Antony Loewenstein

While American neo-cons (many of them Jewish) continue to push for a military strike against Iran and Israeli “democracy” decreases by the day – witness the story of a key Jewish dissident, Yonatan Shapira, being interrogated by Israeli intelligence for daring to support BDS. Hilariously, he’s asked to feel sorry for soldiers maintaining the West Bank occupation – life in Palestine worsens. Where are the Western corporate journalists writing about this?

Here’s Amira Hass in Haaretz:

The woman looked at the young man in front of her as though he were a rare museum exhibit. He’s a native of Gaza who arrived in the West Bank on his own about four years ago, and has lived there since then. He’s not a senior official in Fatah or in one of the Palestinian Authority security services, not a relative or an associate of a highly placed person.

So how did you do it? He smiled and raised his eyebrows. The woman, also a native of Gaza, replied to his amused silence: “Ah, I understand, you had a brain tumor.” Several of the others in the room strangled cries of panic. We had to explain to them that this is only a metaphor for the strange and unusual way he had found to receive a transit permit from Israel for the purpose of entering the West Bank.

The young man did not explain what the “strange way” was. He said that from the age of 12 he knew that he wanted to study and live in the West Bank. Many Gaza residents dream of studying in the West Bank (and not necessarily settling there ), but, as regular readers will recall, the Israeli authorities and the members of the High Court of Justice do not consider studying in general, and higher education in particular, a sufficient reason for issuing the transit permit. Family, work, a livelihood, friends, a desire to travel: these are not sufficient reasons either. Only extreme medical cases or other humanitarian emergencies are officially considered a good enough reason for Israel to allow someone to leave Gaza via Israel.

It should be noted parenthetically to anyone who talks about an almost total removal of the Gaza blockade and insists that the rest depends on Egypt: That is a fiction. Nonsense. Western imagination. Israel is maintaining its consistent policy of not allowing the Palestinians from the Strip to reach the most natural place for them: the West Bank. Israel has achieved an almost total victory in its 20-year-old policy of severing the population of the Strip from the West Bank, to the point that this severance is not considered part of the blockade.

In early July, I appeared in Sydney at Politics in the Pub with leading Palestinian spokesperson Diana Buttu (who was brought out to Australia to engage with audiences about the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement).

We spoke about the Middle East situation, facts on the ground in Palestine, shifting global attitudes towards Israel and the importance of BDS.

It is broadcast on ABC TV on 20 July and available online here.

What economic downturn? Such news only convinces those who question the robustness of globalisation (and probably helps the Tea Party movement, too):

America is struggling with a sputtering economy and high unemployment — but times are booming for Washington’s governing class.

The massive expansion of government under President Barack Obama has basically guaranteed a robust job market for policy professionals, regulators and contractors for years to come. The housing market, boosted by the large number of high-income earners in the area, many working in politics and government, is easily outpacing the markets in most of the country. And there are few signs of economic distress in hotels, restaurants or stores in the D.C. metro area.

As a result, there is a yawning gap between the American people and D.C.’s powerful when it comes to their economic reality — and their economic perceptions.

A new POLITICO poll, conducted by market research and consulting firm Penn Schoen Berland, underscores the big divide: Roughly 45 percent of “Washington elites” said the country and the economy are headed in the right direction, while roughly 25 percent of the general population said they felt that way.

Former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke is currently being lionised in the Australian media for a recently released biography (by his adoring wife).

A friend sends along a story from Sydney’s Daily Telegraph on October 10, 1984 that proves the Labor Party’s loyalty to Israel goes way back and current leader Julia Gillard is cut from the same cloth. Gillard said last week that Hawke remains her role model. The headline and story below does not appear in the new book about Hawke, I’m reliably informed.

Unthinking loyalty:

A welcome call to almost force the EU to actually become a useful body in the Middle East. Right now, it’s little more than a mostly silent American partner:

The European Union must shake off US dominance and take a bolder approach in pressing for a settlement of the Israel-Palestinian conflict, the former EU commissioner Chris Patten said today on a visit to Gaza.

