beyrut is me writes:

"A Protracted Colonial War"

Tariq Ali, Guardian

With US support, Israel is hoping to isolate and topple Syria by holding sway over Lebanon.

In his last interview — after the 1967 six-day war — the historian Isaac Deutscher, whose next-of-kin had died in the Nazi camps and whose surviving relations lived in Israel, said: "To justify or condone Israel's wars against the Arabs is to render Israel a very bad service indeed and harm its own long-term interest." Comparing Israel to Prussia, he issued a sombre warning: "The Germans have summed up their own experience in the bitter phrase 'Man kann sich totseigen!' 'You can triumph yourself to death'."

In Israel's actions today we can detect many of the elements of hubris: an imperial arrogance, a distortion of reality, an awareness of its military superiority, the self-righteousness with which it wrecks the social infrastructure of weaker states, and a belief in its racial superiority. The loss of many civilian lives in Gaza and Lebanon matters less than the capture or death of a single Israeli soldier. In this, Israeli actions are validated by the US.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Two Wars
David Hirsh

Since before it even existed, Israel has been engaged in two wars with its neighbours. One is a just war, waged by Palestinian Arabs for freedom - which became a demand for Palestinian national independence; the other is a genocidal war that aims to end Jewish life in the Middle East.

The job of the left is to insist on the reality of this distinction and to stand against those who recognise the reality of only one or other of these two separate wars.

Nevertheless, when Israeli tanks are stalking through the crowded streets of Gaza, when Katyusha rockets are slamming into Haifa, when Israeli F16s are blowing up buildings in the suburbs of Beirut and when Israeli soldiers are being held in underground dungeons waiting for their own beheading to be broadcast on al-Jazeera, the distinction seems entirely notional.

Harassment and Repressions in Russia

Trade Union Solidarity Action Committee of Saint
Petersburg and Leningrad Region

Dear Friends and Comrades!

We have to resort to you with an appeal for help and international solidarity!

Russia is on the verge of the G 8 summit which is to be hosted in
Saint Petersburg.

At the same time our country is experiencing another series of
political violence and reprisals.

Contrary to the official G-8 summit an alternative event has been
planned to be held in Saint Petersburg by the Russian Social Forum.

The activists belonging to different political and grass root
organizations and groups scattered all over Russia are coming to Saint
Petersburg to participate in the alternative "summit". Among them are
the activists of the all Russian Society of Hostels and Dormitories
Dwellers Rights, activists of the anti "monetization laws" movement,
trade union activists of the Siberian Confederation of Labor and from
other regions, different human right groups activists and many other
individuals.

These persons are being harassed and persecuted by the local police
and security services agents on their way to Saint Petersburg.

Frank Zeidler, Last U.S. Socialist Mayor, Dies

Colin Fly, Associated Press

MILWAUKEE — Frank Zeidler, a former Milwaukee mayor who was the last Socialist to run a major American city, has died. He was 93.

Zeidler died late Friday of congestive heart failure and diverticulitis, hospital spokesman Gregg Hartzog said. He led Milwaukee from 1948 through 1960.

Born in Milwaukee on Sept. 20, 1912, Zeidler was part of the Socialist Party's city stronghold, which was fueled by German immigrants who flocked there. The party had thousands of members, a congressional seat and control of the mayor's office for nearly a half-century, ending with Zeidler.

"Historians described him in the tradition of Milwaukee's sewer socialists," said Zeidler's youngest daughter, Jeanne, who followed her father into politics and is mayor of Williamsburg, Va.

"They were community leaders, mayors of Milwaukee who thought everyone should have access to plumbing in their homes," she said. "But he also had a bigger vision than that. He really was an activist of world peace, of tolerance, of people working together."

His three terms as mayor were marked by large-scale construction of public housing, creation of the first educational television station in Wisconsin and city beautification programs. He also made strong statements on behalf of civil rights as Milwaukee became the 11th-largest city in the United States by the end of his term, Jeanne Zeidler said.

Zeidler said the word "socialism" was discredited when Stalin and Hitler used it in their rhetoric. Still, he remained an ardent Socialist until his death, serving as chairman of the national Socialist party, even as numbers dwindled.

He never moved from the house he owned before being elected mayor, an office he retired from.

Zeidler wrote a 1,022-page manuscript in 1962 called "A Liberal in City Government" that was a memoir and a reflection on municipal government. It was finally published last year.

"I thought I would discharge the contents of my mind," he said of his work.

Zeidler ran for president unsuccessfully in 1976, receiving about 6,000 votes.