Antony Loewenstein

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald on radical Zionists asking Americans to feel sorry for poor Israel up against “anti-Semitic” Barack Obama:

Given the endless largesse that country continues to receive, the fact that American devotees of Israel nonetheless try to depict Israel as some sort of grave victim of the Obama administration — and now even try to claim that Obama harbors hatred for Israel and Jews — reveals how endless is their sense of entitlement for that foreign country, how vast is their craving for self-victimization, how shameless is their cheap exploitation of anti-semitism accusations, and how complete is their break from reality.

Hehe:

A story that should shock us all and yet has received virtually no coverage across the world. If this kind of thing happens in Iran, it’s the sign of a brutal dictatorship. But in Israel?

Israel has held a journalist under secret house arrest since last December based on allegations that during her military service she leaked classified documents suggesting the IDF violated laws dealing with targeted killings.

Anat Kam, 23, was arrested last December and charged under Israel’s espionage and treason laws, JTA has learned.

Prosecutors are seeking a 14-year sentence, which is considered severe by Israeli standards. Mordechai Vanunu, who revealed the existence of Israel’s nuclear weapons capability, was sentenced to 18 years, eventually serving the full amount.

At the time of her arrest, Kam was working as a reporter for the Israeli internet site Walla, which was partially owned by Haaretz until last week. But the charges relate to Kam’s service in the Israeli army, when she is alleged to have photocopied sensitive documents. Bloggers have speculated that the documents she allegedly photocopied served as the basis for a November 2008 Haaretz story suggesting alleged army violations.

Kam has denied the charges.

Kam’s arrest has been under a gag order in Israel, which Haaretz says it is appealing.

With the gag order in place, it is impossible to know exactly what the prosecution’s reasoning is for a 14-year sentence. Israel sustains vibrant freedoms of speech and press, but there is a strong taboo in the country against relaying information garnered while in service. The fact that Kam allegedly photocopied the documents while in uniform may weigh against her.

Dof Alfon, the editor in chief of Haaretz, said the linkage between Kam’s arrest and the 2008 article, made in a number of blogs, is “absurd.” He implied that the investigative reporter, Uri Blau, had obtained the information without assistance from Kam.

“Haaretz asked the court to lift the gag order, not just in the public interest but also to allow us to defend ourselves from this absurd allegation,” Alfon said. “More than a year passed between the publication and her arrest, a year in which Uri Blau published several other front-page articles criticizing the army’s conduct.”

Eitan Lehman, one of Kam’s lawyers, refused to comment or confirm any details. The IDF declined to comment.

JTA confirmed details of the case with sources close to the matter.

The Nov. 26, 2008 story in Haaretz  revealed the existence of documents defying a 2006 Supreme Court ruling against assassinating wanted militants who otherwise might be arrested safely.

In one March 28, 2007 document reprinted by Haaretz, Gen. Yair Naveh, then the central commander, permitted open-fire procedures upon identification of any of three leaders of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, even if it was not apparent that they posed a threat.

Lt. Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi, the chief of staff then and now, approved the targets on March 29, 2007, according to minutes of a meeting reproduced by Haaretz, and said furthermore that troops were to withhold fire only if they were unable to identify “more than one” passenger in the targeted vehicle.

Both orders violated the law, according to experts cited by Haaretz.

One of the three wanted men, Ziad Malisha, was killed near Jenin on June 20, 2007 in what the IDF at the time said was an “exchange of fire.”

Naveh told Haaretz that there were times when troops under his command did not observe arrest procedures if the suspect was a “ticking bomb” and did not immediately surrender. It also quoted the army as saying that arrest was not possible in the Malisha case.

Kam, 23, reportedly served in Naveh’s office at the time of the memos.

The military censor, which prevents publication of information that could harm Israel’s national security, approved the Haaretz story for publication.

By contrast, Israeli courts have gagged not only the details of Kam’s arrest, but news of the arrest itself. The appeal against the gag order, which has been joined by other media outlets, will be heard April 12 in Tel Aviv District Court.

In the past, Israeli authorities have issued such orders in sensitive national security cases. Gag orders still apply, for example, to aspects of the Vanunu case.

But it’s not clear why a gag order was imposed in this case, Kam’s supporters say, especially since the military censor approved publication of the original Haaretz story. There is speculation that this time the prosecution is using the gag order to prevent public outrage, which could result in sympathy for Kam and a reduced sentence.

The investigation into Kam was a joint effort of military intelligence, the police, and the Shin Bet internal security service.

Kam’s editor, Yitzhak Tessler, wrote an oblique column in Maariv on Jan. 24 describing an imaginary “Shu-Shuland” where a young female journalist is held under house arrest and none of her colleagues come to her defense. “A good thing Israel doesn’t resemble Shu-Shuland,” he wrote.

A Facebook group called “Where did Anat Kam disappear to?” was launched and shut down within days.

In the United States, blogger Richard Silverstein has covered the matter. Other Israeli bloggers have posted and then removed accounts of the case.

