Antony Loewenstein

The Angry Arab expresses the appropriate response:

They are asked to bring buckets of blood from their victims.

Here’s the list.

UK Guardian journalist Chris McGreal – whom I know and respect from his fine reporting in Palestine and South Africa – writes about the latest revolution; Libya:

Few revolutions have been more inspiring. After years of reporting uprisings and conflicts driven by ideology, factional interests or warlords soaked in blood — from El Salvador to Somalia, Congo and Liberia – Libya’s uprising seems to me more akin to South Africa’s liberation from apartheid. For a start, the once pervasive fear of a hated regime is gone.

From the first days, scores of enthusiastic young revolutionaries, high on the prospect of looming victory, indulged the newfound freedom to finally say what they thought. They churned out screeds listing the dictator’s crimes and posters caricaturing Gaddafi as a common thief and agent of Mossad. Some posters imagined him on trial before the international criminal court or strung up on one of the gallows used for public hangings to terrorise the Libyan population.

Revolutionary committees sprang up. Among them was one charged with getting the message to the outside world that Libya 2011 was not Tehran 1979. The savvy revolutionary activists watching CNN and news websites were not slow in recognising the fearmongering in parts of the US media and Congress over what kind of revolution this was.

Almost the only foreigners in Benghazi during the early days of the revolution were journalists. We were feted with free coffee in cafés and regularly stopped on the street and thanked for coming. But reporters were also quizzed by Libyans who picked up on the talk about Islamic extremists hijacking the revolution. Where, they wondered, did the idea of al-Qaeda in Libya come from? Couldn’t people see what kind of revolution this is?

It is hard not to notice how desperate the core of revolutionaries is to be accepted by the west. It is common enough to run into accountants, oil executives and engineers on the frontline who have studied in Nottingham, Manchester and Brighton. They say they admire Britain and the US. Denunciations of America are noticeably absent, at least on the rebel side of the line. France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, is a hero in rebel-held areas for recognising the revolutionary administration.

Yet it is also not hard to see why the outside world was uncertain about the revolutionaries. No other country in the Middle East is quite so defined by its leader.

What do we expect when we treat people like animals to be locked up indefinitely while our too-few-officials manage the problem, often receiving “intelligence” from the very regimes from which people are fleeing?

A number of asylum seekers are continuing a hunger strike into a second day at the Curtin detention centre in Western Australia’s north.

The Immigration Department says about 150 refugees started a peaceful protest yesterday afternoon but it cannot confirm how many are refusing to eat.

Around 60 refugee supporters, including a bus of 50 activists from Perth, have travelled from across Australia to visit the centre.

The Refugee Action Coalition’s Ian Rintoul says the single men have the same concerns as the detainees who rioted at Villawood during the week.

“There are seriously damaged people inside the Curtin Detention Centre, people who have been waiting 15 months even to get a first answer,” he said.

“Plenty of people that we saw in the last few days have been waiting 20 months for their security clearances…there are a lot of very angry and upset people.”

I am receiving reports from activists on the ground near Curtin. The following is written by Gerry Georgatos of the Refugees Rights Action Network:

60 human rights advocates and social justice activists made up of doctors, lawyers, mental health workers, nurses, teachers, social workers, tradespeople, academics, students and others, from various social justice organisations and campaign groups, and others not affiliated to anyone, have arrived this day, Easter Saturday, April 23rd, to Curtin Detention Centre.

We journeyed under the banner of the Refugees Rights Action Network from Perth in a hired bus and with a support vehicle with a trailer of food and camping equipment. The bus was driven by three of the advocates who recently acquired the licence, at their own cost, so as to ensure this journey. We left on Thursday, 7pm from East Perth, with fifty on board the bus and after 24 hours of driving camped at Eightly Mile Beach, arriving near midnight on Easter Friday.

