Obituary: Pierre Ryckmans (Simon Leys)
Charlie Hore looks back at the work of a pioneering and idiosyncratic writer.
Boycott Kedem: how Palestine activists are taking on an Israeli firm in Manchester
Kedem Cosmetics is a franchise based on King Street in Manchester. It exclusively stocks produce from the Dead Sea, an area from which Palestinians are barred and whose resources they cannot access.
Why support an academic boycott of Israel?
The idea that you should boycott Israeli universities has been one of the more difficult arguments within the Palestine movement. Here a member of the University and College Union national executive, Trish McManus, tackles the key questions. In 2004 a small number of intellectuals and scholars launched the Palestinian Campaign for an academic boycott of Israel […]
Statement of solidarity with the Syrian revolution
The Syrian revolution is at a crossroads, and Syrian revolutionaries are in desperate need of support as they fight on several fronts.
New fault lines in the Middle East: ISIS in a regional context
As the calls for more direct intervention in Iraq grow and the US drops their first bombs, Andy Cunningham looks at what the rise of the Islamic State means for the wider Middle East. Following discussions with other comrades, this article was revised by the author on 14/8/14 to remove a factual error and to […]
Solidarity movement continues to grow – #GazaA9 protest round up
Yesterday once again saw a massive turn out at demonstrations in solidarity with Palestine. In London, Stop the War report that 150,000 people marched in the biggest ever UK protest for Gaza. Shanice McBean took part in the demonstration as it made its way from BBC Broadcasting House to Hyde Park. “The movement is growing, and […]
Thrown into another world – experiencing Hiroshima
69 years ago today the US dropped a nuclear bomb on the Japanese city of Nagasaki. 40,000 people were killed instantly, and many others died soon after. Three days earlier they had also bombed Hiroshima. Colin Wilson remembers meeting a survivor of that bombing. When I visited Hiroshima in 2003 what initially struck me was […]
Muslim Brotherhood Supporters Remain Under Sentence of Death in Egypt
The new regime in Egypt has been handing out mass death sentences to Muslim Brotherhood supporters. General al-Sisi has exploited hostility to the Brotherhood to crack down on mass street protests more generally and to excuse his betrayal of the people of Gaza. More needs to be done to defend the Brotherhood supporters, writes Peter […]
NUS executive votes to back BDS boycott campaign against Israel
(picture of #nus4bds campaigners by Aaron Kiely, NUS executive member, via Facebook) The NUS national executive committee today voted 23-18 with 1 abstention to adopt a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions policy against Israel. Fantastic that #NUSNEC has passed policy to support #BDS || read more about BDS: http://t.co/KHBcC1WgRm #BoycottIsrael #FreePalestine – rs21 (@revsoc21) August 4, 2014 […]
Malevich: new art for a new world
Lois JC (Brixton) reviews the Tate Modern’s new show Malevich: Revolutionary of Russian Art at the Tate Modern is the first retrospective of the Russian avant garde artist Kazimir Malevich (1879-1935) in 25 years. The exhibition illustrates, beautifully yet subtly, the contours of a time of revolutionary upheaval: from his early influences and the formation of […]
A bluffer’s guide to boycotting Israel
A handy one-stop-shop for all the arguments you’ll need to argue for the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israeli apartheid
Netanyahu: Wanted for War Crimes
Israel has been bombing Gaza for three weeks now. Over a thousand Palestinians are dead, including many children.
World War One: The main enemy was at home
Karl Liebknecht’s burning words of opposition to the imperialist slaughter of World War One.
Video: Barnaby Raine and Mona Dohle comment on the Gaza solidarity movement
Two rs21 activists have appeared on TV in the past 24 hours discussing the situation in Gaza and how best to deliver solidarity to Palestinians under attack from Israel.
Manchester protest occupies high street shops for Palestine
Around 200 people took part in protests in support of Palestine on Saturday in the centre of Manchester.
Isolate Israel to end this horror
We are seeing a huge wave of protest around the world, in many cases involving direct action to an extent we have not seen before.
