Antony Loewenstein

I reported last night on the scuffles in Melbourne outside a performance of Seven Jewish Children. The Melbourne Age adds more detail today:

The play Seven Jewish Children last night achieved the effect its writer no doubt intended when it provoked passionate and diverse views from a panel of Jews and Palestinians.

Palestinian lawyer and author Randa Abdel-Fatteh described it as remarkable and courageous in exposing “the distorted logic” used to justify the dispossession of the Palestinians.

She also found it beautiful and heart-breaking, yet offering “a cause for hope”.

Self-described Zionist and Monash University Jewish scholar Michael Fagenblat said that while he did not find the play anti-Semitic, as some overseas critics had claimed, he referred to “the sentimental psychologising of the play”.

The device of a child standing for an expose of the morality of the the Jewish people was “frankly childish”, he said.

Jewish actress Miriam Margolyes was one of five actors reading the voices of an Israeli parent and a friend about how much to tell a child about Israel’s actions. They delivered such coded lines as: “Tell them we’re better haters”, “Tell her dead or alive, her family love her”, “Tell her it is the land God gave us.”

An exultant Ms Margolyes said after the panel discussion that followed the reading: “It gives you hope that we can talk to each other across these divides.”

She said she believed Israel had lost its way, but to rousing applause added: “I’m not a politician, I’m just a really good actress.”

It was also a triumph for lobby group Australians For Palestine, the Melbourne organisers of the controversial work by British playwright Caryl Churchill, that the reading went ahead.

Margolyes, whose participation had brought a backlash from a Jewish welfare organisation, said last night that the State Library was to be applauded for taking the booking. “People tried to stop it,” she said.

An hour before the doors opened last night, another effort was made to derail the performance when about 35 members of the Australasian Union of Jewish Students demonstrated outside.

They held a heated exchange with Palestinian supporters, who yelled “Free Palestine” and “Down, Down, Israel” and tried to rush the blocked door of the theatre.

Union president Stefan Oberman said: “We believe there is a need for informed debate.”

But he said he would not want to take part in the debate inside the theatre as “it is so blatantly one-sided”.

A long queue gathered for the performance, with many people turned away.

And once again, we see the Zionist community utterly incapable and unwilling to even engage with the issues.

After the meeting in Washington between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu – in summary, a lot of talk about Iran, a little about settlements – the clock is clearly ticking:

“If Israel continues not to accept solving the Palestinian issue on the basis of a two-state solution, then the other option before us is one democratic state in which Muslims, Christians and Jews live side by side enjoying the same rights,” Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa said on Sunday.

Funded by U.S. neocons, think tank researchers now carving Israeli policy.

I’ve been writing over the last week about tonight’s performance in Melbourne of the play Seven Jewish Children. I’m hearing reports that the event was beyond packed, with hundreds turned away; a real thirst to hear open debate about the Middle East. More news as it comes to hand.

But, Melbourne blogger Benjamin Solah reports on a group of Zionists protesting outside the event:

As I went to leave, I found a mob of racist Zionists with Israeli flags protesting outside of the play – as expected – and they had surrounded another activist and were making those same disgustingly false claims of anti-Semitism.

Supporters of the play that couldn’t get in remained outside chanting things like, “Stop the killing, stop the hate! Israel is a racist state!” and “You can kill, you can lie! Palestine will never die!” I can’t explain the anger that built up in me at seeing these people, supporters of killing Palestinian children, try to label us racist, to try and shut down our criticisms. It’s a complete joke!

Life in the old media 25 years ago:

How did readers know what to think in 1984? Once you get over the minuscule, blurred pictures and the lack of colour, the first thing that strikes you about the newspapers of that year is the paucity of opinionated columnists…

On the broadsheets particularly, width of coverage counted for more than depth of coverage. Over the past 25 years, we have come to learn more and more – and to be given more definite opinions – about less and less.

A fascinating story in GQ magazine about the incompetence and arrogance of Donald Rumsfeld. An excerpt:

Shortly before the Iraq invasion, King Abdullah II of Jordan decreed that warplanes could not overfly his country if they had previously flown over Israel. The king’s demand meant that U.S. fighters would need to make a multiple-hour detour before proceeding to their targets. Rumsfeld had himself been a fighter pilot and presumably recognized the absurdity of the detour, and so one NSC aide approached him during a meeting in the Situation Room as the matter was being discussed.

“Excuse me, Mr. Secretary,” said the aide. “I want you to know that Dr. Rice is prepared to call the king to get that restriction removed so that our kids don’t have to fly the extra two and a half or three hours.”

