Antony Loewenstein

Following recent comments by Zbigniew Brzezinski that the US could and should stop any Israeli bombing mission against Iran, the Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick – a woman with a history of Zionist extremism – writes the following:

If Zbigniew Brzezinski had his way, the US would go to war against Israel to defend Iran’s nuclear installations.

In an interview with the Daily Beast Web site last weekend, the man who served as former US president Jimmy Carter’s national security adviser said, “They [IAF fighter jets] have to fly over our airspace in Iraq. Are we just going to sit there and watch? We have to be serious about denying them that right. If they fly over, you go up and confront them. They have the choice of turning back or not.”

Brzezinski has long distinguished himself as one of the most outspoken Israel-haters in polite circles in Washington. Under normal circumstances, his remarks could be laughed off as the ravings of a garden variety anti-Semite. But these are not normal circumstances. Brzezinski served as a senior foreign policy adviser to Barack Obama during his 2008 presidential campaign, and his views are not terribly out of place among Obama’s senior advisers in the White House. In an interview in 2002, Samantha Powers, who serves as a senior member of Obama’s national security council, effectively called for the US to invade Israel in support of the Palestinians.

The fact of the matter is that Brzezinski’s view is in line with the general disposition of Obama’s foreign policy. Since entering office, Obama has struck a hard-line position against Israel while adopting a soft, even apologetic line toward Iran and its allies.

How the hell are Brzezinski’s comments even vaguely anti-Semitic? The word is increasingly meaningless when used this way.

Gideon Levy in Haaretz reminds us that Israel is very happy to cheapen the memory of the Holocaust when it suits their needs:

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu cheapened the memory of the Holocaust in his speech to the United Nations General Assembly on Thursday. He did so twice. Once, when he brandished proof of the very existence of the Holocaust, as if it needed any, and again when he compared Hamas to the Nazis.

If Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denies the Holocaust, Netanyahu cheapens it. Is there a need of proof, 60 years later? Or, the world might think, is the denier right?

And it is doubtful that any historian of stature would buy the comparison the prime minister made between Hamas and the Nazis, or between the London Blitz and the Qassam rockets on Sderot. In the Blitz, 400 German bombers and 600 fighter planes killed 43,000 people and destroyed more than one million homes. Hamas’ Qassams, perhaps the most primitive weapon in the world, have killed 18 people in eight years. Yes, they sowed great terror – but a Blitz?

The founder of Conflicts Forum, a site that discusses Islamism in all its form, is interviewed by Mother Jones. Alastair Crooke is an intriguing fellow:

Crooke understands today’s Middle East as similar to Sarajevo in 1914, where a random event could precipitate a cascade that changes the world. Someone will overreach—Israel, Syria, Lebanon­—and then everything will shift. He reiterates this opinion when I meet him for lunch in New York. He’s in town for a panel at George Soros’ house after a trip to Washington, where State Department officials assured him that big changes were on the way. “Then when you ask what, they are not quite sure,” Crooke tells me. “We are now in an era where no one sees a direct intervention by a Western power.” This, he clarifies, means that conservative Sunnis in the Gulf states and Egypt are now free to battle it out with the Shiites in Hezbollah and Iran for the first time since the Arab nations gained their independence. “The attitude of both the US and Europe,” he says flatly, “has to be categorized as a form of denial.”

In the short term, Crooke explains, an Iranian victory in the war of ideas that divides the Muslim world would extend Iran’s power over Persian Gulf oil reserves and shipping lanes, putting Saudi Arabia in its shadow. The further empowerment of Iran would mean a profound reduction in Israel’s ability to use force against its enemies. It would also mean the end of the American-Saudi-Egyptian axis as the focal point of politics in the Arab world.

