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Jaffa: Dispatch from a Mixed City

The article is a reprint: it originally appeared at JewishCurrent on May 20, 2021. THESE LAST FEW DAYS IN JAFFA, the most centrally located and deeply unequal of Israel’s mixed Jewish–Arab cities, a tense quiet has prevailed. The intercommunal mayhem that engulfed mixed cities like Acre and Lod since Israel’s horrific attack on the Gaza Strip began last week has […]

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LeftEast Statement in Solidarity with the Palestinian Struggle

We unequivocally condemn the recent escalation of the Israeli state’s persisting settler-colonial violence against Palestinians, which has most recently manifested itself in the forced expulsions of families from the occupied East Jerusalem neighbourhood of Sheikh Jarrah, the attacks on worshippers in the Al-Aqsa mosque during Ramadan, the brutal aerial bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip, […]

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Serbia and Kosovo go to Jerusalem: Passing Trump circus, or profound geopolitical shake-up?

A bizarre Trumpist ceremony in the White House on September 4 saw the leaders of Serbia and Kosovo signing two separate documents with the United States involving American-funded economic agreements between the two estranged countries. Especially bizarre is Trump’s claim to have ended “hundreds of years” of “mass killings” between Serbia and Kosovo; apart from […]

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The state and us: The left between paranoia and abdication in the pandemic

Picture: Israeli riot police patrol Yefet Street in Jaffa after putting down demonstrations against police violence, 1 April 2020 (source: Matan Kaminer) The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly enhanced the charisma of the strong state around the world. In the West, the early knee-jerk characterization of East Asian responses as authoritarian and illiberal has been completely […]

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We Asked on the Legacy of Corbynism – Matan Kaminer

What has the Corbyn project meant – as a model, an inspiration, or otherwise – to you and people in the milieu(x) in which you organize? The consistent left in Israel is mostly made up of Palestinian citizens, organized in the Communist Party and its front group Hadash/al-Jabhah, the liberal-nationalist Balad/Tajama’u (who both form part […]

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The Arabs Who Can Beat Bibi

Israel’s second election of the year has demonstrated more clearly than ever that the most important oppositional actor in the country is its Palestinian minority. Note from LeftEast editors: We re-post this article from Jacobin, where it was published on 22.09.2019 Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has made it a habit, at times of political exigency, […]

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One Hundred Netanyahus

This article by Matan Kaminer, a member of LeftEast’s editorial collective, was originally published in Jacobin. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu won’t be defeated in the polls on April 9. Whether he is indicted for corruption soon or not, his method of repressing Palestinian resistance is popular — and will probably outlast him in Israeli […]

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Israel’s position on Venezuela – A Left Perspective

1.Has the government of Israel taken an official position regarding the situation in Venezuela? If yes, what is the position? The Israeli government has come out strongly in support of Juan Guaidó’s claim to the presidency of Venezuela. PM Netanyahu has strongly stressed that this position is in accordance with the stances of “the US, Canada, […]

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Polish Law on Historical Memory Widens Divisions at Home and Abroad

Note by the LeftEast editors: this article has been reprinted from the blog of Gavin Rae, Beyond the Transition, with the author’s permission. The Amended Act on the Institute of National Remembrance, passed by the Polish parliament on 26 January, has caused a huge political domestic and international storm (the full English language text of […]

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From historical affinities to effective solidarities: Israel and Eastern Europe

  In a column in Ha’aretz last year, historian and journalist Ofri Ilany pointed out to his Israeli audience a number of affinities between Israel and Eastern Europe, ranging from the culinary to the political (Hebrew). As an antidote to the Western-oriented provincialism of the Israeli liberal sphere, Ilany’s intervention was welcome, but building effective […]