Nina Khrushcheva, Professor of International Affairs at The New School, is the co-author (with Jeffrey Tayler), most recently, of In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia’s Eleven Time Zones, reviews four recent books on Soviet history that may provide lessons for dealing with modern Russia.

• Sean McMeekin, Stalin’s War: A New History of World War II, Allen Lane, London; Basic Books, New York, 2021.
• Jonathan Haslam, The Spectre of War: International Communism and the Origins of World War II, Princeton University Press, 2021.
• Norman M. Naimark, Stalin and the Fate of Europe: The Postwar Struggle for Sovereignty, Harvard University Press, 2019.
• Francine Hirsch, Soviet Judgment at Nuremberg: A New History of the International Military Tribunal after World War II, Oxford University Press, 2020.

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Stalin’s War and Peace by Nina L. Khrushcheva – Project Syndicate

The Arab and Jewish Questions: Geographies of Engagement in Palestine and Beyond, edited by Bashir Bashir und Leila Farsakh, and published by Columbia University Press, encompasses a 10 years‘ journey of engagement undertaken by Jewish and Arab scholars and activists at the Bruno Kreisky Forum.

First presented in Vienna in January 2021 together with the Central European University, it presently tours the world.

Politicians and experts should not doubt a two-state solution. But they should finally consider a plausible version of it.

By Bernard Avishai and Sam Bahour

published in New York Times, February 12, 2021

A Biden administration — not visionary, but simply cleareyed — could make the difference. It could, immediately, insist that the Israeli government remove barriers to letting Palestinian entrepreneurs from, say, Kuwait or Dearborn, Mich., settle and build new businesses in the cities of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The administration should encourage a common market with Israel, Palestine and Jordan, and press for completion of the Quartet-sponsored gas pipeline that could bring electricity and desalinized water to Gaza.
The key is to save Israelis and Palestinians from anachronism. And each other.

Sam Bahour is an American-Palestinian who lives in Ramallah in the West Bank and is a management consultant.
Bernard Avishai, an American-Israeli professor and writer for magazines, lives in Jerusalem.
They have proposed a confederation to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for years.

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by BRIAN KLUG

In the old Europe, Jews paid the ultimate price for ‘the Jewish Question’ with the Shoah. As the Shoah led to the Nakba, the cost was transferred to the Palestinians. Now, with the New Europe, the Palestinians pay the price again. They pay twice over: once for Jews being the stigmatised Other and a second time for Jews being the valorised Other. First they pay the price for the antisemitic exclusion of Jews in Europe. Then they pay for their anti-antisemitic inclusion. The cloak of despised Other has settled firmly on the shoulders of the Palestinian in Israel’s midst, like a hand-me-down. The ‘Jewish Question’ in Europe has turned into the ‘Palestinian Question’ in Israel. Such are the vicissitudes of European Jewish otherness.

Brian Klug (* born in London) is senior research fellow and tutor in philosophy at St. Benet’s Hall, Oxford and a member of the philosophy faculty at Oxford University. He is also an honorary fellow of the Parkes Institute for the Study of Jewish/non-Jewish Relations, University of Southampton and fellow of the College, Saint Xavier University, Chicago.

Klug is a contributor to the book The Arab and Jewish Questions,edited by Bashir Bashir and Leila Farsakh and published by Columbia University Press in November 2020. This text was presented as part of the Oxford Book Talk on February 9, 2021.

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Am 22. Jänner 2021 wäre Bruno Kreisky 110 Jahre alt geworden.

Kreisky war von 1970 bis 1983 Bundeskanzler der Republik Österreich und hat wie kaum ein anderer Politiker unser Land geprägt und verändert. Zu Beginn seines Lebens hat er sich für Österreich gegen das faschistische Regime gewehrt, als Bundeskanzler hat er erfolgreich für ein fortschrittliches Österreich gekämpft. Bruno Kreisky hat die Gesellschaft um ein großes Stück gerechter gemacht, modernisiert und die Arbeitswelt humanisiert.

Der Philosoph, Schriftsteller und Literaturkritiker Franz Schuh hat zum 110. Geburtstag eine bemerkenswerte Rede mit Titel NOBODY IS PERFECT. BRUNO KREISKY UND DER BEGRIFF DES POLITISCHEN verfasst.