Israel’s policy of blockading Gaza had been a “terrible failure – immoral, illegal and ineffective”, he said, which had “deliberately triggered an economic and social crisis which has many humanitarian consequences”.

In an interview with the Guardian, the former Conservative cabinet minister suggested it was time to reassess the isolation of Hamas, saying that approach had failed to weaken it.

Patten’s visit, his first since 2002, coincided with a lightning second trip by the EU foreign policy chief, Lady Ashton, who called on Israel to open Gaza’s borders rather than merely allow in more consumer goods.

Ashton’s second visit since her appointment last December “showed a preparedness to be more independent-minded,” said Patten. “The default European position should not be to wait to find out what the Americans are going to do, and if the Americans don’t do anything to wring our hands. We should be prepared to be more explicit in setting out Europe’s objectives and doing more to try to implement them.”

He implicitly criticised US dominance of the Middle East quartet – the US, EU, UN and Russia – by saying he concurred with the description of it by the leader of the Arab League as the “quartet sans trois”.

Patten, who found it “easier to get into a maximum security prison in the UK than to enter Gaza”, said Israel’s relaxation of its blockade had not gone far enough. “It’s moved from about minus 10 to about minus eight. It doesn’t do anything to help restore economic activity in Gaza.

“It’s difficult to understand what preventing exports has to do with security. It has everything to do with the view that Gaza should be collectively punished to discredit Hamas. Unfortunately there are some centuries, if not millennia, of history that show that does not work. Presumably the international community as well as Israel wants at some stage – sooner rather than later – to be able to persuade Gaza and its political leadership to take a course which will lead to reconciliation and peace and stability. It’s difficult to know how you accomplish that if you deny the people of Gaza any social or economic progress.”

Here in Canada, Colombo propaganda about the supposed threat from “Tamil Tiger terrorists” heading towards the country continues in full swing. The source is always the Sri Lankan government; about as reliable as Tel Aviv. We’ve been reading similar “reports” in Australia for months:

A ship full of Tamil migrants — including members of the Tamil Tigers — is headed to Canada, a Sri Lankan newspaper reports.

According to the Sunday Observer, Sri Lanka’s English newspaper, about 200 migrants are aboard the MV Sun Sea, a ship previously known as Harin Panich 19.

The vessel was reportedly headed to Australia originally, but the boat changed route after Sri Lanka’s foreign ministry warned the Aussies. It’s now believed to be headed to British Columbia.

Some passengers are reportedly members of the Tamil Tigers, a violent arm of the Tamil separatist movement, which Canada has listed as a terrorist group.

Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Ambra Dickie said Canada is aware of the media reports about the vessel.

Next Sunday, 25 July, I’ll be appearing at one of New York’s leading independent bookshops, Revolution Books, for an event that can’t be missed!

Palestine and Iraq — 2 Occupations

Brunch roundtable discussion with authors Michael Otterman (Erasing Iraq: The Human Costs of Carnage) and Antony Loewenstein (My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution). On the realities of occupation and the illusions of “peace” in Iraq and Palestine. Brunch provided. Donation requested.

Information about a forthcoming book on cooking and food inside Gaza.

There really isn’t anybody like Gideon Levy in Haaretz. His latest piece is stunning, and although it’s directed at Israeli Jews who look away as their country is declining towards fascism, his criticism could equally be targeting the Zionist Diaspora who largely remain silent when occupation deepens and outright racism is a daily fact of life:

A very revealing essay in today’s New York Times Magazine on the US State Department’s major use of the web, Twitter, Facebook and online tools to push Washington’s agenda globally.

The article is curious for its almost complete lack of discussion about whether Obama administration policies are in fact useful or productive but instead focuses on 21st century technology in the service of the state.

