Antony Loewenstein

Oh the irony:

The US State Department has released their list of films for the 2011 “American Documentary Showcase,” a program that brings their approved documentaries to audiences around the world to “offer a view of American society and culture.”

Amongst the list of selected titles, surprisingly, was “The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers.”

It’s a fine choice, of course, and a splendid documentary, but with the State Department railing against WikiLeaks it seems odd for them to be celebrating a laudatory documentary on the last major whistleblower officials were trying to spin as a grave threat to national security.

Then again maybe it’s just a matter of time healing all wounds – maybe the State Department will be celebrating a WikiLeaks documentary in another 40 years.

In the face of government-sponsored fascism, Israel’s battered left raises its voice a little:

More than 10,000 people marched this evening in protest of recent anti-democratic and racist initiatives by the Israeli government. The march, which started in front of the Likud HQ in King George Street and ended at the Tel Aviv Museum Square, was one of the largest leftwing demonstrations in Israel in years.

Despite the cold whether, attendance exceeded expectations, and many protesters were unable to enter the Museum Square itself. According to the demonstration’s organizers, a last-minute effort was made to arrange additional buses for protesters coming from other cities.

Representatives of various opposition parties spoke at the event. Hadsh MK Mohammad Barakeh told the crowd that though some people hoped that the occupation would “remain outside the 1967 borders,” this idea was proved wrong. “The occupation corrupted Israel,” said Barakeh.

MK Nitzan Horowitz (Meretz) said that it’s too easy to blame [Israel Beitenu's Avigdor] Lieberman and [Shas'] Eli Yisahy for the current unti-democratic trends. “It is Binyamin Netanyahu’s government that initiates the racist and anti-democratic laws,” said Horowitz. He later attacked Labor party and Defense Minister Ehud Barak for taking part “in the most racist government in Israel’s history.”

The Jews. Ah, Zionist Jews.

Inner Sydney council Marrickville recently endorsed BDS against Israel.

And now this. Here’s a hint for the Zionists in our community. Please say this far more often and more publicly; the general community needs to hear your views about Arabs and how much Israel has deformed our religion over and over again:

The [NSW] State Liberal candidate for Marrickville has described swathes of the inner-city electorate as “xenophobic”.

Rosana Tyler told The Sunday Telegraph the people of Marrickville – 38 per cent of whom were born overseas – “don’t like foreigners”, adding that “the community itself hates everybody”.

Mrs Tyler, a solicitor, part-time lecturer and vice-president of the Newtown Synagogue, is running against Carmel Tebbutt, the incumbent MP, Deputy Premier and Health Minister.

Responding to questions about controversial decisions by the Greens-controlled Marrickville Council to boycott all Israeli goods and services, Mrs Tyler said xenophobia was entrenched in the area.

“The community itself hates everybody,” she said. “One of the things I’ve noticed as I’ve been campaigning is people don’t like foreigners. It’s coming from everybody, from all different types.”

Mrs Tyler, who is Jewish, said the council had a history of anti-Israeli sentiment.

“They’ve always done really stupid stuff on this council … They’ve brought resolutions for various groups against Israel in the past,” she said.”There are a lot of independents on the council … and the Greens are pretty much anti-Israeli.”

She said campaigning had shown her people were paranoid about new arrivals, which had “shocked” her.

“I’m not just talking about Israelis,” Mrs Tyler said. “A lot of other people have said the same thing.

“They want to know what groups are moving into the area – quite a number of times people have said to me, ‘What are you going to do about this group?”

The day after Mrs Tyler made these comments, she distanced herself from them and told The Sunday Telegraph the remarks she had referred to were made by only “about 12 people” from the 5000 she had canvassed.

There is only one word for this; shameful:

In a bleak but beautiful landscape of undulating stony hills I watched a group of Palestinian schoolchildren take their lessons yesterday in the open air next to a heap of rubble that, until this week, was their classroom.

This is the village of Dkaika, about as far south in the West Bank as you can get. It’s a community of around 300 people, without electricity or running water, whose days are spent tending their herds of goats and sheep and trying not to attract the attention of nearby Jewish settlers.

On Wednesday, at about 7.30am, a convoy of military vehicles and bulldozers arrived to tear down 16 homes, an animal pen, a store and one of the village school’s classrooms. All were subject to demolition orders, granted because the structures were built without permission, which is almost impossible for Palestinians to get around here. Dkaika is in Area C, under full Israeli military and civil control, which accounts for 60% of the West Bank.

At the time there were dozens of children inside the school. The soldiers tried to prevent the its three teachers from entering the building. Sulaima Najadah, 38, who has taught English at the school since last September, told me that he sneaked in to reassure the crying children.

“I was in this class,” he said, pointing to the pile of twisted metal and masonry. “The soldiers took us out by force.”

The teachers were handcuffed and blindfolded in front of their pupils before the bulldozers moved in. One girl, Mariam Odeh, 13, said she had been afraid the classroom would be demolished over their heads.