Gaza demonstration – rolling coverage
Reports and updates from today’s #GazaJ19 demo in defence of Gaza. 5.30pm – And at long last, after many complaints, here’s the BBC report. 4.40pm – Palestine Solidarity announces next protests are at 5.30 on Tuesday at the Israeli Embassy, and then next Saturday from Whitehall. 4.30pm – Thousands have marched through Glasgow in the […]
Join the national demonstration for Palestine
National Demonstration in solidarity with Gaza, Saturday 19 July, assemble Downing Street 12 noon and march to the Israeli Embassy.
Anger spills out onto London’s streets in run up to Saturday’s Palestine solidarity demo
Ahead of Saturday’s demo, thousands gathered outside the BBC in London to protest against the BBC systematically ignoring and downplaying Palestinian suffering in the name of being ‘neutral’.
“Anyone could be a target”
Areej Ali-Al-ashhab is a full-time field coordinator at the Gender Initiative Program at the United Nations Relief Works Agency and a part-time English teacher at AMIDEAST (America-Mideast Educational and Training Services) in Gaza City. In late 2008/early 2009, her university, the Islamic University of Gaza, was partially destroyed in the 22-day Israeli assault dubbed “Operation […]
Hitting Hamas hard
Estelle Cooch takes a brief look at the origins of Israel’s latest assault on Gaza and argues there is more to it than humanitarian crisis Amidst the flood of Israeli propaganda that has polluted the papers and news channels this week, few comments have been more revealing than that by the chief spokesperson for the Israeli military, […]
Gaza solidarity from Salford to Sydney
Estelle Cooch reports: Many were astonished by the size and speed with which the Gaza protests emerged last week. The recent crisis has been a turning point for media coverage of the conflict. The New York Times ran on its front page last week a photo of assaulted Palestinian American teenager Tarek Abu Khdeir, shocking […]
Thousands protest in London against attacks on Gaza
Ten thousand people took part in a large demonstration in London this evening against the Israeli attacks on Gaza. Protests also took place in Birmingham and Leicester. More demonstrations are planned in other towns and cities over the weekend Neil Rogall reported from the London demo earlier: Thousands of people are blocking Kensington High St […]
Sisi has silently launched a murderous crackdown in Egypt, activists warn
Reports are appearing on Arabic social media sites that Sisi’s regime in Egypt is ramping up repression against anti-coup protests. At least 11 demonstrators, including teenagers, were murdered by regime forces on Thursday and Friday last week. The dead include Ahmed Hussein, killed on Friday in Shubra el-Kheima, Egypt’s fourth largest city, and an 18 year […]
Protesters take to the Tube to highlight Spain’s crackdown on abortion rights
(report by Lois JC and Shanice McBean, pics from mybellyismine.wordpress.com) Spanish activists have launched a campaign called Mi Bombo Es Mío (“my belly is mine”) in response to plans by the government to make abortion illegal in all but a handful of cases. The campaign is now spreading internationally. On Thursday and Friday last week women from Spanish and Irish abortion rights […]
Protest against Israeli terror in Palestine: 5 July, London
Palestinians are facing a horrific escalation of racism and violence as the Israeli state pursues a strategy of collective punishment.
Retribution in Iraq
by Jack Farmer If you like a laugh, it’s always worth looking up what Tony Blair has to say about events in the Middle East. In his latest intervention he insisted that the current crisis in Iraq had nothing to do with the US-British led invasion of 2003: “We have to liberate ourselves from the notion […]
Marx’s Ecology
This article is an edited version of John Cowsill‘s presentation at the Ecosocialism: Fracking, Climate and Revolution conference. He also published an early draft in his blog notes. Introduction We’ve had report after report from the IPCC, the UN, and leading scientists about the fact that human activity is causing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to rise […]
Hong Kong’s new mass movement
‘Beijing and the Hong Kong government have succeeded in producing a genuine mass movement which will not easily be demobilised’. Sue Sparks reports on the mass protests in Hong Kong earlier this week. July 1st in Hong Kong is Handover Day, the anniversary of the handing back of Hong Kong by the British to China […]