Antony Loewenstein

1982 CBS Newsbreak covering the Beirut Massacre with Ariel Sharon:

My following article appears in today’s Crikey newsletter:

The fate of Labor at the 2007 election is dependent on the performance of John Howard. The Australian’s Steve Lewis recently argued that the “man of steel” is showing signs of political ineptitude and Kim Beazley is starting to discover his inner mongrel.

The NSW Fabian Society’s discussion last night, “Can Labor win in 2007?”, filled Sydney’s Gleebooks with an enthusiastic young and old audience dying to snatch victory after ten years in the wilderness. Upcoming ALP President John Faulkner and former ABC news and current affairs head Peter Manning shared the room with any number of believers and wannabe-believers.

Social commentator Hugh Mackay, Murdoch columnist Paul Kelly and ABC host Phillip Adams painted the picture of a party that still needed to discover a convincing narrative to lead the country. The men were introduced by chair Rodney Cavalier, who asked whether the ALP could win on “the three ‘I’s’; Iraq, interest rates and industrial relations.”

Mackay argued that the NSW Labor party needed to lose in the March state election to give its federal counterparts a better chance of victory. Howard had to quit or retire before the election – highly unlikely, it was acknowledged – and “although he is widely despised and mistrusted”, Australians respected his tenacity.

Mackay said that Howard had virtually “institutionalised himself beyond party politics and become quasi-President”, taking on an almost mythic quality. For those on the Left who despair at Howard’s lies, Mackay’s research suggests that the public knows the Prime Minister tells porkies, says all pollies do the same thing and believes that we all tell tall tales to get ahead in life.

The ALP could win if the electorate re-engaged with politics, Mackay argued, so long as the party convinced enough voters that 21st century life wasn’t beyond their control and they had a say in their lives. “The ALP needs to keep asking itself what kind of society we are”, he said, “and what kind of society we will become.”

Kelly, ever the status-quo enforcer, reckoned that the ALP has a 30% chance of winning in 2007. He said that Howard was probably past his “zenith” and faced many challenges, including Iraq, climate change, IR and “a pretty good ALP frontbench.” The Australian’s Editor-at-Large detected a growing conservatism in Western society that suited Howard due to his insistence of pushing “Western values”.

The most colourful speech was given by Adams, who opened with an anecdote of visiting Beazley in Canberra soon after the 1996 defeat. He told Adams that, “Keating was a great Prime Minister, but I’ll never be a great Prime Minister.” The ABC presenter accepted Howard’s reading of Beazley “lacking ticker” and passion and the need for the Bomber to discover some inner grunt. “Kim is psychologically not the top banana”, mused Adams. “He’s more comfortable being subservient.” Hardly a ringing endorsement.

The highlight of the Q&A session was a woman who offered a catchy ALP jingle: “Beazley might not have the ticker, but Howard doesn’t have the pecker.”

It summed up the night. Labor’s chances in 2007 seemed mixed at best, and this was the feeling of ALP supporters.

Jonathan Cook, Counterpunch, October 25:

So why are Israel’s politicians, of the left and right, so comfortable sitting with Lieberman, the leader of Israel’s only unquestionably fascist party? Because, in truth, Lieberman is not the maverick politician of popular imagination, even if he is every bit the racist – a Jewish Jorg Haider or Jean Marie Le Pen.

In reality, Lieberman is entirely a creature of the Israeli political establishment, his policies sinister reflections of the principles and ideas he learnt in the inner sanctums of the Likud party, a young hopeful immigrant rubbing shoulders with the likes of Ariel Sharon, Binyamin Netanyahu and, of course, Ehud Olmert.

Speaking of poseurs, when will the wider world start to hold to account the Holocaust’s “resident clown”, Elie Wiesel? A supposed lover of humanity, except if they’re Palestinian and occupied by Jews.

My latest New Matilda column discusses the catastrophe in Iraq:

As the Iraq war drags on, and Britain and Australia wait for more unconvincing talking points from the Bush Administration, one US general has no doubt who will solve the crisis.

This ‘brilliance’ of Rumsfeld and his fellow ideologues has unleashed an Iraqi civil war and an overwhelming civilian death toll. The handful of pro-war supporters left standing — Murdoch’s The Australian newspaper, for example — have been forced to adjust their own overly-optimistic posturing. 

My New Matilda archive is here.

While a top US general muses about “collateral damage” in his country’s mission to liberate/dominate the world, the American public treats the political system with (justified) contempt:

Half of all Americans believe most members of Congress are corrupt – a figure that has risen 12 points since the start of the year – and more than a third think their own representative is crooked, according to a new poll released Thursday by CNN.

According to the poll, a majority disapproves of how both parties are handling their jobs in Congress. Just 42 percent approve of how the Democrats are doing in Congress, while 54 percent disapprove. The GOP fares even worse – only 36 percent approve of their performance in Congress, while 61 percent disapprove. 

Just remind me why America is the model democratic pupil again?

What is the financial cost of the Iraq war?

The American Enterprise Institute and Brookings provide a helpful website to tally up the cost of their jolly little war.

George Monbiot discusses the environmental challenges of travel:

When an extreme Zionist expresses concern that “left-wing bodies” in the US, George Soros and weak Jewish leadership “represents a real and serious threat to Israel”, we should be pleased.

As I’ve long argued, current-day Israel is immoral and unsustainable. Open-ended American support will not last forever, and nor will blind Jewish support. When these things start to change – and there is evidence that it already has – the Zionist “dream” will have no choice but to close down and look elsewhere for business.

The struggle continues.

A journalist employed by Rupert Murdoch expresses his personal take on Australia’s indigenous population:

“At the NT [Northern Territory] News, we don’t give a fuck about Aborigines”. 

Israel welcomes a fascist into its government and the world stands silently by.

In many ways, this may be a positive move towards the growing international isolation of the Jewish state. Avigdor Lieberman advocates the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians and Arabs. He has demanded that Israel bomb the Aswan Dam.

Many around the world will begin to see that Israel, now partly governed by a man and ideology – comparable to Iran’s president, according to Haaretz – that finally does not speak in code. He wants a pure Jewish state without Arabs.

A long-term Israeli philosophy, regularly couched in diplomatic niceties, is revealed (though I’m sure Zionists will remain silent in the face of such a menace.) The Arab, Muslim and Palestinian world will react appropriately. Once again, Israel’s political elite accelerates the country’s demise.

Afghanistan remains a failed state. Mainstream journalists are starting to openly discuss the Pakistani intelligence services’ role in the country’s instability, but Ajai Sahni in the Asia Times explains the real situation on the ground:

The US-led coalition is unambiguously losing the war in Afghanistan, and it is important, at this stage, to reiterate the obvious, that is, precisely why the war was undertaken in the first instance: because of September 11, 2001, because of the al-Qaeda presence in Afghanistan, and because of the assessment that the Taliban regime there had provided safe haven and operational facilitation to al-Qaeda for its planning and execution of the multiple and catastrophic strikes in the United States. The war was not merely punitive, it was intended to be preventive. It has proved a failure on both counts. 

Would any Australian journalists care to ask John Howard about the current situation in Afghanistan and not accept a lame response? No, didn’t think so.

The New York Times foreign affairs commentator Thomas Friedman is a man who likes to make big statements on the world, war and the environment.

He needs a reality check. Some lessons are forthcoming.