Antony Loewenstein

The reality of life in Australia for asylum seekers is too rarely heard.

So when Perth-based refugee activist Victoria Martin-Iverson wrote to me yesterday with the story below I asked if I could publish it here exclusively. This is the reality of privatised refugees, mostly ignored in a country that doesn’t seem too interested in the human rights of those it fears.

Our job is to humanise everybody:

As a long time refugee advocate and visitor to the concentration camps where asylum seekers are warehoused, I regularly struggle with the tension between disclosure, and protecting peoples privacy. After all, one of my criticisms of the government is the way they use asylum seekers & their suffering as a method of deterrence. I do not want to be guilty of the same offence and use someone’s suffering for my political agenda, however honourable my intentions. Yet it is clear that if all I am doing is bearing witness, or comforting an individual, then I am missing the opportunity to involve others and explain the human cost of the regimen people endure, the arbitrariness of decisions, the incompetency of [British multinational] Serco, the regular petty indignities of a system that is indifferent to even extremes of suffering. But there are times when something so dramatic occurs that I feel I must try to disclose some element of a situation, while at the same time respecting the dignity of the people whose lives are damaged by their experience in immigration detention.

I was presented with just such a circumstance last week. We have made a great many links at the refugee Rights Action Network, and asylum seekers as well as concerned Serco officers will let us know about events in the centres.

On Friday morning I received a frantic call that yet another tormented soul had harmed himself up at Curtin detention centre and had to be rushed to hospital. Self harm is a near daily occurrence up at Curtin. As rising levels of despair infect the entire community, people resort to cutting or burning themselves, hunger striking, medication overdoses, attempted hangings. These are regular and now unremarkable events. They are also predictable. A study done a few year’s ago by O’Neil et al found a direct relationship between time in detention, mental disorders, suicide attempts and self harm. The suicide rate for detainees over the last 15 years is ten times that of the general population. So initially the news that yet another person had injured themselves and required medical treatment was nothing that stuck me as particularly extraordinary. I indicated I would attend hospital to see if I could visit and ensure there was a friendly face and a kind word for what I assumed would be a distressed and fragile person.

I successfully blustered my way into the ward he was on, having filled in the appropriate paperwork before leaving home. He lay heavily sedated, battered and clearly injured in his hospital bed.

I learned that this man had spent the early part of that morning forlornly calling out one of the few English words he knew, “help, help, help.”

He lay shaking & bleeding in his bed with 3 Serco officers looming over him. I asked one to get another blanket for him. “No English” he whispered to me, and I told him that is ok & gently took his hand so he could feel some human contact and comfort. I do not know the details of this Hazara man’s story or what he may have endured in his country of origin. I only know the tell tale signs of previous attempts at self harm marking his arms, and the dull glaze of hopelessness in his eyes that even heavy sedation could not mask. I know that whatever else may have happened to him he has been poorly served by a capricious and arbitrary detention system that has used him and his imprisonment to try and discourage others from attempting the voyage, and worse. A system that is dismissive of his suffering because that is what it takes to win government.

As I sat holding his hand I struggled with my own emotions. My God, how damaged are we making people in our remote detention centers? ? I learned that this person had become so very despondent and mentally unwell and had made several attempts on his life and thus had ended up in a management cell. If his case is anything like the countless others I hear about regularly, the actual level of compassion and support was minimal, the security maximal. Self harm and suicide attempts result in serious fines for Serco. I wonder what sort of treatment or care he received in the time he was in the “management cell”? Whatever they did or didn’t do his mental health deteriorated and he ended up resorting to one of the most tragic acts of despair I can imagine.

In an attempt to take his life this man ran across the room and threw himself through a plate glass window. We need to know what we are doing to people in these mental illness factories we call detention centres that drives them to increasingly extreme acts of despair. This man’s despondency is an indictment of a morally bankrupt government and a polity that is devoid of compassion. We need to begin to change the public discourse around this issue and connect with the human costs.

But all I could do was hold his hand.

It’s a new week and that can only mean more articles in Murdoch’s Australian on Israel/Palestine, BDS and damning anybody who dares speak up for Palestinians. The last weeks have seen a barrage of increasingly hysterical pieces attacking the NSW Greens for endorsing BDS and not uncritically loving Israel without thought or care.

Today sees celebrity, Jewish, Zionist lawyer George Newhouse accuse the Greens of backing genocide and making sure he places himself on the side of defending Israel; wonderful for his career, no doubt. Newhouse displays the usual ignorance about the Middle East – no mention of occupation or settlements or Gaza – just the kind of press release offered by the Israeli Foreign Ministry. No mention that the Palestinians themselves back BDS because Israel refuses to abide by international law (something that clearly doesn’t bother this lawyer).

