Antony Loewenstein

Global leadership emerges from…Central America:

Israel has postponed a planned meeting with Costa Rican officials over the Central American nation’s decision to formally recognize a Palestinian state.

The meeting between President Oscar Arias and an Israeli diplomat, scheduled for Wednesday, ”was postponed, but we are looking to reschedule,” Costa Rican Foreign Minister Bruno Stagno said Monday.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said Israel had summoned the Costa Rican charge d’affaires and instructed its ambassador to convey a message to San Jose.

”We would like to express our disappointment over this regretful decision of the government of Costa Rica to establish full diplomatic relations with the ‘state of Palestine,”’ Mekel said. ”This act of Costa Rica totally contradicts the traditional friendship that characterized its relations with Israel since its establishment.”

Stagno has said Costa Rica hoped to encourage peace talks on Feb. 5 when it recognized a Palestinian state – a key demand on the part of the Palestinians.

After winning an Oscar for his documentary Taxi to the Dark Side, Alex Gibney has a new target in his sights:

The filmmaker who won an Academy Award Sunday night for best documentary is next turning his attention to the Jack Abramoff scandal, including GOP presidential candidate John McCain’s role in investigating the affair.

Alex Gibney, who made last year’s “Taxi to the Dark Side,” about the lethal interrogation of an Afghani taxicab driver by American military forces, told Politico his Abramoff film would be coming out later this year. Its tentative title: “Casino Jack and the United States of Money.”

“The film should give viewers a greater understanding, in a blow-by-blow way, of how the political process works, particularly with regards to lobbying,” Gibney says. “This movie will have it all: wild international intrigue, money changing hands in unexpected places, etc. It will be fun. As someone said about an earlier picture I made: ‘It’s a comedy that turns into farce and ends up in horror.’”

Barack Obama, Cleveland, February:

I think there is a strain within the pro-Israel community that says unless you adopt a unwavering pro-Likud approach to Israel that you’re anti-Israel and that can’t be the measure of our friendship with Israel.

Nobody should be under any illusion about Obama’s ability or interest to seriously shift America’s role towards Israel – though Hillary Clinton’s supporters are certainly keen to try – but his position above is an encouraging sign of dissent. The Likudnik position has only caused chaos and will lead to the end of the Jewish state.

My latest column for New Matilda is about China’s crackdown on internal dissent and its fear of the internet:

Although China is also battling a seemingly unsurmountable pollution problem, the regime appears determined to ignore Western calls for greater openness. “Why can’t China accept that dissent and argument are part of being a normal country?” asks leading Hong-Kong based academic Rebecca MacKinnon. “Why behave in such an insecure manner that violates international human rights norms, damages China’s international image, and distracts media attention away from the Chinese people’s genuine achievements over the past 30 years?”

But outside pressure may be starting to have an effect. When Hollywood filmmaker Steven Spielberg recently announced his withdrawal as an artistic director for the August games, the Chinese regime responded with indignation. The director claimed that Beijing was doing too little to pressure the Sudanese Government over its behaviour in Darfur. But the New York Times now reports that, in fact, “China has begun shifting its position on Darfur, stepping outside its diplomatic comfort zone to quietly push Sudan to accept the world’s largest peacekeeping force.” Beijing is clearly listening and remains determined to avoid an embarrassing Games hijacked by human rights agendas.

The New Statesman gets the memo a few years late:

It’s official: Blair’s government set out to deceive us about Iraq.

More here.

Iranian blogger Kamangir offers a tantalising piece of news:

“5 in the morning”, a website close to the reformists, claims that since a month ago Iranian tankers have been travelling in the Persian Gulf under foreign flags [Persian]. Reportedly, as the American ships in the Persian Gulf increased their surveillance on Iranian vessels, tankers operated by the state adopted flags from Cyprus and Malta. The website adds that according to international treaties ships owned by sanctioned countries cannot travel freely.

No other source has verified this news.

Ibrahim El Houdaiby, Conflicts Forum, February 25:

Those who believe that the ongoing crackdowns on the Muslim Brotherhood by the Egyptian regime will cause a major setback for the country’s largest and most powerful civil opposition group are definitely mistaken. Brotherhood members are an integral living part of the Egyptian society who can never be marginalized. In fact, the only possible outcome for such crackdowns is increasing the group’s popularity and radicalizing political Islam.

It has been 15 months now since security forces arrested a large number of Brotherhood members, including Deputy Chairman Khayrat El Shater, a handful of top leaders and 140 university students on the dawn of December 14th, 2006. Arrests were largely portrayed as a response to massive students’ demonstrations, but later charges on money laundry and leading and financing an outlawed organization were added. All charges were dropped three times by civilian courts, which found them to be “fabricated, groundless and politically motivated, with no substantial evidence whatsoever.” The court ordered the immediate release of the detainees; students were released a few weeks later, while senior members and leaders were rearrested from inside the court room, and were sentenced to a military tribunal, the verdict of which is expected on Tuesday.

It is clear the regime is trying to impede the Brotherhood after the group’s manifest success in the 2005 parliamentary elections, when it secured 20% of the parliament’s seats although competing on only one third of them. The crackdown was part of the regime’s attempt to silence its opposition to secure a smooth transfer of power from the 80-year-old President Mubarak to his younger son Gamal.

The great Guantanamo puppet theatre.

The film Taxi to the Dark Side has won Best Documentary at last night’s Oscars.

My friend, Melbourne-born and New York based Eva Orner, was the co-winner.

It’s a wonderful achievement.

African bloggers discuss the possibility of American military bases on the continent.

(For the record, they’re universally opposed to the idea.)

This is how to be a guest on Fox News:

Gideon Levy, Haaretz, February 24:

One could not believe in the negotiations Israel is conducting with the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank; one may also believe that the parties want to succeed, but cannot. One also may think that talks cannot proceed without the elected representation of the Palestinian people, who chose Hamas. There are also no negotiations without Gaza. And now, after we have properly frowned on all these negotiations, we may also decide that for the moment, that’s all there is: Ehud Olmert and Tzipi Livni on one side and Mahmoud Abbas and Saeb Erekat on the other – with all their weaknesses.

The talks they are conducting are not meant to bring peace; even they do not pretend that is the case. After 40 years of occupation and bloodshed, all that is on the agenda – shamefully – is a “shelf agreement” that no one can implement at the moment. It is precisely for this reason that this paper, bearing no expectations, will not shame those who sign it. Precisely because it is only a document with mere declarative and symbolic significance – and in this sense it may be a landmark document – it is important that it touch on the core issues.