Antony Loewenstein

Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert discuss the finer points of Fox News:

Jonathan Cook, Antiwar, November 24:

Unlike my colleagues, I do not claim to know who killed [Pierre] Gemayel. Maybe Syria was behind the shooting. Maybe, in Lebanon’s notoriously intrigue-ridden and fractious political system, someone with a grudge against Gemayel – even from within his own party – pulled the trigger. Or maybe, Israel once again flexed the muscles of its long arm in Lebanon.

Conversely, civil war may pose serious threats to Syrian interests – and offer significant benefits to Israel. If Hezbollah’s energies are seriously depleted in a civil war, Israel may be in a much better position to attack Lebanon again. Almost everyone in Israel is agreed that the Israeli army is itching to settle the score with Hezbollah in another round of fighting. This way it may get the next war it wants on much better terms; or Israel may be able to fight a proxy war against Hezbollah by aiding the Shi’ite group’s opponents.

Every now and then, an article appears in the Australian media that alleges anti-Israel bias in academia. The sources for such stories are the usual Zionist clowns that desperately want universities to teach the Leon Uris version of history. Thankfully, most academics desire a more nuanced look at events.

Hence, this article in Wednesday’s Australian newspaper. The story featured comments by Federal Labor MP Michael Danby – a man not known for subtlety or depth of understanding on the Middle East – and Zionist leader Colin Rubenstein – a zealot who desires endless war in the Arab world.

The thrust of the article was thus:

Complaints about an alleged pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel bias in Australian academe have been less highly charged than in the US or in Britain, where during the past 18 months lecturers unions have twice tried to impose boycotts on contacts with Israeli academics.

Yet claims of analytical failures, politicisation and intolerance of alternative views in Middle Eastern studies departments in Australia have coalesced this year with complaints in federal parliament and from Jewish and Israeli lobby groups.

The allegations were primarily against Macquarie University’s Andrew Vincent and ANU’s Amin Saikal. Vincent was accused of inviting extremists to speak at his Centre for Middle East and North African Studies (of which I’m a board member) including mainly “anti-Zionists” such as Tanya Reinhart and Robert Fisk. Both events generated huge interest and turn-out, and Fisk attracted the largest crowd ever seen at Macquarie.

But Rubenstein was concerned by something far more sinister:

Rubenstein is also critical of the appointment this year of anti-Zionist blogger Antony Loewenstein to the board of Vincent’s centre, which includes Health Minister Tony Abbott and parliamentary secretary Greg Hunt.

On January 27, Vincent was quoted in The Australian Jewish News as saying: “We wanted a Jewish person on the board. We didn’t have any Jews on the board and it seemed to be an absence.” Yet Rubenstein says Loewenstein has no academic expertise on the Middle East and visited Israel for the first time only recently to research his contentious book, My Israel Question.

Aside from the fact that I’m described as an “anti-Zionist blogger” – have these people no respect for a best-selling author? – the suggestion that my appointment to the board was inappropriate because I don’t have “academic expertise” is laughable. Rubenstein may have an academic background and a failed bid to gain Liberal Party pre-selection, but his analysis on the Middle East has been proven wrong time and time again.

Iraq’s “liberation” would be a success? The recent Lebanon war would bring Israel victory? “Natural-growth” of the Israeli settler movement? More brutality in the occupied territories could bring peace? There is a (polite) word for people like Rubenstein: delusional.

After all, my appointment to the board was designed to bring a fresh, young perspective on the Middle East and the success of My Israel Question suggests that a great number of people desire a less militant reading of the region. Support for people like Rubenstein is dwindling and he knows it. Therefore, going on the offensive and alleging bias is the perfect mother-of-all-distractions. Suffice to say, the established Jewish community still treats him with velvet gloves, but his version of exclusionary Zionism is about as popular internationally as Saddam Hussein.

So, who exactly is the author of the article, Rebecca Weisser? She has been described as a “former Australian diplomat and specialist in Francophone affairs.” Her July article in the Australian explains her thinking:

It is not just the Australian media that puts Israel in the dock. BBC Radio 4′s The World Tonight on Friday framed its coverage with the loaded question: “Is Israel justified in its actions or are they disproportionate?” In an interview with Philippe Sands, a poster boy for the illegality of the Iraq war, presenter Robin Lustig asked: “That question of proportionate response lies at the heart of international criticism of Israel. Is the scale of military action appropriate? Is it indeed aimed at legitimate targets?” rather than questioning the legitimacy, proportionality or legality of Hezbollah’s bombing of civilians in towns and cities in Israel.