This is what Zionism has done to my people; unthinking rhetoric in the service of being popular with other Jews:

So newly elected Greens MP Jamie Parker considers that “progressive” Jews provide cover for extremists because they don’t agree with the Greens’ policy of boycotting Israel.

Like most progressive people, I strongly support a two state solution for the Israel-Palestine problem and Parker has no right to disparage me, and single me out on the basis of my faith, simply because I believe that there are more constructive ways of achieving peace in the Middle-East than by demonising one side.

For the past 15 years I have worked closely and constructively with the Greens, as a local mayor, through my legal work assisting vulnerable refugees, in attacking the racist elements of the Northern Territory intervention laws and, more recently, in the battle against the decision to dump nuclear waste at Muckaty Station near Tenant Creek against the wishes of the traditional owners; and I will continue to do so.

But if New Matilda blogger Antony Loewenstein has quoted Jamie Parker correctly, Parker’s patronising and insulting comments about “progressive” Jews covering for extremists take the Greens into uncharted territory. There are plenty of progressive people who disagree with the Greens’ boycott of Israel so why does Parker feel it necessary to lash out at progressive Jews?

Since 586BC, when they were forced into exile from Israel, the Jewish people have been the canaries in the coalmine for extremism. Their treatment is a measure of the society in which they live. Modern history demonstrates that the persecution of Jews is not limited to fascists and the Right. Stalin and the Left perpetrated murderous campaigns against Soviet and other Jewish communities. Most people understand that Jews can expect another genocide under the “single state solution” proposed for Israel by the “watermelon” Greens.

People are entitled to criticise Israeli government policy but the campaign to delegitimise Israel’s existence and pillory any Jews who defend Israel’s right to exist is deeply offensive.

If the new Green MP for Balmain wants to be part of a team that promotes a far-left foreign policy agenda then he needs to be able to shoulder the criticisms that naturally follow, without blaming the Jews for his embarrassment.

George Newhouse was the former ALP mayor of Waverley Council

Real reporters challenge power, not indulge it.

Watergate man Bob Woodward lost long ago that belief, becoming far too keen to amplify the views of those in power.

Here’s his lessons on American TV for how to get the powerful to give answers that he can just publish verbatim:

WOODWARD: I think the survival of the so-called mainstream media has to do with quality. And if you assemble a bunch of questions and go to a candidate and say, “Look, I’m serious. I really want to ask about this,” and you take them as seriously as they take themselves–and believe me, they all take themselves seriously.

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

WOODWARD: And you’ve done your homework, they–and you’re fair minded and neutral, they are going to engage. When I’ve done these books on Bush and Obama, I send in–I hate to disclose trade craft here–20-page memos saying this is what I want to ask about.

MATTHEWS: Yeah.

WOODWARD: People say, well, you’re telling them–you’re tipping them off. And I say, yes. I want them to do some homework themselves. I want them to be fully engaged. And I think you can do that with lots of work. And–but if it’s just we like to come in and chat about the news of the day, we’ll get stiffed.

MATTHEWS: Yeah, they don’t need–it’s too wild, it’s too crazy.

WOODWARD: Yeah.

As Israel continues to bomb Gaza and build more illegal settlements in the West Bank, global citizens are rising up. Inspiring stuff:

On 29 March 2011, students at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, shut down the scheduled Board of Governors (BoG) meeting after the body refused to consider a motion calling for divestment of pension stock from four companies implicated in Israel’s occupation of Palestine:

I was interviewed for Sydney’s 2SER Radio late last week on the current public “debate” over the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement in Australia. Since the Murdoch press refuses to publish any substantial perspectives that challenge its blind Zionist position – a sign of true insecurity – it’s vital that indy media fills the gap:

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Wikileaks breaks through Zionist propaganda that has long threatened Tehran with annihilation:

Senior defense officials ruled out an Israeli military attack on Iran’s nuclear sites as early as five and a half years ago, telegrams sent from the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv in 2005 and 2006 indicate. The cables, which were revealed over the weekend, are among hundreds of thousands shared exclusively with Haaretz by the WikiLeaks website.

In the first telegram, sent on December 2, 2005, American diplomats said their conversations with Israeli officials indicate that there is no chance of a military attack being carried out on Iran. A more detailed telegram was sent in January 2006, summing up a meeting between U.S. Congressman Gary Ackerman (a Democrat for New York ) and Dr. Ariel Levite, then deputy chief of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission.

“Levite said that most Israeli officials do not believe a military solution is possible,” the telegram ran. “They believe Iran has learned from Israel’s attack on Iraq’s Osirak reactor, and has dispersed the components of its nuclear program throughout Iran, with some elements in places that Israel does not know about.”

Later on in the conversation, Levite told the Americans that Iran could obtain nuclear weapons within two to three years, but admitted the estimate could be inaccurate as “Israel does not have a clear or precise understanding of Iran’s clandestine program.”

Without citing any sources, Levite noted that there are rumors that Iran has already obtained “some warheads from Ukraine,” the telegram added. He claimed that, “Israel knows that Iran has acquired cruise missiles from Ukraine.”

Julian Assange is damn right:

WikiLeaks is part of an honourable tradition that expands the scope of freedom by trying to lay ‘all the mysteries and secrets of government’ before the public. We are, in a sense, a pure expression of what the media should be: an intelligence agency of the people, casting pearls before swine.

He also rightly sees the New York Times as a paper of the establishment, rarely willing to seriously challenge the underpinnings of the state.

The latest Assange missive is released at the same time as an open letter in defense of Wikileaks publishing what it wants, signed by Noam Chomsky, Salman Rushdie and many others:

We believe that free societies everywhere are best served by journalism that holds governments and corporations to account. We assert that the right to publish is equal to, and the consequence of, the citizen’s right to know. While we believe in personal privacy and accept a need for confidentiality, we hold that disclosure in the public interest is paramount. Liberty, accountability and true democratic choice can only be guaranteed by rigorous scrutiny. We defend the right to publish the truth responsibly without obstruction and persecution by the state. The primary duty of journalists everywhere is to advance the cause of understanding, not to assist governments and powerful interests in suppressing information, and never to defer to ingrained habits of secrecy.

With these principles in mind, we declare our support for the publication of documents released through leaks. They have cast significant light on the behaviour of governments and corporations in the modern world. WikiLeaks has done the world great service. We strenuously denounce the threats of death and criminal prosecution of its director for publishing, together with many organisations throughout the world, information that is clearly in the public interest.

Those in authority routinely oppose such disclosure, as they have done since the struggle to publish the proceedings of the British Parliament over two hundred years ago right through to the release of the Pentagon Papers. We believe no democracy has ever been harmed by an increase in the public’s knowledge and understanding.Therefore, we, the undersigned, declare our unyielding support for the principles of journalistic inquiry and openness, and condemn the forces that threaten both.

While the Murdoch press wants public debate over Israel/Palestine to focus on everything except what Israel is doing to the Palestinians, it’s vital to move the goal-posts. Sydney University’s head of Peace and Conflict Studies Dr Jake Lynch writes how in Crikey:

Some of the NSW Greens are peeling away, as leaves from a lettuce, from support for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, the people’s campaign launched in response to Israel’s serial violations of international law, and the quiescence of governments.

What should they do instead? Reframe the issue. Appearing to ditch principles for expediency would rob the Greens of their USP: the equivalent, in political communication, of Dutch elm disease. They have been labelled, in media and political discourse, as “extremists”. So, turn the tables: put the focus on “mainstream” debate on the Israel-Palestine conflict, here in Australia, and ask just how reasonable and representative it is.

How did BDS arise in the first place? There’s a clue in the exhaustive coverage by the Murdoch press over this past week. Of all the thousands of words shovelled over the NSW Greens, one is conspicuous by its absence: “occupation”. Israel’s ongoing, illegal occupation of Palestinian territory is the most salient single fact about the conflict. To succeed in making out BDS advocates to be “the problem” requires readers and audiences (in other words, voters) to be bamboozled into ignoring the elephant in the room.

…

We are being very poorly represented on this question. An online survey by Research Now of 1021 Australians last year, by Griffith University researchers Eulalia Han and Halim Rane, showed: “The majority (55%) understand the Israel-Palestine conflict to be about ‘Palestinians trying to end Israel’s occupation and form their own state’.”

Yet more evidence:

The Bahraini King bragged about intelligence contacts with Israel, and instructed that official statements stop referring to Israel as the “Zionist entity,” according to the latest trove of documents revealed by WikiLeaks.

On February 15, 2005, U.S. ambassador to Bahrain William Monroe met with the leader of the small kingdom, Hamad ibn Isa Al Khalifa – the same king whose position is now threatened by popular protests.

Monroe wrote to Washington the next day, saying the meeting was amiable and that the two sat near the fireplace on a cold and unusually wet day. Their conversation lasted about an hour and a half, and at some point moved to the subject of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The king said he was pleased with the developments in the peace process.

He also revealed to the ambassador that he had instructed his public information minister to stop referring to Israeli in official statements of the kingdom as the “enemy” or the “Zionist entity.”

Wikileaks shows us more:

Mohammed Tantawi, the head of Egypt’s ruling generals, was an obstacle to Israeli efforts to stop arms smuggling within the Gaza strip, according to Israeli security forces. The assessment was privately delivered to US diplomats, alongside praise for former intelligence chief Omar Suleiman’s efforts to stop weapons trafficking, according to the WikiLeaks embassy cables.

