Antony Loewenstein

Both the Howard Government and the ineffective Labor opposition have shown complete disregard for Israeli aggression in the Middle East. Greens leader Bob Brown issues a sensible statement:

“The Prime Minister needs to reveal if Australia is still sending arms to Israel, and if so, exports should be suspended,” Greens Leader Bob Brown said today.

Senator Brown said that global coverage of ambulances being targeted in Lebanon, and a United Nations post being destroyed killing UN personnel, will disgust millions around the world. 

A leading British politician has made similar calls in relation to arms sales to the Jewish state. Israel wouldn’t be as lethal without the help of its Western allies.

The Australian government is determined to ban “terrorist” literature and other problematic material:

The nation’s attorneys-general will consider banning books that praise terrorism and placing fresh restrictions on reality shows like Big Brother when they meet tomorrow.

The federal Attorney-General, Philip Ruddock, has placed these proposals on the agenda following the uproar over the “turkey slapping” incident on Big Brother this month and after only two of eight “hate” books he submitted to the Classification Review Board were banned a fortnight ago.

Mr Ruddock has told his state and territory colleagues the difficulty of banning the books shows that present classification codes “may not provide sufficiently clear guidance” at a time when “there has been community outrage at inflammatory and aggressive incitements to violent acts of terrorism contained in some material”.

I wonder if the government plans to ban propaganda issued by the Israeli and US governments that may praise the murder of Palestinian and Arab “terrorists.” And has the government not heard of the internet? Banning printed material is about as useful as outlawing prostitution.

The Howard government loves ranting about media “bias” and “anti-Western” viewpoints. Santo Santoro, a Queensland Liberal MP and Minister for Aging, has given a speech to the B’nai B’rith Anti-Defamation Commission. The ADC used to be dedicated to fighting the far-right in Australia but has now become a particularly ineffective group in the Zionist lobby.

Santoro’s talk, “Truth and Representation: media bias and the threat to democracy”, alleges that the Australian media is pro-terrorist, anti-Semitic and anti-Western. In his worldview, Robert Fisk shouldn’t be interviewed on the national broadcaster. Why?

Merely a week ago, Fran Kelly, the presenter of ABC Radio National’s Breakfast program, chose to interview Robert Fisk on the events in the Middle East. Mr Fisk, she said, is a much praised and award winning journalist. And indeed he is – for he has received praise from no less a judge of character than Osama bin Laden himself, who, in a videotaped message on the eve of the 2004 presidential election in the U.S., commended Fisk by name for his incisive and “neutral” reporting. Did Ms Kelly disclose any of this? Obviously not.

As an aside at this point, I would like to quote the same Mr Fisk from an opinion column in The Canberra Times last week. In it, he quotes – without challenge or question – terrorist leader Sayed Hassan Nasrallah claiming that in its rocket attacks on Israel “Hezbollah originally wished to confine all casualties to the military”. Fisk then goes on to criticise the – quote – “cruelty of Israel’s response” – unquote – to those unprovoked and deadly attacks. It’s no wonder that he attracts rave reviews from Osama bin Laden!

Ipso facto, Fisk is a terrorist. Next time I speak to him, I must remember to ask whether he needs a refresher course at the local terrorist training camp.

Unsurprisingly, Santoro accuses the ABC of anti-Semitism:

The Prime Minister John Howard decisively attempted to stop the rot on the AM program on July 14th when he was asked, and I quote: “Has Israel gone too far?” Mr Howard asked the reporter why the question must always be couched in terms of what Israel has done wrong and whether it should be condemned. He was, of course, appalled by the loss of life on both sides of the conflict. But – and to quote again – the Prime Minister said “the assumption that it was started by Israel in this particular instance is wrong”.

That the Prime Minister should feel the need to highlight to a reporter the skewed nature of the question he was being asked is indicative of a deeply-ingrained culture – a reflex anti-Semitism – in parts of the media. Such questions betray a belief that Israel is always at fault and has no right to defend itself in any way against attacks from terrorists such as Hezbollah.

To say that this is outrageous, and a disgrace, is an understatement.

Read the whole thing and discover one of the shining lights of the Australian conservative movement.

As the crisis in the Middle East continues to escalate and Israel now targets the UN in southern Lebanon, a number of prominent, so-called liberal bloggers in the US have responded with…virtual silence.

If the likes of Daily Kos and Talking Points Memo want to barely engage on this subject, and simply stick to partisan hackery, their usefulness should be questioned. Political commentary isn’t simply about installing a Democratic President in the White House.

While the Australian Prime Minister John Howard supports Israel’s indiscriminate bombardment of Lebanon and Gaza (though, accurately, calls Ariel Sharon a “great sort of right-wing warlord”), and the US Zionist lobby advocates further violence in the region, American news programs are displaying an unsurprising lack of knowledge about Lebanon:

Take Monday’s coverage of the conflict on NBC’s popular Today Show with anchorwoman Nathalie Morales, who in introducing a report on Hezbollah, rhetorically asks: “So just who is Israel at war with in this latest chapter of an ancient conflict?”

Not only does the reporter assume that Israel’s war targets only Hezbollah (and not the Lebanese civilians, government, private businesses and the military, which have all been attacked) but even contradicts earlier reports on her own network indicating Hezbollah’s founding to be in the early 1980s; hardly considered “ancient” times.

A clear aim of Israel’s aggression is its war against the Lebanese Shi’a population, possibly accelerating the collapse of the state itself.

