Antony Loewenstein

No other nation in history has dealt as humanely, and with such compassion, in its fight against terrorism as Israel.

That “compassion” was sadly lacking in Gaza.

Israel Beiteinu chairman Avigdor Lieberman, the big winner in Israeli elections, on what the result says about the Jewish state:

“We’ve turned into a significant party, the third largest in Israel,” Lieberman said. “It’s true that Tzipi Livni won a surprise victory. But what is more important is that the right-wing camp won a clear majority… We want a right-wing government. That’s our wish and we don’t hide it.”

“Seven years in a row we wake up every morning, go to sleep every evening, with the news of a new Kassam attack,” Lieberman said. “That must end.”

The likely result? Bernard Avishai laments:

My bet is that Netanyahu will form a rightist government, take his chances with Washington, the collapse of relations with the PA, and riots among Israeli Arabs.

Brace yourselves.

Will the US and the world stand by if Israel puts into government avowed racists?

Who said Israel doesn’t deal with “terrorists”?

The top UN Official in Gaza criticized Israel on Monday for blocking the shipment of paper to print textbooks for a new human rights curriculum that will be taught to children in all grades in the Palestinian territory.

Just one more reason why Fox News serves the community:

Haaretz’s Lily Galili, talking to Israeli author Bernard Avishai, on the Russian Jewish population of Israel and its profound issues with reality:

This is very Russian, the idea that ‘liberalism’ is holy and yet something for Jewish suckers, which is why they have such common language with American neo-conservatives.  Natan Sharansky is in many ways their hero—the chess player, the intellectual, the world prophet.  He appealed to international liberal conscience while he was in prison, but after coming to Israel, he seems to have found that he could both lecture to the world about democracy and lecture Israelis that the Jewish claim to Jerusalem was a ‘higher value’ than liberalism—that the Arabs  had better learn to accept it—that Israel, being a better ‘democracy’ than its neighbors, should be immune from Western criticism.

This group is becoming the future of Israel; belligerent, racist and insular.

Victor Solomon has assembled an insanely comprehensive 27 minute compilation of every swear word in chronological order from every episode of The Sopranos:

the sopranos, uncensored. from victor solomon on Vimeo.

Why the “war on terror” is a fraud, part 7532:

A British ‘resident’ held at Guantanamo Bay was identified as a terrorist after confessing he had visited a ‘joke’ website on how to build a nuclear weapon, it was revealed last night.

Binyam Mohamed, a former UK asylum seeker, admitted to having read the ‘instructions’ after allegedly being beaten, hung up by his wrists for a week and having a gun held to his head in a Pakistani jail.

It was this confession that apparently convinced the CIA that they were holding a top Al Qaeda terrorist.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times, February 10:

The situation is ripe for Iran to connect with two of its enemies – the Taliban and the US – both of which are seeking Tehran’s help against each other. This is a trademark of Iranian diplomacy – to connect with its enemies and then exploit the situation to its best advantage.

Parag Khanna, Foreign Policy, February:

Despite the flurry of American activity in the region, it’s by no means clear that Washington is any closer to understanding the dynamics in South-Central Asia — some that predate 9/11, and many that are new. On my recent trip to the region, I saw the incoherency unfolding for myself. To fix its strategy and hence, Afghanistan, the Obama administration will have to go regional – and, crucially, look beyond the usual suspects for help, even if they are not naturally inclined allies.

The debate over Israel and Gaza continues today in the Australian Financial Review:

Antony Loewenstein (“NGOs challenge Gaza blame“, Letters, February 9) persists in the error that non-government organisation assertions about Israel are beyond challenge.

He omits to mention that last Thursday the United Nations Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs retracted an earlier claim that an Israeli air strike in the northern Gaza city of Jabaliya last month hit a school run by a UN agency. The UN has now confirmed that the school was not struck and that no one taking shelter inside the school was killed or injured. Heavy fighting had taken place outside the school, as Israel had contended.

As for claims on phosphorous, Peter Herby, head of the mines-arms unit of the International Committee of the Red Cross, confirmed to Associated Press on January 13 that Israel was using phosphorus only as an illuminant or smokescreen, which is not illegal. “We have no evidence to suggest it’s being used in any other way,” Herby said.

Robert M Goot
President
Executive Council of Australian Jewry
Sydney NSW

Dr Mustafa Barghouthi, The Nation, February 6:

Israel has dedicated an enormous amount of resources to perverting our identity and the character of our struggle. It has gained a significant degree of influence over the media, especially in the West, and has used this strength to transform and manipulate reality to its own ends. Thus despite our being slaughtered in the streets of Gaza, we are told that we are not only to blame but that the siege we are enduring is unworthy of international intervention.

Despite having thousands of our civilian brothers, sons, fathers, sisters, mothers and daughters in Israeli prisons routinely subjected to torture, we are told to immediately release a single captured Israeli soldier–or face another wave of high-tech brutality.

Despite the fact that we have international and human rights law on our side, it is said that we are “stubborn” because of our refusal to surrender the remainder of our historic birthright to Israeli occupation. We Palestinians are depicted in much of the media as steadfast only in our savagery, irrationality and propensity for violence.

From the 1920s onward, Palestinian resistance has been overwhelmingly nonviolent. The number of peaceful, unarmed Palestinian martyrs of this conflict far outweighs those of us who have fought the enemy on its own violent terms. From boycotts to business and hunger strikes, from demonstrations to diplomacy, we Palestinians are engaged daily in nonviolent struggle against the occupation of our land and the constant abuse of our dignity and security.

With evidence that the Western powers, including Obama’s America, are unlikely to change their decades-old racist attitude towards the Middle East – embracing “moderates” such as Egypt, ignoring Hamas etc – peaceful revolt against Israel is growing:

They are the iPod generation of students: politically apathetic, absorbed by selfish consumerism, dedicated to a few years of hedonism before they land a lucrative job in the City. Not any more. A seismic change is taking place in British universities.

Around the UK, thousands of students have occupied lecture theatres, offices and other buildings at more than 20 universities in sit-down protests. It seems that the spirit of 1968 has returned to the campus.

While it was the situation in Gaza that triggered this mass protest, the beginnings of political enthusiasm have already spread to other issues.

John Rose, one of the original London School of Economics (LSE) students to mount the barricades alongside Tariq Ali in 1968, spent last week giving lectures on the situation in Gaza at 12 of the occupations.

“This is something different to anything we’ve seen for a long time,” he said. “There is genuine fury at what Israel did.

“I think it’s highly likely that this year will see more student action. What’s interesting is the nervousness of vice chancellors and their willingness to concede demands; it indicates this is something that could well turn into [another] ’68.”

Beginning with a 24-hour occupation at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) on 13 January, the sit-ins spread across the country. Now occupations have been held at the LSE, Essex, King’s College London, Birmingham, Sussex, Warwick, Manchester Metropolitan, Oxford, Leeds, Cambridge, Sheffield Hallam, Bradford, Nottingham, Queen Mary, Manchester, Strathclyde, Newcastle, Kingston, Goldsmiths and Glasgow.