Antony Loewenstein

Oops, the Jewish state has a slight problem:

Uzi Arad, who is expected to serve as national security adviser in the next Israeli government, has been barred from entering the United States for nearly two years on the grounds that he is an intelligence risk.

Mr. Arad, a former member and director of intelligence for the Mossad, Israel’s spy service, is mentioned in the indictment of Lawrence Franklin, a former Pentagon analyst who pleaded guilty in 2005 to providing classified information about Iran in a conversation with two employees of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

When a nation such as Israel is so unhealthily close to the American establishment, spying isn’t seen as illegal; it’s simply par for the course.

Middle East expert Juan Cole on the West’s useless mission in Afghanistan:

And it seems to me that mainly what the US, Britain and Australia are doing in the south of the country is to shore up the government of Hamid Karzai. And if that’s the goal, that’s a tough mission. Karzai only controls 30 percent of the country. The gross domestic product of Afghanistan is only $9 billion a year. There simply aren’t the resources there to have a strong state, strong army. And if that is the goal, it’s going to take a long time.

While the publisher of Australia’s national Jewish newspaper wonders “whether terrorist-supporting crowds have favourably received Professor Halper“, the Israeli/American activist continues his Australian tour.

He was interviewed earlier this week on ABC Radio’s Conversation Hour.

Of course:

Four members of the British parliament met Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal on Saturday and urged their government to end its boycott of the Palestinian group “to achieve just peace.”

“We need to talk to Hamas to make progress (towards peace) because they represent a big proportion of the Palestinians,” Clare Short, an MP of the governing Labour Party, told reporters.

Medialens explains that most of the mainstream media have no memory or ethics:

Have journalists learnt nothing from recent history? It truly is a wonder when a reporter can assert in public, on the BBC News no less, that “Tony Blair passionately believed that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and posed a grave threat.” (BBC1, Six O’Clock News, February 24, 2009). When BBC reporter Reeta Chakrabarti was challenged on this remarkable display of naïveté, she compounded her grievous error by responding:

“I said Mr Blair passionately believed Iraq had wmd because he has consistently said so. When challenged he has stuck to his guns.” (Email posted on the Media Lens Message Board, March 2, 2009)

So when a demonstrably mendacious leader claims he “passionately believed” in a lie, the media has to take him at his word. This is the same brand of journalistic gullibility that has had such tragic consequences for the people of Iraq. This is the endless, uncritical obedience to power that boosted the warmongering agenda of London and Washington, allowing them to fit ‘facts’ to a pre-ordained policy of launching a war of aggression. Such an act, sold by the BBC as Blair’s “passionate belief”, is the supreme international crime, as judged by the 1946 Nuremberg Tribunal.

The following letters appear in today’s Sydney Morning Herald:

Mick Weiss (Letters, March 17) repeats the myth that the Israeli Government demolishes only the houses of suicide bombers. In fact, tens of thousands of Palestinian houses have been demolished in the occupied areas since 1967. The occupants have been forcibly removed to make way for Jewish settlements, often with as little as 15 minutes’ notice, and with no compensation.

Peter Maresch Lane Cove

Mick Weiss notes that Israel demolishes only the houses of suicide bombers who have carried out their act, and therefore it is not a factor in making someone become a suicide bomber. Does one person live in each house in Palestine? I suggest the dead suicide bomber cares little for the demolition of his house, but the remaining occupants will probably bear a grudge.

Julian Brown Manly Vale

Perhaps Mick Weiss should consider the possibility that those were not the first houses in which the suicide bombers lived.

Debby Nicholls Balmain

The following lead letter appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald:

Your editorial “With friends like these” (March 13) refers to the decision of the Australian Jewish News to refuse an advertisement promoting the speaking tour of an Israeli academic, Jeff Halper.

It says I pulled the ad because I didn’t like the promoters. This suggests an impulsive decision, which was not the case – and not the way it was presented to your correspondent during a long interview.

Do publishers have the right to pull an advertisement they find objectionable? This is easily answered. Would the Herald advertise a symposium of racists, a homophobic convention or a lecture promoting female genital mutilation? How about apologists for the Bali bombing?

So what was so offensive about the ad in question? A leading promoter of Halper’s tour, Antony Loewenstein, spoke at a demonstration in Sydney on January 18. The audience included people carrying Israeli flags with swastikas replacing the star of David. Anyone willing to speak before a crowd that is carrying swastikas is, as far as I’m concerned, beyond the pale. That this person is Jewish is unforgivable.

