Antony Loewenstein

Headline of the week:

It’s no wonder some Christians forget that Jesus was Jewish.

The following petition, drafted by Michael Brull in Sydney, is aimed at Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd:

Israel ’s siege on Gaza is vicious and cruel, and it must end immediately.

Its continuation means continued war on the basic necessities of life for the population of Gaza .

Any ordinary, decent person would assume the people of Gaza have a right to water. However, before Israel ’s attack on Gaza from December 27 2008 to January 18 2009, 80 per cent of Gaza ’s water did not meet World Health Organisation standards for drinking water. Among the reasons for this was Israel ’s refusal to allow in the chlorine needed to purify Gazan water.

When the attack started, 80 per cent of Gaza ’s water wells functioned only partially. Afterwards, 70 per cent did. Worse than this, as a partial consequence of what the Goldstone Report called Israel ’s “large-scale and systematic destruction of greenhouses”, the water supply of Gaza is on the verge of collapse. Meanwhile, parents have little choice but to give their babies polluted drinking water. This water damages babies’ blood: their skin turns blue, and they suffer respiratory and intestinal problems.

Israel also refuses to allow reparations on Gaza ’s water supply to begin. The Israeli government lets in so little food that the growth of Palestinian children is being stunted. The food that they eat overwhelmingly comes in the form of humanitarian aid. Gazans might have fed themselves, but their chicken farms and flour mill were also destroyed in Israel ’s attack at the start of the year.

Those of us who oppose the blockade believe that Palestinians deserve food. Palestinian babies should be allowed to drink water that doesn’t injure them. Palestinian children should not have their growth stunted.

Palestinians in Gaza have the right to live in dignity. This right needs defending. A small group of Australian activists have recognised this, and will join contingents from 42 other countries around the world, in the Gazan Freedom March. On December 31, they will march through Gaza to the Israeli border, in order to break the blockade. Their cause is just, and we support them fully.

We urge our government to support their march. We urge our government to ensure the safety of every Australian risking his or her life in the struggle for Palestinian rights.

Happy anniversary, Gaza:

Aid agencies have strongly criticised the international community for failing to help bring an end to Israel’s blockade of Gaza.

The charities made the accusation in a report published just ahead of the anniversary of Israel’s offensive in the Gaza Strip.

The aid agencies condemn not just Israel, but the world community.

In the words of Oxfam’s director, Jeremy Hobbs, “world powers have failed and betrayed Gaza’s ordinary citizens”.

The charities call for more pressure to be exerted on Israel to end what they describe as its illegal collective punishment of Gazans.

American historian Norman Finkelstein, speaking recently in London, argues that resistance to Israeli aggression is justified:

Briefly assessing the history to the siege, Finkelstein noted that the ceasefire that was agreed between Israel and Hamas June 2008 was broken by Israel, not Hamas: whilst Hamas stopped its rocket attacks, Israel did not lift its illegal blockade on Gaza and launched a night raid on Gaza, whilst the eyes of the worlds were watching 4th November 2008 US elections.

Six Hamas resistance fighters were killed, provoking Hamas to respond, which it did by resuming rocket attacks. Finkelstein emphasised that this is not violence so much as “symbolic resistance”.

He quoted one Palestinian who referred to the rocket attacks as “modest home made rockets are a cry of protest to the world”.

Finkelstein commented that if we are going to condemn Hamas for these rocket attacks, we must suggest how else they should resist the pressure placed on them by persistent Israeli attacks, subjugation and persistent blockades that drain the small area of land.

If we cannot provide an alternative, we cannot criticise, he argued.

I’m not sure I quite agree with this. Resistance is certainly defensible and important in the face of overwhelming odds, but to back rockets that have killed Israeli civilians seems unwise.

A Likud MK endorses the one-state solution.

Sure, it may not be for the same enlightened reasons as this article in the LA Times but signals a growing realisation that the occupation cannot last indefinitely (of course, how we move to a just solution is still up for grabs.)

The death of Grand Ayatollah Hossein-Ali Montazeri in Iran has caused huge public grief and anger:

Blogger Cyrus Farivar reminds us of the man’s influence on Iran’s internet culture:

I’m obviously fascinated with Montazeri’s small role in Iran’s Internet history. As best as I can tell, this is the first example of the Islamic Republic’s getting involved in the Internet directly and going after a particular person directly, even through cybersquatting.

