Antony Loewenstein

What’s the latest in Iraq?

Dahr Jamail reports.

Mondoweiss discusses the role of the Left in acknowledging and managing the catastrophe of modern Zionism and its brutal treatment of the Palestinians.

Noam Chomsky is on one side – reluctant to fully embrace boycott, divestment and sanctions – and the other is Ali Abunimah, arguing that Israel will only change when it feels the full force of international isolation.

I used to be on Chomsky’s persuasion, but these days believe that serious global pressure is the only way. It worked for South Africa and although the analogy is not exact, it’s appropriate to remember that whites only dismissed their racist ideology when the world said, “you can continue on your current path, but we will hate you and make you feel like pariahs”.

“Any association with the (Yemeni) regime will only confirm al Qaida’s narrative, which is that America is only interested in maintaining corrupt and despotic rulers and is not interested in the fate of Arabs and Muslims,” warned Bernard Haykel, a Princeton University professor.

Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, a Gaza infertility specialist, lost three daughters during Israel’s massacres in late 2008/early 2009.

Now living in Toronto, he returned recently to Gaza for the first time since July 2009.

The call for Zionist accountability is growing:

Israeli officials who authorized the use of white phosphorous in densely populated Gaza should be tried for war crimes, a British Labour Party legislator said Friday, after entering the Hamas-ruled territory with 60 European parliamentarians.

…

“The lawmakers are visiting Gaza to draw attention to the territory’s evil blockade by Israel and Egypt,” said the Labour legislator, Gerald Kaufman.

Kaufman also spoke in support of attempts by pro-Palestinian groups in Britain to get Israeli politicians and army officers arrested once they step on British soil. Britain has a universal jurisdiction law that allows prosecution of alleged war criminals whose crimes have no direct connection with Britain.

“We have had a fuss in our country about the inability of certain Israeli politicians to visit Britain for fear of being arrested,” said Kaufman, frequently an outspoken critic of Israeli policies. “Anybody who uses white phosphorus should be arrested and should be tried for war crimes.”

“But when we read of an Israeli politician being afraid of being arrested in Britain, we remember that 1.5 million people in Gaza are under arrest every day of their lives by the Israelis, suffering depravation, hunger, lack of satisfactory medical treatment, lack of screws to put school desks together so your children can learn,” Kaufman added.

During the recent Gaza Freedom March, I became good friends with Nitin Sawhney, a research affiliate at MIT.

He’s currently in Gaza and writing a fascinating blog about his experiences. There’s much to digest but here’s something from the latest post:

The devastating events of the recent earthquake in Haiti linger in my mind as I write this note today. My hopes and prayers are with the people of Haiti and all who are trying to assist with emergency relief work there… it feels odd being in the serenity of Gaza amidst all this.

Walking back home at midnight after a spicy falafel and creamy gelato from my favorite street vendors, I feel a strange sense of familiarity in the dim-lit streets of Gaza City. I’ve come to feel more comfortable walking alone at night exploring the neighborhoods and getting to know the city better, even though I lose my way home regularly, getting back on track only moments later (through the familiar sights and sounds); oddly it feels far safer than most North American cities I’ve lived in, perhaps due to the constant security presence and the warmth of everyday people here.

Even with my video camera in hand, I simply smile at onlookers making eye contact gracefully, and introduce myself during the shoot to make them comfortable around me. I try to disarm any suspicions with my hilarious command of broken Arabic and their imagined curiosity of my bollywood roots. Shopkeepers, cooks, waiters, and men smoking sheesha while watching Real Madrid vs. Barcelona playing football on TV, often invite me into their street side cafes urging me to come back and visit the next day… so is the spirit and hospitality of this place.

…

Mond and I visited Mustafa, the 9-year old in Bait Hanoun again to the delight of his grandmother and friends. We spoke to his father about his eye surgery and tried to arrange a meeting with his local doctor to gain more details on his possible treatment abroad. I remembered to bring my small digital video camera and proceeded to show Mustafa how to use it. We were immediately surrounded by all the kids and elders in his neighborhood; its not easy teaching with everyone else giving their own instructions on where to shoot. Mustafa gradually warmed upto the challenge and started mastering the complex controls on this little device, learning to frame his shots, zoom and capture photos and videos of children playing marbles along the roadside. I showed a few other kids how to use the camera, but asked Mustafa to be their trainer from here onwards. He took on that responsibility easily despite his shyness.

