Antony Loewenstein

The Iraqi shoe thrower, Muntazer al-Zaidi, eloquently explains why he committed the act:

I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.

Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.

We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.

Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents.

I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.

Naomi Klein, one of the world’s leading Jewish critics of Israel, is attacked in Canada’s National Post for an essay she wrote as a student and others crimes of humanity:

As a college student in 1990, Klein wrote an editorial (see here) for the University of Toronto’s student newspaper The Varsity, entitled “Victim to victimizer.” In her various accounts, Klein describes a simple op-ed that urged Israel to “end the occupation not only for the Palestinians, but also for its own people, especially its women.” To organize a response, she claims, no less than 500 Jewish students gathered for a “lynch mob” meeting. However, she showed up herself, unrecognized, and stood up and told them off. “I was 19,” Klein told the Guardian, “and it made me tough.” The experience “prepared me for controversy,” empowering her to take on multinationals and the World Bank. Heroic stuff.

The facts, though, tell a very different story.

Klein’s article was anything but normal. Its thesis sentence and blaring headline: “What Israel has become: Racism and misogyny at the core of its being.”

“Israeli men,” she said, “reach maturity by brutalizing and degrading Palestinians.” Then there was “Israeli men’s misogyny toward Israeli women.”

Most disturbing, said Klein, “is something known to Israeli women as ‘Holocaust pornography,’ where images of emaciated women near ovens, shower heads, cattle cars and the like are used to sell clothing and other products.” Jewish women, she informed her readers, “are sexualized as Holocaust victims for Israeli men to masturbate over … the themes are fire, gas, trains, emaciation and death.”

If such aberrant ads or magazines ever existed, they were well hidden. But Klein was looking to demonize — not only Israel, but Judaism, and Jews.

“A Jewish education is an education of fear,” continued Klein. “Jews made the shift from victims to victimizers with terrifying ease.”

As I’ve seen many times myself over the years, Zionist fanatics trade in the politics of smears and slander. Praise Israel, ignore the occupation and always change the subject (eg. aren’t the human rights problems worse in China?)

During yesterday’s Jerusalem Day “celebrations” in Iran, this happened:

By midmorning in central Tehran, dozens of opposition supporters in green T-shirts and wearing green wristbands – a color symbolising the opposition movement – marched with fingers raised in the V-sign for victory and chanting “Death to the Dictator.”

Others shouted for the government to resign, carried small photos of Mousavi, while some women marched with their children in tow.

There were also chants of: “Neither Gaza nor Lebanon, but our life is for Iran” – a slogan defying the regime’s support for Palestinian militants in Gaza and Lebanon’s Hezbollah guerrilla.

In related news, there is growing pressure to force Israel to allow inspectors into its nuclear sites.

So, is Israel a normal country or simply above the law?

Yet more Zionist anger over the UN’s Gaza report.

The American Jewish Committee writes in the New York Times that the UN is biased against Israel and the Jewish state is the eternal victim.

The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg desperately claims that anti-Semitism is actually the real reason behind criticism of Israel:

A number of loyal Goldblog readers have asked me why I haven’t commented on the U.N. report that found Israel guilty of various war crimes. The reason is simple: The U.N. is hopelessly biased against Israel; the mandate of Goldstone, the chief of the hanging party, was to find Israel guilty (yes, he’s Jewish, but so what? There are all kinds of Jews, including this guy); the report does not differentiate between offensive action and defensive action, and so on. Why this report, from an organization that has Saudi Arabia and Cuba on its Human Rights Council, should be taken seriously is beyond me. I’d much sooner read Human Rights Watch reports on Israel, even the ones written by a Nazi-memorabilia-collecting-fetishist.

Do I have to say that I don’t support everything Israel did in Gaza? Yes, I suppose so. I don’t support everything Israel did in Gaza (starting with pulling out of Gaza, but that’s another story). Shooting isn’t always the smartest response to provocation, and shooting wildly certainly isn’t, as I wrote here. What I object to is scapegoating. It’s been with us for a while as a phenomenon, and we hoped that after the Holocaust, it would subside, but it’s apparently an undying disease.

It’s a pathological delusion to continue claiming Israel is a victim after bombarding innocent people in Gaza.

This is the truth about life in Gaza, backed and supported by the international community:

A chronic shortage of school supplies, and severely overcrowded classrooms are crippling Gaza’s educational system as tens of thousands of children begin a new school year.

Israel’s hermetic sealing of the strip, as part of its blockade against Hamas, has prevented most supplies of paper, textbooks, notebooks, ink cartridges, stationery, school uniforms, school bags, and computers and their spare parts.