The revelations come in a tranche of the most militarily sensitive cables from the US embassy in Tel Aviv. They have been handed over to Israeli newspapers by WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

The Hebrew-language paper Yediot this week announced a deal under which it will print an interview with Assange, who has recently had to defend WikiLeaks from accusations of antisemitism.

The cables show intimate co-operation between US and Israeli intelligence organisations. Israel’s preoccupation with Iranian nuclear ambitions is well known and the US cables detail the battering on the subject that diplomats repeatedly receive from Tel Aviv.

They also shed detailed and sometimes unexpected light on Israel’s military analyses of its other enemies and friends in the region.

Egypt is the primary route for weapons and munitions into the Gaza strip, and the US has been facilitating co-operation between Israel and Egypt to tackle this for several years.

On arms smuggling across the Egyptian border to Hamas in Gaza, Israeli intelligence chiefs described as “supportive” Omar Suleiman, who was Egypt’s intelligence minister, but said defence minister Mohammed Hussein Tantawi was “an obstacle” in a November 2009 cable.

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The cables also shed light on Israel’s assessment of Hezbollah’s mounting capability to strike directly at Tel Aviv with an arsenal of more than 20,000 missiles.

Israeli intelligence chiefs briefed their US counterparts during a regular Joint Political Military Group (JPMG) session on 18 November 2009 about the scale of potential Hezbollah attacks from Lebanon.

Washington was told: “Hezbollah possesses over 20,000 rockets … Hezbollah was preparing for a long conflict with Israel in which it hopes to launch a massive number of rockets at Israel per day. A Mossad official estimated that Hezbollah will try to launch 400-600 rockets and missiles at Israel per day – 100 of which will be aimed at Tel Aviv. He noted that Hezbollah is looking to sustain such launches for at least two months.”

Other cables detail regular secret talks between the US and Yuval Diskin, head of Israel’s internal security agency, Shin Beth, over the role of Hamas in Gaza. On 12 November 2009 the embassy reported the views of the general responsible for Gaza and southern Israel, Major General Yoav Galant, that Hamas needed to be “strong enough to enforce a ceasefire”.

He told the Americans: “Israel’s political leadership has not yet made the necessary policy choices among competing priorities: a short-term priority of wanting Hamas to be strong enough to enforce the de facto ceasefire and prevent the firing of rockets and mortars into Israel; a medium priority of preventing Hamas from consolidating its hold on Gaza; and a longer-term priority of avoiding a return of Israeli control of Gaza and full responsibility for the wellbeing of Gaza’s civilian population.”

Galant was to be made Israel’s chief of defence staff earlier this year but the appointment was cancelled due to scandal.

A Forward investigation suggests maybe so:

When Richard Goldstone returned home to South Africa last May for his grandson’s bar mitzvah — an event that he was almost unable to paticipate in because of protests planned against him — he also attended a separate meeting whose details were kept secret until now.

In the wake of Goldstone’s bombshell retraction of a key finding in the famous report that bears his name, those present at that meeting, individuals who have known him through the years, felt moved to disclose what happened. They joined many others in puzzling over what had prompted the famous jurist to change his mind — and, they hoped, Israel’s fate.

The meeting, an official parlay between Goldstone and top officials of the South African Jewish Board of Deputies, had an impact on Goldstone like nothing they had ever seen before, the participants said.

“Debating face to face with the community really shook him,” recalled David Saks, one of 10 senior board officals who attended. “When he saw the extent of the anger and he couldn’t answer the accusations against him… I think he realized he was wrong.”

Since April 2, friends, acquaintances and many people who have never met the man have been debating what motivated Goldstone to declare in a Washington Post opinion piece that he no longer believed that Israel had a policy of targeting Palestinian civilians during its military incursion into Gaza in 2008–2009. It has been two-and-a-half years since the United Nations committee he chaired issued the report that contained this allegation as one of its key findings. Why now?

Observers point to several possible turning points in Goldstone’s view, including the South Africa meeting. Some who have been following Goldstone say a public debate he had at Stanford University in March also seemed to have an impact.

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New York Times journalist Anthony Shadid on Democracy Now!:

I think for the first time—absolutely, since I can remember, but perhaps that a lot of people can remember—the region [Arab world] is speaking with an indigenous vocabulary. You know, it’s speaking about its own vision. It’s articulating its own vision. It’s so radically, fundamentally different from the change that was imposed on Iraq through invasion and violence in 2003. This is a remarkable moment, I think, in the history of the modern Arab world, and it’s being articulated in a very forceful, fundamental way, in a way that’s never been done before.