As a media entity based in New York and reporting from Washington, JTA is not subject to the Israeli gag order.

That the American political and military elites may think Israeli behaviour is causing troubles for the Empire in the Middle East is clearly a mad idea, considered by anti-Semites or mad people:

Commander of the U.S. Military’s Central Command Gen. David Petraeus phoned his Israeli counterpart, Gabi Ashkenazi, this week to deny reports that he had blamed Israeli policy for the failure in a regional solution and for endangering U.S. interests.

Earlier this month, Petraeus warned the Pentagon that “America’s relationship with Israel is important, but not as important as the lives of America’s soldiers,” in a posting on the Foreign Policy Web site.

In a 56-page report, the Central Command had written: “The enduring hostilities between Israel and some of its neighbors present distinct challenges to our ability to advance our interests,” the CENTCOM report read.

Petraeus told reporters on Thursday that the report – which he claimed had been taken out of context – had been drafted because: “We noted in there that there was a perception at times that America sides with Israel and so forth. And I mean, that is a perception. It is there. I don’t think that’s disputable.”

“But I think people inferred from what that said and then repeated it a couple of times and bloggers picked it up and spun it,” he added. “And I think that has been unhelpful, frankly.”

From the Only Democracy in the Middle East:

In the West Bank, there is a two-tiered system of justice, including for minors.  For settler children, justice is administered according to Israeli domestic law, with all the due process protections that affords.  They  cannot be  charged as adults until they reach 18, in accordance with the U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, to which Israel is a signatory.  For Palestinian children, military law applies, and that  pretty much means due process, and the  tenderness of their years,  is irrelevant.   Their childhood itself is cut short, both by the circumstances of the Occupation and the letter of military law.  Until recently, they could be charged as adults as young as 12 years of age.  A recent military order “reformed” that anomaly by setting their age of majority at 16 –still two years earlier than their settler counterparts, and two years younger than required by the Convention on the Rights of the Child.  But the reality is that children as young as 12 continue to be arrested and imprisoned in adult military jails.  In the majority of cases the soldiers who arrest them say that the children were throwing stones, which carries a maximum sentence of 20 years.

Defence of Children International-Palestine reports that arrests of children have been increasing .  Presently approximately  350 West Bank children under 17 are being held in Israeli prisons.   Defence of Children provides testimonies of the children, detailing the brutal circumstances of their detention and interrogation, and their confinement with adult prisoners.  Urgent appeals on behalf of the children are issued by Defence of Children, including in the case of masse arrests (17 children taken in a night raid from Al Jalazun Refugee Camp near Ramallah), and the  transfer of children to prisons within Israel, where family members cannot visit because of restrictions on movement of people under Israel’s military Occupation.

Rumblings in Gaza and a major Israeli loss:

Two Israeli soldiers have been killed during clashes with Hamas fighters on the Gaza Strip’s southern border, the Israeli army has said.

Two other soldiers were wounded during the fighting which broke out east of the town of Khan Younis.

Two Palestinian militants were also killed in the clashes inside the Gaza Strip, sources say.

During the clashes, a BBC correspondent says it appears there may have been an opportunistic bid to seize a soldier.

According to Palestinian sources, Israeli forces used tank shells and heavy machine guns, our correspondent adds.

…

Speaking to Reuters news agency, Hamas spokesman Abu Obeida is quoted as saying: “This was our work, but was carried out for defence.”

…

Army spokeswoman Avital Leibovich described the killings of Israel soldiers as both “tragic” and “painful”.

“I think it’s true to say that this is one of the fiercest days we have had since operation Cast Lead happened,” she said, referring to Israel’s 22-day offensive.

Christopher Hitchens, post 9/11, has become a cheer-leader for one American-led war after another.

But here, when talking about the Catholic Church and its complicity in child rape and torture, he is spot-on:

Next time you read in the corporate press about the desperate situation for Afghan women (caused by the Taliban, of course, never the foreign occupation), remember this:

‘Out-of-the-box’ CIA think tank proposes concerns over women’s rights, fear of terrorism as ways to boost support for Afghan war

Evidently spooked by the collapse of the Dutch government over the country’s involvement in Afghanistan, the CIA has put together a strategy proposal to prevent what it fears could be a “precipitous” collapse of support for the war in Afghanistan among European allies.

A document marked “confidential / not for foreign eyes,” posted to the Wikileaks Web site, suggests strategies to manipulate European public opinion on the war, particularly in France and Germany.

The document doesn’t propose any direct methods by which the CIA could achieve this — there are no references to planting propaganda in the press, for example — but it does lay out what it sees as the key talking points to changing hearts and minds on the war. Among its proposals, the policy paper suggests playing up the plight of Afghan women to French audiences, as the French public has shown concern for women’s rights in Afghanistan.

For the German audience, the document suggests a measure of fear-mongering about the possible fallout of NATO failure in Afghanistan. “Germany’s exposure to terrorism, opium, and refugees might help to make the war more salient to skeptics,” the document asserts.