Twelve-year-old Nayfeh Ka’abneh lost her home as well as her classroom. That night she slept in a tent. “It wasn’t comfortable,” she said, shyly twisting the ends of her headscarf. “We want to rebuild our home.”

Jillian York asks the ever-eager Western press to take a long, cold shower and actually ask Tunisians themselves if the internet/Twitter/Facebook/Wikileaks seriously contributed to the downfall of President Ben Ali.

In a word, no.

Perhaps, finally, Australians can realise that the former Howard government was more than happy for one of our citizens to be tortured in the name of pleasing the United States:

The Inspector-General of Intelligence and Security has ordered a fresh inquiry into the case of former Guantanamo Bay detainee Mamdouh Habib.

Julia Gillard requested the new probe amid dramatic claims of Australian government complicity in his 2001 CIA rendition to Egypt, where he was detained and tortured.

The investigation follows a secret compensation payout made by the federal government to Mr Habib in December, apparently triggered by untested witness statements implicating Australian officials in his detention and brutal maltreatment in a Cairo military prison.

The new evidence, not previously made public, includes a statement from a former Egyptian military intelligence officer that he was present when Mr Habib was transferred to Cairo in November 2001.

In the statement, tendered as part of Mr Habib’s civil case against the commonwealth, the officer says Australian officials were present when Mr Habib arrived in Egypt, handcuffed, with his feet bound, naked and apparently drugged.

The statement says: “During Habib’s presence some of the Australian officials attended many times. The same official who attended the first time used to come with them.”

It continues: “Habib was tortured a lot and all the time, as the foreign intelligence wanted quick and fast information.”

The statement is at odds with repeated assertions by the federal government and security agencies since Mr Habib’s return to Australia in January 2005, that they had no knowledge of or involvement in his rendition or detention in Egypt.

As recently as November, in a letter to Mr Habib, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade insisted it had never been able to confirm Mr Habib’s presence in Egypt.

Today’s Wikileaks rally, Sydney, Australia

Noam Chomsky on the internal logic of empire:

It’s pretty common now for supporters of the Palestinians and Palestinian leaders themselves to say, “Well, we have to abandon hope in the two-state solution.” As one of the Palestinian leaders said, “We should give Israel the key and let them take over the entire West Bank. It will be one state, we’ll then carry out a civil rights struggle. We can win that one, like South Africa.” But this view overlooks a simple point of logic. Those are not the two options. There is a third option, namely that the U.S. and Israel continue doing exactly what they are doing. They’re not going to take control of the West Bank. They don’t want it. They don’t want the Palestinians. So the analogy to South Africa’s anti-apartheid struggle is pretty misleading. South Africa needed its black population. They were its workforce. They couldn’t get rid of them. They were 85 percent of the population doing the work of the country. So, as under slavery, they had to take care of them. Bantustans were bad enough, but they were intended to be more or less viable because it was necessary to reproduce the workforce. That’s not true for Israel and the Palestinians. Israel doesn’t want to take responsibility for them, rather it wants them to get out. It’s like the United States and the indigenous population. There’s no sense in taking care of them, just exterminate that “hapless race” of Native Americans.

Israel can’t just murder them. You can’t get away with that these days, the way the U.S. could in the 19th century, so you just get them to leave. Moshe Dayan, who was one of the more dovish members of the Israeli elite, happened to be defense minister in charge of the Occupied Territories in 1967. He advised his colleagues at the time that we should tell the Palestinians, “We have nothing for you, you’re going to live like dogs, and whoever will leave will leave. And we will see where it all ends up.”

And that’s exactly the policy they’re following. In recent years, the U.S./Israel have somewhat modified the policy. They are taking the advice of Israeli industrialists who some years ago suggested that Israel should shift from a policy of colonialism to one of neo-colonialism.

Me today at the Wikileaks rally in Sydney:

The key issue is – what is Wikileaks telling us about the world? What are the documents Wikileaks is releasing saying to us about how our governments behave? And what is says is very, very clear – confirming in some way what many of us might have thought before – governments, our governments who we elect, lie to us all the time. There is a litany of examples – the Middle East, Africa, Asia, Australia – governments say one thing, journalists repeat that lie and Wikileaks says something else. And you would think – and you’d be wrong – that the journalists themselves who write those kind of lies and repeat the government policy over the years and who have been wrong would come out and say mea culpa. That has not happened.

I’ve written for years about Palestinian politician Hanan Ashrawi, especially after her awarding in 2003 of the Sydney Peace Prize. The Zionist lobby were apoplectic, showing their usual humanity towards Arabs. Suffice to say, Ashrawi received the award but many people finally realised the kind of Jews who run the Zionist establishment; bullies who fear debate and loathe Palestinians.

