Image is of the Preah Vihear Temple on the Cambodian border. Image sourced from the UNESCO World Heritage website.
Over the last few days, Thailand and Cambodia entered into a heightened stage of conflict due to a long-running border dispute. Like many problems on this planet, Europeans are ultimately to blame - specifically France. Certain sections of the border drawn up by France about a century ago were not fully agreed upon by both sides, with the ownership of some Khmer temples being the most visible points of disagreement.
Despite interventions in favor of Cambodia in the 1960s and later 2010s by the ICJ - one of the mainly mostly useless global institutions that liberals periodically disown - the border conflict has simmered at a generally low level. Of the two countries, Thailand is significantly more militarily and economically powerful.
Last Wednesday, a Thai soldier lost his leg by stepping on a landmine, prompting a rapid escalation between Cambodia and Thailand that has since resulted in dozens of deaths and tens of thousands displaced. Cambodia was willing to come to the negotiating table fairly quickly, but Thailand was more hesitant. International pressure on the two countries by Malaysia, China, and the United States eventually forced Thailand to the table, and they have recently agreed to an immediate ceasefire courtesy of ASEAN.
Notably, Trump refused to hold trade talks with either country until they agreed to peace, which suggests that he really wants a Nobel Peace Prize - which he seems a shoe-in for given that he’s met the two most important requirements that several Nobel Peace Prize recipients have needed to meet in the past, which are: 1) start at least one war, and 2) accelerate the genocide of millions of people as billions more people watch on. His policies vis-a-vis ICE creating a domestic terror regime only further increase his chances of winning the prize.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine leader Marwan Abdel-Al to L’Humanité:
“The so-called two-state solution conference is not so much a peace initiative as it is a recycling of a political illusion that reality has surpassed. The conference, in format and timing, resembles an official funeral for a solution that no longer exists except in diplomatic statements. What is being presented today under the title of “two-state solution” does not constitute a project for liberation, but rather a permanent management of a colonial tragedy.
Europe, including France, may now theoretically recognize a Palestinian state, but in reality, it finances coexistence projects with the occupation, funded the war—being the mother of the nuclear bomb—and avoids any real measures against settlements, the siege, or stopping the genocide.
Palestinians do not need more words, but clear political action: recognition of a sovereign, independent state, the removal of the occupation, and an end to Western colonial partnerships with the “israeli” apartheid regime.
The real solution begins with changing the balance of power on the ground. Our people want an end to the occupation… not an international absolution.
Most Palestinians—especially the new generation—have come to consider this solution a political trap. How can one speak of “two states” when there are projects of annihilation, ethnic cleansing, annexation, and expansion, and there are more than 700,000 settlers in the West Bank?
Where is the state in the shadow of a wall that separates families, and with crossings managed at the whim of occupation soldiers?
We are not demanding a symbolic entity under “israeli” sovereignty; rather, we want real liberation, the right of return, and historical justice.
The majority of Palestinians, at home and in the diaspora, have come to see it as an illusion. How can we talk about “two states”? The issue has moved beyond symbolic recognition to a question of justice, the right of return, and the dismantling of the apartheid system.
The Palestine Liberation Organization is the product of a national experience and the foundation of Palestinian national action, and its pandemic stems from this basis.
[What is the alternative?] The alternative is the dismantling of the colonial system from its roots. The alternative is not a ready-made recipe, but a long liberatory path. It begins, however, with the recognition that Israel is not a “democratic” state but a colonial regime, as happened in South Africa. We do not reject the “two-state solution” because we are radicals, but because it is no longer viable.
The alternative is a single democratic state on the entire land, where all people are equal without religious or ethnic discrimination. Or, at the very least, a liberation framework that opens the door to all options, far from the logic of “peace in exchange for submission.”
Palestine today is a mirror to the world: between international law and the force of arms, between the victim and propaganda. Standing with Palestine is a test of human conscience, not just a political stance. We do not want the colonial system to use the proposal of a two-state solution to whitewash its record or its inaction. This requires the French left to free itself from the pressure of the dominant imperialist media or the fear of moral blackmail. We expect the left to reclaim its radical language: to say that what is happening in Palestine is not a conflict, but settler-colonialism and systematic genocide. And to stand with the truth without a false equivalence between the murderer and the victim. There is no neutrality in the face of genocide.
We are not asking for emotional solidarity, but for political and moral commitment. Palestine today is not just the cause of a people being slaughtered, but a universal issue in which our humanity is being tested.
If Palestine falls, international standards and justice fall with it. From Paris to Gaza, the battle is one: against fascism and the new racism, and against the colonial memory that has not yet died.”
https://t.me/PalestineResist/80594