What will the rich have to cope with next?
Fuel prices have grounded an unexpected frequent-flyer: US hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
Combs complained about the “too high” price of fuel and pleaded for free oil from his “Saudi Arabia brothers and sisters” in a YouTube video posted on Wednesday.
Beijing, you have a nation of addicts:
Around four million Chinese youngsters are addicted to the Internet, mainly attracted by “unhealthy” online games, state media reported Friday, citing a top legislator.
“Internet-addicted teenagers” account for around 10 percent of China’s Web users under the age of 18, the Beijing Times said, quoting Li Jianguo, a vice chairman of the standing committee of the National People’s Congress, or parliament.
The Independent’s Robert Fisk recalls a telling story:
As one of the Arab world’s most prominent commentators put it to me this week, “[Joseph] Biden’s being set up to protect Israel while [Barack] Obama looks after the transportation system in Chicago.” It was a cruel remark with just enough bitter reality to make it bite.
Whatever it takes to protect Israel’s supposed sanctity in the American political arena.
This week marks the 42nd anniversary of the execution of Sayyed Qutb, one of the most prominent figures in contemporary Islamism.
What is his legacy today, by an young Egyptian member of the Muslim Brotherhood (who features in my new book, The Blogging Revolution.)
Human rights for women in Saudi Arabia – and no, that’s not a contradiction – through blogger’s eyes.
The United States says Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank threaten any peace between Israel and the Palestinians – yet it also encourages Americans to help support settlers by offering tax breaks on donations.
Is the internet ignoring the important details in life?
Internet mapping is wiping the rich geography and history of Britain off the map, Britain’s most senior cartographer warned yesterday.
Churches, cathedrals, stately homes, battlefields, ancient woodlands, rivers, eccentric landmarks and many more features which make up the tapestry of the British landscape are not being represented in online maps, which focus on merely providing driving directions, said Mary Spence, President of the British Cartographical Society.
The following book review of The Blogging Revolution, in Adelaide’s Independent Weekly, was published by Kate Lockett on August 29:
Did you know that Iran has around one million bloggers, that Farsi is in the top five languages used on the internet or that 20 per cent of Saudi Arabians are now online? Australian journalist and blogger Antony Loewenstein explains that blogging is not the sole domain of pornographers or Hollywood gossips and that a previously voiceless Saudi Arabian female can now, by blogging, explain the realities of her life and culture with readers in Sydney. He argues that bloggers are being referred to increasingly by journalists and the curious alike to find out what is really happening in hot spots around the globe because it is a legitimate form of “stand alone journalism, almost completely self-sufficient and able to reach readers directly without any unnecessary filters”.
Loewenstein travels to Iran, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Cuba and China to meet bloggers who are often risking their lives in order to share their views on their country’s rulers and their opinions on Western democracy, the US in particular. He is at pains to point out that he’s not calling for regime change in the countries he visited, nor an increase in US involvement, but for the right of all citizens to access, distribute and discuss information without persecution. He notes with interest that in homes where men and women go to great lengths to socialise away from the eyes of the authorities, the last thing they wanted to discuss was politics: “It was time to escape the daily need to assume a public role, to be what society, and especially families, expected.”
He meets a variety of journalists, writers, bloggers and partygoers and allows the reader to learn more about life in what we tend to view as repressed or backward countries. As one Iranian journo puts it, “Western media agencies only want to know about nuclear problems and al-Qaeda”. Loewenstein’s intelligence and humanity shine through and have made this reader, at least, keen to investigate blogs that discuss things other than Lindsay Lohan’s new girlfriend.
Who was responsible for dropping cluster bombs during the recent war between Russia and Georgia?
I discuss in my new book, The Blogging Revolution, about the political and social realities in Cuba, and gradual liberalisation of the country under new President Raul Castro. And then this:
Cuba has ordered jailed punk rocker Gorki Aguila, an outspoken critic of Fidel Castro and the communist government, to stand trial on Friday for “social dangerousness,” a charge that could carry up to four years in prison.
Authorities arrested the 39-year-old lead singer of Porno para Ricardo at his Havana home on Monday, shortly after the band had completed work on a new album. Cuban law defines “social dangerousness” as behaviour contrary to “communist morality,” and police use it to detain offenders before they have a chance to commit a crime.