Back in 2000, the Agence France Presse covered this interesting episode.

Montazeri.com vs. Montazery.com: Ayatollahs wage war on Internet
Friday 15 December 2000 – Agence France Presse PARIS, Dec 15 (AFP) – Dissident cleric Hossein Ali Montazeri, once in line to be Iran’s supreme leader, this week dropped a political bombshell by publishing his memoirs onthe Internet and provoking a cyber war with the
leadership in Tehran.

Montazeri, 79, who had been chosen to succeed Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, founder of the Islamic republic, has been living under house arrest in Qom, south of Tehran, ever since he was forced to resign weeks before Khomeini’s death in 1989.

A fierce opponent of Iran’s current supreme spiritual leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Montazeri in recent years has from time to time managed to make his opinion known through his sons.

But he struck a hard blow on Monday when he published a 600-page memoir on an Internet site based in Britain, which his sons verified as his work.

The document, published in Persian and available at www.montazeri.com, provides important testimony to some of the most dramatic moments of the revolution and the war with Iraq.

Authorities in Tehran have so far not publicly reacted to Montazeri’s memoirs but on Thursday a counter-site — www.montazery.com — appeared on the internet and described itself as representing the office of Khamenei.

Most noteworthy on the first site are Montazeri’s remarks on how he tried in 1988 to prevent the summary execution of thousands of opponents to the Khomeini regime.

He states that Khomeini ordered the executions after the opposition launched a fierce offensive against Iranian troops from bases in Iraq.

“All those against the revolution must disappear and quickly be executed,” the cleric quotes Khomeini as saying in a written note.

Montazeri said he decided to intervene to prevent the killing of 2,800 to 3,800 men by writing a letter to Khomeini in which he appealed for compassion.

“I told myself ‘I am after all the Imam’s successor and I took part in this revolution’,” he says in his memoirs. “If an innocent man is killed, I am also responsible.”

Those of us going on the Gaza Freedom March (and anybody who wants to show solidarity) now has a responsibility to put pressure on the Egyptians. Here’s Robert Naiman, Policy Director of Just Foreign Policy:

On December 31, together with more than 1000 peace advocates from around the world, I plan to join with tens of thousands of Palestinians in a march in Gaza to the Erez border crossing to protest the Israeli blockade of Gaza, and to demand international action to relieve Gaza’s humanitarian crisis.

Unfortunately, it appears that the Egyptian government has announced that it will not allow the internationals to enter Gaza as planned. If would be a shame if that were the case.

This apparent decision though, could be reversed with sufficient public pressure in Egypt and around the world. Concerned individuals can write to the Egyptian Embassy in Washington and to the Foreign Ministry in Cairo. There is also contact information for the Egyptian consulates in Chicago, Houston, New York, and San Francisco here.

At a time of gross human rights abuses in Sri Lanka, rely on the British Labour party to ignore decency:

Ben Bradshaw, the Cabinet minister responsible for tourism, was facing criticism last night for flying to Sri Lanka for a Christmas holiday two days after the British Government raised “serious concerns” about human rights in the country.

This is what people like Bradshaw will not be seeing on his little trip:

Tamil women interned after escaping the horrors of the civil war in Sri Lanka were sexually abused by their guards who traded sex for food, a British medic has revealed.

Vany Kumar, who was locked up behind barbed wire in the Menik Farm refugee camp for four months, also claims prisoners were punished by being made to kneel for hours in the hot sun, and those suspected of links to the defeated Tamil Tigers were taken away and not seen again by their families.

Kumar, 25, from Essex, was released from internment in September, but has waited until now to reveal the full scale of her ordeal in the hope of avoiding reprisals against friends and family held with her. They have now been released after the Sri Lankan government bowed to international pressure this month and opened the camps.

Yitzhak Laor in Haaretz:

The time has come to acknowledge that the most important undertaking of the State of Israel, within narrow or expanded borders, has always been to maintain the supremacy of the Jews.

Meanwhile, Egypt is rightly accused of doing the bidding of its financial and political backers. A client state now building a wall on the Gaza/Egyptian border:

“It is a wall of shame being built by Egypt on the borders with Gaza,” wrote Ibrahim Issa, chief editor of daily newspaper Al Dustour. “It is like a total obedience to the American recommendations. We are opening our territories for a barrier that only serves and supports the Israeli and U.S. policies.”

