Antony Loewenstein

The Arab Association for Human Rights releases a statement on Israel’s shameful attempt to ban Palestinian mourning for the Nakba:

The Arab Association for Human Rights (HRA), while reaffirming its unequivocal rejection of these bills, considers the (Governmental) Ministerial Committee support of the amendment, as effective implementation of the agenda of the fascist right-wing parties who participate in the government. These parties adopt racist programs that call for the restriction of the fundamental human and citizen rights and basic freedoms of the Palestinian minority in the country, on the pretext of ‘disloyalty to the state’.

The justness of the Palestinian cause:

How many more cases of Western-approved torture before we accept our complicity in the dark arts?

The home secretary Jacqui Smith faces legal action over allegations that MI5 agents colluded in the torture of a British former civil servant by Bangladeshi intelligence officers.

Lawyers for the British man, Jamil Rahman, are to file a damages claim alleging that Smith was complicit in assault, unlawful arrest, false imprisonment and breaches of human rights legislation over his alleged ill-treatment while detained in Bangladesh.

The following great piece by Greg Barns in today’s Crikey tackles the sickening behaviour of the local media and political elite towards the Israeli state:

Back in the days when the hammer and sickle flew proudly, the Soviet Union would spend big dollars on paying for journalists, academics and diplomats to see for themselves the “workers’ paradise”. It was part of a long term and relentless strategy by the Communists to win the propaganda war against the West.

There is however a deeper intellectual question here that people like Bolt and co should answer. Why are they prepared to be the guests of any government, anywhere in the world, and particularly one that is as conjectural as the Israeli government? Journalists love to posture about their independence and intellectual integrity, but knowingly accepting trips as part of a government’s public diplomacy program is surely undermining of those values.

Tony Karon in Rootless Cosmopolitan on the Israeli government’s seeming descent into madness:

Haaretz’s Aluf Benn today reinforces the case I made earlier for Obama to keep Netanyahu on a tight leash concerning Iran. First, he reports, Netanyahu continues to talk up a frenzy of public expectation in Israel that leads only to military action. “These are not regular times. The danger is hurtling toward us. The real danger in underestimating the threat,” Netanyahu said on Iran. “My job is first and foremost to ensure the future of the state of Israel … the leadership’s job is to eliminate the danger. Who will eliminate it? It is us or no one.”

In other words, Israel cannot rely on the Obama Administration to bomb Iran (true), so Israel will have to do the job itself. As I noted in my last piece, Benn has previously pointed out that Netanyahu is creating a massive tide of public hysteria that will demand action in the face of this grave and gathering “threat” — bogus as it is. And he also makes clear, in a second piece, that it’s not just Netanyahu; Defense Minister Ehud Barak is with him every step of the way — despite the fact that Barak has made clear he believes that Iran does not pose an existential threat to Israel. (Then again, as Barak showed over the Camp David debacle in 2000, his cynicism knows no boundaries…)

But the real gem in Benn’s comment is his explanation of how Israel will go about launching an attack — and suggests that it won’t look anything like the 1981 bombing of Iraq’s Osirak reactor, when the public wakes up one morning to hear that the job’s been done. Instead, writes Benn, Israel might instead seek to provoke a conflict in Lebanon that draws in Iran, perhaps by making “a strike against a valuable target for the Iranian regime which leads Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Ahmadinejad to take action against ‘the Zionist regime.’ If Iran attacks Israel first, the element of surprise will be lost, but then Israel’s strike against the nuclear installations will be considered self-defense.”

So, if we wake up one morning and read, for example, that Israel has assassinated Hizballah leader Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, we’ll understand just how that particular provocation fits into Israel’s game plan.

Dr Amjad Barham is president of the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees (PFUUPE) and here in the London Guardian argues why Palestinians are calling for a boycott of Israeli universities:

It is well documented that Israeli academic institutions are deeply complicit in Israel’s colonial and racist policies against the Palestinian people. Not only do Israeli universities and research institutions co-operate closely with the security-military establishment through research and other academic activities, they have never dissociated themselves from the occupation regime, despite the more than four decades of the systematic stifling of Palestinian education.

Israeli universities have never condemned the entrenched and institutionalised system of discrimination against Palestinian citizens of Israel within the Israeli polity, society and even the academy.

Israel and its supporters have argued that the Palestinian call for institutional boycott infringes the universal principle of academic freedom. Palestinians find this argument biased and hypocritical – not to mention based on false premises.

A former US interrogator in Iraq rebukes Dick Cheney for his recent torture speech:

Is Hamas reassessing its strategy?

This sounds like desperate spin by the Zionist state. Evidence, please:

Venezuela and Bolivia are supplying Iran with uranium for its nuclear program, according to a secret Israeli government report obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

The two South American countries are known to have close ties with Iran, but this is the first allegation that they are involved in the development of Iran’s nuclear program, considered a strategic threat by Israel.

“There are reports that Venezuela supplies Iran with uranium for its nuclear program,” the Foreign Ministry document states, referring to previous Israeli intelligence conclusions. It added, “Bolivia also supplies uranium to Iran.”

The report concludes that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez is trying to undermine the United States by supporting Iran.

One can’t help but think that Israel is so keen to convince Washington that Iran is the world’s greatest threat, it’ll say or do whatever it takes to make the case.

It’s not as if Israel isn’t threatening Iran on a nearly daily basis.

An important Haaretz editorial that requires little comment:

The endorsing of a bill criminalizing anyone who marks the Palestinians’ Nakba Day on Israel’s Independence Day, making it punishable by three years in prison, is a hasty and dangerous act. The Ministerial Committee on Legislation approved a private member’s bill by Yisrael Beiteinu MK Alex Miller, adopting for all intents and purposes the racist and antidemocratic worldview of Avigdor Lieberman’s Yisrael Beiteinu. Particularly serious is the support by Justice Minister Yaakov Neeman, while in the committee only Isaac Herzog and Michael Eitan dissented.

We must hope the Knesset does not pass this dangerous bill. It’s not a patriotic or nationalist law, as its proponents argue, but one that is destructive to democracy and society.

As Independent Australian Jewish Voices blogger Michael Brull notes, mainstream Jewish groups in the West are deaf to anti-Arab racism.

Following yesterday’s story in the Fairfax press about an upcoming visit to Israel by the Australian political and media elite, this letter appears today in the Sydney Morning Herald:

In agreeing to lead a privately organised delegation of politicians, business people and academics to Israel, Julia Gillard’s political timing seems to have deserted her (“Gillard to head mission to Israel”, May 26).

Israel is still under investigation for war crimes in the recent Gaza war, its new government has refused to commit to a two-state solution and its policy of building settlements in the occupied territories continues apace. The US and other governments are mulling changes of policy to force Israel to the negotiating table.

Gillard’s endorsement of the trip sends the wrong message at the wrong time. Business as usual and cultural exchange are exactly what are at stake if Israel’s policies continue. For its long-term security, the human rights of the Palestinians and peaceful co-existence in the Middle East, Australian politicians need to convey this message to our Israeli colleagues as clearly as possible.

David Pritchard St Lucia (Qld)

Although the Israelis tried to shut down the Palestinian Festival of Literature (photos here), on the third night Suheir Hammad took the stage at the Sakakini Centre in Ramallah. She was moving, personal, funny and defiant: