Antony Loewenstein

Tell me this is a piece of satire in the Jerusalem Post but I fear it is not:

After the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup for the first time in 49 years in riveting fashion on Wednesday, and with the Lakers-Celtics series wrapping up soon in the NBA Finals, soccer’s World Cup tournament that begins Friday in South Africa will be the focus of the sporting world for the next month.

Israelis are known as rabid soccer fans, even though the country’s national team has only made the tournament once – in 1970 – and even then scored only one goal.

Headlines here that have been dominated recently by sanctions on Iran and the Gaza flotilla are now expected to be devoted to conflicts on the playing field.

But as Israelis, when times are as tough for the Jewish state internationally as they are now, which of the 32 teams that made the tournament can you support?

First of all, in this semi-satirical overview, the good news: The Turks, whose Islamic fundamentalist wannabe martyrs tried to kill Israeli soldiers aboard the Mavi Marmara last Monday, did not make the tournament. The sanctimonious Swedes and Norwegians thankfully won’t be there, either.

Since it’s easier to decide who to root against than whom to cheer, let’s start with the teams that no self-respecting Israeli can support.

Brazil, in cooperation with the Turks, initiated a proposal that could have facilitated the nuclearization of Iran, voted with the Turks against Wednesday’s UN sanctions, and recently treated visiting Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad like a king.

Five Israelis were attacked in Madrid on Monday, and Israeli gays were told to stay away from the city’s gay pride parade. So, no support for Spain.

South Korea downgraded this week’s visit to the country by President Shimon Peres, and the protests against him were particularly nasty – so it’s out, too.

Israelis won’t be cheering for North Korea, which built a Syrian nuclear facility, or Algeria, for obvious reasons. Germany remains Iran’s largest-trading partner, and a massive 20-billion-euro Swiss gas deal with Iran should prevent Israelis from backing Switzerland, which hosts the notoriously anti-Israel UN Human Rights Council.

There are many reasons not to root for England; from its attempt to prosecute opposition leader Tzipi Livni, its deputy prime minister’s support for banning weapons sales to Israel, it being the home of Israel boycotter Elvis Costello, and its recent expulsion of a Mossad official due to his alleged role in facilitating the use of British passports to kill a mega-terrorist.

Australia also expelled a Mossad official for the same reason. Nearby New Zealand suspended high-level relations with Israel after the Mossad allegedly misused its passports in 2004, and last month outlawed kosher ritual slaughtering of animals.

Honduras has a large Palestinian population. Paraguay sheltered many Nazis, including Joseph Mengele, after the Holocaust. The Ivory Coast is 60% Muslim.

France, Japan, Portugal and Greece are known for outbreaks of anti-Semitism, and – a genuine soccer-related grievance – the Greek team finished ahead of Israel’s in their qualifying group, ending Israel’s World Cup hopes. Some Israelis will never forgive the Uruguayan team for defeating Israel’s World Cup team 40 years ago.

In the aftermath of the flotilla raid, South Africa recalled its ambassador to Israel for consultations, so any Israeli who considered backing the home team of Human Rights Council Gaza report author Richard Goldstone will hold back.

Besides South Africa, World Cup countries that voted for the council’s decision to authorize a probe of the raid included Argentina (whose coach Diego Maradona has made anti-Israel statements), Brazil, Chile, Ghana, Mexico, Nigeria, Slovenia and Uruguay, so Israelis cannot support their teams, either.

But the real test of friendship with Israel was the Human Rights Council’s vote to endorse the Goldstone commission report. Six of those same countries voted against Israel, with Mexico, Slovenia and Uruguay abstaining, along with World Cup teams Cameroon, Japan and South Korea. France and the UK declined to vote. Slovakia voted against the Goldstone report, but abstained on the flotilla vote.

The only World Cup countries that voted in Israel’s favor on both key issues were the United States, Italy and the Netherlands.

The Dutch government elected this week is expected to be more pro-Israel than its predecessor, just like the Italian government is.

But Italian president Silvio Berlusconi compared Gazans to Holocaust victims on a recent trip to Ramallah.