We arrived at Curtin Detention Centre at 3pm on the Saturday. During the last month forty of us had submitted to the Serco managed Curtin Detention Centre therebouts 100 visitor applications. We have been in contact with hundreds of our Asylum Seekers for many months. They are despairing, many are at the brink of mental and physical despair. Their maltreatment in these illegal facilities which incarcerate them have reached a critical mass of rising self harm, depression, acute and chronic trauma, suicide and multiple suicide attempts, and suicide. There have been six Detention Centre deaths (in custody) during the last eight months and undisclosed numerous suicide attempts. Reports to us clearly describe self harm and suicide attempts as a daily occurrence.

Curtin Detention Centre today is on the brink of a pending crisis brought on as per usual by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship and Serco management. They are literally driving people into mental illness and literally killing people. Australian of the Year, in 2010, psychiatrist Patrick McGorrie described these Detention Centres as “mental illness factories”. Australia has 23 Detention Centres and is now building another three Detention Centres. The budget for Detention and processing blows out every year, and is now up to 1.5 billion dollars per annum. How better could we spend this?

Our bus travelled down the beginning of the seven kilometre road leading to the Curtin Detention Centre where we were met by a gated blockade. Behind this gate stood Serco guards, federal police and an Australian Defence Force official. We were instructed that visits may not be possible, then we were told that some visits would be scheduled. We were then told that eight visits would be allowed and that we had to wait. We were lectured by the ADF and the AFP that we would be arrested if we proceeded unauthorised through the gates.

As the afternoon wore on it became evident visits would not be enabled and that we were being lied to. We soon learned from an Asylum Seeker who we made contact with by phone that the detainees had been told by Serco management that we were ‘not coming’. They did not believe this and despaired. Some fifty of the advocates civilly approached the fence and we spoke with the Serco frontline employees. Conflicting explanations and depictions were deployed on behalf of Serco management.

I phoned the Centre manager on his mobile from outside the gate however on this occasion someone else answered. I asked that Michael Puglisi, the Serco employed Centre manager, come to the fence to discuss the situation rather than exploit his personnel whose job it was not to defend Serco management decisions. Prosocially I argued this case with the Serco staff at the gates who most appeared to be in a drone like state bar one individual who expressed his ethos of care for the detainees and who appeared to well with tears.

Eventually Michael Puglisi, Curtin Detention Centre manager drove to the fence to meet us, however remained on the other side of the barricade, and did not unlock the gate. Throughout the discussions with many of us he often contradicted himself and clearly demonstrated an agenda to inhibit the visits. At times Serco officers had explained to us that they had not received our visitor application forms, however Michael could not speak in this light as I had scanned and emailed forms to him and had spoken to him over the phone and had his acknowledgment of the forms in writing. However he disgraced himself by declaring that it was not possible for any visits to occur on the Saturday. This outrage incurred the frustration and disappointment of the civil advocates. Unperturbed Michael used a number of excuses, that appeared concocted, to describe why this could not happen, this including that new constructions were underway and one on one meeting rooms were not available and that evening visits were not possible because of the onset of poor lighting issues. However these were disproved as we learned visits by others who they did not know knew us and were part of us, however they had joined us from the eastern states, arriving earlier, were occurring and continued into the evening.

I explained to Michael that they were only exacerbating tensions in the Detention Centre and that these lies would backfire however at the price of human life. Ultimately he insisted that some visits would be scheduled for Sunday and Monday however he would make us aware of them on the Sunday morning and not before.

I asked Michael if he had been instructed by the Department of Immigration and Citizenship to inhibit our right to visit our Asylum Seekers and therefore their right to be met by us. His body language indicated this was the case however he remained silent on the question insisting that he would organise some visits. He then changed his language to as many visits as possible. I asked him if it was true that Serco management, of which he is the Manager, told the detainees that we were ’not coming’. He seemed startled by this revelation however he firmly denied any knowledge of this. However we have it evidently that this is the case.

