Here are some highlights from each week’s reading.
By Matthew Petty reasonJune 13, 2024.
excerpt:
The Palestinian Center for Policy and Research (PCPSR) Latest polling data On Wednesday, Palestinians withdrew from the West Bank and Gaza Strip, proving they are unhappy with all current options, including the Biden administration’s plan for international governance of the Gaza Strip.
The last Palestinian elections were held in 2006. No party won a majority, but Hamas won 44% of the vote, making it the largest party in parliament. The Bush administration encouraged Palestinian security forces to stage a coup against Hamas, which led to the Palestinian civil war. Since then, Hamas has ruled the Gaza Strip and Fatah has ruled the West Bank, both as one-party states.
If parliamentary elections were held today, most Palestinians would not vote for either option: Hamas would get 32% of the vote, Fatah would get 17%, and 50% would either not take part in the election or vote for a third party. The poll found similarly low turnout in the presidential election, with one twist.
If allowed to run, former guerrilla leader Marwan Barghouti, who has been imprisoned in Israel since 2002 for his role in several attacks against Israelis, would likely handily defeat both Hamas and Fatah candidates. Deny the orderSince then, he Israel’s borders before 1967 and”Peaceful popular resistance. “
but:
However, when the PCPSR asked Palestinians what the best path to independence was, 54% answered “armed struggle,” compared with 16% who supported peaceful resistance and 25% who supported negotiations. This was down from December 2023, when 63% chose armed struggle.
By Charles Palm, Define your ideaJune 12, 2024.
There are so many excerpts it’s hard to choose. Read them all.
By Charles Palm, Define your ideaJune 12, 2024.
excerpt:
Over the course of almost 50 years, 18 million people out of a total adult population of 100 million were detained in the Gulag, and millions died. The Gulag permeated every corner of Soviet society, and by knowing how it was managed you can understand how Soviet Communism itself worked. We got all the documents: secret police records, policy memoranda and meeting minutes, laws, decrees, judicial decisions, regulations on the management and operation of the camps, prisoner lists, budgets, reports of large industrial enterprises run by the Gulag administration, data on hunger strikes and mass riots, documents on the culture, education and health of the camps, and more. We got 3 million pages of records documenting every aspect of the Gulag.
By Bradley J. Birzer Law and FreedomJune 14, 2024.
As far as we know (and historians are still trying to document these), no massacres in the 20th century were as severe as those committed by the Khmer Rouge. Reported figures vary, but the Khmer Rouge killed between 25% and 47% of Cambodia’s population of 7 million during their three-year rule. The Khmer Rouge openly stated: “All we need to build a country are one million good revolutionaries; we don’t need more. It is better to kill ten friends than to let one enemy live.”
By Robert Traszynski Press ReleaseJune 14, 2024.
A joke that spread immediately after the US’s surprising victory in Dallas was that Pakistan had not lost to “India B” (one of the Indian national cricket teams), but to “India H-1B”. India vs Pakistan is cricket’s fiercest rivalry, fuelled by the geopolitical rivalry between the two countries. It’s a bit like Yankees vs Red Sox, but with nuclear weapons. The US cricket team is made up mostly of immigrants who moved to the US from India. H-1B VisaIt is awarded to skilled workers, especially in the technology industry.