It was a point picked up later by Mark Regev, spokesman for the Israeli Foreign Ministry, who pointed out that in the war against Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia, bridges, roads and power supplies were targeted asking: “Is this not singling out Israel, holding it to a higher standard that Europe doesn’t even hold itself to?”

And therein lies the rub. Israel is consistently held to a higher standard than the terrorists who attack it or the countries that condemn it, thanks to the inverted logic of political correctness.

So, hear that people? Israel and Jews are the victims here, always have been, and always will be. Launching cluster bombs into civilian areas in Lebanon was purely defensive, was it? Israel is internationally isolated and supported by fewer nations every year simply because it behaves like a rogue state, brutalises the Palestinian people and believes it is above international law. Crying “victim” may be effective in London, Canberra and Washington – and in the isolated offices of the Murdoch empire – but as world power shifts from the West to the East, Israel’s long-term existence is seriously threatened.

Vincent has written a letter to the Australian in response to Weisser’s hatchet job:

Your occasional contributor Rebecca Weisser (“Mideast studies accused”, 22/11) has joined other deeply committed pro-Israel lobbyists in their concerted campaign to stifle the balanced and open views we encourage here at the Centre for Middle East and North African Studies at Macquarie University.

She complains that we have had anti-Zionist Israeli Tanya Reinhart speak to our students. But she fails to mention that we have also had the Israeli Prime Minister’s brother, Yossi Olmert, speak to our students – along with many other pro-Zionist Israeli speakers. We welcome them.

Ms Weisser complains that I invited the Syrian ambassador to speak to my students. She failed to mention that on several occasions I have invited the Israeli ambassador (most recently over a meal with him as a guest in his home.) So far, he has not been able to make time available. That is a pity because I’m sure he would give an informative and stimulating talk to my students.

At our The Journalist and Islam Conference being held at NSW Parliament House Dec 7-8, we again have many sides putting their cases. We have Al-Jazeera, we have Health Minister Tony Abbott. We have a woman from a Muslim group and we have the CEO of the Jewish Board of Deputies. [ed: I am also speaking at this event.]

Ms Weisser raises alleged complaints about my courses by an unknown number of unnamed students. Is this really the best she can do? Thousands of students have attended my courses in Middle East Politics at Macquarie. How many have complained? How specific were their claims? Why haven’t I, or the University received any of these complaints?

No, these attacks against the Centre for Middle East & North African Studies aren’t made because we are biased or lack balance. On the contrary, they are made because we ARE balanced and unbiased, because we refuse to swallow the Israeli government’s version of events, or the US government’s or the Iranian, Syrian, or Lebanese government’s version of events.

We question, we challenge, we stimulate our students to inquire deeply about the issues in the Middle East. We will continue to present them with all sides of the arguments. We will not be frightened off by one-eyed political lobbyists determined to repress fair and open discussion.

Andrew Vincent, Director
Centre for Middle East & North African Studies
Macquarie University

Rubenstein encourages the establishment of an Australian Campus Watch – not dissimilar to Campus Watch in the US – to monitor “anti-Israel” and “anti-US” sentiment at universities. This suggestion is borne out of failure in the dissemination of ideas. Rubenstein and his ever-shrinking ilk haven’t won the debate by honestly discussing and sharing ideas on the Middle East, so a McCarthyite system is the only way they can at least try and institute some control. They’d be able to add yet another failure to their CV.

At a time in Israel when a fascist has secured a senior position in government and Gaza is again aflame, it’s no wonder Zionists want to focus on “bias” at universities. The moral and political bankruptcy of this position was recently argued by Israel’s former Foreign Minister, Shlomo Ben-Ami:

It appears that the Israeli aversion to international initiatives for solving the conflict with the Arab world is inherent in us. The world, and in particular Europe, is assumed to be hostile to Israel, and every international conference is conceived of as an ambush in which Israel’s enemies will try to force it into an arrangement that is contradictory to its existential interests.

This aversion is particularly difficult to understand in view of the fact that Israel is sunk in a bloody conflict that has no solution, neither diplomatic nor military. The battlefield – in Lebanon against Hezbollah and in the Gaza Strip against Hamas – no longer makes it possible to gain easy victories or a decisive advantage. In both cases, the governments enabled the Israel Defense Forces to push forward to a victory but they were not able to carry out the mission.

What is the government proposing to get out of this quagmire? The foreign minister has suggested speaking with “the moderates” in the Palestinian Authority. It is worrisome to think that she is not aware that the distance between the moderates and the extremists is most minute, and that the moderates will act toward setting up a Palestinian state with its borders on the pre-1967 green line, with Jerusalem as its capital and an agreed-upon solution to the refugee problem. In general terms, the moderates want a solution on the basis of the Saudi initative.