The detainees urged Serco officers and management for the visits to be upheld. They even organised today (Saturday) for a petition for them to proceed signed by 700 Asylum Seekers trapped, incarcerated in the Curtin Detention Centre. There are now 300 Asylum Seekers protesting at Serco’s and DIAC’s actions with a Hunger Strike. Serco’s and DIAC’s deliberate mismanagement has created an unwarranted and unnecessary situation and has directly led to a Hunger Strike and the potential for protests.

Some of 50 of us have camped nearby, and will arrive at Curtin Detention first thing in the morning, 7am for the visits. The visits must occur so we can continue to shine the light on the plight of those wrongly, immorally and cruelly incarcerated in these concentration like camps. The world must know what we witnessed and endured today and what our Asylum Seekers are enduring in these facilities, which are wrapped in cultures of secrecy and silence. You had to be here to see it to believe it. We do not know what Easter Sunday holds however we hope that a significant number of visits eventuate. We will not go away, and we will come again and again.

We have arrived at Curtin Detention, a place that wrongfully incarcerates 1500 souls, armed only with 1500 Easter eggs, bi-lingual dictionaries, books and gifts. We have been treated by Serco, DIAC, the AFP and ADF with a disregard for humanity. Their conduct is a threat to a civil and just society.

Australians are a caring people and we need to unveil our racial layers, end our racism, refuse to be hostile to those seeking Asylum and allow the caring that is in Australians to not be hindered by ignorances, prejudices, biases and other evil. We are better than this.

Our journey of 2,500 kilometres pales to a mere raindrop when compared to the Homeric Odyssies of our Asylum Seekers.

I’ve reported over the last months the very difficult situation for staff and refugees at Sydney’s Villawood detention centre due to federal government bungling and Serco mismanagement. The Australian reported my comments today about the latest uprising in Villawood. Welcome to Australia’s dysfunctional (and entirely avoidable) asylum seeker “crisis”.

In light of these troubles, it’s worth recalling some information that appeared in Serco News in 2010 (Volume 9). This is a publication touting news and views from around Serco’s Australia. Under the headline, “Villawood undergoes transformation”, the following story was published:

Villawood is undergoing a major transformation as part of a three month plan to improve the overall operation of the centre. Led by Nick Cameron from Serco’s UK operations, the team of six has been busy implementing changes at the site which is the largest immigration centre on the mainland. The improvements include better residential and client care, a review of operations and security, increased staff support and training, and more activities for clients. The team has also been working closely with Serco’s corporate communications staff to rebrand the facility. DIAC is already making positive comments about the changes.

“A program of cleaning and painting has commenced  and rebranding initiatives have been accelerated. Most staff now have their new uniforms which look really professional, we have reviewed health and safety issues, and improved staff communication and recognition”, said Nick.

“We have just awarded three staff with commendations for their vigilance in preventing the escape of clients from Villawood in the last three weeks. The professionalism of these colleagues is typical of the staff I have met in Villawood. It gives me great pleasure to recognise these officers for individual examples of excellent work.

“I want to thank all staff at Villawood for the way they have got behind the changes we are making and for their hard work. Villawood is their centre and I am pleased to see the pride they are taking in the improvements we are making. There is still a lot to do, but with all staff getting involved and feeling supported by the transformation team, I am sure we will succeed.”

This has been the week of Sydney’s Marrickville council putting Palestine on the national and global map by daring to support Palestine (though sadly giving in to bullying and rescind BDS). At this week’s fiery public meeting, it was clear how many Zionists have vested interests in not acknowledging the devastating effects of Israel’s occupation on Palestinian lands. Far better to talk about Hamas, Hizbollah, terrorism, “democracy” etc.

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald, reporter Jo Tovey gives voice to those who rarely receive it in the corporate press:

Accusations of one-sided media coverage of the issue were also rife at Tuesday’s meeting. The academic Peter Slezak, of Independent Australian Jewish Voices, said Jewish critics of Israel and supporters of the BDS campaign had not been heard, particularly in the Jewish media.

Samah Sabawi, a Palestinian-Australian, said their voice had been lost. ”I don’t feel we were able to discuss and debate the issue rationally and I don’t feel the door was open for Palestinian voices to discuss what the BDS was about.”