Crooke seems comfortable with all of these outcomes, in part because he believes Iran is on the right side of history. While Tehran’s rise at the expense of our Sunni allies might be disruptive and scary, Crooke implies, it’s the only way to get the relationship between Islam and the West back on a workable footing. Certainly, the idea of throwing America’s commercial ties with the Saudis and strategic ties with Egypt and Israel out the window for the sake of a romantic gamble on the Iranian regime is too much for most Westerners to stomach. Yet our current alliances with Sunni fundamentalists, Crooke warns, will guarantee that Islam remains stuck in the medieval past, and that the conflict between Islam and the West will continue. One thing that separates Crooke from more conventional, mealymouthed analysts of the Middle East is his unwillingness to understate this conflict, which he understands as a deadly struggle between two armed camps whose notions of reality are fundamentally irreconcilable.

An intriguing post from The Magnes Zionist that indicates that public debate how Israel/Palestine is starting to get mugged by reality:

When a young modern orthodox pulpit rabbi in Chicago calls for an unlimited right of return of Palestinian refugees to the State of Israel, and proposes a bi-national Israel-Palestine, conjuring up the ghost of Magnes, you know that “the times, they are a changin’.”

Rabbi Asher Lopatin published in June on the moreorthodoxy blog an essay entitled, “What Netanyahu Should Have Proposed.” Here are some of his proposals, which he calls, in a nod to Muslim sensibilities, the Five Pillars of the One Democratic State from the Jordan to the Mediterranean.

Oh dear. A Zionist laments the fact that Israel is no longer “cool”. Lobbyists, better spend more on PR because that’s really worked so well for you:

We are no longer cool.

We always had problems around here, but up until a few years ago we were still one of the coolest states on earth. When we would meet Americans and tell them we’re from Israel, their immediate response would be “Wow.” It wasn’t always clear why they said it – because of the high-tech, the most beautiful girls in the world, the Entebbe Operation, the Six-Day War, the kibbutzim, Exodus, the Mossad, the oranges, or the fact that the feeble Jews suddenly got a tan and went to the beach.

…

Because we are no longer cool. Everything that used to be funny has become problematic. The kibbutznik who would walk into the opera house in Vienna wearing sandals had been replaced by a bunch of teenagers who vandalize hotels in Cyprus. That Israeli guy who arrived in New York with $10 in his pocket and became a millionaire is currently suspected of real-estate fraud and is wanted in six states. Instead of exporting irrigation systems to Africa, we sell weapons to the worst regimes on earth. Meanwhile, the best army in the world is being portrayed in the worst way possible on CNN.

And in response we complain and show anger, while referring to them as “anti-Semites,” which of course worsens the situation because there is nothing less cool than whining, but what can we do? Keep silent? Leave the stage for the bad guys?

Israel, you are being watched and increasingly so:

Citing “European Union political guidelines” regarding “occupied territories,” the Spanish Housing Ministry has disqualified a group of Israeli academics from competing in a Solar Decathlon held every two years, because they are from the Ariel University Center of Samaria, located over the Green Line.

Engineers, architects, solar experts and other students from universities around the world participate in the competition, which is organized by the US Department of Energy and has been held, until now, in Washington.

Under a 2007 agreement between the US and Spain, however, the next decathlon is scheduled to take place next month in Madrid.

The delegation from Ariel, which together with 20 other university selections has reached the competition’s finals, worked for two years designing and building a self-sufficient house that employs solar power as its only source of energy, and uses half the energy needed to operate a regular house.

The team was even given a grant of €100,000 to subsidize their project, called the “Stretch House” and said to be inspired by the “tent of Abraham,” because it can expand to meet its owner’s wishes.

But despite all the hard work, the university received a letter from the Spanish government on Friday, disqualifying its team.

“We would like you to know that an Israeli university would always be welcome to participate in this competition,” the letter from the Spanish ministry read. “However, the fact that your center is actually located in the occupied territories, and being obliged to respect the European Union position in relation to this matter, we are forced to inform you that the continuation of your center in this competition will not be possible as from this date on.”