Now in 2011, Ashrawi is interviewed by Haaretz and she still maintains that a two-state solution is possible. She despairs with the Israeli public. She hopes that somebody, somewhere, will make the Zionist state see sense:

Many of the young Israeli men and women who gathered a few weeks ago in the spacious hall of the Muqata in Ramallah must have wondered about the identity of the dark-haired woman who had a place of honor at the dignitaries’ table, between MK Shlomo Molla and former MK Colette Avital. Some of them were still in diapers when Hanan Ashrawi was making headlines. The meeting was organized by the Geneva Initiative and brought together Israeli and Palestinian legislators with Israeli peace activists.

When the Madrid peace conference convened in October 1991, Ashrawi, a professor of English literature from Ramallah, daughter of Daoud Mikhail, a founder of the Palestinian Liberation Organization, was appointed a member of the Palestinian negotiating team. She represented the new, enlightened face of the PLO: Palestinian patriot, peace-seeker, intellectual, woman and Christian all in one. The talks with the Israeli delegation, led by Elyakim Rubinstein, were limping along and getting nowhere when the astounding news of the completion of the Oslo peace accords broke in September 1993.

When the first reports came in, I was sitting near her in the lobby of a hotel in downtown Washington, D.C. Ashrawi asked me to translate for her the item from Haaretz that listed the main points of the agreement (the English edition of the newspaper did not yet exist ). “Are you sure there’s nothing about a settlement freeze?” asked this neighbor of the Psagot settlement, not disguising her anger at her colleagues from Tunis. Today she explains that the Palestinian representatives at the Oslo talks, Ahmed Qurei (Abu Ala ) and Hassan Asfour, were living in exile and not sufficiently aware of what living under occupation and the theft of lands really meant.

…

Many of your comrades have despaired of the two-state idea and begun calling instead for a one-state solution.

“The one-state solution is not realistic. Israel will not give us all passports and share political power. Looking closely at the society, I think Israelis are going backward, moving toward racism. They are more closed in, understand Palestinians much less. The peace camp in Israel has disappeared. I am still in touch with Israeli friends. We have relations, but not as frequent as before.

“Salam Fayyad’s plan to end occupation and build a state will come to fruition in the next year. It’s been three years since the launching of negotiations at Annapolis and two years since that ended. The two-state solution is becoming almost impossible. How are you going to dismantle settlements when they are growing from day to day?

“Time is running out, and when reality overtakes all of us it will be beyond our control. I still believe that there are some sane and responsible people who will challenge this.”

Here’s the AAP story on today’s Wikileaks rally in Sydney:

More than a thousand advocates of free speech have taken to the streets of Sydney in support of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Australian-born Mr Assange has enraged the United States by leaking American diplomatic cables that embarrassed world leaders.

He is currently on bail in England as he fights attempts to extradite him to Sweden for questioning on allegations of sexual assault.

NSW Greens MP David Shoebridge told the crowd of more than 1000 people in central Sydney on Saturday that the Australian government should support Mr Assange after Prime Minister Julia Gillard dubbed the website “unlawful”.

“The actions of WikiLeaks are not only lawful, they’re essential for fostering free speech in the 21st century. That’s why we’re here to support those actions.”

Mr Shoebridge said that rom a Greens’ perspective, the whaling leaks were the most significant.

US diplomatic cables obtained by WikiLeaks show that as late as February 2010, Australia was willing to compromise with Japan if the deal resulted in a reduced level of whaling.

“Here they are in the major Australian newspapers, they’re speaking in support of an absolute ban on whaling,” he said.

“Yet we now know that in the dark corridors they’re shuffling along trying to cut a deal with the Japanese government which would continue to see the slaughter of whales.”

Protesters collected money for Queensland’s flood victims as they marched down Sydney’s George Street.

Today’s rally in Sydney was a good event, attracting around 1000 people, all of whom wanted to show solidarity with what Wikileaks stands for; transparency and real free speech.

My speech addressed the often complicity of the mainstream media in keeping government secrets away from the public. They want to be gate-keepers, close to power. I reject this; independence is vital to not be seduced by official romancing.

Here are the notes from my speech:

Wikileaks rally, Sydney Town Hall, 15 January 2011

-       Welcome to country.

-       War on whistleblowers.

-       Rudd Labor government pursued leakers more than double the rate of Howard government.

-       Obama administration also pursued whistle-blowers more than Bush years.

-       Bradley Manning, torture-like conditions in US, virtual solitary confinement, UN investigating his treatment. This is how our key ally behaves.

-       Key revelations from Wikileaks aren’t about Assange or his personal life but that our governments lie to us every day and now we have the evidence to prove it. In the Middle East, Africa, Australia, wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen.

-       Journalists reacting with anger towards Wikileaks. Jealously, frustration and outrage. Why aren’t they doing their job better?

-       Insider journalism is the enemy of an open democracy.

-       General silence of journalists in speaking out in defence of Wikileaks and what it represents, especially in the US and Australia.

-       Secrecy is the problem not leakers. Who keeps the secrets? Governments and their media courtiers.

-       In 2011, we demand greater transparency, an independent Australian government to support Wikileaks and a press that doesn’t take its cues and leaks from government advisors.