In how many countries is this kind of thing happening? Anything to keep those asylum seekers away from our shores is clearly the idea, whatever the human rights cost:

The Department of Foreign Affairs (DFAT) has expressed concern over the conduct of security forces working in cooperation with the Australian Federal Police (AFP) in Sri Lanka.

Two former Christmas Island detainees arrested by Sri Lanka’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) after they were deported from Australia in 2009 claim to have been abused by members of the unit in the presence of an AFP officer.

Their lawyer, Lakshan Dias, says CID officers beat the men with wooden planks and threatened to rape their family members.

He says an AFP agent was visiting the CID headquarters in Colombo at the time.

“I was tortured. I was unable to pass urine for two days. I had unbearable pain in my body,” said one of the men, Sumith Mendis, 31.

The CID denies the allegations.

The AFP has been providing the CID with equipment, training and intelligence support in an effort to combat people smuggling in the area, as civilians attempt to flee Sri Lanka following the end of the country’s brutal 26-year civil war.

Mr Mendes and fellow ex-detainee Lasantha Wijeratna are being held at the country’s Negombo prison, charged with illegally attempting to flee Sri Lanka.

Prior to their imprisonment they spent more than seven months on Christmas Island after leaving for Australia on a fishing vessel in 2009.

They were arrested by Sri Lankan authorities in August 2010 after attempting to flee the country a second time.

The AFP strenuously denies witnessing the abuse but has confirmed one of its officers was in the building at the time.

“The AFP can confirm records indicate an AFP officer was present in the building on the day the offence was alleged to occur,” a spokesman told the ABC.

“At no stage did the AFP officer witness any mistreatment by CID officers of any persons held in custody.

“As part of the Sri Lankan legal process, all defendants appearing before court must first be examined by a judicial medical officer. The AFP has no knowledge of any concerns being raised.”

However, Amnesty International reported in March 2010 that the two men were hospitalised at the recommendation of a judicial officer.

According to the men’s lawyer, the AFP would have been aware of the abuses being carried out at the CID headquarters that day.

“There is no reason that the particular AFP officer [would] not have seen the interrogation and atrocities towards my clients, and my clients told me that they saw the AFP officer [witness] this interrogation,” Mr Dias said.

A new study of Israeli youth paints a picture of bigotry and intolerance. How on earth is this the basis for future “democracy”?

Apparently unwilling to question mainstream narratives regarding the futility of peace or the venality of politics most young people in Israel are no vanguard for social or political change. They do, however, crave the bonds of national unity. For Jewish youth, “Us against them” seems to be emerging as a convenient source. Hence the notion that Israel must be a “Jewish state” ranks as first priority among Jewish youth – a change from past years, when peace or democracy came first.

Fear, too, is a unifying factor, feeding distrust of others. Sixty percent of young Jews believe the state faces an existential threat. One interviewee said: “I wouldn’t trust [Israeli Arabs] for anything. I’ll keep my distance on the smallest chance that he’ll stick a knife in my back … ” One-quarter think the secular-religious divide is dangerous; one-fifth think the left-right divide endangers Israel.

Belief in coexistence is a casualty of all this. In a battery of questions about coexistence behavior, barely half of young Jews polled would consider things like going to the home of an Arab (37 percent ) or having an Arab friend (52 percent ). Among Arabs, the rates range from 58 percent to 81 percent. When Jews were asked their feelings about Arabs, most say they have none; the second-ranked answer is “hatred” (27 percent ). Perhaps most troubling, democracy itself seems less important than identity. Although the vast majority in our study says democracy is theoretically important, 46 percent of Jews are willing to limit the rights of Arabs to be elected to Knesset and three-quarters say security concerns trump democracy.

It’s important to realize that the “youth” are not monolithic. Secular Jews are significantly more supportive of democratic values and coexistence than religious youngsters, reflecting fundamentally different world views. Arab youngsters are the most supportive of democratic principles; it is logical, but ironic, that Arabs could become the strongest advocates for Israeli democracy.

