The Post-Partisan Emporium

The Hamas Proxy Posted By: Iain Davis   * * * Harakat al-Muqawamah al-Islamiyyah (Hamas) is widely perceived to be a “proxy” of the Iranian government. Three weeks after Hamas’ October 7th attack on the communities and military installations close to the Gaza border, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said : [Hamas are] part of the axis of evil Iran has formed, an axis of terror that works by arming, training and financing Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Houthis in Yemen and other terror proxies throughout the Middle East and beyond the Middle East. [. . .] In fighting Hamas and the Iranian axis of terror, Israel is fighting the enemies of civilization itself. Netanyahu’s depiction of Hamas as simply an extension of the Iranian government was utterly disingenuous. It has been widely reported , and never denied, that Benjamin Netanyahu told a 2019 meeting of his Likud Party: Anyone who wants to thwart the establishment of a Palestinian state has to support bolstering...

  A Storied Russian Muckraker On Oil, Iran, Ukraine, and More Known for fearless journalism in the Yeltsin years, Leonid Krutakov resurfaces with an epic history of the oil business, at a time when war over energy has never been more relevant. Matt Taibbi Russian oil in the Phillipines this week In Moscow in July 1997, reporter Leonid Krutakov had a scoop. Anatoly Chubais, the Harvard-educated privatization boss and right hand of Boris Yeltsin, had been given a $3 million loan from Stolichny Bank just before that same bank — controlled by an intimidating “businessman” named Alexander Smolensky — won an auction for a state-owned agricultural property, Agroprombank. It was a great story, but Krutakov had to make an epic journey to print it. First fired from Chubais-friendly  Komsomolskaya Pravda,  he was rejected by  Moskovsky Komsomolets,  then appealed to the legendary editor of  Top Secret , Artem Borovik, before that magazine, too, turned him down. Finall...