It’s more than time to ask intransigent Zionists how they intend to solve the conflict, other than bombing Iran, occupying Iraq, West Bank and Gaza and somehow hoping that “acceptable” Arabs will come along to negotiate. Israel has a stark choice (otherwise demographics will do the job for them.)

During Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s recent trip to Washington, he said the following:

“We in the Middle East have followed the American policy in Iraq for a long time, and we are very much impressed and encouraged by the stability which the great operation of America in Iraq brought to the Middle East. We pray and hope that this policy will be fully successful so that this stability which was created for all the moderate countries in the Middle East will continue.”

He was rightly ridiculed for such inanity. But he hasn’t stopped further embarrassing Israel’s name in the international community:

“I stand with the president because I know that Iraq without Saddam Hussein is so much better for the security and safety of Israel, and all of the neighbours of Israel without any significance to us.”

Israel’s safety has improved since the Iraq invasion? Iran is emboldened, Iraq has become a centre for international jihad and hatred for the US and Israel in the region has never been higher.

When “realists” talk about wanting “stability” in the Middle East, this is simply code for maintaining the Arab autocracies. They know that if free and open elections were ever held across the region, Islamist parties would likely win.

Perhaps Olmert feels, like our own Prime Minister, that he has to worship at the feet of George W. Bush, no matter the circumstances or political reality. Israel is so reliant on the world’s only superpower – militarily, diplomatically and financially – that a figure like Olmert has to prostitute himself to keep Washington on side.

So what’s John Howard’s excuse?

The Chaser examines the terrorism threat:

My following article appears in today’s Crikey newsletter:

The last weeks have seen the NSW Labor government and Liberal opposition at each other’s throats over corruption, allegations of child sexual assault and incompetence.

Strangely these tensions were little in evidence at last night’s annual NSW Parliamentary Christmas Party at Parliament House in Macquarie Street. Over 250 journalists, staffers, advisers, pollies and hangers-on congregated for the informal event.

Figures from across the political spectrum were there – Fred Nile, post-Survivor contestant David Oldfield and John Watkins just three of the assembled crowd – and reporters from all major media organisations.

It was a strange night. Perhaps the oddest encounter was a conversation between broadcaster Mike Carlton and NSW Liberal right-wing powerbroker David Clarke.

Clarke said that he thought the last week had been kind to the NSW Liberal Party and wondered if Carlton agreed. Carlton said Clarke was delusional to think his party had performed well, principally because leader Peter Debnam had attempted to smear NSW Attorney-General Bob Debus with false and misleading information sourced from a known liar.

Clarke wasn’t convinced (interestingly, a reporter from the Sydney Morning Herald told me Clarke was politically savvy but clueless about how issues played in the media). He seemed to believe that throwing enough mud would be enough for the public to start distrusting the NSW Labor Party.

Predictably enough Clarke and Carlton also debated gay marriage – and ended up agreeing to disagree. It was soon time for the annual bloopers tape, assembled by the Press Gallery Committee. Premier Morris Iemma and Debnam stood adjacent to each other and seemed to share many laughs together. The film portrayed Iemma as Tony Soprano from The Sopranos.

Still unsure that the Howard government lied about Iraq?

One year before the invasion of Iraq, Australia’s then ambassador to the United Nations, John Dauth, confidentially told AWB’s former chairman, Trevor Flugge, that the Howard Government would participate in military action with the US to overthrow Saddam Hussein, new AWB documents reveal.

Details of the extraordinary conversation undercut previous statements by the Prime Minister that Australia had not agreed to join the war in Iraq before the UN debate in late 2002 and early 2003.

The conversation between Mr Dauth and Mr Flugge took place in early 2002 – 13 months before the war – and the details are contained in confidential AWB board minutes that were released without fanfare yesterday by the Cole inquiry.

Is the “retreat of the hegemon” nearly upon us?

The crisis in Darfur continues to cause untold misery. We often read of Western pressure to intervene to stop the carnage, but what do Africans think?

I’ve recently discovered some polling from mid-2005 that supported UN involvement in the war-told nation, but this result surprised me:

Awareness of the situation in Darfur is fairly low. Just over one-third of Africans interviewed (36%) say they have heard or read a great deal or a fair amount about “the conflict in the Sudan region called Darfur.” Attitudes about whether the UN should have the right to intervene are not significantly different between those with higher or lower levels of awareness. 

UPI reports: “Current figures have the death toll at more than 200,000 with an estimated 2.5 million displaced since the start of the ethnically motivated warfare in early 2003.” 

If those appalling figures aren’t enough to spur international support, what will?