When interviewed, people did not seem aware of the contradictions inherent in, for example, supporting democracy in theory but not in reality, or in feeling disgust for public life, but showing little interest in changing it.

This is what Australia currently faces; a system for asylum seekers that simply can’t cope with the inevitable anger, fear and prolonged detention of those fleeing persecution. Mental trauma is rife. British multinational Serco are unwilling to spend the required funds to service human beings but the fault largely lies with the federal government. Privatised care almost guarantees abuses.

The following article by Paige Taylor appears in today’s Australian:

Guards have for months feared for their safety at Villawood, the centre that workplace safety watchdog Comcare considered “a basket case” in the days before up to 100 detainees ran riot, lighting fires that gutted nine buildings.

The Immigration Department has been in dispute with Comcare for the past fortnight over safety and other standards at the centre, and the watchdog has ordered improvements in relation to staffing and risk assessment.

Comcare has visited seven detention centres in the past fortnight, including Christmas Island, as part of an investigation that left some senior investigators shocked.

The Weekend Australian has been told investigators and other staff at Comcare privately described Villawood as “a basket case”.

They were appalled by what they found, including risk assessment processes that they believed left Villawood, its guards and some detainees vulnerable.

Staffing levels at Villawood left guards “massively outnumbered by a volatile detainee population”, according to author and activist Antony Loewenstein, who has recently interviewed dozens of detention centre guards as research for a book about privatisation.

“The system in some ways is brutalising refugees and the staff members,” he said.

“In talking to the guards at Villawood, I was struck by the way in which they have been fearful of the refugees.”

Mr Loewenstein said guards also spoke freely to him about their belief that they had not been given enough training for the sometimes dangerous work they did.

Last week, just days before rooftop protests at Villawood, Comcare issued the Immigration Department with a lengthy improvement notice asserting that a guard in charge of Villawood’s high-security unit was not trained for the job.

The unit holds boatpeople from Christmas Island alleged to have been ringleaders of riots on March 17, as well as non-citizens convicted of crimes who are awaiting deportation.

But the department denies the guard running the high-security unit was unqualified.

Training and staffing levels are the responsibility of the Immigration Department contractor Serco, which was heavily criticised in the wake of the Christmas Island riots for understaffing compounds.

Serco defended itself at the time by pointing to the island’s chronic accommodation shortage.

Even if the company had been able to recruit large numbers of extra workers, there was nowhere for them to stay.

Mr Loewenstein, who has been highly critical of Serco on his blog, said there was sentiment at the highest levels of the company that it was being blamed for problems that were actually caused by the blowout in detainee numbers.

“Governments contract out services that they cannot do or do not want to do . . . it is far easier for a government to blame a private company than to blame itself,” he said.

When Serco signed a five-year contract to run Australia’s immigration detention centres in 2009, there were about 600 detainees. Now there are more than 6000.

The company’s original contract for detention centres was valued at $340 million. The latest adjustment, in November last year, puts the value of the contract at $712 million.

More adjustments are likely.

Some background here and here.

As the Australian government is criticised for its detention centre system facing ongoing violence and chaos – the likely response is to be “tougher” on asylum seekers, a wonderfully humane outcome – Greens Senator Sarah Hanson-Young focuses on the culpability of Serco, the company that’s allowed to escape scrutiny:

TONY JONES: Alright. We’ll come to that in more detail in a moment. First we’ve just heard claims from a former guard that Serco, the private corporation running the detention centres, has been throwing raw recruits in at the deep end at Villawood Detention Centre without proper training. How serious a breach would that be?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Look, I think that’s very serious. And unfortunately, it’s those types of reports that we’ve been hearing on the ground for some time now, not just in Villawood, but in other facilities. Questions over the adequate training of those who have to work with children, adequate training for those on the ground every day having to work with asylum seekers who are clearly suffering severe mental health concerns, suffering torture and trauma from the persecution and torture they’ve suffered.

