doesn't look like the Zionist state is going anywhere soon. I reject the idea that because it is perceived as "inevitable" that the "Crusader state" will be overturned that someone this makes everything ok...which is what you are implying. In fact nothing is inevitable. That most, but not all such states have been is not a guide for future results, at all. David Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Inside Assad’s Playbook: Time and Terror
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == A former top diplomat explains Baathist strategy. http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/inside-assad-s-playbook-time-and-terror Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] A British Genocide in Tasmania
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == LRB Vol. 36 No 15 · 31 July 2014 by Bernard Porter The Last Man: A British Genocide in Tasmania by Tom Lawson Tauris, 263 pp, £25.00, January, ISBN 978 1 78076 626 3 It’s well known now that contact with British settlers in the early 19th century led to the extinction of the native Tasmanians; it was pretty well known at the time too. But much about that extinction is obscure, including the numbers involved: most estimates suggest that in 1803 between five and ten thousand aborigines lived on the island, and that by 1876 there were none – only mixed-race Tasmanians and those deported to the Australian mainland survived. (William Lanne, the ‘last man’ of Tom Lawson’s title, died in 1869; two Tasmanian women survived him briefly.) There is also disagreement about the way they met their end, or rather about the relative roles played by settler violence, intertribal conflict, exogenous diseases, declining fertility and plain demoralisation; and about the contribution made by the local colonial authorities. Modern Australian historians seem prepared to accept a large measure of retrospective blame on behalf of their nation; a few years ago this provoked the almost comically reactionary Liberal prime minister John Howard to inveigh against what he called the ‘black armband’ view of his country’s history (as opposed to the proud Gallipoli view), which launched the popular debate that became known in Australia as the ‘history wars’. The main argument was over the number of natives directly killed by the settlers. Lawson thinks this doesn’t much matter: it was a genocide in any case. He is also at pains to demolish the claim often made by even the most critical chroniclers, that Britain – the metropole – was not to blame. It’s usually said that the Colonial Office did its best to protect the aborigines, that it was the settlers – many of them ex-convicts – who did the damage, against orders and to the great chagrin of those back home. No, Lawson says: the imperial government was equally implicated. He also believes that Britain’s record of colonial genocide should be taught in British schools, which makes the book relevant to the (lesser) history wars that are going on now in Britain, over how celebratory the national curriculum should be. The genocide began, as genocides often did (and perhaps still do), with competition for land between the native population and British immigrants, who had been told that Tasmania was a potential arcadia for them, so long as they put their backs into developing it; and that it was empty of civilised people, which gave them the right to take it on. Unfortunately it wasn’t quite empty of ‘uncivilised’ people, whom they inevitably rubbed up against, with the uncivilised coming off worst. The story was similar elsewhere: in North America, of course, and in Southern Africa, where native populations were much reduced, though never quite wiped out. That was easier in Tasmania: with its being an island it was easier to tell when all the natives had been cleared out. The clashes began a few months after the first Europeans arrived, when a group of several hundred aborigines approached their settlement at Risdon Cove, just north of present-day Hobart. The aborigines were probably on a kangaroo hunt, but the settlers suspected them of hostile intentions – they were barbarians after all – and fired on them, leaving several dead. The full circumstances are still unclear, including the number of Tasmanians killed – contemporary estimates ranged from five to fifty – and the incident bedevilled relations between the two communities for years. Tensions continued, usually as a result of white encroachments on aboriginal hunting grounds, culminating in a full-scale Black War in the late 1820s – Tasmanians against colonial troops and armed settlers. That wasn’t the only massacre. Some of the European combatants were vicious, and clearly meant to exterminate the natives, not just defeat them – Lawson provides some gory details, including infants’ brains being bashed out. The usual factors operated: need or greed on the Europeans’ part, and racist prejudice, exacerbated by fear and paranoia on both sides, together with genuine misunderstandings over what it meant to occupy land. The Tasmanians, it seemed, didn’t recognise the concept of individual land ownership, which made it difficult for the settlers to assert their claims even if they intended to do it legally. For some settlers, the aborigines’ failure to accept the validity of their claims was proof of their inferiority, as if Lockean concepts of private property were an essential mark of civilisation. The Europeans felt justified in taking over most of the countr
[Marxism] A legal and moral case for Hamas rocket fire
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == > > > Two leading intellectuals make separate and eloquent cases that the people > of > Gaza have the right to resist by any means – including by firing rockets – > Israel's efforts to slowly extinguish their right to self-determination, > and > possibly to life itself. They argue that the Palestinians have this right > most > certainly at a moral level, but also [...] > > > http://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2014-07-24/a-legal-and-moral-case-for-hamas-rocket-fire/ > Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
[Marxism] Fwd: Hezbollah Talks Big but Bows Out of the Gaza War - The Daily Beast
== Rule #1: YOU MUST clip all extraneous text when replying to a message. == Over a year ago, as Hezbollah was ratcheting up its military assistance to Assad and turning the tide of battle in his favor, Hamas urged Hezbollah to withdraw its forces from Syria and focus on fighting Israel instead. But Hamas, you see, is part of the international Muslim Brotherhood—the Sunni Muslim Brotherhood—committed to Assad’s overthrow. This inconvenient fact was something that might be glossed over if everyone was focused on the Israeli enemy, but it couldn’t be ignored in what rapidly became Syria’s Sunnis vs Shia civil war. “We call on Hezbollah to take its forces out of Syria and to keep their weapons directed against the Zionist enemy,” Moussa Abu Marzouk, a Hamas leader, announced on his Facebook page. He warned that Hezbollah’s involvement in Syria would stoke sectarian flames across the Mideast—as indeed it has done. There were even unconfirmed reports that Hamas fighters gave tips to the Sunni insurgents in Syria about how to fight against Hezbollah in urban combat by using tunnels (a technique Hezbollah originally had taught Hamas, which it is now using to try to launch commando raids in Israel and wage a guerrilla campaign inside Gaza). full: http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/23/hezbollah-talks-big-but-bows-out-of-the-gaza-war.html Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.csbs.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