So that leaves the United States and the Netherlands, and Denmark and Serbia, which are not on the council and protected their Jews during the Holocaust, as possible countries to support. Given Serbia’s dubious human rights record and ties to Iran, that leaves just three.

Still, Israel Radio analyst Hanan Crystal, who is an expert on both Israeli politics and soccer, said the days of Israelis deciding what team to support based on the geopolitical situation are long gone. He said Israelis once backed France when it was the Jewish state’s main benefactor, and rooted for Western European teams against Eastern European team during the Cold War, but it doesn’t work that way anymore.

“Israelis root for a variety of teams for many reasons, and politics is no longer one of them,” Crystal said. “I think that means we have matured.”

The era of arrogance and intolerance in the West is growing. A desire to ignore the world’s problems and punish those simply wanting a better life:

Only two years after its last revision, the Swiss Asylum Act is about to be ‘reformed’ again. The changes include a gag order on political activism for asylum-seekers and a modification of the concept of a refugee.

Ever since Switzerland adopted the Asylum Act in 1981, it has constantly been tightened, largely at the expense of the refugees, as in most European countries.

In 2007 and 2008, Switzerland implemented a harshly criticised reform of the Asylum Act. Soon after, in spring 2008, Justice Minister Eveline Widmer- Schlumpf announced new measures to “reduce the attractiveness of Switzerland as a target country for asylum-seekers.”

The latest reform proposals have now passed the consultation procedures and have been submitted to parliament for approval.

Most Israelis have no idea about life in the West Bank; the casual brutality and the grinding occupation.

The point is that most don’t want to know.

Do they care about this?

On Monday, June 21, I am to appear before the Knesset Education Committee and the Minister of Education, Mr. Gideon Saar, following my unequivocal words to my students, condemning the 43 year-old occupation and rule over the life of the Palestinian people.

A school principal should have a clear and unequivocal moral position about any subject and issue on the agenda of Israeli society. A principal is not an educational clerk. A principal must have, for example, something to say about the deportation of the children of migrant workers, trafficking in women, the separation fence, the withdrawal from Gaza, minimum wage law, settlers attacking Palestinian villagers to exact a `price tag`, the removal of Arabs from their homes in Sheikh Jarrah, the siege on Gaza, corruption in government, or the relations of religion and state.

It is the duty of a school principal to take a stand and to defend it if necessary. A principal can not rest content with nodding and mumbling when students ask questions about the conflicts in Israeli society. The one who gives evasive answers is a hollow person, not worthy of being called an educator. Being an educator means to uphold a set of universal and national values which deserve to be part of the state`s symbols.

Being at the storm center of controversy, I was recently obliged to introduce for discussion at our school a spectrum of opinion for and against our presence in the Occupied Territories, and I must admit that this was very difficult for me. When I believe that our country does not respect International Law and its own laws, nor does it have proper regard for human rights – I frankly find it hard to admit into the school representatives of views which support the status quo. Since the expulsion from Paradise it is our duty to distinguish right from wrong. It is my duty to point out the wrong, and to strongly condemn it.

Or this?

Israeli troops have been accused of stealing from activists arrested in the assault on the Gaza flotilla after confiscated debit cards belonging to activists were subsequently used.

In their raid of 31 May, the Israeli army stormed the boats on the flotilla and, as well as money and goods destined for the Palestinian relief effort in Gaza, the bulk of which have yet to be returned, took away most of the personal possessions of the activists when taking them into custody.

Individual soldiers appear to have used confiscated debit cards to buy items such as iPod accessories, while mobile phones seized from activists have also been used for calls.

Ebrahim Musaji, 23, of Gloucester, has a bank statement showing his debit card was used in an Israeli vending machine for a purchase costing him 82p on 9 June.

It was then used on a Dutch website, www.thisipod.com, twice on 10 June: once for amounts equivalent to £42.42 and then for £37.83. And a Californian activist, Kathy Sheetz, has alleged that she has been charged more than $1,000 in transactions from vending machines in Israel since 6 June.

This what America’s leading Zionist lobby, AIPAC, sends to the media; a racist video depicting all Arabs as terrorists.

