A fortnight later
Another round-up of some of the things I've read over the past days.
Afrin
Hezbollah
Alt-leftism
Afrin
When we used to go to Kurdish areas to protest with them in 2012. pic.twitter.com/cqdtVqnlSz— Loubna Mrie (@Loubnamrie) January 23, 2018
Attacks against Efrin basically stamps the failure of both the Syrian revolutionary movements and the Kurdish movement- both trusted international powers and both were betrayed by them.— Loubna Mrie (@Loubnamrie) January 23, 2018
- Here are some of the more important think pieces on Afrin I've read: Omar Sabbour Don't do It: why attacking Afrin city would be a major blunder for the Syrian rebels; Robin Yassin-Kassab: Kurdish autonomy within a united Syria does not undermine the revolution; and Michael Karadjis: Northern Syria: Massive ethnic cleansing, humanitarian catastrophe, foreign intervention and betrayal.
- Aymenn Jawad Al-Tamimi's interview with an anti-PYD Kurdish activist is also fascinating.
- Joan Ryan's parliamentary speech against Hezbollah focused on its threat to Israel and Jews. Syria Solidarity has published an important briefing that highlights a neglected and in some ways more significant indictment of Hezbollah: its role in extensive crimes against Syrian civilians. Read it.
We are all Hezbollah
- It's always a pleasure to read Padraig Reidy. Here he tells us why he feels sorry for George Galloway.
Does Labour have an antisemitism problem?
- Marlon Gutman's ballad of Mike Sivier is a brilliant case study in a particularly corrosive form of low-level antisemitism that is all too common on the left.
- Charles Davis forensically takes apart Redfish, a supposedly "grassroots" lefty citizen media site that turns out to be part of the Russian state.
- I mentioned "An Investigation Into Red-Brown Alliances: Third Positionism, Russia, Ukraine, Syria, And The Western Left" in a recent edition, but it's been edited and re-blogged at Libcom. It's very long, but it is really valuable.
Lesser evilism
- I don't think I agree with all of it, but Rebecca Hill on the US left and the need for principled alliances contains loads of food for thought.
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