Israeli human rights group B’Tselem on driver Muhammad Id’is who claims he was beaten at an Israeli checkpoint this month. This is his testimony:

I live in Beit ‘Amra, which is next to Yatta. For many years, I have been transporting workers from the communities near Yatta and a-Samu’ to Khirbet Jinba, from which they go to their work sites in Israel. Some of the laborers have permits and some don’t. Over the past year, there has been a lot of this work. Every Sunday morning, I drive five laborers in my vehicle, a Mazda. Each of them pays me 70-80 shekels. When I transport laborers who don’t have a permit [to enter Israel], they sneak in through the fence and then Beduin drivers from the Beersheva area take them to where they work in Israel.

Yesterday [6 September], around 4:30 A.M., I collected five laborers from a-Samu’, one of them a boy fifteen years old. He was the only one of the five who did not have a permit. I drove along the bypass road that runs east of a-Samu’ and from there to a-Tuwani.

We decided to say morning prayers at the Tuwani Mosque, and I parked the car next to the mosque. Following prayers, I went back to the car and got in. Two of the laborers also got in and the other three were on their way to the car. Suddenly, an army Hammer jeep pulled up. It came from the bypass road and entered the village. Four soldiers got out, one of them an officer. The officer appeared very agitated. He came over to my car, opened my door and forcibly pulled me out by the neck. I fell to the ground. He grabbed my right arm, stepped on my neck and cuffed my hands behind my back. At first, he didn’t speak to me. He asked another soldier to pick me up. The officer told me to give him my identity card. I told him it was in my pocket. He took it out and kept it.

The soldier grabbed my arms from behind with force. He put his knee against my back. The officer said to me: “I killed four Gazans and you’ll be the fifth.”

Before I answered or said anything, he gave me three hard, quick blows to the stomach with his rifle. I cried out in pain and felt I was losing my balance. The soldier kneed me in the back from behind. I fell to the ground, face down. I don’t remember what happened after that. I think I was unconscious for about fifteen minutes, until somebody threw water on my face. When I awoke, I saw the officer checking the identity cards of the laborers, who were two or three meters from me. I saw the officer slap them all hard. He gave them back their identity cards and told them to get out of there.

Then the officer cut the handcuffs and told me to get into my car. He told me to follow the jeep to the checkpoint. I got into the car and sat behind the steering wheel. I was exhausted and my stomach hurt a lot. The officer got into the passenger’s seat next to me, and another soldier sat in the back. The officer put the barrel of his rifle to my head and told me to start driving.

I drove about 100-150 meters. Before we even left the village, I felt I was about to lose consciousness again. I told the officer that I couldn’t drive any further. He pulled up the hand brake and the car stopped. He yanked me to the seat next to the driver’s seat, moved into the driver’s seat, and began to drive. I don’t remember what happened then. I only know that we were approaching the Shani (“Congo”) checkpoint. I woke up after somebody threw water onto my face again. I was at the checkpoint. The officer stopped the car. A Hammer jeep was parked in front of us. It was around 7:30 or 8:00.

The officer got out and opened the door next to where I was sitting. He got back into the driver’s seat and kicked me hard, out of the car.  I fell to the ground. The officer called to two soldiers in the Hammer to take me to a place where there was gravel, a few meters from the car. The two soldiers helped me get there. I wasn’t able to walk and fell to the ground. The two soldiers kicked me in the stomach and back. I cried out and said to one of them: “Bastard, why are you beating me?”

The soldiers got real upset. They continued to kick me in the back and stomach for about ten minutes. I shouted loudly and asked them to stop. While I was lying there on the ground, the officer and the first soldier took pictures of me on their mobile phones.

I saw a female soldier run toward me from inside the checkpoint. I heard her tell the two soldiers that she was in charge of the checkpoint and that they should stop beating me. The officer, who was standing next to the two soldiers, told her not to interfere, and that it was his responsibility. She suggested calling an ambulance to check me and treat me, but the officer said he would do it himself, and again told her not to interfere.

