Police crackdowns on Israeli peace demonstrators combined with court rulings and settler organisations are designed to strip Palestinian families of their homes and land. The Israeli state has tried to silence both Israelis and Palestinians who resist, according to Zo HaDerekh (This Is The Way) the Communist Party of Israel’s Hebrew-language weekly
MARX famously declared that history repeats itself, first as tragedy, then as farce — but this is by no means a fixed rule. History can and does also repeat itself a second time around as tragedy.
In 1980 Michael Foot had been elected as leader of the Labour Party, representing a decisive shift to the left.
A year later, in 1981, Tony Benn challenged Denis Healey for the deputy leadership and was only narrowly defeated.
Can entrenched institutional power be overcome?
Meanwhile, incoming PM Andy Burnham dithers over who should be his Chancellor
BEN CHACKO says in different ways, the centenary of the General Strike and that of Fidel Castro’s birth point to priority tasks for the British left in the coming year
Who you ask and how you ask matter, as does why you are asking — the history of opinion polls shows they are as much about creating opinions as they are about recording them, writes socialist historian KEITH FLETT



