MOISHE POSTONE ONCE REMARKED about the German left: âNo western Left was as philo-Semitic and pro-Zionist prior to 1967. Probably none subsequently identified so strongly with the Palestinian cause. What was termed âanti-Zionismâ was in fact so emotionally and psychically charged that it went far beyond the bounds of a political and social critique of Zionism.â Postoneâs diagnosis, that the Israeli-Arab conflict served as a projection-screen for the psychological needs of the German left, is just as valid for the new political current which, since the outbreak of the Al-Aqsa Intifada in autumn 2000, has come to identify itself completely with the state of Israel.
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THE BLOODSHED IN KASHMIR beginning in June 2010 gave rise to a heated debate in India concerning the causes of and possible solutions to the conflict. A meeting on 21 October in Delhi organized by the pro-Maoist Committee for the Release of Political Prisoners was entitled âAzadi (Freedom)âthe Only Way.â Interpreting âazadiâ as shorthand for âthe right to self-determination,â the keynote speakersâwriter-activist Arundhati Roy and Syed Ali Shah Geelani of the Islamist Tehreek-e-Hurriyatâargued that the only solution to the dispute in Kashmir was freedom for Jammu and Kashmir from India.
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DON DELILLO BEGINS a short story from 2002 with a woman in a New York museum staring at a painting of Ulrike Meinhof after her suicide. He writes, âShe thought of Meinhof, she saw Meinhof as first name only, Ulrike.â Who is this âUlrikeâ that the Left has known?
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Book Review: Sherry Wolf, Sexuality and Socialism: History, Politics, and Theory of LGBT Liberation.
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IN A STRANGE WAY, the debate over whether the American left should support the Green Movement in Iran resembles the arguments that took place in progressive circles before the 2008 presidential elections in the United States, and that reemerged in the recent midterm elections. Those in the Obama camp either believed him to be their savior, taking his every word as gospel, or, if they had a more sober political outlook, simply resorted to some version of the tired âlesser of two evilsâ argument.
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