Antony Loewenstein

Leading conservative American commentator Andrew Sullivan, days after September 11:

The middle part of the country – the great red zone that voted for Bush – is clearly ready for war. The decadent left in its enclaves on the coasts is not dead – and may well mount a fifth column.

Sullivan, today, after hearing Republican presidential nominee Rudy Giuliani, when asked whether water-boarding was torture, responded, “It depends on who does it“:

If the Khmer Rouge does it, it’s torture. If the United States does it, it’s not. This man cannot be allowed to be president of the United States. He believes that the United States is above morals and the president of the United States is above the law. He is a tyrant to the depths of his being.

As another Australian soldier is killed in Afghanistan by the Taliban, our media rarely asks the key question: what is the West doing there and is the situation improving? In fact, it is getting worse and the increasing number of civilians killed by “our” forces is causing extremism to breed. The Taliban can undoubtedly be blamed for some of these deaths, but so are NATO troops. Children are suffering more than most.

Lord Ashdown, the former United Nations High Representative for Bosnia and Herzegovina, says:

“I believe losing in Afghanistan is worse than losing in Iraq. It will mean that Pakistan will fall and it will have serious implications internally for the security of our own countries and will instigate a wider Shiite [Shia], Sunni regional war on a grand scale. Some people refer to the First and Second World Wars as European civil wars and I think a similar regional civil war could be initiated by this [failure] to match this magnitude.”

I have never supported the war against Afghanistan. After nearly six years, what has been achieved? Very little. A puppet, US-backed government remains in Kabul and controls none of the country. War lords have been installed throughout the provinces. Leaders of al-Qaeda remain at large. Growing numbers of civilians are being killed by Western forces. Opium production is at record levels.

Isn’t victory sweet?

Sidney Blumenthal, Salon, October 25:

As [Walter] Lippmann observed almost ninety years ago, the crisis of journalism cannot be disentangled from the crisis of national government. Government and journalism now share a crisis of credibility, trust, and competence. At the least, the crisis of journalism reveals a changing standard for and definition of “objectivity.” Journalism, or more precisely, freedom of expression and freedom of the press, has been plunged, as a result of casual, callow, craven, or simply career-minded attitudes, into complicity, tacit and active, with a harsh and secretive administration that seeks to concentrate unaccountable power in the executive and sees itself as above the law and above reproach.

Only incidentally does the crisis of journalism involve the conflict between impartiality of judgment on the one hand and advocacy on the other. This might be a salient question under other circumstances, but it is peripheral here. Neither is the problem caused by slight inattentiveness; nor can it be solved by minor adjustments. The failure of most of the press for most of the Bush era to cover most of the basic reality was because to do so was too radical and threatening, not only to the administration but also to the news organizations themselves. Their dismal behavior goes to the root of a professional collapse. The press fiasco under Bush marks the culminating contradiction, if not repudiation, of Lippmann’s original ideas about shaping journalistic standards for a modern age. It is not sheer happenstance, but the outcome of a long history that was by no means inevitable.

An Al-Jazeera English discussion between the founders of Wikipedia and Craigslist. The future of the media?

Tony Karon, Rootless Cosmopolitan, October 23:

When the Zionist right in America “defends Israel” by going after one of Israel’s most respected newspapers which happens to tell the truth about the occupation and related matters, it’s not hard to see why Pipes & co. have little cause for optimism. The Zionist moment is over, because most Jews around the world (and even many in Israel) are not inclined to a nationalist view of their Jewishness. And remember, Zionism is not much more than 100 years old, arising along with the nationalist currents of late 19th century Europe that accompanied the breakup of the Hapsburg empire. It’s hardly surprising that in a 21st century where we have had a free choice, almost two thirds of us have chosen to live not in a “Jewish State” but wherever in the world we choose to. Many Israelis today are excercising the same choice. And Jews who are not prone to nationalism have no need to rationalize Israel’s abuses against others.

I  think Karon is largely correct – and I’ve spent years writing about the failure of Zionism to acknowledge its crimes and failings – but debate in the West is one thing, and the reality on the ground in Palestine is another. As Noam Chomsky correctly says, we are currently witnessing the death of a nation, Palestine, in view of the world, and condoned by the major powers. Israel’s never-ending ability to further punish the Palestinians continues.

And the world sits on its hands.

My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey:

The fight for the Federal seat of Wentworth is between the self-appointed, Honorary Jew (Malcolm Turnbull) and the proudly Zionist, True Jew (George Newhouse.)

Pitching directly at a recent Jewish Labor Forum, Newhouse told the assembled crowd that, “Malcolm’s recent discovery of the Yiddish vernacular is no substitute for over 30 years of loyalty, hard work and commitment to our community.” In other words, I’m the real Jew who will love Israel uncritically and Malcolm is the wannabe Jew who, er, loves Israel uncritically.

For Australian Jews this election is about a variety of issues and Israel is just one of them. Like all citizens, concerns about health, education, foreign policy and industrial relations are paramount, but Israel is central. Any candidate that even dares utter anything mildly critical of the Jewish state is doomed to failure. The Zionist lobby will eat him or her, with crackling, for dinner.

Both the Liberal and Labor parties have identical policies on Israel. John Howard has always shown that Israel is to be nurtured and defended, no matter what – witness his unyielding defence of Israel during last year’s Lebanon year, despite cluster bombs still killing and maiming civilians – and Kevin Rudd isn’t any better.

His Foreign Affairs spokesman Robert McClelland recently issued a press release praising “Israel’s efforts to restart negotiations with Palestinian people” and welcoming the upcoming “peace” conference to be held in Washington between Israel and Mahmoud Abbas. Its likely failure – due in part to Zionism’s addiction to ongoing land acquisition in the occupied territories and exclusion of the democratically-elected, Hamas government – is ignored because the ALP doesn’t want to upset the Jews. Muslims, larger than the Jewish population, are seemingly irrelevant.