Now, it’s – I really feel for the Serco security officers on this one. They are at the cold face in a very, very difficult situation. And the Serco officers that I talk to when I visit detention centres, I’ve never been anywhere where I haven’t had an officer come up to me and say, “Hang on, Senator, let me tell you the real story.” And that is a concern. It’s about time the Government reviewed the contract, had an urgent audit of the types of operations that are going on and realise that the promise that they broke in 2007 to bring back into public hands the running of detention centres, when they broke that promise, they made a mistake.

TONY JONES: So, the Greens strongly believe, do they, that the detention centres should be re-nationalised in effect?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Well, at the last – at the 2007 election, the Labor Party said because of the situation that we’d seen happen for the decade or half before them, the situation of rioting across the different detention centres, including on Nauru under the Howard Government, the Labor Party said, “Yes, I think it’s about time we started to have more transparency in the process.” Of course Labor got into power, they won government and we’ve never seen that promise acted upon. I do think it’s time …

TONY JONES: But can I just interrupt you there? Why would – why do you believe public servants would do any better than Serco?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: I think it’s about the transparency. Since the contract was signed with Serco, some two and a half years ago, people, as myself in Senate Estimates, advocates have been asking to see the contract. Let’s see what the service provision requirements are. When the Government talks about possible breaches, let’s have a look at what those possible breaches are. There’s no set auditing, there’s no regular auditing and because no-one knows what the service contract is because it’s in-confidence, commercial-in-confidence, there’s nothing to judge that on. And I think that really does raise questions about how these facilities are being run at taxpayers’ money and then when tensions rise like this, who is to blame? Well, at the moment only the Government can take the blame. But we really need to get down to the issues of seeing what is going on on the ground.

TONY JONES: Okay. Chris Bowen says he’s got virtually now two inquiries underway, with the same team doing the inquiry of course, the Christmas Island riots, now this one looking into the circumstances of the riots and the preparedness of Serco to actually deal with these things. I mean, should he wait before acting, wait for the results of these inquiries?

SARAH HANSON-YOUNG: Well, look, first and foremost, I think we really need to make it very clear that we all condemn the violence, we all condemn the property damage of the riots and I don’t think anyone can argue that the writing has made the situation any better in either of the facilities and for anybody there, particularly those directly involved. I don’t think it’s made their cases any better. But why this has occurred is what should be being investigated. The complex reasons behind the rise of the tensions and really trying to move forward to a solution. If the Government only wants to look at individual case by individual case, they will fail to address it. There is a systematic problem in the immigration detention network. It all needs to be reviewed.

A report on last night’s ABC Lateline highlighted the flaws in a privatised detention system:

KAREN BARLOW: But a former guard at Villawood has come forward, describing a privatised detention system in crisis. He says problems at the centre have been building for some time.

FORMER VILLAWOOD DETENTION CENTRE GUARD: It’s pretty unprecedented, really. Yeah, never seen anything like it before in Villawood’s entire history. I don’t think there’s been that much destruction at all.

KAREN BARLOW: He says his former employer Serco does not train staff properly.

FORMER VILLAWOOD DETENTION CENTRE GUARD: Basically, from what I’ve seen, the new recruits were just basically put on the floor, no training whatsoever, they were being told that they would be trained as they were, and that also has never happened before. Basically what is supposed to happen is that they’re meant to go through a – at least a minimum six-week course and then have a year of on-the-job training. Serco just basically got rid of the six-week course using staffing levels as an excuse, and then basically just threw the staff straight onto the floor and expected that the experienced staff to train as well as do their normal jobs.

KAREN BARLOW: The former guard says the Federal Government should review Serco’s contract.

FORMER VILLAWOOD DETENTION CENTRE GUARD: They’ve had pretty poor performance and basically the spate of incidences, major incidences under Serco’s control, have been – there’s just been too many. Um, so, yeah, I think that the contract should really be reassessed.