Rumsfeld looked up from his coffee. “When I need your help,” he said, “I’ll ask.”

The secretary did not ask for the help, and so his soldiers went the extra distance, unnecessarily.

My following piece appears in today’s edition of Crikey:

Echoing the discredited and contemptible Holocaust-denier David Irving, Australian Frederick Toben, who happily accepted an invitation to the 2006 Holocaust denial conference in Tehran, was back in the news last week after being found in contempt by a Federal Court for refusing to remove material from his website that vilified Jews. The Australian featured a photo of Toben’s nephew giving a Nazi salute outside the court.

As a human being first and a Jew second, Holocaust denial disgusts me  — as it should any decent person. It must be condemned in the strongest possible terms as both an indignity to the millions of victims and survivors, as well as a perversion of the historical record. The Jewish Holocaust, along with other similar catastrophes against Cambodians, Rwandans, Palestinians and Tamils, should be respected and understood.

But there are two critical questions about the whole Toben saga. Firstly, does it do anything to address the serious issue of Holocaust revisionism, a growing problem as survivors of the death camps fade away? Secondly, can the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), the lobby group that has pursued the Toben case for years, credibly argue that Toben has been chastised by their pursuit let alone that community education on the Holocaust been enhanced? Just last week saw yet another Australian man, who had posted anti-Semitic rants on YouTube, charged with inciting racial hatred.

The Toben and Irving cases strike at the heart of liberal democracies. Which views are permissible? Are there limits? Who decides the rules?

More ominously, however, the Toben saga masks a very selective concern for racial vilification by the ECAJ. Holocaust denial warrants condemnation, but too often any criticism against Jews or Zionism is automatically slammed  — witness a recent article by the former head of the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies (JBD) professing to oppose all racial hatred, especially anything directed at Jews. Yet, equally egregious examples of bigotry are ignored, even endorsed. Anti-Muslim sentiment has often been proudly displayed since September 11 by the Zionist establishment. In their worldview, only what they find offensive should be censored.

Take the case of leading Israeli historian Benny Morris who visited Australia in 2008 and was warmly welcomed by the current head of the JBD head Vic Alhadeff. Morris has exposed the massacres and forced expulsions of Palestinians in 1948 but he is also a proud extremist who thinks the Arabs are “barbarians” who should be placed in a “cage”. He believes that the mistake of David Ben-Gurion and the leadership of 1948 was that they did not fully carry out the expulsion of the Palestinians. He has called for a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iran. He argues in his new book that Jews value life more than Muslims.

These positions are abhorrent. However, I would not want to censor Morris’s views. If Toben’s ideas are beyond the pale, why not equally call for the censure of Morris or even push for criminal charges? The answer is obvious: the Jewish establishment largely agrees with Morris, he’s Jewish and a Zionist and therefore not “offensive.” A community is either consistent about racial vilification or it’s not.

There have been countless examples of senior Jewish leaders publicly supporting viciously anti-Islam and anti-Arab sentiments and regularly welcoming overseas visitors, such as Daniel Pipes, who routinely defame Muslims in the name of their Zionist jihad. Pipes continually claimed during last year’s US Presidential debate that Barack Obama was Muslim, a transparent attempt to insinuate terrorist-sympathy. I don’t remember the shock-jocks calling for the Jewish establishment to stand up and take a stand against such bigotry (such is demanded of Muslims.)

Where, for example, is the Jewish outrage over the third biggest party in the Israeli Knesset, Yisrael Beiteinu  — its leader is hardline Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman  — last week proposing a law that would forbid Arabs in Israel from commemorating their annual “Nakba” [catastrophe] day? For many Palestinians, this is nothing less than an assault on denying what they regard as their Holocaust.

My point here isn’t to support rampant racial hatred; I actively campaign against it (and when Toben himself approached me in 2006 at the Adelaide launch of my book, My Israel Question, I wanted to have nothing to do with him). There is no denying that Holocaust revisionism is a growing problem and it must be tackled in every way possible.

But the agendas of those pushing loudest for criminal punishment against racial vilification are counter-productive, highly selective and certainly demonstrate double standards. The Jewish victim complex must end and criticism of Israel, as distinct to that of Jews, treated as both legitimate and appropriate in a democracy. Witness last week’s predictable smearing in Melbourne of a robust “anti-Semitic” play about Israel.

Free speech is a delicate beast that must be constantly nurtured and defended. Our society can handle robust engagement on a host of issues. Some will offend Jews. Some will offend Muslims. Some won’t offend anybody.

Hurt feelings shouldn’t be a crime.

Tell me Daddy, how can I be a proud Zionist propagandist, spreading lies about Iran and telling the world that she wants to kill all Jews in a one direct hit?

How’s how.

As Barack Obama is about to meet Benjamin Netanyahu in Washington – and yet more evidence emerges of ever-expanding West Bank settlements, also known as “natural growth” – arch neo-con Daniel Pipes wants the world to know:

Obama himself comes out of the Democratic party’s intensely anti-Zionist left wing. Just a few years back, he associated with voluble Israel-haters like Ali Abunimah, Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said, and Jeremiah Wright, not to speak of Saddam Hussein lackeys, the Council on American-Islamic Relations, and the Nation of Islam. As Obama rose in national politics, he distanced himself from this crew. On winning the presidency, he appointed mostly mainstream Democrats to deal with the Middle East. One can only speculate whether his change was tactical, designed to deny the Republicans a campaign issue, or strategic, representing a genuinely new approach.

Question: How deep runs Obama’s antipathy toward the Jewish state?

I often write about the failings of the corporate media in fairly reporting conflict zones and far too keenly adopting the “official” position.

The latest example is Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil people (allegedly at its end today). An article in the Green Left Weekly highlights the dangers of corporate journalists taking government-arranged trips to war zones:

Fairfax’s South Asia correspondent, Matt Wade, appears to be the latest in a long line of corporate media journalists to allow himself to be used by a brutal military force — in this case, the Sri Lankan Army.

This did not stop Wade submitting a story that appeared on the front page of the Fairfax-owned Sydney Morning Herald and the Age that presented as legitimate evidence the testimony of a 14-year-old young Tamil woman captured by the SLA and held in one of the camps.

Earlier today I posted a comment about Israel/Palestine from Dan Diker, the foreign policy analyst at the Jerusalem Centre for Public Affairs. He stressed that any kind of Middle East peace deal was impossible as long as Iran, Hamas, Hizbollah, terrorism and polluted water (!) was in the way (he may not have mentioned the last reason). In other words, virtually exactly mirroring the current Israeli government position.

A few hours later, Dan emailed me with the following:

Dear Mr Leowenstein,

Dan Diker
Senior Foreign Policy Analyst
Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs

I then responded:

hi daniel,
thanks for your email.
suffice to say, i fundamentally disagree with your perspective. there’s no doubt that major obstacles exist before a comprehensive piece could exist in the middle east, but your description below of a rampaging iran, irrational and crazy, is utterly removed from reality, in my humble opinion. and you don’t even mention the settlements or occupation. the jewish communities of which you speak in judea and samaria are in fact illegal under international and most under israeli law, too.
would i be able to publish your response on my site?
best wishes,
antony

A few minutes later, Dan wrote:

Hi Antony,

Dan

Such dialogues are instructive. First it proves that many hardline Zionists don’t regard the occupation as even an occupation. Second, there will always be excuses why Israel can’t make peace or compromise. Years ago it was the PLO and Yasser Arafat and today it’s Hamas, Iran etc. This is why international pressure is the only way to resolve this crisis. Dan doesn’t discuss it, of course, but his plan would ensure a system of apartheid forever in the West Bank, something that probably doesn’t bother him, as long as international support follows.

This is the Zionist mindset.

We must fight it.

A letter to Barack Obama from a Palestinian doctor in Galilee:

The newly-elected prime minister of  Israel, Mr. Benjamin Netanyahu, and his foreign minister, Mr. Avigdor Lieberman, plan evict me from my home and to take away my garden. These two persons and their fellow ministers were democratically elected to their positions and will use ‘democratic’ means at their disposal to legitimize my disenfranchisement as have previous Israeli governments done in the past. The difference is that the current leaders are explicit and aggressive about disadvantaging me based on my ethnicity.  They have devised a way to blame me for my victimhood.  They intend to ask me to sign an oath of allegiance to  Israel as a Jewish state, a state that defines itself as exclusive of me and my people.

Democracy, Mr. President, may be the best political system, but, alas, it is no guarantee of justice and equality when it is abused to give unrestricted power to an exclusivist majority. My community, citizens of  Israel since its establishment, makes up a fifth of the country’s population but owns a constantly shrinking share of the land that currently stands at 3% of the total.  Our towns and villages receive 3-5% of municipal budgetary allocations.  Our infants and children die at over twice the level of our Jewish co-citizens — and the relative ratio is rising of late. Our two communities continue to live in racially segregated residential areas often separated by walls and barbwire. Mr. President, I am not writing of the West Bank or Gaza but of neighborhoods in ‘mixed cities’ within the Green line.