Performing songs with angry lyrics that poke fun at or openly insult Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, who became Cuba’s president in February, Porno para Ricardo is banned from official Cuban airwaves.
This is the sign of a weak and insecure regime.
What, all Muslims aren’t terrorists who hate the West?
Contrary to the common assumption that Muslims view globalization as a threat to their society, a new poll of Muslim countries finds that globalization is generally viewed positively. The poll was conducted by WorldPublicOpinion.org in six nations with predominantly Muslim populations in different regions of the world including Egypt, Turkey, Azerbaijan, Iran, Indonesia, and the Palestinian Territories, plus the Muslim population of Nigeria.
Sadegh Zibakalam, Bitterlemons International, August 28:
Iranian support for the newly established Iraqi regime was quite reasonable and to be expected. The Iranians fought eight long years to witness a Shi’ite-dominated government in Iraq. Iran lost a million of its people in that war, its economy was shattered and the Islamic republic lost nearly all the international support it had achieved during the early days of its revolution. Yet by the end of that bitter and tragic war, Iran had failed to achieve any of its objectives.
“Allah helps Islam in mysterious ways,” explained a highly respected senior clergyman to a group of Iranian mothers and wives who had lost their loved ones in the war with Iraq due to Saddam’s use of chemical weapons. “Who would have thought that the man who poisoned your sons, fathers and husbands while the so-called civilized world stood by and did nothing would fall from power so disgracefully.” The view that the fall of Saddam was a “provident action” was indeed shared by many pious Iranians, particularly those who had lost their loved ones in the war.
My following post was written for Khaldoun, the blog recently started by Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle East and North African Studies, where I’m a board member:
Robustly debating Zionism has existed for as long as its existence. Jews, historically a persecuted people, were unafraid to discuss the merits or otherwise of the plan to establish a Jewish state in Palestine.
Tragically, something has changed and left many elements of mainstream Judaism and its cheer-squad paranoid about even acknowledging faults may exist within the Zionist ideal. Presumably occupation and bombing refugee camps are traditional Jewish traits.
The recent attacks by right-wing attack dog Andrew Bolt – and the subsequent response by Macquarie University’s Middle East and North African Studies Centre, of which I am a board member – is systematic of this profound failing and insecurity.
Now we have the unedifying spectacle of a leading Australian politician writing to the Federal Education Minister concerned about Khaldoun’s “hate-filled and provocative attacks against Israel, the Jewish people and others who are friends of Israel.” The aim? To close this site down permanently, or at least force its contributors to subscribe to a more “pro-Israel” position.
As a Jewish author and journalist who has written about Israel/Palestine for years, published a best-selling book about it, My Israel Question, and argued regularly with the self-appointed guardians of the Jewish community, this latest ham-fisted attempt is nothing more than a desperate attempt to silence public debate about a conflict that increasingly embarrasses Israel. And for good reason.
Just this week leading Israeli peace group Peace Now announced that the illegal occupation of Palestinian land is growing at a worrying rate. Again. A recent report released by the Israel Bar at Hadarim Detention Centre and Hasharon Prison found widespread use of torture and intimidation, especially against the Palestinians, in the Israeli prison system.
Video cameras are increasingly capturing the barbarity of Jewish settlers in the West Bank, men, women and children who live without sanction for abusing Palestinians on a daily basis. A study last year by The Association for Civil Rights in Israel found that 50% of Israelis taking part said they would not live in the same building as Arabs, would not befriend, or let their children befriend Arabs and would not let Arabs into their homes.
I’ll no doubt be accused of being “anti-Israel” for daring to state such facts but this is the reality of the Jewish state today. Yes, the Palestinians commit crimes, including Hamas and Fatah, and I condemn them unequivocally, but this is not my focus. The Jewish state is racially discriminatory and destined, in my opinion, not to survive for another 60 years.
Over the years I’ve witnessed in Australia but especially in America a campaign of unrelenting pressure by the Zionist lobby against anybody, Jewish or otherwise, who doesn’t speak the “official line” on Israel.
