Antony Loewenstein

“War on terror” soldiers, fight to keep Guantanamo Bay open:

Why? Just ask one of the organisers of the above TV ad:

Closing Gitmo is just plain wrong. It is a slander against the professionalism of our troops at Gitmo who are guarding some of the most evil monsters running around this rock we call Earth. It is an open invitation for stone cold killers to join us on American soil to bust out their buddies, or activate sleeper cells against the federal prisons where the jihadists will be kept. And I don’t know about you, but I sure as hell don’t want a bunch of thugs, murderers and bombers being kept in federal prisons near me, nor receiving American style justice.

In fact, despite the fear-mongering of the usual suspects, the Bush administration’s policies have been a disaster for counter-terrorism.

Think Progress blogger Matthew Yglesias challenges the militant Zionist view that peace in the Middle East will only come when Iran is crushed:

Israel’s Palestinian problem is fairly simple to define—there are millions of Palestinians living in Israeli-controlled territory. To preserve its Jewish character, Israel doesn’t want to give these Palestinians the rights of Israeli citizens. And so the Palestinians live, stateless and without rights, and they’re not happy about it. Exactly what to do about this situation is a somewhat thorny issue, but Israeli leaders have spent a distressing amount of time over the past ten years trying to convince themselves that their Palestinian problem is about something other than this. That it’s “really” about Syria or “really” about Iraq or “really” about Iran. Before the invasion of Iraq it was common to hear that the road to peace in the Middle East ran through Baghdad. That somehow if Saddam Hussein were removed from power, this would somehow so demoralize the Palestinians that they become willing to accept what Israel is prepared to offer.

Obviously, that didn’t work out. But instead of the failure of the Iraq Theory leading Israelis to get real about what’s going on, it’s led them to take refuge in the new and updated Iran Theory whereby these problems would vanish if somehow Iranian power and influence could be crushed.

Of course, the other interpretation is that Israel’s political elite and its Diaspora clique have no interest in striking a deal with the Palestinians; occupation is a far more profitable business and fulfills the Greater Israel ideology.

Victoria is currently experiencing shocking bushfires that have claimed countless lives.

One fire-fighter told Melbourne’s Herald Sun newspaper that the scenes were like a “Holocaust”.

A leading Muslim leader recently said that the Holocaust was being used by Israel to justify Israeli violence against Palestinians, which is “just as ugly as the Holocaust”.

Jewish leaders condemned the Muslim leader for daring to use the term “Holocaust” and minimising the trauma of the Jewish Holocaust in World War II.

Personally speaking, I don’t apply the term “Holocaust” to describe Israel’s barbarity in Palestine, but I’m willing to bet that no Jewish leaders will complain about the fire-fighter’s use of the word.

God forbid somebody slam the Gaza war and imply that Jews should know better because of the Holocaust.

The relationship between Iran and Israel has taken many turns over the last half century, especially since the 1979 Revolution, but don’t believe the vast majority of rhetoric against the Islamic Republic; it has nothing to do with terrorism or nuclear weapons:

Shlomo Brom, a senior member of the Israeli intelligence apparatus, told [Trita] Parsi mockingly: “Remember, the Iranians are always five to seven years from the bomb. Time passes, but they are always five to seven years from the bomb.” In 2009, the Iranians are, according to US intelligence estimates, still “five to seven years away from the bomb”…

The defeat of Iran had become the means to deliver a double blow to the Arab and Muslim psyche as well as to the Islamist resistance. The Arabs would become docile, and the Middle East would succumb, like so many dominoes.

The Weimar Republic and present-day Israel.

Discuss the similarities.

The future of conflict, according to P.W.Singer, author of a new book called Wired for War, will be fought with robots and drones.

A supposedly bloodless kill.

10-year-old Mona Samouni describes how she became one of the very few survivors of the Samouni extended family after an attack on the densely populated area of Zeitoun in Gaza:

The two-state solution is dead. “Left-wing” Israeli leader Haim Oron, chairman of the Meretz party, says:

The two-state solution is on its last legs. That is why this election is so important. If we do not quickly implement the partition into two states, that solution will evaporate and Zionism will be stuck its worst crisis ever. This could turn into a bad cross between Rhodesian apartheid and Somalian bloodshed.

The upcoming Israeli election will almost certainly lead to an Israeli political elite that will embrace more settlements and no negotiations. The Jewish state is becoming a ghetto and rather likes it.

And those pesky Palestinians just don’t seem to love Israel after the recent war:

Hamas’ popularity has soared in the wake of the Israeli war against the Gaza Strip, while that of the rival Fatah movement has declined, an opinion poll released on Wednesday showed.

The survey, by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC), used face-to-face interviews of nearly 1,200 Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza as their data-points. This poll used the same question set as polls conducted in April and November 2008.

The percentage of individuals who would vote for Hams if parliamentary elections were held today rose to 28.6% compared with 19.3% in April. The popularity of Fatah declined from 34% last April to 27.9% in the poll.

This change was also reflected in the level of public trust in the two movements. Trust in Hamas rose from 16.6% last November to 27.7% in the poll. Trust in Fatah fell from 31.3% to 26% in the same period…

The poll also suggests that the Palestinian public prefers “resistance” as a strategy over the high-level political negotiations preferred by Fatah.

What an Israeli “victory”.

Welcome to Israel’s brutal, racist heart.

And this is a state that the world community wants to support unconditionally?

Antony Lerman, The Guardian, February 6:

Each and every Jew who protested as a Jew against the Gaza war had a personal Jewish imperative for doing so. Some simply expressed dismay; most demanded action to end the carnage. To say that we failed is neither an expression of despair nor a statement that dissent wasn’t worthwhile. Realism suggests that it was inevitable.

Let’s be clear: diaspora and Israeli Jewish support for the war was extensive – and extremely dispiriting. It raises the question: critical Jewish voices may have increased, but can we ever trigger decisive change in mainstream Jewish opinion? An unsentimental look at developments may give reason for hope.

First, there’s been activity in many countries and support for Jewish peace groups has increased. European Jews for a Just Peace, a 10-country federation of such organisations, reports numerous initiatives in Europe. Independent Jewish Voices, Jews for Justice for Palestinians and other UK groups demonstrated, lobbied, placed newspaper ads and joined demonstrations. IJV groups in Canada and Australia issued statements. Jewish and Israeli protesters in Toronto, Montreal and Boston occupied Israeli consulates. US peace groups have been increasingly active. Together with activity by Israeli groups, this amounts to an undercurrent of protest that is rattling establishment Jewish leadership.

The United Nations has backed down from a claim that a UN run school in Gaza was hit during an Israeli mortar attack last month.

Forty-three people were reportedly killed in the attack.

But a clarification issued by the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian affairs says the shelling and all the casualties happened outside the school.

But Britain’s Channel 4 journalist Jonathan Miller, who has investigated this story, questions the retraction and examines the politics.

Barcelona basketball fans received Maccabi Tel Aviv on February 5 with dozens of Palestinian flags and a stunning chant: “Boycott Israel – Viva Palestine!”