Franz Schuh: NOBODY IS PERFECT

Western countries, especially European ones, have a track record of failing Palestine and Israel. Since the outset of this Middle East conflict, these powers have used the tremendous leverage they have on only one party — the Palestinians. At times, they punished Palestinians with military might. When that did not work, they added efforts to financially strangulate the Palestinian national liberation movement. When they realized the Palestinians were not going to vanish, they became innovative in their political and diplomatic discourse to divert Palestinians away from restoring what was forcefully taken from them upon the creation of the state of Israel. At no time in history have Western powers seriously held Israel accountable to get it to change its ways. Instead, they have paved the way for Israeli impunity, all the while funding them, arming them, and covering up for them in the international arena.

The Womanly Face of Belarus
Svetlana Alexievich in conversation with Nina Khrushcheva

September 12, 2020

When, on August 26, Svetlana Alexievich was called to the Belarusian Investigative Committee for an interrogation, the grim visit turned unexpectedly celebratory. As the 2015 Nobel Prize Laureate in Literature walked into the imposing yellow KGB building, she was surrounded by friends and supporters. People chanted “Love” and gave her white flowers—a symbol of the colossal protests that have emerged in response to the August 9 massive presidential election rigging in favor of the long-lasting Belarusian strongman, Alexander Lukashenko.

Alexievich—Belarus’s world-famous writer—was summoned for questioning as a member of the Opposition Coordination Council for the Transition of Power. The president, whose nickname has long been “Europe’s last dictator,” turned the Council’s demands for a dialogue with the authorities about the unfair and unfree elections into a criminal case aiming at seizure of state power. Its members were accused of “inflicting damage to national security.”

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The View from Here (Here being Minsk)
SVETLANA ALEXIEVICH IN CONVERSATION WITH NINA KHRUSHCHEVA

In post-election demonstrations against Lukashenko’s quarter-century rule, women have become the unifying figures, and have given this movement its exultant tone. Lukashenko’s brute muscle, with police and the military detaining and beating up protesters, has been met with transformative female power.

Svetlana Alexievich is the 2015 Nobel laureate in literature; the HBO series Chernobyl was partially based on her book Voices from Chernobyl

Nina Khrushcheva is a professor at the New School and, most recently, the co-author of In Putin’s Footsteps: Searching for the Soul of an Empire Across Russia’s Eleven Time Zones (co-authored)

Franz Vranitzky im Interview mit Andreas Kirchner

„EINIGKEIT ERZIELT MAN NICHT, INDEM SIE VERLANGT, SONDERN INDEM MAN SIE HERSTELLT“

Der Journalist, Interviewer und Moderator Andreas Kirchner hat unseren Gründungs- und Ehrenpräsidenten Dr. Franz Vranitzky zu einem Gespräch im Rahmen seiner Reihe „NACHGEFRAGT“ im Kreisky Forum besucht.

„Über die SPÖ wollte ich mit ihm eigentlich nicht sprechen, das haben schon andere ausreichend gemacht. Es sollte ein Gespräch über Handschlagqualität und Respekt werden. Zwei Eigenschaften, denen im aktuellen politischen Geschehen scheinbar eher marginale Wichtigkeit zugeordnet wird. Auf die SPÖ kamen wir dann doch zu sprechen“, sagt Kirchner. Und weiter:

„Franz Vranitzky übernahm als Bundeskanzler aufgrund des Waldheim-Skandals repräsentative Aufgaben im Ausland, die sonst dem Bundespräsidenten zugefallen wären, führte Österreich nach langen Verhandlungen in die Europäische Union und bekannte in der Rede vor dem Nationalrat am 8. Juli 1991 die Mitschuld Österreichs am Zweiten Weltkrieg und dessen Folgen an. Der sozialdemokratische Regierungschef wurde mit seinen politischen Handlungen zum gesellschaftlichen Weichensteller der Republik. Dabei war ihm der Respekt – auch oder vor allem – vor dem politischen Gegenüber immer wichtig. Den Verlust desselben in der aktuellen Politik beklagt er. Seine Gedanken dazu publizierter er gemeinsam mit dem Journalisten Peter Pelinka 2017 im Buch „Zurück zum Respekt. Überleben in einer chaotischen Welt“.

In dieser chaotischen Welt, diesen Zeiten, die geprägt sind von Demagogen wie Donald Trump, den für vielen nicht mehr zu durchblickenden Verordnungen zur Eindämmung des Corona-Virus oder vom schwindenden Respekt des politischen Diskurses, habe ich mich mit dem 82-jährigen Elder Statesman zum Gespräch eingefunden. Dies am 30. Todestag Bruno Kreiskys in dessen ehemaliger Villa, die jetzt als Bruno Kreisky Forum eine Plattform für den internationalen Dialog ist. “