The next day I took Mustafa along with me to one of my meetings at the Al-Qattan Center for the Child in Gaza City. He was quite shy to come alone with me without his father, so we let him accompany us on this trip. I met with some of the directors of the center and arranged to have a workshop there the following day. They took us around on a tour of the gleaming new center, completed in late 2005 after many years of delays due to the blockade. The center provides a rich library, educational programs, and outreach services to kids and parents in Gaza. It’s a rare place for children to come in Gaza, a miracle that it even exists. As Mustafa and I walked along modern multi-colored spaces in the naturally-lit center full of curious kids engaged in play, Mustafa took my lead in capturing video as our guide showed us around. Mustafa would often get distracted with children watching cartoons or making paper montages, while I continued to interview staff at the center. In the end, I was trying to get Mustafa to learn video techniques simply by working along with me, choosing bright locations and angles and keeping up a good pace of recording crucial moments. I think Mustafa would make for a good co-producer and budding cameraman as he gets better after his surgery.

Israel and Iran are mortal enemies destined to destroy the other.

Or so the corporate media tells us every day.

So how about this story, via Shraga Elam?

The Israeli company Daronet Internet Solutions has sold 70 systems worth around US$ 1 million to the chamber of commerce of the district of Teheran. This reported the Voice of Israel on its mid-day journal (January 14^th. ).

Daronet CEO Yacov Harpaz told Israeli state radio that his company got the order through a representative of the Iranian customer in the Netherlands. The identity of the client became clear, according to Harpaz, after Daronet was asked to convert the content and the systems to Farsi.

This new report is comes in the wake of many other reports, including official Israeli statements, indicating that beyond the fiery verbal dual between Israel and Iran and alleged sanctions and bans there is a very lively commerce between the two countries.

Not so long ago the import of pistachios from Iran was even discussed in the parliament, this under the pressure of US pistachio producers who are interested in the very large Israeli market. According to recent consumers reports there is now a shortage of those nuts in Israel.

According to reliable Israeli reports this country imports crude oil from Iran through the Dutch market, and Israeli trade ministry documents prove that the exports of chemicals to Iran was authorized at least until 1997. While a former employee of the exporting firm, Carmel Chemicals, claims that there was direct trade at least until 2001, when he left the company.

While the American media patronises the people of Haiti and refuses to provide any context for the country’s poverty, Patrick Cockburn offers some perspective:

The US-run aid effort for Haiti is beginning to look chillingly similar to the criminally slow and disorganized US government support for New Orleans after it was devastated by hurricane Katrina in 2005. Four years ago President Bush was famously mute and detached when the levies broke in Louisiana. By way of contrast President Obama was promising Haitians that everything would be done for survivors within hours of the calamity.

The rhetoric from Washington has been very different during these two disasters, but the outcome may be much the same. In both cases very little aid arrived at the time it was most needed and, in the case of Port-au-Prince, when people trapped under collapsed buildings were still alive. When foreign rescue teams with heavy lifting gear does come it will be too late. No wonder enraged Haitians are building roadblocks out of rocks and dead bodies.

In New Orleans and Port-au-Prince there is the same official terror of looting by local people so the first outside help to arrive is in the shape of armed troops. The US currently has 3,500 soldiers, 2,200 Marines and 300 medical personnel on their way to Haiti.

Of course there will be looting because, with shops closed or flattened by the quake, this is the only way for people can get food and water. Haiti is one of the poorest countries in the world. I was in Port-au-Prince in 1994, the last time US troops landed there, when local people systematically tore apart police stations, taking wood, pipes and even ripping nails out of the walls. In the police station I was in there were sudden cries of alarm from those looting the top floor as they discovered that they could not get back down to the ground because the entire wooden staircase had been chopped up and stolen.

I have always liked Haitians for their courage, endurance, dignity and originality. They often manage to avoid despair in the face of the most crushing disasters or the absence of any prospect that their lives will get better. Their culture, notably their painting and music, is among the most interesting and vibrant in the world.