“Through our education system the UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) is spreading the message of universal respect for human rights, peaceful coexistence and tolerance in an atmosphere that since the blockade has become increasingly desperate and radicalised,” says UNRWA spokesman Chris Gunness.

“The best way for Israel to prevent us spreading that message to the 200,000 Gazan children at our schools is to block us sending in educational supplies,” Gunness told IPS.

“During the summer camps that we ran in July/August we were able to get all sorts of school supplies in and as a result the camps ran smoothly. But now the Israeli authorities are again limiting the educational goods entering. The psychology of the blockade is confusing. We are talking about educating children.”

I was interviewed last week on Sydney independent radio station 2ser’s Fourth Estate program about my book My Israel Question, Gaza and the Middle East:

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The internet may be killing advertising in the media but perhaps the future ain’t so dull, after all:

For the European Digital Journalism Survey 2009, 350 European journalists were asked what impact the internet had on journalism – and the outcome is surprising. Even though it appears whining is part of everyday journalism work these days – and some would say it was ever thus – journalists still love their job. They struggle hard within a changing industry, but still believe in the quality of the European press. To sum it up, the end of journalism seems to be far away.

Over half the firms questioned reporting a fall in advertising income of more than 10%. The mood of the industry isn’t the best, to put it mildly. How interesting, then, that the internet is not regarded as the future of journalism: 32% of the journalists think that the publication, or TV/radio channel they work for might disappear from the market, while fewer than 10% reckon that their publication, radio or TV channel will survive online.

No wonder: while new forms of distribution such as Twitter are widely accepted and increasingly used, the internet is obviously still not a medium for which journalists create specific content. Just 43% of them say that at least half their online content is originally created for the web. While the obvious explanation would be the unwillingness of the journalists to produce for online, this is not the case. The journalists are not to blame.

Indeed, the figures from the European Digital Journalism Survey suggest something else: Far more than the majority, more than 66%, had no kind of training at all in producing journalism for the new medium. This can be seen as a huge failure of publishers preparing their workers for the future of journalism. No wonder that within most publications the interaction with user-generated content can be still regarded as passive: 68% accept comments on stories online and only 23% quote bloggers. User-generated content is widely neglected.

Still on the press, journalists are coming to terms with the internet changing the way they research, organise their workflow and distribute their content. The biggest publications all over Europe have, for example, Twitter channels, led by the UK with nearly 70% and followed by nearly 40% in the Netherlands. 35% use blogs to research stories, and 13.5% even have their own independent blog.

But the new media situation has changed the workload as well: 40% said they were expected to produce more content – including making video content (14.5%) or podcasts (8%). Not very surprisingly, 28% said that they had to work longer hours and 29% reported that they have less time to research stories in person. Anyhow, there seems to be a positive effect as well, with 29% of journalists saying they are now able to focus more on analysis than news.

Either way, journalists still seem to believe in their products. 40% of them even feel that the quality of journalism has improved over the last two years (just over 20% think it has declined), a figure that rises in France and Spain to 60%. And 84% report that they are still as happy – or even happier – with their job.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continues his foul Holocaust denial during a speech today for “Jerusalem Day” at the University of Tehran.

The Hamas leader, interviewed by Ken Livingstone in this week’s New Statesman, offers many insights, including this:

The conflict is the outcome of aggression and occupation. Our struggle against the Israelis is not because they are Jewish, but because they invaded our homeland and dispossessed us. We do not accept that because the Jews were once persecuted in Europe they have the right to take our land and throw us out. The injustices suffered by the Jews in Europe were horrible and criminal, but were not perpetrated by the Palestinians or the Arabs or the Muslims. So, why should we be punished for the sins of others or be made to pay for their crimes?

How does the fundamentalist Zionist lobby manage this week’s devastating UN report on Gaza?

Smear the Palestinian witnesses, claim the UN is biased and issue Israeli government talking points.

Is Israel the only nation in the world whose army never kills civilians intentionally?

Apparently so.

UPDATE: Two other Zionist fanatics share their moderate views with the world.

Alan Dershowitz:

Richard Goldstone—the primary author of a one-sided United Nation’s attack on Israeli actions during the Gaza war—has now become a full fledged member of the international bash-Israel chorus. His name will forever be linked in infamy with such distorters of history and truth as Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein and Jimmy Carter. The so-called report commissioned by the notorious United Nations Human Rights Council and issued under his name is so filled with lies, distortions and blood libels that it could have been drafted by Hamas extremists. Wait, in effect, it actually was!

Melanie Phillips:

Goldstone proceeds to omit the key ‘development’ that explained Israel’s military action — the rocket bombardment from Gaza of its citizens. He thus presents Israel as the aggressor and Hamas as the victims. What malice.

