Antony Loewenstein

The Sydney Morning Herald profiles one “dissenter” in Sydney.

Robert Fisk, The Independent, July 27:

Is it possible – is it conceivable – that Israel is losing its war in Lebanon?

Is this why they had to die, after being targeted by the Israelis for eight hours, their officers pleading to the Israeli Defence Forces that they cease fire? An American-made Israeli helicopter saw to that. 

Meanwhile, Iraq’s Prime Minister displays a modicum of independence on Israel’s war in Lebanon and he’s labelled an “anti-Semite” by the Democratic Party chairman Howard Dean (heading a party on the road to irrelevance). “We don’t need to spend $200 and $300 and $500 billion bringing democracy to Iraq to turn it over to people who believe that Israel doesn’t have a right to defend itself and who refuse to condemn Hezbollah”, he said.

What an ungrateful little puppet.

In late 2005, I was appointed to Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle East and North African Studies. We organised the Robert Fisk lecture in early 2006, the largest event ever held on campus. We are currently planning a conference in early December, titled “The Journalist and Islam: competing agendas, political correctness and the war on terror.” A mix of local and international journalists, academics and business figures will debate the most pressing issues of the early 21st century.

I have just been appointed an Honorary Associate at Macquarie University’s Department of Politics and International Relations. I will participate in some academic activities (lectures, seminars and the like) as well as other university events.

I thank the university for the opportunity.

Workers in Venezuela get assistance from a master:

In his classic 1936 film, “Modern Times,” Charlie Chaplin has to work so fast tightening bolts in a steel factory that he finally goes crazy.

Once the showings at factories or meeting halls end, Labour Ministry officials use Chaplin’s plight to spell out workers rights under new occupational safety laws. 

Personally, I would be screening Days of Heaven to the workers at my non-existent workplace. Aside from the fact that it’s the finest movie ever made, it’s a compelling story of love, misguided responsibility and exploitation. Workers, fire up.

The following letter appears in this week’s Australian Jewish News:

I write to express my disgust at the destruction of Lebanon by Israel’s armed forces. This is a war crime.

Let us look at the chain of events. For 16 months, the Hamas Government in Gaza maintained a cease-fire, with constant provocation from Israel, economic sanctions and shelling from across the border.

I have read (yes, on Noam Chomsky’s website) that on June 24, two Gaza civilians, a doctor and his brother, were abducted and taken, presumably, to Israel. It was on the following day, June 25, that Gilad Shalit, a member of a tank battalion, was abducted by Hamas.

The answer to that was to invade Gaza, and for the IDF to do its worst. The abductions and killings by Hezbollah were obviously an act of solidarity, perhaps to take the heat off Gaza. I do not defend it, but that is what the action surely was. Now we have Israel dropping bombs on civilians and civilian infrastructure. There is massive destruction and loss of life in Lebanon, out of all proportion to what is being suffered in Israel. As I, and many others, say, it is a war crime – collective punishment on a grand style.

You would not guess it from my name, but my father was a Jewish refugee from Vienna. My mother is not Jewish. So you can call me a self-hating Jew, or an antisemite, whatever you like. But many other people, including that brave journalist Antony Loewenstein, have woken up to the brutal ugliness of what Israel has come to stand for. It is time to, in all humility, stop the killing, stop the propaganda and negotiate. Because there will be no peace without
justice.

STEPHEN LANGFORD
Paddington, NSW

For all the latest media coverage of My Israel Question, see here.

The Australian media and the current Middle East crisis. Discuss.

The following letter appears in today’s Australian newspaper:

Mark Steyn’s article (“If only they had refused to indulge Arafat“, Opinion, 26/7) demonstrates that anti-semitism has not disappeared from the mindset of sections of the Right – it has simply transformed into a malignant bigotry against Muslim Arabs.

Of course, not all the features of classic anti-semitism are present in this new anti-Arab bigotry. Steyn and his ilk do not argue that Arabs control international finance, for example. However, his allegation that Palestinian terrorists drank the blood of the assassinated Jordanian prime minister in 1971 has an eerie parallel in the persistent medieval belief that Jews slaughtered Christian children and drank their blood in accordance with their own depraved rituals.

Like anti-semitism, the new bigotry makes no distinction between Arabs. Whether they be Palestinian or Lebanese, Shiite or Sunni, in essence they are all the same. They all share the same murderous and unappeasable bloodlust towards Jews. It is pointless to try to negotiate with them because they have no interest in compromise, only in total victory. Their genocidal jihadism is ineradicable and can only be countered with violence.

Like his fellow anti-Arab bigots, Steyn has no interest in the historical or political context except where it supports his position. He amply demonstrates Cardinal Newman’s remark that although some people’s opinions may radically change, their casts of minds remain fundamentally the same.
Nick Laffey
Oxley, ACT

Meanwhile, Australia’s Foreign Minister thinks that supporters of Israel “don’t get out and make their arguments enough.” He adds:

“ ‘Israel is at fault’, ‘Israel should use proportionate force not disproportionate force’, ‘Israel is breaching international standards of human rights’, hang on, what have these people got to say about Hezbollah, about Syria, about Iran? Why do they single out Israel all the time?

“So our position is just based on an objective analysis of the facts, look if people think we are pro-Israel fair enough. I don’t mind being called pro-Israeli, I wouldn’t wear that as a badge of shame by the way. I’ve been to Israel on several occasions and it is a laudable and impressive country.

Finally, a Lebanese Australian writes in the New York Times about the current war in the Middle East:

More is at stake now than the fate of Lebanon. If the West does not persuade Israel to stop its attacks, that failure will add to a creeping sense that, in its fight with Islamic fundamentalism, the West has abandoned its claim to moral superiority based on respect for human rights and international law, and is pursuing instead a war based increasingly on tribal solidarity. What a tragedy this would be, especially for those of us who crave a modern, peaceful Middle East. And what a triumph for the varied strains of bin Ladenism — Muslim, Christian and Jewish alike.

Propaganda, Sydney Morning Herald-style.

Michael Scheuer, Anti-war, July 25:

Israel, realistically, does not fall into the category of a life-and-death national interest. It is, at most, a national emotional interest, and therein is the problem. In the past 30 years, and especially during the post-Cold War Clinton regime, our definition of national interest has expanded to include a lengthy list of nice-to-have but unessential ephemera, which are at the moment costing us lives and treasure. Forcing Iraq and Afghanistan to reserve parliamentary seats for women and efforts to install democracy abroad at bayonet point are just two instances of our bipartisan governing elites’ inability to differentiate national-security from national-emotional interests.

Most Americans, including myself, probably hope that Israel eventually proves itself a viable, prosperous, non-theocratic, nuclear-armed state. But it is not remotely imaginable that Israel is a national-security interest of the United States that requires the U.S. government to unquestioningly endorse, fund, and arm all Israeli actions and thereby earn the same enmity Israel earns from a billion-plus Muslims. 

Who says you can’t sing anti-war songs to American soldiers in Baghdad?