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is now a an online-only newspaper, surviving and seemingly thriving in a new age. But its ability to report deeply on various issues has been reduced due to a lack of senior staff. Non-professional journalists have been asked to provide stories.

Meanwhile, Rupert Murdoch is about to enter a brave a new world, charging people for wonderful content that details the wonders of Western liberation campaigns in Iraq and Afghanistan:

“Adios. Give me a call when you’re free again,” posted Jeannine Steward on Times Online yesterday, shortly after Rupert Murdoch’s News International announced that from June it would be charging £2 a week for access to the websites of The Times and The Sunday Times.

The introduction of this internet paywall, first announced by Mr Murdoch last August as he suffered the humiliation of posting a huge annual loss for his global media empire, is a step into the unknown for the most famous newspaper mogul of them all.

Since then, his henchmen have been working overtime in an effort to solve a conundrum that has been vexing traditional media companies for several years: how do you challenge the apparently ingrained concept that online news comes for free?

Yesterday morning Rebekah Brooks, the News International chief executive, released a statement saying that from 1 June it would charge £1 a day, or £2 for a week’s subscription to both The Times’s website and a Sunday Times site that has yet to launch. “This is just the start,” she promised. “These new sites, and the apps that will enhance the experience, reflect the identity of our titles and deliver a terrific experience for readers.”

Predictably, most of those users who have become accustomed to accessing Times Online for nothing were unimpressed. “Boo,” posted Katey Daley. “I won’t pay cause I simply can’t be bothered getting out my credit card and typing in all the details.”

Others could understand News International’s position, a predicament that became more stark with the release of figures last week showing that losses at News International increased to £87.7m in the year to June, from £50.2m in the previous 12 months. “Where else in the internet would you be able to read brilliant articles by A A Gill, Michael Winner, Jeremy Clarkson, Sarah Vine, Matthew Parris, William Rees-Mogg, Dominic Lawson?” posted Peter Hurst, showing an apparent willingness to cough up for his favourites.

Times Online has a unique monthly audience slightly in excess of 20 million. But during a Q&A with readers yesterday, James Harding, editor of The Times, described such users as mere “window shoppers”. He said: “Clearly, we are going to lose a lot of passing traffic. We have, like a few other national newspapers, tens of millions of unique users a month. But they are not regular readers. They are more like window shoppers.”

News International’s move, being watched closely by other newspaper businesses, represents a challenge to the culture of the internet. Michael Wolff, biographer of Mr Murdoch and founder of the news aggregation site Newser.com, said the media mogul’s gamble – which offers free online access to subscribers to the two newspapers – was designed to preserve sales of the print products.

“He does not care about the online business. It’s like the old days when we gave away toasters with subscriptions,” he said. “They are saying ‘Buy my newspaper and you can have online for free. If you don’t, I’m going to make the cost of online reading really quite onerous’. Rupert wants be the guy that saved newspapers. He hates the internet.”

One of the few Australian academics to actually publicly challenge Australia’s deep relationship with Israel and America is Scott Burchill. Here’s his latest missive:

This mysterious story appeared on AM (ABC Radio) on Friday.

Just dropped out of the blue. Nothing newsworthy about it. In fact the story is mostly nonsense – including accusations that Iran has chemical weapons. Says who? Even the Israeli government doesn’t make such a claim. Almost identical stories have been broadcast before. I suspect the explanation is that the local Israeli lobby is turning up the heat on the ABC again, after critical stories on Mossad’s identity theft fiasco and bad blood between Netanyahu and Obama. It’s a sympathy trip. No reason for its appearance, other than to portray Israeli citizens as helpless victims of the Islamic terrorist scourge.

When you have an empty stomach, this will amuse. It’s the usual apologetics from [Murdoch "journalist" Greg] Sheridan (earning the prize awarded to him by the local Israeli lobby a few years back). Interesting only as an example of when the radical right here considers it is legitimate to be “anti-American”: when a Democrat in the White House gently chides the leader of the holy state.

A fascinating debate on Press TV about Iran’s role in the world and its image in the West.

Although many of the Iranian speakers claim that their country is a “democracy”, the official American position is equally absurd and shows the almost desperate need of both sides to talk past each other. Neither society is perfect but few in Iran are encouraging a bombing campaign against the American mainland.

Oops, how on earth did this happen?

Teachers at a large Holon high school said yesterday they were appalled by what they described as the racist insinuations of a video clip they received by e-mail from the school principal that showed an Arab toddler being thrown into a swimming pool and nearly drowning.

“A principal is supposed to be an educator,” said a teacher at Kiryat Sharet High School who received the e-mail a few days ago from principal Irit Aharonson. “It’s inconceivable she should be spreading such racist, inciting material without any monitoring.”

Aharonson said she sent the video “in a distracted state” and called the decision a “regrettable mistake,” saying: “The context of the clip wasn’t anti-Arab. This doesn’t match my moderate opinions.”