Journalists simply doing their job are at risk. We stand in solidarity with anybody challenging the business or political elites:

The number of journalists killed around the world in 2009 rose to a record 68 after a massacre in the Philippines, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said on Thursday.

The press freedom group said the 2009 tally compared to 42 deaths in 2008 and surpassed the previous record of 67 deaths in 2007 — when violence was at its worst in Iraq, which had been the deadliest country for journalists for six years.

This year Iraq dropped to No. 3 on the list of deadliest countries with four journalist deaths, the lowest annual tally recorded since the U.S.-led invasion of the country in 2003.

The Philippines topped the list with 32 deaths — 31 of which happened during a massacre in the South of the country in November. Somalia, which western security agencies say has become a safe haven for militants, including foreign extremists, came in second with nine media deaths.

Committee to Protect Journalists highlights a disturbing trend:

Freelancers now make up nearly 45 percent of all journalists jailed worldwide, a dramatic recent increase that reflects the evolution of the global news business, the Committee to Protect Journalists said today. In its annual census of imprisoned journalists, CPJ found a total of 136 reporters, editors, and photojournalists behind bars on December 1, an increase of 11 from the 2008 tally. (Read detailed accounts of each imprisoned journalist.) A massive crackdown in Iran, where 23 journalists are now in jail, fueled the worldwide increase.

The horror in Iraq continues.

Last of Iraqis blog reports the carnage.

The abuse of human rights in Palestine (either under Hamas or the US-backed Palestinian Authority) shows no sign of improving:

The Committee to Protect Journalists urges the West Bank-based Palestinian Authorities to release a journalist detained since Monday and the Hamas-led government in Gaza to end harassment of journalists.

Mohamed Eshtewi, Al-Aqsa television bureau chief in the West Bank, was arrested on Monday near a supermarket in the city of Tulkarem following two days of intermittent police interrogation, his wife and brother told CPJ.

“Over the past years, he has been arrested nearly 40 times,” the journalist’s brother, Wessam Eshtewi, told CPJ. “Each time, we managed to visit him while he was under arrest and to prompt his release. But unfortunately this time, we are kept in the dark about his detention and are increasingly worried about his health, especially in light of his having heart problems.”

The recurring harassment is partisan retaliation for Eshtewi’s work at the Hamas-affiliated Al-Aqsa, said one local journalist who asked not to be identified for fear of reprisal.

Hamas, meanwhile, is continuing its longstanding practice of harassing journalists it perceives to be biased in favor of Fatah, according to news accounts. The Palestinian Center for Development and Media Freedoms (MADA) reported this week that Hamas security agents prevented photojournalists Samer Labad and Amer Labad from covering the anniversary of the Islamist movement Hamas in Gaza. The police took their identity cards and interrogated them, MADA said.

Former US President Jimmy Carter has long been a champion of the Palestinian people.

His latest piece tells the international community to stop talking and start rebuilding:

Of more immediate concern, those under siege in Gaza face another winter of intense personal suffering. I visited Gaza after the devastating January war and observed homeless people huddling in makeshift tents, under plastic sheets, or in caves dug into the debris of their former homes. Despite offers by Palestinian leaders and international agencies to guarantee no use of imported materials for even defensive military purposes, cement, lumber, and panes of glass are not being permitted to pass entry points into Gaza. The US and other nations have accepted this abhorrent situation without forceful corrective action.

I have discussed ways to assist the citizens of Gaza with a number of Arab and European leaders and their common response is that the Israeli blockade makes any assistance impossible. Donors point out that they have provided enormous aid funds to build schools, hospitals and factories, only to see them destroyed in a few hours by precision bombs and missiles. Without international guarantees, why risk similar losses in the future?

It is time to face the fact that, for the past 30 years, no one nation has been able or willing to break the impasse and induce the disputing parties to comply with international law. We cannot wait any longer. Israel has long argued that it cannot negotiate with terrorists, yet has had an entire year without terrorism and still could not negotiate. President Obama has promised active involvement of the US government, but no formal peace talks have begun and no comprehensive framework for peace has been proposed. Individually and collectively, the world powers must act.