This disreputable piece of work will in turn embolden and empower Hamas and Palestinian terrorism, provide the jihadis of the UN and their accomplices with the means further to persecute Israel and endorse its genocidal attackers, and incite the Arab and Muslim world still further to aggression and to war.

With this report, Goldstone demonstrably forfeits his claim to legal, moral or intellectual credibility. He should be disowned by the legal profession.

Promised Land is one of Israel’s finest bloggers (we met during my visit in July).

His latest post relates to the recent story about the Israeli government launching a government to save “lost” Jews who inter-marry:

There has been much talk recently over the new campaign aimed at preventing marriage between Jews and none-Jews, but here is a story that touches similar notes but went completely under the radar. It was published only in mynet.co.il, Ynet’s local news site, which usually draws very little attention. There, between stories about flower exhibitions and a deserted car bothering neighbors in Natanya, was the following headline:

“Municipality will locate girls meeting regularly with members of minorities”.

I only saw the story after some friends posted it on Facebook.

The headline’s meaning might be a bit unclear for none Israelis, but in Hebrew, “members of ethnic minorities” always means Arabs, since Jews are being referred to by their specific minority: Russians, Sephardic, Ethiopians, etc.

The story itself tells of a special team that was formed within the Youth Office of the municipality of Petah Tikva (a large suburb of Tel Aviv). Its mission: to locate “and help” Jewish girls that are meeting with Arabs.

The people in the municipality of Petah Tikva are proud of their new initiative (I would bet that the story was delivered to Mynet’s reporter through the city’s spokesperson, or at least with his approval). As one director in the municipality states:

“The minority people problem is well known to us”, says the head of the Youth Office [in the municipality], Moshe Spector. “Our efforts to deal with it are real and sincere. There are a few problematic areas [in the city], and the municipality is making an effort to examine this issue together with the police.”

The article explains that the initiative was born following the murder of Arie Karp on Tel Aviv’s beach last month. According to the police, Karp was harassed and than beaten to death by a group of Arabs and two Jewish girls who were partying in the area. Their trail opened earlier this week.

It couldn’t have been more obvious. No city in Israel, not even Petah Tikva, has ever “dealt with the problems” of girls dating Russians or Ethiopians, even as there were numerous crimes committed by members of these ethnic groups. Yes, it’s back to the oldest allegation in the racist’s handbook: “they are taking away our girls!”

The US Jewish newspaper Forward publishes a piece about the growing boycott movement against Israel under the headline, “Palestinian-Led Movement To Boycott Israel Is Gaining Support“:

As Omar Barghouti, one of the Palestinian leaders of the BDS movement, told the Forward, “Our South Africa moment has finally arrived.”

Some major Jewish groups acknowledge BDS as a possible threat. “There are clearly a number of episodes building up here that would allow advocates of a boycott to say that slowly, slowly we are achieving what we want, which is the South Africanization of Israel,” said American Jewish Committee spokesman Ben Cohen. “I’m not sure that the increase in activity is quite as dramatic as some people would believe, but it’s clear to me that this discourse of boycott is being increasingly legitimized, and it would appear that some companies are responsive to it.”

The BDS movement is highly decentralized, with each group in the coalition allowed to choose its own targets as it sees fit. It has no articulated political vision. such as a one- or two-state solution to the conflict. The principles that guide the movement — as set out in a call for boycott, divestment and sanctions issued in June 2005 by a wide group of Palestinian civil society organizations — demand instead that Israel adhere to international and human rights law. The amorphous structure and broad goals appear to be responsible for many of the group’s appeal. But some who watch this movement closely contend that, in the end, even a “targetted” boycott is ultimately aimed at all of Israel.

The actual monetary impact of the movement is often unclear. But for activists seeking as much to affect Israel’s image in the public’s mind, money is not always the bottom line.

Dr. Abdul Khader Khan, the father of Pakistan’s nuclear program, recently granted an interview to local TV:

Iran was interested in obtaining nuclear technology. And because Iran is an important Islamic country, we wanted it to have the technology. The Western countries pressured us on this issue, and it wasn’t fair. If Iran can have nuclear technology, we will have a strong regional bloc that will repel international pressures. Iran’s nuclear capability will neutralize Israel’s power. We advised Iran to make contact with the suppliers and to purchase the equipment from them.

Max Blumenthal, whose book Republican Gomorrah has debuted at number 15 on the New York Times best-seller chart, tells Harpers:

Followers of the Christian right openly admit that they have no capacity to restrain themselves from total depravity without constant, stern commandments from an angry God.