KAREN BARLOW: The Government’s review of last month’s riots at Christmas Island will now also investigate the Villawood protests. That will include the response of Serco and the Immigration Department.

CHRIS BOWEN: Well there’s no evidence before me to indicate that any actions by Serco or Department of Immigration staff on the ground at the centres led to these incidents or that the response wasn’t adequate. But I am not going to pre-empt the results of the Hawke-Williams review. I’m looking forward to receiving that review, and if there are lessons to be learnt, they’ll be learnt out of that review.

Welcome to the pathetic state of US-led “peace-making” in the Middle East:

A Republican invitation for Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to address Congress next month is highlighting the tensions between President Obama and Mr. Netanyahu and has kicked off a bizarre diplomatic race over who will be the first to lay out a new proposal to reopen the stalled Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

For three months, White House officials have been debating whether the time has come for Mr. Obama to make a major address on the region’s turmoil, including the upheaval in the Arab world, and whether he should use the occasion to propose a new plan for peace between Israelis and Palestinians.

One administration official said that course was backed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the president himself, but opposed by Dennis B. Ross, the president’s senior adviser on the Middle East.

As the administration has been pondering, Mr. Netanyahu, fearful that his country would lose ground with any Obama administration plan, has been considering whether to pre-empt the White House with a proposal of his own, before a friendly United States Congress, according to American officials and diplomats from the region.

“People seem to think that whoever goes first gets the upper hand,” said Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator and a director at the New America Foundation. Using Mr. Netanyahu’s nickname, he said: “If Bibi went first and didn’t lay out a bold peace plan, it would be harder for Obama to say, actually, despite what you said to Congress and their applause, this is what I think you should do.”

The political gamesmanship between the two men illustrates how the calculation in the Middle East has changed for a variety of reasons, including the political upheaval in the Arab world. But it also shows the lack of trust and what some officials say is personal animosity between Mr. Obama and Mr. Netanyahu.

White House officials are working on drafts of a possible proposal, but they have not decided how detailed it will be, or even whether the president will deliver it in a planned speech. If Mr. Obama does put forward an American plan, officials say it could include four principles, or terms of reference, built around the final status issues that have bedeviled peace negotiators since 1979.

The terms of reference could call for Israel to accept a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders. For their part, Palestinians would have to accept that they would not get the right of return to land in Israel from which they fled or were forced to flee. Jerusalem would be the capital of both states, and Israeli security would have to be protected.

Reading this report in the New York Times makes one realise how utterly disconnected to reality are the American and Israeli political elites. Mainstream Zionist fascism is ignored. Anybody want to complain about this?

“Do you want your grandson to be named Ahmed ben Sarah?” a street poster slapped on the walls of Jerusalem’s ultra-Orthodox neighborhoods inquires, in a not-so-subtle dig at the Yesh retail chain.

The problem the authors of the broadside (pashkevil, in Hebrew ) have is that Yesh, the Haredi arm of the Super-Sol supermarket chain, allows Arab men to work alongside Jewish women.

The poster features the Yesh logo next to a photograph of two employees chatting – or as the poster puts it, “An Arab man courting a daughter of Israel at the Givat Shaul branch.”

TheMarker has discovered that the organization behind the pashkevil is Lehava, a Hebrew acronym for “Preventing Assimilation in the Holy Land.” (Don’t confuse it with the Finance Ministry division called Lehava, which is devoted to narrowing digital gaps in Israeli society. )

“One of the biggest problems today is that Jewish employees at retail chains are assimilating with Arab employees,” said Bentzi Gupstein, one of the anti-assimilation group’s leaders. “Just two weeks ago a Jewish woman working at a branch of Shefa Shuk in Jerusalem left a Haredi home and went to live with an Arab employee she’d met at the store.”

“We are publicizing the problem to make people understand that there is a problem, and to encourage people to buy from places that hire Jewish labor. The posters influence the Haredi community,” Gupstein added.

In this environment, whether Netanyahu or Obama gives the first speech in the coming months just seems utterly irrelevant.