The two soldiers stopped kicking me after the female soldier intervened. I was lying on the ground, crying out in pain and asking for first-aid. The officer ignored me.

At some point in time, I heard the officer tell the soldiers that a police van had arrived. I saw a van approach the checkpoint from the east. The officer told the soldiers to move me so that the police wouldn’t cause them any problems.

Two soldiers grabbed my legs and the officer and another soldier grabbed my shoulders and they took me into the army tower inside the checkpoint. My head was outside the tower and I was still shouting. The two soldiers who had beaten me previously kicked me and told me to shut up.

The police van stopped very close to me. A policeman and policewoman got out. The policeman asked me what happened and I told him that the soldiers had brutally beaten me. I begged him to help me, for the sake of his children. He had compassion for me and promised to help me. He told me to wait five minutes. I waited more than half an hour, and then a Red Crescent ambulance crew arrived. Two members of the crew came into the tower. I heard them ask the officer who was standing in front of the tower to help them take me to the ambulance. The officer refused, saying the matter didn’t interest him. The two paramedics brought a stretcher, put me on it, and took me to the ambulance.

Just then, I saw my father, my brother Usama, my uncle Abu Faisal, and my cousin running toward the ambulance. My father said to me, “Muhammad, Muhammad,” but I couldn’t answer. My uncle, who is sixty years old, got into the ambulance, and we drove fast to Aliyah Government Hospital, in Hebron. I felt like my stomach was about to burst, and I had sharp pains. At the hospital, the doctors said they would open my abdomen to make sure I had no internal bleeding or injury to internal organs, especially my spleen. At first, I didn’t agree, until my father arrived and signed the consent forms for surgery. When I woke up after the operation, my father, my uncles, and other relatives were around me.

My father told me that he and Usama had asked an officer at the checkpoint why the soldiers had done this to me. The officer told him that he was in charge of the checkpoint and that he didn’t assault me; that it was the soldiers in the Hammer who did it. My father said another officer arrived in an army jeep and that my father turned to him in Hebrew, and the officer replied in good Arabic: “You should thank Allah that your son is alive. Take him and take care of him. He could have died or ended up in jail.”

I’m still hospitalized. I have a feeling of fatigue and have stomach pains. The X-rays, tests, and operation indicated that I had damage to my intestines and other internal organs. The doctors told me to rest for a few days in the hospital, during which they’ll monitor my condition before releasing me.

Yesterday I discussed Arianna Huffington’s love affair with Israel. Her latest post is even worse, a rose-coloured view of a country she clearly imagines exists but does not. Care to travel down the road to the occupation, Arianna?

It’s hard to spend any time with Israeli President Shimon Peres and remain pessimistic about the possibility of peace.

“I’m 86,” he told me, “and at a moment in my life when I have no personal agenda. I’m not interested in money. I’m not jealous of anyone. My only agenda is my country. I feel freer than I’ve ever felt before — and with this freedom I can be most effective. At my age I don’t want a suntan. I like being in the shadows.”

But from the shadows he can influence all the players in the sun. “I meet regularly with Netanyahu and talk to him all the time,” said Peres. “He asked me to meet with President Obama before he did and prepare the ground. I talk with Abbas and Fayad a lot too. We’ve never had better leaders to deal with. Fayad is an economist; he understands the importance of producing real results for his people.”

I met with Peres at Beit HaNassi, the official presidential residence in Jerusalem (which is being given a green makeover). I had brought him my book on fearlessness, so our meeting began by talking about fear and the role it plays in undermining peace efforts.

Following my article in yesterday’s Crikey about Saree Makdisi’s recent visit to Australia, the following letter is published today:

Josh Landis writes: I don’t get it. What does Crikey see in Antony Loewenstein and why are his rants continually published?

The latest offering says almost nothing. Summary: 200 people including about five Jews turned up to listen to an American literature professor, who happens to be nephew of a famous American of Palestinian extraction, talk about a country he doesn’t live in. Jewish representative indicates the speaker is one-sided, which is proof positive that Jews want to shut down debate and Obama can’t fix the Middle-East conflict. Hold the presses!