Articulating an alternative Jewish identity and publicly calling for the separation of Zionism and Judaism quickly resulted for me in learning the “rules” of the game imposed by the Zionist establishment. All Jews must support the Jewish State. Any action carried out by the state is defensible, justified and moral. Any public criticism of Israel will be assumed to be anti-Semitic. If Israel is to be criticized, it should only be in hushed tones and in private. Dare to challenge these “rules”, and expect to be bombarded, invariably from fellow Jews, with hate mail, death-threats and public abuse.
Despite these realities, the Jewish state finds itself in a precarious position, addicted to colonisation of Palestinian territory. Ironically for Israel, its inability to remove settlements from occupied land has now made a two-state solution impossible. The alternative? A one-state environment, with Jews as a minority. Equal rights for all citizens is the only answer to Israel/Palestine conflict. “Zionism — contemporary Jewish nationalism — is unlikely to bring Israel peace, because of its failure, or inability, to accord full equality to the claims of others”, wrote New York Jewish blogger, Tony Karon, on Israel’s 60th anniversary.
A year before my Middle East book was released, in 2005, the then only Jewish Federal Member of Parliament, Michael Danby, publicly called for my publisher, Melbourne University Press, not to proceed. He supposedly worried the work would be an extremist text. Since the Zionist lobby aren’t particularly media savvy, this kind of slander, and the subsequent campaign by various Jewish groups, assisted the book becoming a best-seller that recently moved to a 5th reprint. More importantly, however, was the wider community being able to see the kinds of tactics utilised by certain elements of the Zionist mafia, so insecure in their love for Israel that any alternative views must be stopped. Sadly for them, they failed miserably (similar tactics were attempted last year when I co-founded Independent Australian Jewish Voices.)
The current campaign to silence Khaldoun is in the same sordid tradition. For decades after Israel’s formation, the heroic Zionist narrative was the primary version heard in the Western world. The Palestinians were unpeople, ignored and demonised. Today, the situation is different. Arabs are still routinely shunned and their political aspirations crushed – usually by US-backed dictatorships in the Middle East – but new voices are being heard, critical of Israel, Zionism, occupation and US policies in the region. This scares the Zionist community, hence regular attempts to try and throw the “anti-Semitic” tag against anybody who challenges mainstream Zionist thinking.
Andrew Bolt’s understanding of the Middle East is determining how many more countries the West should invade to bring “liberation” to the backward Arabs. Politicians who share this view and have campaigned against this site will inevitably fail because they’re doing the bidding of powerful forces that are using them for their own censorious ends. Is this what the Australian people believe should happen in a democracy?
A story told to me by a good friend perfectly illustrates the fundamental problem within the mainstream Zionist community. A friend of his went to Israel and Poland on the Birthright program, aimed to instil in young Jews a love of the Jewish state. After visiting Auschwitz and waving the Israeli flag in the holy place – an almost grotesque example of Holocaust porn – the men and women were shown around Israel. One night they were in the Jordan Valley and as the sun was setting one of their guides decided to role-play as a Palestinian from the West Bank (the group had not visited the Palestinian territories nor spoken to any Arabs on the trip.)
The guide, playing a Palestinian, told of certain hardships in the West Bank due to the occupation but said he understood why Israel had to implement such a tough “security” regime because his brother was a “terrorist” who wanted to kill Jews.
That’s right. The only “interaction” with Palestinians for these young Jews was with an Israeli Jew who was role-playing. After the experience, the friend said he “better understood” what the Palestinians were going through under occupation.
I can’t think of a better example of the kind of supreme delusion within mainstream Zionism towards the Palestinians. The other side simply doesn’t exist, shouldn’t exist and can’t exist for the Zionist “dream” to survive. The other side are never ready for peace and their leaders are never compliant enough.
The fear of allowing alternative voices to be heard on the Israel/Palestine conflict is really a display of deep weakness. Accusing critics of being “anti-Israel” or “anti-Semitic” is the perfect way to mask this disease.
“The best advertising doesn’t look like advertising.”
Perhaps, but it’s still advertising and it’s not news. Sadly, more and more media companies are discovering that advertorials are far easier to produce than timely and resource-hungry investigative journalism.
The Lowy Interpreter is the blog for one of Australia’s leading think-tanks, the Lowy Institute.
Following a post last week that discussed Israel’s supposed fears of Iran’s nuclear facilities – strongly suggesting that an Israeli military strike was not unlikely and even understandable because the Zionist state feared destruction – I wrote a response that seriously questioned the underpinnings of this position:
It’s astounding that the Western media continually falls for this idea that the Jewish state’s very existence is threatened. It’s not. Ervand Abrhahamian said the following in September 2007:
“And the question is, then, why is basically in American politics so much focused on Ahmadinejad? I think he serves the function that Saddam Hussein played. He’s an easy person to demonize…One can call Ahmadinejad many things, but a dictator he is by no means. He can’t even—he doesn’t even have the power to appoint his own cabinet ministers. It’s a presidency with very limited power. And to claim that he is in a position to threaten the United States or Israel is just bizarre, frankly.”
Indeed. So, why, therefore, are we constantly hearing about so-called ‘existential’ threats to Israel? Iran’s regime is undoubtedly brutal and authoritarian — something I saw first-hand last year during my visit there — but the tendency for the aggressive, Zionist narrative to strike first, ask questions later, is a worrying sign of moral decay. The Islamic Republic offered the US in 2003 — after helping Washington unseat the Taliban in Afghanistan — a grand bargain on the nuclear issue and its support of ‘terrorism.’ The US refused to even consider it.
Don’t buy into the rhetoric coming out of Tel Aviv or Washington. A military strike against Iran would be illegal under international law, likely to cause a massive death toll and rally support for the leadership. Besides, no evidence has been presented that proves Iran is building a nuclear weapons program. Engagement is the only answer. And this is something Israel and the US refuse to accept.
In response to my piece it is now possible to witness the kind of myopic thinking in the hallowed halls of supposedly serious think-tanks. Two “experts” have responded.
First up, there’s Hugh White, one of Australia’s most ubiquitous defence intellectuals. Although he is against a military strike on Iran – “I think there are probably no military options to disrupt the Iranian program significantly, because I doubt the US or Israel know enough about where its key elements are hidden – he wishes “there was a low-cost, low-risk air strike option offering high probabilities of inflicting strategically significant damage to the Iranian program.” If so, White would support it.
Consider the thought. An unprovoked American or Israeli attack against Iran would be illegal under international law and an act of war against a sovereign state. Clearly this doesn’t bother White, or any civilian casualties in the adventure. It’s the kind of position that academics who never have to see the on-the-ground effects of government policies routinely take. War as an abstraction; as a mere strategic decision.
Then there’s the blog’s editor, Sam Roggeveen, who writes that although “Iran at present does not represent a threat to Israel’s existence…If Iran were allowed to develop nuclear weapons, Israel would be at realistic threat of more or less instantaneous annihilation.”
Roggeveen says that maybe I am “right that the only good response to this threat is engagement” yet he still accepts many of the Jewish state’s talking points about Iran’s supposed provocations.
This whole debate has barely anything to do with supposed nuclear weapons but regional supremacy. Iran threatens Israel’s dominance, and therefore must be stopped. When will supposed foreign policy experts understand this and refuse to even place the military option on the table (hint: because they’re really frustrated politicians who’d love to wage the odd “necessary” war now and then.)
The mainstream media vs blogging (yes, the debate rages on.)
Why can’t we all just get along?
What really happened between Georgia and Russia in early August?
Never under-estimate the symbolic impact of yesterday’s speech by Michelle Obama at the Democratic National Convention (if even, for an Australian viewer, the Hallmark-style cheesiness was a little much):
More than 2,600 housing units are under construction in West Bank settlements, including units in more than 1,000 new buildings, Peace Now contends in its semi-annual report.
Basing its conclusions on aerial photographs and field visits, the organization says that slightly more than half of the new structures are going up east of the separation fence, and in several places construction is encroaching on the boundaries of Palestinian towns, such as Ramallah and Bethlehem.
National Bureau of Statistics data shows that construction in settlements jumped from 240 housing units between January and May 2007 to 433 housing units during the same period this year. Housing and Construction Ministry projects account for 64 percent of all building starts cataloged.
Yet more evidence that the Jewish state has no desire for a two-state solution, and never has. The longer Zinoism expands into Palestinian territory, the closer the Jewish state moves towards extinction.