Yes, AIPAC represents Jews (and again, this is a Latma production, courtesy of the Jerusalem Post’s Caroline Glick, the genius behind “We Con The World”):

German Development Aid Minister Dirk Niebel on being refused entry to Gaza to inspect a German-sponsored sewage plant:

Sometimes the Israeli government does not make it easy for its friends to explain why it behaves the way it does.

Israel’s culture of victimhood – the whole world hates us and we’ll do everything to convince them that we’re arrogant – continues with this revealing encounter at the UN recently.

Israel’s PR strategy is so shambolic and useless, one wonders if it’s been designed by a bar-mitzvah student on crack:

The Israeli government butted heads Thursday with the U.N. Correspondent’s Association, protesting the group’s decision to organize a press viewing of a film shot by a passenger on the aid ship Mavi Marmara as it was raided by Israeli commandos. Israel claimed it was prohibited from showing its own film version of events and making a statement at the press conference.

But the U.N. press club’s president, Giampaolo Pioli, shot back hours later with a letter saying that Israel’s spokeswoman, Mirit Cohen, turned down an offer to show Israel’s film, presumably because she did not want to answer questions from the press attending the event.  “Allow us to remind you that it was you who turned down our offer to present your Israeli film,” Pioli wrote. The press club also released an email exchange between Pioli and Cohen as corroborating evidence.

Commenting on a new Pew study that outlines growing Arab anger towards Barack Obama, Andrew Sullivan signals a win for the Zionist lobby and Israel’s right-wing; singing all the way over the cliff:

The Arab world, for reasons both ugly and realistic, was waiting to see if Obama could actually wrest free of the pro-Israel lobby and put real pressure in Israel. And they saw that, while a great deal has indeed shifted in the domestic contours of this debate, AIPAC’s control of the Congress and US foreign policy remains impressive. When Netanyahu stared down Obama last year and Obama retreated, the impact of the Cairo speech was neutralized. And that, remember was Netanyahu’s and Cheney’s strategy all along: to destroy the Obama moment’s potential to shift the US back to a more balanced position in the Middle East.

This struggle isn’t over, of course. And those who score cheap early victories over Obama tend to discover the power of a long game. But one reason the Muslim world has lost confidence in Obama is because they have every reason to. On the core issues – especially the acceleration of the colonization of the West Bank – nothing has changed. Which is what AIPAC wants, and why AIPAC is, in my view, working against the broader security interests of Israel’s most important ally.

Danny Ayalon, deputy foreign minister to Israel’s Avigdor Lieberman and resident clown, has a vision for the Middle East. Gather around, children, it’s compelling and breathlessly reported by the Murdoch press:

In an interview with The Weekend Australian, Ayalon accused Saudi Arabia of funding a campaign to delegitimise Israel and drew on the former Soviet Union and Yugoslavia as models to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

His views are important as it will not be the Left in Israel – or what is left of it – that determines any peace agreement.

In Israel, it has often been those on the Right who have delivered deals as the public has become suspicious that the Left gives up land and leaves the country less secure. It took Ariel Sharon to convince Israelis to withdraw from Gaza and many say only a leader of the Right could evacuate settlements in the West Bank.

Israel’s boundaries are ill-defined. Its eastern border, which joins the disputed West Bank, is not a formal border but an armistice line. “So I think it makes sense that if we do a whole new architecture in the Middle East, creating indeed a new state which never existed, a Palestinian state, it would be right to redraw the borders,” Ayalon says.

“And when you redraw the borders, of course, you have to take into account the geography and also the demography. We don’t want to create Balkanisation here. Indeed, we do want to have stable nation-states – an Israeli nation-state, which is mostly Jewish, and a Palestinian nation-state, which is mostly Arab.”

Ayalon says 80 per cent of Jewish settlers are on 8 per cent of the West Bank.

“So the solution is very obvious,” he says. “We incorporate this 8 per cent and we give them some swap. I think it would make sense that the 8 per cent – let’s say that they get in return – would be on par with the land that we incorporate into Israel, which would be also heavily populated, and by this I think you would really create two countries, which would be more homogeneous and would be more harmonious with themselves. And we see this as the trend internationally – to actually break down countries to homogenous elements.”

