‘It was petrifying’: An aid worker’s account of life in the West Bank under apartheid

Marc Steiner

June 18, 2024

The genocide in Gaza has captured the attention of the world, but nowhere in Palestine is safe from Israel’s onslaught. Israeli repression, land grabs, and deadly raids in the West Bank have increased dramatically since Oct. 7. Long subjected to a brutal apartheid system and routine attacks from settlers and the IDF, Palestinians in the West Bank now face a more aggravated Zionist threat than before, with “no light at the end of the tunnel.” Palestinian-American humanitarian Joyce Ajlouny, director of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), joins The Marc Steiner Show to discuss her recent trip to Ramallah, West Bank, her decades of on-the-ground humanitarian work in Palestine, and the services AFSC aid workers continue to bravely provide to hundreds of thousands of people under the worst of conditions.

 

Beverley Best – “The Automatic Fetish: The Law of Value in Marx’s Capital”

June 18, 2024

Capitalist crises cannot only be measured by its catastrophic effects on society, but also by the reception of their most staunchest critique: Karl Marx’s Capital. Many have pointed out that the rising interest in Marx’s magnum opus seemingly coincides with capitalism’s deepest moments of crisis, as if it suggests discontent with the present system. With much attention given to volume one or the many drafts to which it culminated, until recently there has remained little attention to the subsequent volumes of Capital. Beverly Best’s new book, The Automatic Fetish: The Law of Value in Marx’s Capital, contributes to this growing resurgence and gap by taking Marx’s value theory and using it to read volume three. This work is nothing short of a masterful reading of Marx’s form-analysis and defends the continued relevance of Marx’s work in the twenty-first century.