Amira Hass, Haaretz, November 22:

The OC Central Command, Yair Naveh, dropped a cluster bomb early this week. He signed an order barring Israeli citizens from taking Palestinian passengers in their Israeli vehicles within the West Bank. The order will take effect on January 19, 2007 and it exempts those who take Palestinians with permits to enter Israel and the settlements, or those who take their first-degree relatives with them.

The security argument will satisfy the vast majority of Israelis, just as they are content with the security explanation for hundreds of road closures and dozens of military checkpoints inside the West Bank. The fact that these limit mobility to a minimum and separate between a village and its lands, one village and another, a village and the city, and from one district and another, that is, disrupt the normal life that it is still possible to maintain under the Israeli occupation regime, never deterred the army commanders who formulated the orders, never stopped the High Court of Justice judges who approved and continue to approve the orders, and it never bothered the Labor party’s MKs. Most of the Israeli public is also not troubled by the fact that it is precisely the checkpoints and roadblocks which serve the Israeli colonization policy; they are dissecting the occupied West Bank into small and disconnected enclaves where Palestinians live, surrounded by an ocean of settlement momentum and Jewish territorial contiguity. 

Seinfeld takes Movember very seriously:

The New York Times has had a tortuous relationship with the Iraq war. In the run-up to the 2003 invasion, senior journalist Judith Miller produced any number of “exclusives” that allegedly proved Saddam’s vast weapons of mass destruction. Her source was leading Iraqi dissident Ahmad Chalabi, who now blames the Americans for the country’s current fate.

Since 2003, however, the Times has often campaigned against the war, and the various inadequacies of the Bush administration, but questions remain as to whether its opposition is to the ways in which the war has been fought or the original premise of the mission.

One of the great tragedies of the war has been the Western media’s continuing ability to ignore the voice of Iraqis. What do they think of the current power-play in Washington? How do they deal with the near-apocalyptic violence wracking the country?

In the last days, the Times have at last provided a small forum for such perspectives on its op-ed page.

Waddah Ali is a poet, translator and university lecturer. He explains how he worked for the Americans, even viceroy Paul Bremer, but quit after threats on his life. He argues that the Americans simply didn’t appreciate the country they were occupying:

America did well to liberate Iraq. But Iraqis were used to tyranny and afraid of freedom. The Americans entered Iraq without a psychological program for dealing with this fact. Iraqis had been programmed according to another system of thought and feeling. America should have considered that.

Basim Mardan is a poet and translator and remains more sympathetic to American ambitions for his country. He recalls a caring US military that should not be defined by the Abu Ghraib scandals.

Omar Ghanim Fathi, an essayist and college lecturer, thinks the Americans failed by not installing a strongman to replace Saddam. The Iraq people had no experience with elections or democracy, he argues, and “after four to eight years, we could have had an election, and the new government could have started working on the basis of the new Constitution.” A civil war is essential to solve the country’s problems, Fathi believes.

Reading the words of these Iraqis is revealing. It confirms reports by Robert Fisk last weekend – both Sunni and Shiite death squads are systematically trying to “cleanse” whole neighbours – and paints a nation fundamentally at odds with claims by John Howard that Iraq is not a disaster.

A former UN envoy to the country, Lakhdar Brahimi, now says that the US, Britain and Iraq are in a “state of denial” over their failed policy. The Australian government is equally positioned.

How long will it take for the Times to advocate withdrawal from Iraq? At this stage, the paper remains unwilling to embrace any fundamental shift in US strategy.

The news that Lebanon has suffered yet another political assassination is grim news, indeed. Of course, when “Western powers” talk of supporting the flailing government of Prime Minister Fouad Siniora, many Lebanese and Muslims will well remember these same powers allowing over a month of deadly Israeli raids that devastated the country. “Western powers” are little trusted in the region, and rightly so.

One Lebanese group that receives virtually no coverage are the Jews. The Jews of Lebanon reports:

Is it time to speak out?

We have been seriously considering approaching the Lebanese government regarding our concerns and issues and getting an official response. Every indication suggests that the government regards the Jewish community as any other minority in Lebanon and as such, we expect a favourable response. It’s important to note that in history and during the civil unrest, every community in Lebanon suffered, every community was attacked, victimized, bombed, and killed and as such, we hope people dismiss any preconceived notion that Jews in particular were victimized or suffered when in reality, we all suffered, all Lebanese, regardless of their religious background were targeted.

We have been considering speaking with the government as well as leading religious and social figures and collecting their formal responses to our campaign and site. We would also like to know the status of the famous Maghen Avraham Synagogue, which awkwardly enough, is situated directly under the Grand Serail- the seat of Lebanon’s Prime Ministry and Council of Ministers.

What do you think? Should we start mobilizing? Who do we contact and speak to? Any particular political, social, or religious figure?