Antony Loewenstein

How are illegal fanatical settlers described in this Zionist press?

Following two weeks of Arab vandalism targeting the on-and-off Jewish presence at Shdema, the Jewish pioneers decided to step up their presence – and the army blocked them. MK Aryeh Eldad reacted sharply.

The activists fear that though they have apparently succeeded in keeping at least part of Shdemah Jewish and under IDF control, the Arabs will be permitted to continue building – with American and European help – in vast areas around the hill.

Shdema is a former IDF base, in area that is under full Israeli control, in and around which Arabs from PA-controlled Beit Sahour have begun massive, illegal construction. Jews from nearby Gush Etzion and Jerusalem began a campaign 16 months ago to “keep Shdema Jewish,” including weekly classes and other activities, as well as lobbying politicians and recruiting public figures and Knesset Members to the cause.

The result, so far, has been that the Civil Administration has prevented the Arabs from building atop the Shdema hill – where the Jewish activity is centered – but is allowing Arab construction in the adjoining area. This, despite court orders rendering the construction illegal.

Following Desmond Tutu’s explanation while in Israel of the importance of the boycott movement against apartheid South Africa, Israeli peace activist Uri Avnery responds and opposes similar measures against his own country:

The South African struggle was between a large majority and a small minority. Among a general population of almost 50 million, the Whites amounted to less than 10%. That means that more than 90% of the country’s inhabitants supported the boycott, in spite of the argument that it hurt them, too.

In Israel, the situation is the very opposite. The Jews amount to more than 80% of Israel’s citizens, and constitute a majority of some 60% throughout the country between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. 99.9% of the Jews oppose a boycott on Israel.

They will not feel the “the whole world is with us”, but rather that “the whole world is against us”.

A telling Haaretz headline:

How do settlers avenge removal of outpost? They build another one

The Israel Lobby co-author Steve Walt argues that the US needs to understand that its message is getting confused for many good reasons (killing civilians is always so messy):

Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs, has reportedly penned a “searing critique” of efforts to improve U.S. relations with the Muslim world via “strategic communication.” According to the New York Times, Mullen argues that “we need to worry a lot less about how to communicate our actions and much more about what our actions communicate.”

Sounds right to me. Like most great powers, and especially dominant ones, the United States tends to believe that its motives are pure, that its noble aims are apparent to all, and that other peoples ought to be grateful for its self-less assistance. (Never mind that U.S. foreign policy is mostly driven by perceived self-interest, even if we don’t like to admit it to ourselves). If people overseas are mad  at us, this must be due to a some sort of misunderstanding. If we just explained it to them a little better, they would support whatever it is we are doing, even if it involves reorganizing their way of life, helping select who runs their country, supporting various allies even when they are mis-behaving, or sending Predators or cruise missiles from afar to blow up suspected terrorist sites on their soil.  And if anti-Americanism isn’t just a misunderstanding, it is because some misguided people “hate our values.” Whatever it is, it’s never our fault.

I don’t care what anybody says; I’m a huge fan of Glenn Beck on Fox News. This is television magic:

The bullying by the Zionist lobby is legendary and largely unreported by the Western media. Large parts of my first book, My Israel Question, are dedicated to it.

A number of Jewish groups recently loudly moaned when former Irish President and human rights activist Mary Robinson was awarded the US Presidential Medal of Freedom. She was accused of the usual slurs: Jew hatred, anti-Semitism, insensitivity to Jewish suffering, blah blah blah. Yes, she’s just a step above Obama Bin Laden.

It was a predictable debacle. Zionists were seen for the umpteenth time as intrusive and censorious (they really don’t learn, do they?) But here’s Marc D. Stern, acting co-executive director of the American Jewish Congress, urging his fine, fellow Jews to change tactics:

Robinson’s award, which she received at an August 12 ceremony honoring her and 15 other individuals, does not change a thing on the ground in the Middle East. And it was self-delusion to expect that the president would back away from the award under criticism from pro-Israel groups.

Certainly, it was incumbent upon Israel’s supporters to clearly, but privately, let the administration know that honoring Robinson fueled doubts over its commitment to Israel’s security. It was neither prudent nor productive, however, to pick a public fight with no chance of success over a purely symbolic matter. Moreover, the near-immediate Jewish attack on Robinson’s award — with little acknowledgement of the useful things she has done — lent credibility to the charge that Israel’s supporters brook no criticism at all of the Jewish state.

You don’t say. There are now so many cases where the Zionist lobby and the Jewish community think that complaining and whining about something they don’t like will either win the argument or get their way. News-flash: you’re merely playing into the worst kind of Jewish stereotypes and should learn that different views of your beloved Israel will be heard.

How insecure are you? Don’t answer that.

One day, the American media will be held accountable for its complete white-washing of Israelis crimes in Palestine.

Today it’s the turn of Jerold S. Auerbach, a professor of history at Wellesley College and the author of “Hebron Jews: Memory and Conflict in the Land of Israel,” who writes in the Wall Street Journal about those poor Jews living in Hebron:

Hebron Jews are relentlessly vilified as fanatics who illegally occupy someone else’s land. As religious Zionists, they are the militant Jewish settlers whom legions of Jewish and non-Jewish critics love to hate. It is seldom noticed that their most serious transgression—settlement in the biblical land of Israel—is the definition of Zionism: the return of Jews to their historic homeland.