Some in the crowd carried the flags of terrorist organisations. Others chanted: “Look out Jews, the armies of Muhammad will seek their revenge.” We are no longer talking about Israel or Palestine; we are talking about threatening violence against Jews. Should a Jewish paper offer its pages to someone welcomed by such a crowd?

I am unaware whether terrorist-supporting crowds have favourably received Professor Halper, but I know he has repeatedly called for Israel to be dissolved as a Jewish state. Why the Australian Jewish News is considered obliged to promote such a speaker is beyond me, especially since Australian Jews solidly support the maintenance of Israel’s Jewish nature.

This has nothing to do with suppressing debate. Professor Halper is speaking in Australian universities, town halls and even Parliament. The AJN is not trying to stop him, but nor does it feel compelled to promote him.

As you state, Israel “contains many political parties with a wide spectrum of views”. The Australian Jewish community is equally healthy and those interested in rational, honest reports and opinions of every hue will find them in the Australian Jewish News.

Robert Magid publisher, Australian Jewish News, Surry Hills

So, dear readers, is that clear? I spoke at a rally, a handful of anti-Israel slogans were shouted, I’m therefore a Jew hater, Jeff Halper is obviously equally disgusting and the Jewish News could hardly be expected to advertise his visit. Like at any rally, some racist slogans at an event with 6000 people were hardly representative. It’s the typical way to smear all by the actions of a few. Anti-Semitic rantings are as unacceptable as anti-Arab ones, as seen at pro-Israel rallies during the recent Gaza war. But I don’t see Magid complaining about that.

And what does any of this have to do with Halper’s visit?

By the way, I wasn’t the main organiser of Halper’s tour, so why I’m mentioned in this letter is hilarious. What this Zionist publisher doesn’t understand is that he’s happy to keep his head buried in the sand as the actions of Israel are increasingly demonised across the world. And for good reason. For him, the Jewish state is a beautiful example of humanity. For millions of Palestinians, it’s apartheid. Magid’s letter totally ignores anything about the occupation, Gaza, the West Bank or Israeli racism.

And readers of the Sydney Morning Herald know it.

A principled, noble man, still assaulted by Israeli arrogance:

Dear Nobel Peace Prize Committee in Oslo,

I am Vanunu Mordechai, who has been nominated several times to Nobel Peace Prize, also this year’s 2009 award.

I am asking the committee to remove my name from the list for this year’s list of nominations.

My main reason for this is that I cannot be part of a list of laureates that includes Simon Peres. He is the man who was behind all the Israeli atomic policy.

Peres established and developed the atomic weapon program in Dimona in Israel. Exactly like Dr. Khan did in Pakistan, Peres was the man behind the atomic weapon proliferation to South Africa and other states. He was also, for instance, behind the nuclear weapon test in South Africa in 1978.

Peres was the man who ordered the kidnapping of me in Italy Rome, Sept. 30, 1986, and for the secret trial and sentencing of me as a spy and traitor for 18 years in isolation in prison in Israel.

Until now he continues to oppose my freedom and release, in spite of my serving full sentence 18 years.

From all these reasons I don’t want be nominated and will not accept this nomination.

I say No to any nomination as long as I am not free, that is, as long as I am still forced to be in Israel.

WHAT I WANT IS FREEDOM AND ONLY FREEDOM.

Thank you
vmjc

What the hell is wrong with these Zionist leaders? Clearly the only acceptable visitors are card-carrying Zionists. It’s called engagement with opposing perspectives, people:

Melbourne Anglican Archbishop Philip Freier is under fire from the Jewish community for hosting a function for former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami while he is in Melbourne this month.

Jewish Community Council of Victoria president John Searle wrote to Dr Freier saying the Jewish community found it inconceivable that the Anglican Church would host “such a man” or even meet him.

He declined an invitation to attend and asked Dr Freier to reconsider.

Mr Searle told The Age that although Mr Khatami, president of Iran from 1997 to 2005, was regarded as a reformist, he was a sponsor of terrorism, a Holocaust denier and leader of a country that has often threatened to “wipe Israel off the map”.

“Only last year, this supposed champion of dialogue called Israel ‘an old, incurable wound on the body of Islam, a wound that really possesses demonic, stinking, contagious blood’.”