It seems that some supporters of Israel aren’t too comfortable with alternative viewpoints:

At Melbourne University today (Monday 24 July) Zionist students physically attacked left wing students from the Socialist Alternative Club who were petitioning against the war on Lebanon and handing out leaflets advertising the anti-war demo this coming Sunday.

Opponents of the war should not be intimidated by these attacks. 

Considering the fact that the current war “is not just and morality is not on our side“, such behaviour reeks of desperation.

Sydney Morning Herald columnist Gerard Henderson displays an unsurprising lack of knowledge about the US Zionist lobby and then this:

Meanwhile, back in Australia, a similar debate is under way. Next week Antony Loewenstein’s book My Israel Question will be released. In the publishing blurb, Loewenstein is described as a “young Australian Jew”. He is but one of many Jews who are highly critical of Israel, including the American intellectual Noam Chomsky.

I’m so pleased Henderson places me in such esteemed company.

Robert Fisk, The Independent, July 24:

They are in the schools, in empty hospitals, in halls and mosques and in the streets. The Shia Muslim refugees of southern Lebanon, driven from their homes by the Israelis, are arriving in Sidon by the thousand, cared for by Sunni Muslims and then sent north to join the 600,000 displaced Lebanese in Beirut. More than 34,000 have passed through here in the past four days alone, a tide of misery and anger. It will take years to heal their wounds, and billions of dollars to repair their damaged property.

And who can blame them for their flight? For the second time in eight days, the Israelis committed a war crime yesterday. They ordered the villagers of Taire, near the border, to leave their homes and then – as their convoy of cars and minibuses obediently trailed northwards – the Israeli air force fired a missile into the rear minibus, killing three refugees and seriously wounding 13 other civilians. The rocket that killed them is believed to have been a Hellfire missile made by Lockheed Martin in Florida. 

Fisk’s recent diary of life in Beirut is well worth reading.

- How does a radical Zionist define “terrorist” and “freedom fighter”?

- Australia’s indigenous affairs minister has a novel way of “showcasing” Aboriginal people to foreign visitors. Australia is truly regressing to the colonial age.

- The perils of Australia’s Freedom of Information laws explained by the Sydney Morning Herald.

- Gideon Levy says Israel’s war must “stop now, immediately”, Abe Foxman thanks his God for the Bush administration (and reveals how isolated Israel has truly become), and Lebanon raises the prospect of demanding billions of dollars in compensation from Israel.

- The literary festival is alive and well.

Patrick Seale, Agence Global, July 19:

The explosive impact on Arab opinion of the war in Lebanon and the martyrdom of the Palestinians should not be under-estimated, particularly in view of the graphic media coverage of Israeli atrocities, provided by Al-Jazeera and Hizballah’s satellite channel, Al-Manar.

Only by withdrawing from Palestinian territories, respecting Lebanon’s sovereignty and returning the Golan to Syria will Israel live in peace. 

A timely reminder why Jon Stewart is God.

Journalism 101 starts here.

The following article appears in today’s Canberra Times:

Mad world; daring to question the role of Israel
Jenna Price

I can’t write about Israel. It is way too hard. In my family, I am alone in supporting Israel. In my country, there would be few who would support Israel and its actions – and the others are all raving right-wing maniacs.

Well, when I say support, I think it should exist. My husband and children all believe that it would make more sense to have Israel in, say, Poland. What’s the point in being surrounded by enemies, they ask. So I won’t go into the whole thing about how for centuries, Jews felt as if they were surrounded by enemies, even in Europe. Israel was founded as a giant refugee camp, an idea to which most of us would be sympathetic. But right now I’m even more sympathetic to Lebanese families who are getting bombed to death, when they were just minding their own business and living family lives. Lebanon in summer is beautiful and I was delighted to hear that a young family friend was to visit Lebanon this month and get a crash course in Arabic.

He, of course, is trapped there and getting more than a crash course.

It is no longer fashionable among assimilated Jews like myself to support the existence of the state of Israel, and if you do, you had better want it to be in pre-1967 borders or you lose your licence. Joking. In regular circles, however, Jews who criticise Israel are in big, big trouble. Ask Antony Loewenstein. He is the author of My Israel Question, soon to be published by Melbourne University Press. He grew up in a traditional Melbourne Jewish family, went to a conservative private boys’ school and did honours in arts at Monash. But a few years ago, he started questioning the role of Israel in the Middle East. He started questioning his parents. And, they started questioning themselves. Now, they’ve changed their position – lost a few friends along the way – but accepted their son’s view that maybe the Israeli way is not the right way. (In 1975, I remember helping a charming Palestinian boy screenprint some anti-Zionist posters. My mother went off her head. The Loewenstein parents sound far more moderate.)

Antony, 31, is an only child so maybe they get more sway with their doting parents, but his ability to change the way his parents thought might augur well for the success of his book. And I don’t mean the kind of success where the book goes to number one (although I’m sure he’d like that too). The success we need is to bring, to Jews, the frustrating topic of Israel out into the open. To non-Jews, what Israel has done to recently rebuilt Beirut is a disgrace. And if that was happening to any other country in the universe, Jews would feel the same way. It’s raising that consciousness to reflect what is happening in Lebanon which will be a challenge. Why should Israel exist? For Jews, it was built as a haven and in our minds, continues as one, just in case there is another Holocaust.

But I don’t want that state to be built on the corpses of another forgotten nation, as Jews were forgotten during the Second World War. I know the Israel question. I wish I knew the answer.