This is hilarious. Except it’s incitement against Mayor Mamdani and, of course, against Palestinians. The issue is that a synagogue in Queens tonight hosted an auction of West Bank land to Jews interested in relocating from NYC to the Palestinian West Bank. And a Palestinian group showed up to protest the sale of their land … Continued
By Leah Levane
This is a powerful and rightly furious piece about the government’s mistreatment of Palestine Action activists incarcerated and awaiting trial for an unconscionable time. Now there has been sustained hunger strike with reasonable demands and although most have now ended their hunger strike, they will almost certainly have long term health effects as a result and three remain on hunger strike and are at great risk.
By Mike Cushman
As well as reading too many emails we keep our selves informed by listening to podcasts. This is a list of links to a range of podcasts, all of them provide news, background and analysis of events in Palestine and Israel; some concentrate on that, others cover a wider range of political topics. All of these can be listened to for free, although some have a paid for option for additional material.
By Leah Levane
104,000 New Yorkers volunteered in Mamdani’s campaign to be New York City Mayor. People are interested in politics when there is something positive possible, when their own needs and those of their neighbours are top priority and when a politician is clear that this means everyone, with no-one from any community left out. We have much to learn from how Mamdani ran his campaign and that he considers that the campaigning must continue even as the work of running City Hall has to be done.
By Leah Levane
Trump himself dispensed with any pretence that this is about democracy by telling puffed-up oppositionist Maria Corina Machado that she won’t be running Venezuela: he will. How, remains to be seen. At the moment it looks like trying to force the Venezuelan government into accepting a restored neocolonial subordination. That would be overturning the Bolivarian revolution led by Hugo Chavez. At the start of this century it provided inspiration for radical developments across Latin America and beyond.
EMAIL YOUR MP Dear Friends A happy New Year to you. We can wish for better in 2026; work is needed to achieve it. The media spotlight has shifted to Venezuela – to US law-breaking. It is important to keep challenging our Government to act for equal rights in Palestine, where people are still dying … Continued
By Leah Levane
A useful summary of the huge divide in the USA (reflected in many other countries too, of course). Mamdani’s win in New York with lines to witness his inauguration, a “… project was produced by a massive grassroots organising effort” Just two days later, while most in the USA were sleeping (literally rather than metaphorically) Trump’s coup in Venezuela too place, an action “… conducted with virtually no attempt to persuade the public or manufacture consent. One promised greater dignity for Americans; the other offered them only the pleasures of vicarious domination and the infliction of suffering on faraway others. One gestured toward the possibility of a new politics to produce a more fair and optimistic future, (t)he other was an eerie echo of that past, a violent pantomime of an era of American imperial expansion that had long been declared over. But both will reshape the domestic political contest that looms ahead: the 2026 midterms.”
By Leah Levane
Starmer will not criticise Trump for How to criticise the US without appearing to criticise the US? If the US can do this to Venezuela, what’s to stop The Donald from doing the same to us? And, of course, to Greenland.
So for the past few days, Starmer has been on full sycophant alert. Refusing to say whether he thought the US had broken international law by its rapid-fire invasion and kidnap. Even though the UN charter is completely clear that international law has been broken, Keir’s mantra has been ‘See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil’.
By Leah Levane
First, the left cannot limit itself to managing capitalism. Reforms are necessary, but they must be embedded in a radical programme for economic and political democracy. Without that bridge between immediate demands and systemic transformation, reformism leads nowhere.
Second, real power comes from mass mobilisation. Electoral politics and grassroots activism are not alternative routes to choose from, but complementary strategies — two sides of the same coin. Radical left parties must once again become movement-parties; and remain so rather than trading one for the other at the first glimpse of electoral glory.
EXCERPTED from David French’s column in today’s NY Times. French is former editor of the late William Buckley’s National Review. The column is brilliant. As is French. The ends do not justify the means. The Trump administration — acting entirely on its own and without seeking congressional approval — decided it was in the best … Continued