The message seems to be; ask questions but nothing too serious about wars or covert activity:

The underpinning philosophy of 21st-century statecraft — that the networked world “exists above the state, below the state and through the state” — was laid out in a paper in Foreign Affairs in 2009 by Slaughter, before she became head of the policy planning staff. Cohen rereads the paper all the time. Ross gives it to all new U.S. ambassadors. It is crucial to how Cohen and Ross see themselves: equal parts barnstormers and brainstormers, creating and sustaining networks of networks. Ross and Cohen share all their contacts and remain in touch constantly, though they’re often on opposite sides of the globe. (“Jared and I divide and conquer,” Ross says.) Their closeness might come as something of a surprise: Cohen was appointed by Condoleezza Rice and still considers her a mentor; Ross was deeply embedded in the Obama campaign. And they pursued very different paths to the State Department.

…

One apparent paradox of 21st-century statecraft is that while new technologies have theoretically given a voice to the anonymous and formerly powerless (all you need is a camera phone to start a movement), they have also fashioned erstwhile faceless bureaucrats into public figures. Ross and Cohen have a kind of celebrity in their world — and celebrity in the Twitter age requires a surfeit of disclosure. Several senior members of the State Department with whom I spoke could not understand why anyone would want to read microdispatches from a trip to Twitter or, worse, from a State Department staff member’s child’s basketball game. But Secretary Clinton seemed neither troubled nor bewildered. “I think it’s to some extent pervasive now,” she told me in March. “It would be odd if the entire world were moving in that direction and the State Department were not.” Half of humanity is under 30, she reminded me. “Much of that world doesn’t really know as much as you might think about American values. One of the ways of breaking through is by having people who are doing the work of our government be human beings, be personalized, be relatable.”

But is America any more popular with the world when endless wars continue in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere?

Isolate a territory, target its rulers and don’t wonder why Islamism breeds (though it must be condemned and plays directly into Israeli hands):

Gaza’s Hamas rulers are banning women from smoking water pipes (nargilas) in cafes, claiming it violates tradition and leads to divorce.

The new order went into effect last week, and several cafe owners have been arrested for questioning in recent days under suspicion they have not been enforcing the order.

Police spokesman Ayman Batneiji said Sunday that officers are enforcing Gazan traditions. He said husbands often divorce women seen smoking in public but offered no evidence to support that claim.

The pipes are popular with both men and women in Gaza.

Police have warned business owners that they face heavy fines if the ban is not enforced.

How Israeli apartheid infects attitudes around the world and will continue to tar Jews and many Israelis until the Middle East changes:

Uvira, Democratic Republic of Congo – Having never visited Africa before, Israeli burn specialist Dr. Eyal Winkler was apprehensive about what was in store for the delegation of five medical specialists which he led this week to Congo. The locals turned out to be good hosts – but working with Western volunteers proved more complicated.

“I came to save lives, but also because it’s important to me to show that Israel is not the Flotilla Country that it is painted out to be,” said Winkler, deputy director of the department of plastic and reconstructive surgery at Sheba Medical Center.

On Tuesday Winkler arrived at the city of Uvira to treat 50 Congolese who were severely burnt in a fire that claimed more than 230 lives in the nearby village of Sange, where an oil truck had overturned and caught fire. Winkler’s five-man squad was the first team of specialists to arrive in the district of South Kivu to treat the injured.

They were there with Daniel Saada, Israel’s ambassador to Congo, as an official delegation of the Israeli foreign ministries Mashav aid agency. The team crossed remote border crossings with ease under the supervision of South Kivu’s governor, Jean-Claude Kibala. The president of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Joseph Kabila, telephoned the delegation to thank them.

But the relationship with the volunteers of Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) Netherlands, who arrived at Uvira the previous week, began on a sour note, according to Winkler and the other Israeli specialists.

Winkler said he got the impression that some volunteers for MSF – which has accused Israel of war crimes and obstructing medical care for Palestinians – did not want to be around him or the other team members, Drs. Shmuel Kalazkin, Gil Gragov Nardini and Ariel Tessone, and nurse Noa Anastasia Ouchakova.

“This is the reality today: Doctors from international aid organizations treat a delegation of volunteer Israeli doctors to Congo as though we were occupiers”, Winkler told Nati Harush, the foreign ministries deputy chief security officer who accompanied the delegation.