It is sad to hear journalists who have rushed to Haiti in the wake of the earthquake give such misleading and even racist explanations of why Haitians are so impoverished, living in shanty towns with a minimal health service, little electricity supply, insufficient clean water and roads that are like river beds.

This did not happen by accident.

The Sarah Palin/Fox News combination.

Be afraid.

The American mainstream is starting to awaken to Israeli madness. Andrew Sullivan, one of the country’s biggest bloggers, has been increasingly vocal in questioning the role of the Jewish state. Who else in the MSM is really doing so?

The Netanyahu government has all but declared war on the Obama administration and then openly disses a vital ally, Turkey. The slow cultural shifts in Israel – toward ever more arrogance, more fundamentalism, more Russian immigrant racism, contempt for the Muslim world, military adventurism, and the daily grinding of the Palestinians on the West Bank and pulverization and inhumane blockade of the people of Gaza … well maybe some others can explain it.

All I can say is: it saddens me, as a longtime lover of the Jewish state. It does not represent the historic mainstream of liberal Jewish society, it is a betrayal of many Jewish virtues that goyim like me deeply admire, and it seems designed for war as some kind of eternal and uplifting state of mind. I hope Israel shifts soon. For Israel’s sake.

Abu Murrad, a nomme de guerre, senior commander in Rafah of the Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas:

It’s not a big problem. There are already holes in the wall, and the Egyptians know this. We’ll go through it or under it. Already there are tunnels deeper than the wall.

This is what we do. When the Israelis were here we smuggled, either for profit or resistance. Whether the border is under Egyptian or Israeli control, smuggling never stopped, never will. The only way to stop the smuggling is to open the borders.

…

Without the tunnels, Gaza would starve.

Naomi Klein speaks in New York a few days ago and gives a necessary perspective on the crisis in Haiti:

But as I write about in The Shock Doctrine, crises are often used now as the pretext for pushing through policies that you cannot push through under times of stability. Countries in periods of extreme crisis are desperate for any kind of aid, any kind of money, and are not in a position to negotiate fairly the terms of that exchange.

And I just want to pause for a second and read you something, which is pretty extraordinary. I just put this up on my website. The headline is “Haiti: Stop Them Before They Shock Again.” This went up a few hours ago, three hours ago, I believe, on the Heritage Foundation website.

“Amidst the Suffering, Crisis in Haiti Offers Opportunities to the U.S. In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the U.S. response to the tragic earthquake in Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the image of the United States in the region.” And then goes on.

Now, I don’t know whether things are improving or not, because it took the Heritage Foundation thirteen days before they issued thirty-two free market solutions for Hurricane Katrina. We put that document up on our website, as well. It was close down the housing projects, turn the Gulf Coast into a tax-free free enterprise zone, get rid of the labor laws that forces contractors to pay a living wage. Yeah, so it took them thirteen days before they did that in the case of Katrina. In the case of Haiti, they didn’t even wait twenty-four hours.

Now, why I say I don’t know whether it’s improving or not is that two hours ago they took this down. So somebody told them that it wasn’t couth. And then they put up something that was much more delicate. Fortunately, the investigative reporters at Democracy Now! managed to find that earlier document in a Google cache. But what you’ll find now is a much gentler “Things to Remember While Helping Haiti.” And buried down there, it says, “Long-term reforms for Haitian democracy and its economy are also badly overdue.”

But the point is, we need to make sure that the aid that goes to Haiti is, one, grants, not loans. This is absolutely crucial. This is an already heavily indebted country. This is a disaster that, as Amy said, on the one hand is nature, is, you know, an earthquake; on the other hand is the creation, is worsened by the poverty that our governments have been so complicit in deepening. Crises—natural disasters are so much worse in countries like Haiti, because you have soil erosion because the poverty means people are building in very, very precarious ways, so houses just slide down because they are built in places where they shouldn’t be built. All of this is interconnected. But we have to be absolutely clear that this tragedy, which is part natural, part unnatural, must, under no circumstances, be used to, one, further indebt Haiti, and, two, to push through unpopular corporatist policies in the interests of our corporations. And this is not a conspiracy theory. They have done it again and again.