World War Civ 40: How Britain Took Palestine in 1917

General Allenby, Sharif Hussein and his son Feisal, and their handler TE Lawrence array the forces of the British Empire and the Arab Revolt against the Turco-German forces in Palestine. The battle starts in Gaza and ends with Allenby walking into the Jaffa Gate of Jerusalem. The story of the fateful campaign that brought British imperialism to Palestine (and Lebanon, and Syria…). We note that the British found Gaza to be a “fortress” from which it was impossible to dislodge the Turkish forces; Justin felt TE Lawrence was overrated, just another imperialist; and we compare admiration of the stoicism with which Allenby took news of his son’s death, with an analogous situation today.

AER 141: Gaza War Sit Rep Day 213 – the invasion of Rafah has begun

On the Anti-Empire Project Youtube Channel there are frequent situation reports or Sit Reps that are posted late at night. Not all of them are reposted here to this podcast, but we’re posting this one on the day of the Rafah invasion. A breakdown of the ceasefire negotatiations and an assessment of where the war is at. With Jon Elmer.

WW Civ 36: The Easter Rising in Ireland 1916

The conditions may not have been optimal but they didn’t look to be getting better – so the Irish Revolutionaries made their move in Easter 1916. A week of urban warfare followed – the revolutionaries lost – but they succeeded in transforming the Irish question forever and setting the nation on the inevitable road to independence.

Tankie Therapy on Day 163: Do we debate genocide?

We didn’t have quorum for a tankie therapy session but we got together anyway – Matteo and Alex joined for a discussion of several psychological warfare methods being used on us: normalizing crimes, treating the criminals like they are a natural phenomenon, and the abuser’s method of “look what you made me do”, absolving the criminals and blaming the victims for apparently bringing it on themselves. And another question: is this a topic to be debated? Courage and cowardice and challenges put to us by things we’ve been reading this week.

World War Civ 34: The Armenian Genocide 1915-16

Genocides happen in broad daylight – it is only afterwards that they are covered up. There are still fewer countries that recognize the Armenian Genocide than countries that do not. We read scholars that take the view that it was a genocide as well as a scholar that describes the events without using the label, presenting the story of 1915-1916 as well as the trial of the leaders after the war. One scholar of the genocide says that by refusing to investigate these events enough, “society has lost its moral sensitivity to past genocide as well as to current and possibly future episodes of mass violence.”