Tellingly, the only major party with a comprehensive policy that offers full rights for both Israelis and the Palestinians are the Greens.

In Melbourne Ports, sitting Jewish Labor MP Michael Danby is a likely winner against a Jewish Liberal competitor, though he spends taxpayer dollars complaining about the appointment of former ABC foreign correspondent and Media Watch head Tim Palmer to the position of Lateline Executive Producer. In case readers don’t know, Palmer is actually a Hamas suicide-bomber who has somehow infiltrated the national broadcaster.

Finally, in the Victorian seat of Issacs, Mark Dreyfus QC is hoping to become the second Jewish Labor Member of Parliament. In a “wide-ranging interview” with the Australian Jewish News last week, Dreyfus offered this compelling reason for Jews to elect him: “It will be nice to keep Michael [Danby] company.” Policies? Ideas? Vision? Hardly, Dreyfus says he just really enjoys campaigning.

The Jewish community deserves better than a bunch of Labor party clones keen to enter Parliament simply to press Jerusalem’s buttons.

Australia’s opposition leader Kevin Rudd may soon assume power. Be afraid:

Worst job for the 21st century?

Journalism.

(But there is still hope.)

Get ready world, Australia is willing to solve the Israel/Palestine conflict and help the fledging Jewish state removes all its illegal settlements in the West Bank (silly me, here I was thinking that Palestine doesn’t even exist and the Palestinians are living in squalor):

Australia could send troops to the Middle East as part of an international buffer force to facilitate an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank and prevent a takeover by terrorist-linked organisations, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said last night.

In a speech to Jewish leaders in Sydney, Mr Downer expressed doubts that Palestinians as a whole would support a peace settlement between Israel and West Bank leaders.

He said the concern was that the Hamas organisation would, because of its backing by Iran, never truly accept Israel’s right to exist.

“If the Israeli defence forces withdrew from the West Bank, Hamas will just take over,” Mr Downer said.

“In the end, there has to be some international force to prop up a Palestinian State.

“If the international community was looking for troops tosupport a peace agreement which provided for the security of Israel and a Palestinian state, we would be prepared to send some troops to help,” he said.

Mr Downer also attacked the UN, and more particularly the non-aligned bloc of countries that makes up a large part of its membership, for taking an irrational anti-Jewish and anti-Zionist line.

The anti-Zionist line. It’s a danger, I tell you, denying Israel’s right to colonise the occupied territories and believing in a state where all citizens have equal rights. If Jews dare say such things, they’ll be accused of disloyalty, treachery and worse. Oh well. As the one-state solution becomes more likely by the day, time is indeed on the side of justice.

Dahr Jamail, author of the wonderful Beyond the Green Zone – I’m currently reading this fine book about the real Iraq, away from the embedded perspective and hearing real Iraqis talking about the effects of the occupation – recently talked on Al-Jazeera English with Riz Khan:

Hide your children. Islamo-fascists are everywhere!

With one month until the Australian election, the issue of Iraq has been discussed only briefly in the campaign. After all, they’ve been over one million Iraqi deaths and millions of displaced refugees. There’s certainly no chance this kind of news will even enter the minds of our politicians (or the sheep-like journalists following their every breath):

Resistance to occupation seems to have risen after the assassination last month of Abdul Sattar Abu Risha, head of the al-Bu Risha tribe. Abu Risha had begun to cooperate actively with U.S. forces.

Abu Risha was killed Sep. 13 when a bomb exploded outside his house in the restive al-Anbar province to the west of Baghdad. His tribe is a branch of the powerful al-Dulaim tribe in al-Anbar.

The Bush administration used Abu Risha to send messages to many parties and groups in Iraq. The week before Abu Risha was killed, U.S. President George W. Bush met with him in Iraq, and claimed that al-Anbar province now suggested “what the future of Iraq can look like.”

“Bush kept his mouth shut when his little collaborator was killed despite all the protection he had,” a young man from Ramadi, capital of al-Anbar province, told IPS. “This was and will be the end of all those who take the path of collaborating with the occupation.”

Abu Risha, who had been arrested by Saddam Hussein, became the centrepiece of Bush administration efforts to show that its troops surge in Iraq had been a success.

Many Iraqis, even one of Abu Risha’s distant cousins, think differently.

“Sattar was a common thief, and we all knew him to be chief of a highway robbers gang,” Salim Abu Risha told IPS in Baghdad. “He and his gang brought shame to our tribe and the whole province, but the Americans tried to make a hero of him.”

It is no secret in Anbar province that Abu Risha’s activities were not legal either before or after the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. When the U.S. government began to support the ‘Awakening of Anbar’ led by Sattar Abu Risha, which operated under the flag of fighting al-Qaeda, some people did begin to think differently.

“Americans always choose the worst of their collaborators to be leaders of their campaigns,” Sheikh Ahmed Ali of the Muslim Scholars Association told IPS in Baghdad. “Look at the governments and councils they chose to lead Iraq. This Sattar Abu Risha only provoked a division among the people of Anbar, and that was exactly what the Americans wanted.”

The violence grinds on. Equally important is to remember that the Americans are using indiscriminate air power to divide and conquer. Salon explains:

What we are also seeing with this strategy is, to put it plainly, an attempt to terrorize a civilian population into submission. Let’s strip away all the political gamesmanship and partisan point scoring that encrusts the Beltway debate — that hideous masque of red death, where fine-dining blowhards prate and prance to the music of keening mothers and dying soldiers. Let’s break down the on-message jargon and lumps of propaganda into the base elements of truth. For what the air campaign, and the “offensives into neighborhoods,” are really saying is brutally frank.