John Greyson, a prominent Canadian filmmaker, has recently turned down an offer to premiere his film Fig Trees at the Tel Aviv International LGBT Film Festival, in support of BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions). Greyson is a member of Queers Against Israeli Apartheid. His recent letter to the festival director is below:

Dear Yair,

After much wrestling with these difficult issues, I’ve come to a decision: I can’t show Fig Trees in your festival, and I can’t go forward with my proposed film shoot in Israel.

This choice has been very difficult to make. As I’ve said before, I have great respect for the work you’re doing, and know what a struggle your festival faces to keep going. I want to be very clear: my decision isn’t in opposition to your festival, which has done much to promote the voices of global queers, or to you, who have done much to get queer films made and shown in your city.

Instead, I feel I must join the many Jews and non-Jews, Israelis and Palestinians, queers and otherwise, who are part of the growing global BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement against Israeli apartheid. I’ve come to the conclusion that, in this moment, to not take this stand is unthinkable, impossible.

Why this moment? I could answer: Another Palestinian home bulldozed in East Jerusalem. Palestinian children recovering slowly from phosphorous burns. Civilian killed on Friday in Gaza by Israeli soldiers. Child born at checkpoint, because ambulance was held for three hours. These were some of today’s headlines, but they’re also eerily reminiscent of so many headlines, over so many decades.

Is this moment more intolerable? By what yardstick?

The Israeli apartheid forum this week, and particularly Naomi Klein’s speech, helped clarify my thoughts. Her words took me back to the BDS movement of the eighties, against South African apartheid, and the first 16mm film I ever made, which was in support of that struggle, clips of which are included in Fig Trees.

The cultural boycott worked in South Africa’s case, and lead directly to the sweeping changes and activism that Fig Trees celebrates in song. Therefore, in the spirit of the film, and those activists, I don’t feel there’s a choice any longer. Like you, I yearn for the morning when this horrendous conflict will end, with a lasting, just peace. I yearn for the afternoon when this growing BDS movement can be declared obsolete, because it’s no longer necessary. I yearn for the evening when we can together attend screenings of Fig Trees and other sexy new queer operas, Palestinian and Israeli, in both Tel Aviv and Ramallah.

With respect,

John Greyson

The ghosts of the Jewish Holocaust echo everywhere:

Every night after work, Ellyn Shander sits on her computer for hours, corresponding with people around the world and trying to save friends caught in a conflict between the government and rebel groups in Sri Lanka.

“You know people ask me, ‘How come you work so hard for the Tamil people?’ ” Shander said. “And I tell them, you know what, in the middle of a catastrophe, when you sit with people whose babies who have been torn out of their arms . . . you know, people whose relatives were strewn all over the place, when you sit with them and work in such an intense way, you invite them into your heart and they invite you into their hearts. And it’s a bond that really can’t be broken.”

The forthcoming Durban II, the UN’s anti-racism conference, has been slammed and boycotted by the US, Israel and the Zionist establishment for its alleged obsession with the Jewish state.

But there are alternative views, such as this one by Ian Williams, author, journalist and pundit:

Those calling for a boycott include John Bolton, George Bush’s choice to represent the United States at the UN, who has never seen anything good about a UN conference or resolution. In the Jewish Chronicle, Melanie Philips, one of the conductors of the boycott chorus, splenetically described the coming “hatefest”, which she claimed, “is shaping up to be a vicious and racist onslaught against the human rights of the Jewish people. Its draft declaration singles out Israel for vilification. It accuses it of committing ‘apartheid’, a ‘crime against humanity’ and ‘a form of genocide’. It says the Palestinians are the victims of Israeli oppression, implies that Zionism itself is racism, and calls for the end of Israeli sovereignty over Jerusalem and (as in Durban I) for the ‘right of return’ for Palestinians, which would mean the destruction of Israel as a Jewish state.”

It is worth examining her allegations in detail. It was appropriate for the first conference to be in Durban. The South Africans have a detailed knowledge of apartheid, the most elaborately articulated system of racism in history. It is remarkable how many of the anti-apartheid leaders recognise it being practiced in the West Bank. It is true that they may be somewhat prejudiced since Israel was a major partner of the old apartheid regime, but it will be a foolhardy critic who accuses Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela and other human rights icons of anti-Semitism. Even apartheid did not have segregated roads, the West Bank settlement’s contribution to modern racism, echoing the parody in the old television comedy The Goodies in which blacks and whites had to hop on the appropriate-coloured stripes of a Zebra crossing.