Loewenstein’s articles, which are generally little more than self-publicising reports of his attendance at pro-Palestinian events or his meetings with other pro-Palestinian thinkers about the Palestinian cause, contribute little in the way of news (which Crikey is about). It can’t be said he’s in any way an objective or a knowledgeable journalist on the Middle-East, on Jews or Palestinians.

His reports are just Palestinian advocacy, and not so subtle advertising for his book (each missive ends “Antony Loewenstein is a journalist and author of My Israel Question”). Can we move on?

Yes, much better if critics of Israel just shut up. Nothing to say about the occupation, settlements, wars in Gaza, apartheid in the West Bank and racism in Israel proper. Playing the man is the usual tactic of Jews who want to talk about everything except the relevant issues. And it simply proves my point over and over again.

More, please.

Jews at the famous Burning Man festival? Jewish identity manifests itself in the strangest of places and yet it makes perfect sense. How we define ourselves in the 21st century is up for grabs. Oddly fascinating (though I can’t help but wonder whether the Middle East was never discussed):

My following article appears in the Asia-Pacific Magazine The Diplomat:

Our writer argues that his young tech-savvy peers, celebrity fixations aside, are increasingly engaged in global issues like this summer’s riots in Tehran.

The violent June uprisings in Iran ricocheted around the world. While young, old, conservative and liberal Iranians protested the stolen election win of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the global online community rushed to support the cause. Although the Western rhetoric of good versus evil was embarrassingly simplistic – most of the protesters weren’t calling for the end of the Islamic Republic, merely reform – it was gratifying to find international interest for the rioting Iranians.

This backing took many forms. Web-savvy youth provided tools for Iranians to avoid government-backed censorship. One man in California published an online guide for geeks to set up proxy servers for Iranian citizens, as a way to get around the blocking of sites like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. “I felt like it was my responsibility to use my skills to help”, he told the US-based Tehran Bureau website. Many others volunteered their time and energy to allow Iranian youth to maintain an online voice.

Even singers Madonna, U2’s Bono, Jon Bon Jovi and Joan Baez stood alongside the protestors. Joan Baez recorded a version of “We Shall Overcome” – the anthem of the American civil rights movement – with some lyrics translated into Farsi.

When news circulated in June that phone companies Nokia and Siemens had sold Iran a monitoring centre that enabled security forces to tap mobile phones, scramble text-messages and interrupt calls, the worldwide response was immediate. A “Boycott Nokia” campaign sprouted almost overnight, bringing tens of thousands of signatures. According to the Guardian, Iranians themselves started to back an economic boycott as those sympathetic to the protest movement began targeting companies seen to be collaborating with the regime.

By mid-July, however, the story had largely fallen out of the news, not helped by the fact that the vast majority of Western journalists had been kicked out of the country and the authorities had brutally cracked down on local bloggers and dissidents. In the week June 29-July 5, Iran-related stories accounted for only four percent of total news coverage, down from 19 percent one week earlier, according to Pew Research.

For a few weeks, Iran seemed like the biggest story in the world, although the possibility of a full-blown revolution was always very unlikely. Beirut-based think-tank Conflicts Forum wrote in July that, “The events in Iran centred on a dispute about the role of certain powerful clergy as well as an airing of old grievances between several strong personalities. This does not imply a leadership so ‘divided’ that it is about to fall.” This was no Eastern European “colour” revolution, despite the best efforts of the Western media to claim otherwise.

Many young Iranian friends reminded me not to be seduced by the romantic notions of liberty and freedom. The vast majority of support for Iranian “democrats” in the West isn’t so much about the individuals or groups but a way to overthrow or challenge the Islamic Republic. A revolution from within is the only way forward.

Outside interference in Iran is a time-honoured tradition, something that even US President Barack Obama acknowledged in his famous Cairo speech in June. “In the middle of the Cold War, the United States played a role in the overthrow of a democratically elected Iranian government”, he said, in reference to the 1953 coup which overthrew the government of Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadegh.

