After Saturday’s profile in the Sydney Morning Herald, two letters in today’s paper:
When two sides go to a war of words
Ben Cubby (“The dissenter who dared to ask why“, July 29-30) suggests most of the criticisms levelled at Antony Loewenstein’s work focus on minor errors of time, date or place, leaving his broad themes unchallenged.
Far from being unchallenged, those broad themes are flawed because they are premised upon verifiable factual errors, which he has not acknowledged. Also, he uncritically accepts as fact anti-Israel polemic.
Loewenstein knows that there are no Israeli roads that may be used only by Jews, a claim he makes in his book to found a charge of racism. Israeli Arabs use them all the time.
It is equally inconvenient for him to acknowledge that Israel is a thriving democracy in which Jews and Arabs can vote and where Jews, Christians and Muslims have full freedom of religion, while Israel’s neighbours do not allow Jews to be citizens, have the vote or freely exercise their faith. (About half of Israel’s population consists of descendants of Jews who were evicted from Arab nations.)
For dissent to be credible it needs to be factually accurate and sensibly reasoned. Loewenstein fails on both counts.
David D. Knoll NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, Darlinghurst
As an Australian I support the publishing of the book by Antony Loewenstein. This is what Australia is all about: discussion of a difficult subject with a definite opinion. He is to be complimented for the guts to question and add to the robust debate in Israel that he talks about.
It will be interesting to see if anyone has the same guts to publish the book in Israel. Hopefully debate will bring about change. The fact that the “armchair generals” from the Jewish Affairs Council attack the book makes it a must-read for all morally thinking Australians.
Rodney Bassetti Watsons Bay
Knoll’s letter warrants a response. His suggestion that Israel is a “thriving democracy” in the heart of a violent Middle East may comfort his Zionist heart but perhaps he’d like to reflect on the fact that Israel maintains an illegal occupation over millions of Palestinians, individuals who, without question, do not have the same rights as Jews in Israel proper. Some democracy.
Knoll should read the regular reports from leading Israeli human rights group B’Tselem. Take their dispatch of July 20, alleging Israeli soldiers used Palestinians as human shields in Gaza. Such outrages are now so common in the occupied territories, it’s unsurprising Knoll fails to mention the occupation in his letter.
Many Zionists, including Knoll, has recently alleged that I am mistaken to claim “Jewish-only roads” in the occupied territories. Nothing could be further from the truth. I gain my knowledge from a variety of sources (including Human Rights Watch.) James Zogby, president of the Arab American Institute in Washington, wrote in the LA Times in 2001:
As damaging as this cancerous growth of settlements has been to the Palestinians, the dramatic expansion of the network of “Jewish only” security roads – in reality, superhighways connecting the settlements to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv – has been even worse. Large swatches of Palestinian land have been confiscated and declared off-limits to create these roads. Their impact has been to cut the occupied territories into pieces.
Israeli journalist Gideon Levy has written about the existence of such roads. I saw them with my own eyes while I was in the West Bank in March 2005 with Israeli journalist Amira Hass. Palestinians are generally not allowed on such roads and Israeli Arabs are equally prohibited – the majority of time – to use the freshly-paved roads.
How any moral Jew or individual could defend infrastructure that is reserved for one group over another is beyond me. “Security” doesn’t justify anything.
Perhaps Mr Knoll might care to comment on hwo much thriving Israel would do without it’s annual doll check from the US, and other forms of support.
How about the treatment of Palestianians by the IDF, esepecialyl now that the world has witnessed how tolerant and restrined the IDF really is.
What about commenting on a society that can brush off as unimportant an army officer’s brutal murder of a 13-year-old girl on the claim that she threatened soldiers at a military post — one of nearly 700 Palestinian children murdered by Israelis since the intifada began — is not a society with a conscience.
What about commenting on a government that imprisons a 15-year-old girl — one of several hundred children in Israeli detention — for the crime of pushing and running away from a male soldier trying to do a body search as she entered a mosque? The girl was shot three times as she ran away and was convicted to 18 months in prison after she came out of a coma.
As for Jews and Arabs living in peace, perhaps he would also care to comment about the fact that the Israeli parliament openly and unashamedly discusses enthnic cleansing with the off the cuff attitude that over governments discuss the environment.
Letter to the Sydney Morning Herald
It would appear inconvenient for David D. Knoll to acknowledge that although they can drive on the roads in Israel, Israeli Arabs are discriminated against on a variety of fronts. Simply put, they do not enjoy the same rights as Israeli Jews. This means that although Israel is a democracy, some citizens are more equal than others. Israel’s Yisrael Beiteinu party openly advocates the ethnic cleansing of Israel’s Arab population. Knoll’s crucial omissions give credibility to Herald journalist Ben Cubby’s claim that Loewenstein’s detractors do tend to focus on relatively minor errors, being unable to contest his “broad themes”.
Reckon that’ll get published? (despite my boo boo about who drives on which roads)
Oh please. Just admit that you have been caught making clueless lies again. The Pals are not Israelis, therefore they do not get Israeli rights. Hullo?
Viva,
Why do you even bother to post here? You’re hit and run polemics make no contribution whatsoever seeing as you refuse to engage anyone in discussion.
Even when the roads cut across their land? Do Arab Israeli’s get to use the roads unconditionally? If not, then for all intents and purposes, they are Jewish roads.
This matter of the “roads” seems to come up again and again. What’s the big difficulty here?
The roads in question connect illegal settlements in the occupied territories with greater Israel. As such, they are a part of the infrastructure of illegitimate colonisation. By definition, these roads are maintained for the benefit of Jewish settlers in occupied lands.
One wonders how mainstream Israeli Jews feel about the considerable cost of maintaining these roads for a few extremists. Especially since it is part of an illegal policy whose effect is to undermine their own security within their country’s legitimate borders.
Ant
just saw an interesting piece on HuffPost – by a member of a group who put an advert in the New York Times that is ‘the first time a group of major American intellectuals and activists, including leading Jewish progressives, have ever called for an arms embargo on Israel and the suspension of diplomatic relations with it unless and until it accepts a cease-fire’.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mark-levine/cmon-eric-join-the-move_b_26277.html
His name is Mark LeVine and he is one interesting guy:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/contributors/bio.php?nick=mark-levine&name=Mark Levine
It would be nice to think that Jews dissenting from the ascendant Israeli fascism all over the world could make contact, pool their resources, compare notes and generally consolidate a little. The rest of us could sleep a little easier.
Ahem Viva,
My boo boo was to assert that Arab Israelis get to use the roads in question. From Antony’s information it appears that they can’t – most of the time, presumably only at the discretion of the colonists. But “caught making clueless lies again”? My suggestion to you is to put up or shut up.
Gee, so Knoll is arguing that, “For dissent to be credible it needs to be factually accurate and sensibly reasoned.”
Hang on though, this is the same bloke who wrote in March that, “Israelis know that peace requires compromise, often painful compromise, and they have more than once proven their willingness to give up territory for the sake of peace.”
The fact that this “territory” being offered is, in fact, a set of parcels of occupied land seized from others in war seems to have escaped him. As does the whole concept of Bantustans, walls constructed on occupied territory, checkpoints that disrupt pregnant women attempting to reach hospital and all the other blatant examples of abuses of human rights and international law (of which he is supposedly an expert) that characterise day to day life for people in the Israeli-occupied territories.
Viva Peace – Palestinians are not Pals, just as Japanese are not Japs. Oh, and we spell hello with an e down here.
Andrew Worssam
Advice I have repeatedly offered the guy. I made the mistake of assuming that Viva had a spine and a genuine desire to engage other in discussion. Just thought I might spare you the wasted energy.
Viva considers anyone without a white face to be of inferior susbstance and deserving of all the ills that befal them. He looks down at the aboriginees and other indigenous people, and considers them weak and simple minded for accepting the white man at his word. He asserts that these people formented their own downfall beccuase they accepting gifts from white men.
ADAMMO! Stop feeding the troll:-) I actually think that Israel is doing EXACTLY what it was set up to do. The Yalta Conference in 1945 was between US, UK, USSR. Three wily politicians with a keen sense of history decided that it would well serve their GENERATIONAL PLANS to carve up the middle east, stymie a 1500 year old enemy (Islam) and guarantee future oil production. E voila! Israel…Catspaw(n) of the west (sic)
The long term strategic plan for the illegal state of Israel involved racism and apartheid to secure it freedom. I have come across a piece of work by Bruce Dixon who explains Israel and its reality towards Arabs and Muslims. For all the pro-Israeli lovers this article is a must.
I’ve highlighted some quotes below from the article and I think can be a discussion on their own:
Very enlightening piece by Dixon there Adam, I’d bet my livelyhood though that Captain and co. arent about to read it though. Be mindful though, even though they wont read it, quote bits in future arguements. Much more substance than Captain will ever be able to provide for his cause.
Yeah, Israel is a great place where everyone irrespective of race, color and especially religion is treated equally, without prejudice and its only those arabs who are blinkered bigots.
At leat thats what Knoll et al want you to believe. But the truth has a habit of coming out at the most inconvenient times. Like this:
Damn, how dare one of us gentiles endanger a jewish beauty queen! He should be horsewhipped!!!
Racism from the jews in this sense is quite Hitlerian actually. He wanted to keep the German people pure…