Get that? West Bank settlements will never stop. It’s the Jewish right to build there forever. A viable Palestinian state is impossible under these circumstances which is of course the point. Such arrogance will be severely tempered with growing international isolation.

Daily discrimination against Arabs in Israel is so normal it’s barely noticed by anybody and rarely criticised. The price of maintaining a Jewish majority state, of course:

Here is a story known to only some of the citizens of Israel. A few weeks ago a 43-year-old lecturer in sociology at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who serves as a member of the prestigious academic journal Sociology, packed a suitcase and went to Ben-Gurion International Airport. From there he was supposed to take off for the journal’s annual editorial board meeting in London. He stood in line, showed his passport and his ticket and was immediately directed to a separate line.

The lecturer, whose name is Nabil Khattab and who lives in Beit Safafa, was not surprised. He says he accepts with understanding the lengthy security check, including the opening of his suitcases and rummaging in his carry-ons and laptop computer. He even accepts the detailed questioning (Where is he going? With whom will he meet? Where is the invitation? Who is the person who invited him? Give names of people. Are there representatives of enemy countries there? Who? ), though the connection between that and the security of the flight is not clear to him.

In recent years the security check has become a severe and exhausting hassle, which reaches its climax in the side room. The person being investigated is taken to the room and there he undergoes a thorough body check – head hair, ears, neck, armpits, every centimeter down to the soles of his feet, including private parts. Even this humiliating check Khattab accepts submissively.

This time, however, the examiner probed the lower part of his body with a cloth-covered stick and began to insert it under Khattab’s trousers.

“That was already intolerable,” he said. “I couldn’t keep quiet. With the greatest possible restraint I asked the examiner to stop. This has no connection to security, I said to him. If there is a suspicion that I am carrying explosives or metal on my body – let me go through the metal detector and if the machine beeps I will come back for examination.”

The examiner replied that if he did not agree to the examination with the stick he would not be allowed to board the plane. Khattab explained that he represents The Hebrew University on an important academic journal and that he cannot be absent from the meeting.

In vain. Angry and insulted, he took his suitcase and left. Ten minutes later, Khattab changed his mind but when he tried to go back to the side room he was told that because he had left the passenger terminal he would have to go through the whole check again, from the beginning. When he finally reached the room the examiner demanded he remove his trousers. “I will take them off only if they demand this of all passengers,” he said, and went home.

His wife persuaded him not to give in. He found a seat on the next flight to London, paid the difference and went back to the airport. The check was completed relatively quickly and included a body check. Without a stick.

This is grand. Check the headline in this story in yesterday’s Murdoch Australian:

Weekend Australian helps sick Gaza baby

Yes, the Murdoch empire has spent years caring deeply about the Palestinian people and not backing every single Israeli onslaught against the West Bank and Gaza.

Israeli businessmen and West Bank settlement builder billionaire Lev Leviev has long been targeted by activists for assisting in colonisation. His businesses have been boycotted and rightly so.

And his glorious work continues, according to the front page of yesterday’s Wall Street Journal on blood diamonds in Angola:

The war’s end led to a surge in diamond production, as large mining companies dusted off old claims and launched new operations. Among the players are Odebrecht SA of Brazil, Russia’s state-owned Alrosa; and a company controlled by Israeli diamond magnate Lev Leviev, all of which operate in joint ventures with the government diamond company Endiama.

…

At one such illegal mine, an hour’s motorcycle ride over trails outside of Cafunfo, a Dantesque scene unfolds. Perhaps 500 young men are clambering over a vast pit dug deep into the red earth. They’ve been at it for a year now, and figure they have months to go until they hit a vein of gravel they believe will contain diamonds. Their tools are rudimentary—pikes and shovels—and the work is backbreaking, alleviated only by the homegrown marijuana many smoke and the small sachets of alcohol that can be had everywhere for a dollar.

They live on the site in homemade tents and work in shifts. To support themselves, they say, they make agreements with buyers, especially the West Africans, to split the take.

A helpful explanation of America’s reliance on BP in its never-ending “war on terror” and foreign wars in the Middle East.