The global response to the Iranian uprisings proved that some dissent to authoritarian is more acceptable than others. Video footage was pouring out of Iran and world sympathy was clearly on the side of the protestors. Iran was the good fight, the just battle, and the inspiring struggle for democracy.

The democratic battle for Palestinian rights is framed in a completely different way. During recent travels around Israel, I was constantly told by Israelis that there was “no partner for peace” and checkpoints, walls and barriers had to be erected to prevent Palestinian terrorism.

Young American journalist Max Blumenthal correctly pointed out the inherent hypocrisy in the media’s response to these conflicts, noting “When Palestinians employ direct action tactics to protest Israeli oppression, and when Israeli forces respond with wanton brutality, they are ignored by the US media, even when footage is already available through online sources. It seems they can only generate media when they resort to violence, a dynamic the Israeli government obviously welcomes.” The only rational response is that Palestinians have been demonized so effectively over so many decades that any sympathy for them in the corporate media is automatically equated with anti-Americanism or anti-Semitism.

Despite these geo-political and media realities, the Palestinian cause is growing in strength across the world, especially among the younger generation. I encountered countless Western human rights activists throughout Palestine coming to protect Palestinian farmers from settler attacks or acquaint themselves with the realities of Israeli occupation. It is a cause that can’t be so easily erased by media silence. The Internet has allowed new voices to be heard – anti-Zionists, pro-Palestinian activists and critical perspectives against the Israel lobby – and has posted a fundamental challenge to the decades-old narrative of defenceless Israeli against aggressive Palestinian. Journalists in Gaza said that they were humbled with Western activists and journalists coming to the besieged Strip to hear their stories.

But neither Palestine nor Iran (or even the recent Uighur protests in China’s Xinjiang province) could match the outpouring of global grief over Michael Jackson’s death. It was at once dispiriting yet fleeting. Like Princess Diana, the emotions expressed were both deeply felt and artificial. Jackson’s music was undoubtedly influential but I suspect many simply longed to reclaim his once-cherished innocence and wished he had been able to resurrect his stalled career.

The public passions experienced over Jackson’s demise were a manifestation of celebrity culture run amok. But the global Web community is now so fragmented, offering the ability to support or advocate for countless causes, that enough individuals are still following and supporting the Iranians, Palestinians and Uighurs.

The baby boomers largely protested themselves out in the 1960s and 1970s – and many finally embraced the belief that pure capitalism was the best way to ensure social equity, despite the vast evidence challenging this thesis. In contrast, generation x and y are far less likely to burn out; activism is easy with the click of a mouse button.

As a member of Generation X, I don’t find apathy among my peers, but engagement, dedication and a belief in human rights. Perhaps the majority of the world’s population doesn’t care that Israel continues to illegally occupy the Palestinians or that Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s regime tortures dissidents in jail, but the sheer force of powerful images and words transmitted by bloggers, satellite television and alternative media has created an unruly collection of conflicting messages and talking points. These causes are known because they are right and just. Solely relying on establishment news outlets to get informed is no longer a viable option.

Order is the enemy of progress.

Antony Loewenstein is a Gen X, Sydney journalist and author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution

If the US fails to hold Israel to account, those with international law on their mind may:

A senior prosecutor at the International Criminal Court in The Hague said Monday that he is considering opening an investigation into whether Lt. Col. David Benjamin, an Israel Defense Forces reserve officer, allowed war crimes to be committed during the IDF’s three-week offensive in the Gaza Strip this winter.

The officer – a dual citizen of Israel and South Africa, where he was born – served in the Military Advocate General’s international law department, which authorized which targets troops would strike before and during the operation.

Newsweek magazine released an interview Monday with ICC Prosecutor Luis Moreno-Ocampo of Argentina in which he said he is convinced his office has the authority to launch an investigation into Benjamin’s actions.