How sweet. And convenient that the writer ignores the actual living conditions of the Palestinians in Hebron. I’ve been there and seen the truly disgusting ways in which the IDF and settlers treat the Arabs. The settlers are regarded as fanatics because they are. They physically abuse Arabs. They throw rubbish and shit in their direction. They harass the children.

But sure, they’re just good Zionists fulfulling God’s mission.

Although there are signs that Saudi Arabia is ever-so-slowly liberalising, here’s the reality for anybody who speaks out:

Saudi Arabia’s Communications and Information Technology Commission has recently blocked access to Twitter accounts of two Saudi human rights activists because the authorities didn’t like the human rights angle of theit Twittering.

A story of rare hope and the kind I wish I read more about.

The National publishes a piece about surfing in Gaza, of all places, and the surfers in Israel and America that want to help Gazans experience the global sport. We often hear about attempts at understanding but this is the real deal, with all the associated difficulties, not least the Israeli and Egyptian-led blockade. Somehow, surfing lives on:

It took Mahmoud El Reyashi nearly a year to get it right. At first he just imitated the surfers he’d seen on television. The swells would roll in from the deceptively powerful Mediterranean toward the shore, where they would break sometimes into decent waves, and in the beginning, he couldn’t get anywhere on the beat-up boards he used. There were other surfers to watch in the water, guys who’d bought a couple boards from a second-hand shop in Israel in the mid-90s, and they taught him things. He practiced. First he could only stand for two metres, then five, then ten. But on one summer day in 2005, when the sea was good, he stood up and he stayed up. He was 16 years old, and after he’d ridden the wave to shore, he dashed home, to a three-storey building 100 meters from the beach in jam-packed Gaza City.
“Come and look,” he cried to any of the 29 family members in the house who might hear him. “I can make it. I can do it.”

Most of them followed him back, uncles and brothers running video cameras, snapping photos. He paddled out again, stood up, rode another. He saw people standing on the beach watching him. He felt like a hero, like a star. It was one of the best days of his life…

Gaza is, among other things, a natural place to surf. Waves that build across 3,000 miles of the Mediterranean break on its beaches with surprising frequency and occasional intensity.

I didn’t see anybody surfing during my recent visit to Gaza, but I certainly saw a popular beach always over-run with families.

Accusations of left-wing bias against public broadcasters is a mainstay of the culture wars (witness the latest non-story in Australia over the ABC). Mehdi Hasan, senior political editor of the New Statesman, argues that the BBC is an inherently status-quo enforcing organisation:

The BBC’s bias is thus an Establishment bias, a bias towards power and privilege, tradition and orthodoxy…

How about foreign policy? The BBC is constantly accused of anti-Americanism, but three of its most recent correspondents in Washington – Gavin Esler, Matt Frei and Justin Webb – have all since written books documenting their great love and admiration for the United States. Esler even used the pages of Dacre’s Daily Mail to eulogise Ronald Reagan after the latter’s death, claiming that he “embodied the best of the American spirit”. Can you imagine the reaction on the right to a former BBC Moscow correspondent delivering a similar encomium to Leonid Brezhnev in the pages of the Guardian?

On Iraq, right-wing voices such as the Tory MP Michael Gove have accused the BBC of pushing an anti-war agenda – yet empirical analysis has yielded the opposite conclusion. The non-partisan, Bonn-based research institute Media Tenor found that the BBC gave just 2 per cent of its Iraq coverage to anti-war voices. Another study by Cardiff University concluded that the BBC had “displayed the most pro-war agenda of any [British] broadcaster”.

The New York Times publishes a powerful editorial on the crimes in the Islamic Republic:

Longer than many people might have predicted, Iran’s political opposition is continuing to challenge the ruling hard-line mullahs. The street protests that shook the country after the bogus June 12 presidential election have faded, but the courage to speak out against the regime’s mounting abuses has not.

Earlier this month, Mehdi Karroubi, the reformist cleric who placed fourth among the presidential contenders, stunned many Iranians by charging that some of the thousands of men and women who were arrested for protesting after the disputed election had been raped. Even after the government rejected the accusations as “sheer lies,” Mr. Karroubi was defiant. He called for an investigation and said four people were ready to testify if their security is guaranteed. He said that if the government continued to deny the facts and “terrorize” him for truth-telling, “I will disclose all the untold stories.”

Corroboration has come from the opposition leader Mir Hussein Moussavi. He said “establishment agents” were responsible for the rapes, and, on Thursday, an unnamed parliamentarian said that an official inquiry had proved that rapes took place. It is a sensitive topic. Rumors about sexual misconduct in Iran’s prisons have been around since the 1979 revolution, but this is the first time they have been discussed publicly.

Friend and colleague Mustafa Qadri has spent much of the past two years in Pakistan. He’s a fine reporter; astute, brave and incisive.

Here’s a photo essay of his observations: