Antony Loewenstein

Following this week’s Marrickville BDS decision, today’s Sydney Morning Herald publishes an editorial that shows a profound ignorance of the conflict. The word “democracy” is thrown about so carelessly when describing Israel that many in the West continue living under the illusion that Israel proper gives full rights to its citizens. Arabs are profoundly discriminated against. Palestinians in the West Bank are treated like second-class citizens. A democracy doesn’t behave this way (and neither does Australia, by the way, offering many in Aboriginal Australia little more than a dusty town and terrible services).

BDS is vital because simply hoping and praying that Israel will give up its occupation has failed. 44 years of failure. Outside pressure is both necessary and moral:

The short-lived boycott of Israel by Marrickville Council has been an interesting study of how distant foreign policy issues can sometimes intersect with local politics. The council and its mayor, Fiona Byrne, would never have envisaged the attention they ended up getting from what they would have regarded as a worthy but probably futile gesture.

After all, many other councils – especially in the gentrified inner areas of Sydney and Melbourne – have similarly ”warned the Tsar” by adopting causes in conflict with Canberra’s official policy. They have flown the Tibetan or West Papuan flag, hosted East Timorese resistance leaders, damned the Burmese junta. Why not support Palestinians?

The difference is that Israel is a democracy, at least within its pre-1967 borders, and is open to argument; indeed in its domestic politics it’s riven by argument. By jailing a former president for rape and putting a recent prime minister on trial for corruption, it has shown a strong ethos of impartial justice. This suggests engagement, not boycotts, is the way to apply pressure about the continued occupation of the West Bank and control of access to Gaza, and the Jewish settlements. We have argued that Israel, propelled by a rightwards drift in its politics and the rise of ultra-orthodox religious groups, is making the goal of a two-state peace settlement ever more elusive. Formal exclusion could entrench this kind of thinking.

While yet another detention centre in Australia, Villawood, run by British multinational Serco, is today facing refugee riots (and what do we expect, locking people up for months if not years? No mental trauma or anger?), earlier this week ABC TV’s 7.30 tackled the role of Serco. The story wasn’t bad (overly focused on under-staffing rather than the litany of human rights breaches by the company) but it’s a start. More, please:

LEIGH SALES, PRESENTER: More questions about how Australia’s detention centres are being run and whether there are enough properly-trained staff to handle the growing number of asylum seekers.

Serco is the outside company which manages the nation’s detention facilities and it’s currently under investigation by both the Commonwealth Ombudsman and a Government-appointed review. Those inquiries were sparked by last month’s riots and breakouts on Christmas Island.

National affairs correspondent Heather Ewart takes a look at the pressures on detention centres and their workers, including new allegations that staff are being pressured not to report troublesome incidents.

HEATHER EWART, REPORTER: Detention centres in Australia are a growth business. When the large multinational corporation Serco signed on to manage them just under two years ago, there were five centres with around 1,000 detainees. These days, that number has ballooned to almost 6,500, housed at 23 sites around the country. Serco finds itself under greater scrutiny than ever before.

KAYE BERNARD, CHRISTMAS ISLAND WORKERS UNION: The increasing numbers of asylum seekers that have been stuffed into a poor facilities run by Serco who have proven themself not to be able to manage what they’ve been paid millions of dollars to do needs to be clearly looked at.

VICTORIA MARTIN-IVERSON, REFUGEE ACTION NETWORK: Look, we know from Christmas Island Detention Centre that there’s been regular and fairly consistent levels of profound understaffing. We see dramatic staff turnover at all the centres.

SCOTT PRASSER, AUST. CATHOLIC UNI.: I think the problem is Serco’s got a reputation for running prisons, and a good one, but these are very different types of detention centres.

LOUISE NEWMAN, MONASH UNI.: We’re in a very precarious situation, a high-risk situation, where we’re going to see, and unless something changes, increasing rates of self-harm and protest, and sadly, even suicidal behaviour.

HEATHER EWART: Recent riots and breakouts on Christmas Island have put Serco under the spotlight. It’s only just regained control of the centre, after federal police had to take over. Now, the Ombudsman and a government appointed review are examining what went wrong and that sparked a flurry of complaints that the problems are not just confined to Christmas Island.

VICTORIA MARTIN-IVERSON: At the centres that I regularly visit, there is always brand new staff there that are undertrained.

KAYE BERNARD: I speak to officers and have counselled officers that have come off night shift where they’ve had to undertake what’s called “cut downs”. Those cut downs involve people attempting to hang themself.

VICTORIA MARTIN-IVERSON: I get reports that Curtin Detention Centre that people are now self-harming on a daily basis.

LOUISE NEWMAN: I think Serco have particularly difficult job and in many ways it’s a job that was slightly unexpected and maybe it’s fair to say that not many staff have had direct training or experience in some of these issues.

HEATHER EWART: There have been five suicides at detention centres since last September and an undisclosed number of failed attempts. Under its contract with the Department of Immigration, Serco is required to provide client support staff with a six-week training induction course. The Human Rights Commission has documented this doesn’t always occur.

VICTORIA MARTIN-IVERSON: For example, the report on Leonora found that although every staff member working at that facility for families, and very high needs families, are meant to have the psychological support program training, they found that not one single staffer had had that training.

SANDI LOGAN, IMMIGRATION DEPT. SPOKESMAN: We’re confident that Serco understands our expectations according to the contract. We’re confident that they do provide qualified and trained staff.

HEATHER EWART: But that may not always be the case. Serco is on a contract understood to amount to $370 million a year. With growing pressures on the system, it’s been subcontracting in some areas to a company called MSS Security. In Darwin last October, local Justice Department investigators raided the company with reported evidence of at least 30 unlicensed guards, including foreign students employed at detention facilities.

VICTORIA MARTIN-IVERSON: They were uncertified, and some of them, it was revealed, were alleged to have not even had the working-with-children clearances.

SANDI LOGAN: My understanding is there have been some issues around some contracted staff and their eligibility in fact to work, whether they were on the appropriate visas.

HEATHER EWART: Serco can be fined by the Government if it’s considered to have breached its contractual obligations and recent sanctions are believed to amount to around $4 million for the main Christmas Island facility alone. The local union claims this is a powerful incentive not to report troublesome incidents, including self-harm.

KAYE BERNARD: They’ve certainly instructed some of our members that they will not – they will not tolerate them reporting incidents as they’re required to do over their contract with DIAC. And if you do report incidents, you get a window seat – you’ll get flown off the island. And that’s a real concern to me.

SANDI LOGAN: I’m not aware of that allegation. If in fact that’s being made, that’s a serious allegation. It’s one that should be addressed to Serco in the first instance.

HEATHER EWART: In a statement to 7.30, Serco strongly denied the allegation, but said if there was any evidence of such a practice, it would immediately investigate. In response to claims of under-staffing and poor training, it said Serco’s training program met its obligations. However, this was a growing and increasingly complex contract and staffing levels were sometimes dependent on the stock available.

Remote locations like Christmas Island with limited accommodation do make it difficult to attract and keep staff. A report from one manager last year suggested the main North-West Point facility at Christmas Island was at least 15 staff members short per day, and that was before the number of detainees had risen to 1,000 above capacity.

The managers that they’ve had, Serco have had attracted to that centre have left quickly because they were unable to run it in any professional sense, given the resources that – the limited resources that Serco were willing to expend.

SANDI LOGAN: The contract that the Department of Immigration and Citizenship has with Serco doesn’t stipulate a staff-to-client ratio. What it does require Serco to do is to meet certain standards.

SCOTT PRASSER: If you decide to put a detention centre in a remote area for all sorts of constitutional, legal reasons, the other side of that coin is how you’re going to staff it, manage it, control it.

HEATHER EWART: There have been five regional managers, some in an acting capacity at Christmas Island, since Serco started management there in September 2009. The latest from the UK lasted a matter of weeks. But Serco claims it has a consistent senior management structure.

The Minister for Immigration Chris Bowen was unavailable for comment on this and other related issues because of the review of Serco’s handling of the Christmas Island crisis. The contract with Serco is commercial-in-confidence, and it’s not clear what amounts to a breach of its terms.

VICTORIA MARTIN-IVERSON: There’s certainly a culture of silence and there is certainly a culture of secrecy. Many aspects of Serco’s contracts are secret. Many aspects of what goes on in detention centres are secret.

SANDI LOGAN: The tradition of these sorts of contracts with service providers with the Commonwealth has been, in this department’s case, that they remain commercial-in-confidence.

SCOTT PRASSER: Immigration is an area which is often an emotive area and I think at the end of the day, transparency will lead to a better outcome.

HEATHER EWART: The government review will report mid-year. At this stage, there’s no plan to extend its terms of reference to management of other detention facilities.

American government assistance for the purpose of “regime change” brings serious questions about what kind of Islamists are acceptable to the US (clearly some are, despite Washington being opposed to engaging, say, Hamas):

The State Department has secretly financed Syrian political opposition groups and related projects, including a satellite TV channel that beams anti-government programming into the country, according to previously undisclosed diplomatic cables.

The London-based satellite channel, Barada TV, began broadcasting in April 2009 but has ramped up operations to cover the mass protests in Syria as part of a long-standing campaign to overthrow the country’s autocratic leader, Bashar al-Assad. Human rights groups say scores of people have been killed by Assad’s security forces since the demonstrations began March 18; Syria has blamed the violence on “armed gangs.”

Barada TV is closely affiliated with the Movement for Justice and Development, a London-based network of Syrian exiles. Classified U.S. diplomatic cables show that the State Department has funneled as much as $6 million to the group since 2006 to operate the satellite channel and finance other activities inside Syria. The channel is named after the Barada River, which courses through the heart of Damascus, the Syrian capital.

The U.S. money for Syrian opposition figures began flowing under President George W. Bush after he effectively froze political ties with Damascus in 2005. The financial backing has continued under President Obama, even as his administration sought to rebuild relations with Assad. In January, the White House posted an ambassador to Damascus for the first time in six years.

The cables, provided by the anti-secrecy Web site WikiLeaks, show that U.S. Embassy officials in Damascus became worried in 2009 when they learned that Syrian intelligence agents were raising questions about U.S. programs. Some embassy officials suggested that the State Department reconsider its involvement, arguing that it could put the Obama administration’s rapprochement with Damascus at risk.

Syrian authorities “would undoubtedly view any U.S. funds going to illegal political groups as tantamount to supporting regime change,” read an April 2009 cable signed by the top-ranking U.S. diplomat in Damascus at the time. “A reassessment of current U.S.-sponsored programming that supports anti-[government] factions, both inside and outside Syria, may prove productive,” the cable said.

It is unclear whether the State Department is still funding Syrian opposition groups, but the cables indicate money was set aside at least through September 2010. While some of that money has also supported programs and dissidents inside Syria, The Washington Post is withholding certain names and program details at the request of the State Department, which said disclosure could endanger the recipients’ personal safety.

…

Around the same time, Syrian exiles in Europe founded the Movement for Justice and Development. The group, which is banned in Syria, openly advocates for Assad’s removal. U.S. cables describe its leaders as “liberal, moderate Islamists” who are former members of the Muslim Brotherhood.

A sad New York Times investigation that essentially explains how Richard Goldstone was devastated about being shunned by Israel and the Zionist Diaspora. He wanted to be welcomed back. His report on Gaza is now tainted with his partial (unproven) retraction of allegations against deliberative Israeli attacks on Palestinian civilians:

“I know he was extremely hurt by the reaction to the report,” said Aryeh Neier, president of the Open Society Foundations, who has known Mr. Goldstone for years and remains close to him. “I think he was extremely uncomfortable in providing some fodder to people who were looking for anything they could use against Israel.”

This will only increase in frequency while the Zionist state continues to occupy Palestinian land. And how many young American Jews look at Israel and like what they see? Less every day:

On Friday night [in Washington], a favorite cafe among progressives, Busboys and Poets, gathered letters to Gazans; the next aid flotilla in May will deliver the messages to the Gaza residents. A separate room in the cafe hosted a meeting of around 250 activists with Omar Barghouti, founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign. Barghouti, who recently released a book on BDS, was winding up a book tour that included Columbia, Harvard, Brandeis and other universities.

The evening began with a moment of silence for actor Juliano Mer-Khamis, murdered earlier this month in Jenin, and Italian journalist Vittorio Arrigoni, murdered in recent days in Gaza. Barghouti then quoted U.S. President Barack Obama’s justification for the NATO attacks on Muammar Gadhafi’s forces in Libya.

“Innocent people were targeted for killing. Hospitals and ambulances were attacked. Supplies of food and fuel were choked off. Water for hundreds of thousands of people was shut off. Cities and towns were shelled, mosques were destroyed and apartment buildings reduced to rubble,” Barghouti said, reading out a statement.

“This is about Libya, but you would say the same logic should be applied to Gaza. Unfortunately, it is not. Revolutions are shaking the Middle East, and one big loser is Israel. As Arab governments become more democratic they will reflect peoples’ opinions, which are very much opposed to the Israeli apartheid.”

“Some people say BDS is not fair and not effective – Israel is a democracy. On almost every level, Israel is only a democracy for one ethnic group. The Palestinian-led BDS movement is calling Israel an apartheid state, and the main refutation of this is that Israel allows Palestinians to vote,” Barghouti said.

“Apartheid is not defined according to whims of this or that scholar. Apartheid is when the discrimination is legalized. Now there are commissions to accept new residents into communities. Imagine an Irish white guy saying: ‘We don’t accept this Latino guy, his food smells funny, he doesn’t fit.’ But in Israel now it’s legal.”

“I think calling Israel a fascist state is an exaggeration, but there are fascist tendencies. When they get mad, Liberal Zionists tend to exaggerate,” he added. “Israel is losing the battle for hearts and minds at the grassroots level. It maintains connections with the elite, but competes with Iran and North Korea as the most hated countries in the world.”

Barghouti said it was impossible to predict what the Israelis would do in response to the next flotilla, saying they continue to shoot themselves in the foot, but highlighting Israel’s reactions only helps raise awareness of the siege on Gaza. After the event, Barghouti recommended everyone, including Zionists, to read his book, but declined to be interviewed by Haaretz. “We’re being very careful about giving interviews to the Israeli media,” he said.

No kidding:

Plans to exploit Iraq’s oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world’s largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.

The papers, revealed here for the first time, raise new questions over Britain’s involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blair’s cabinet and was voted through only after his claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.

The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time.

The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as “highly inaccurate”. BP denied that it had any “strategic interest” in Iraq, while Tony Blair described “the oil conspiracy theory” as “the most absurd”.

But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very different picture.

Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq’s enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair’s military commitment to US plans for regime change.

The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP’s behalf because the oil giant feared it was being “locked out” of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.

Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: “Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis.”

The minister then promised to “report back to the companies before Christmas” on her lobbying efforts.

The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq “post regime change”. Its minutes state: “Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity.”

After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Office’s Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: “Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in [Iraq] for the sake of their long-term future… We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq.”

Bravo:

The NSW Greens have vowed to continue championing Palestinian human rights after a Sydney council’s boycott of Israel collapsed in the face of overwhelming political pressure.

Marrickville Council, in Sydney’s inner-west, on Tuesday night dumped its boycott of Israeli products and services after widespread criticism from the federal and state governments, business leaders and the Jewish community.

Despite the setback, Marrickville mayor Fiona Byrne on Wednesday said the sanctions had achieved some success in the face of an “avalanche” of pressure and criticism.

“Council has put the human rights of the Palestinian people on the national agenda. That’s success to me,” she said.

“This is an ethical purchasing policy. Every organisation, every individual has a right to decide, by whatever criteria, who they’ll do business with.”

NSW Greens MP John Kaye said the party’s support for the “rights” of Palestinians would not be weakened.

“The Greens were unable to sustain the boycotts, divestments and sanctions motion but our support for the rights of the Palestinian people will not weaken,” he told reporters in Sydney on Wednesday.

“We will continue to campaign in whatever way we can to make sure the world understands that the Palestinian people are being deposed and their human rights are being denied on a daily basis.”

…

Meanwhile, the Greens-controlled Leichhardt Council has voted down a motion designed to prevent the authority ever introducing a similar boycott of Israel.

Labor councillors tried to introduce the motion at a meeting on Tuesday night and now claim it could lead to another Israeli boycott.

“Why would council have voted down that motion last night unless they were hoping that a little way down the track, when the public outcry had died down, they could slip a boycott through quietly?,” Labor councillor Darcy Byrne told AAP on Wednesday.

Leichhardt Greens councillors said they were happy with an existing policy, which is designed to promote Israeli-Palestine relations and had no plans to introduce another Israel boycott.

I feature near the beginning, talking about how the West allows the Zionist state to get away with its occupying ways.

Background here and here.

Here’s an audio recording of my speech. The quality ain’t great (and I know it was recorded by many people so hopefully other audio and video coming soon):

Here’s the ABC Radio AM story this morning on last night’s proceedings. The journalist interviewed me (but this wasn’t included in the final story…oh the shame!) but one of my comments made it into the piece:

TONY EASTLEY: It’s unusual that a local council should get involved with world affairs, especially something as fraught as the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

But the inner-city Marrickville Council in Sydney created a storm of controversy when, last December, it adopted a proposal to boycott Israeli goods and services.

But now the council has had a change of heart and last night voted against supporting the boycott.

Michael Edwards has this report.

COUNCIL LEADER: Order please, order please!

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Planning approvals and petitions for park benches are usually debated at Marrickville Council meetings, but last night world peace was on the agenda.

COUNCIL MEMBER: This is the example of decent people taking a stand for justice, human rights and international law.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: After months of controversy, the council’s decision to place a ban on Israeli products was up for debate.

The meeting dragged on for four hours and 30 people spoke on the issue.

Some powerful emotions surfaced.

COUNCIL MEMBER 3: I support the Palestinians, I support their right in everything, and I went…

COUNCIL LEADER: Order please, order!

COUNCIL MEMBER 4: There is no one in here, I’m sure, that does not want peace in the Middle East or everywhere else in the world, but if we continue to separate and carry that baggage to separate, they will never be appeased.

COUNCIL MEMBER 5 [This is me!]: There are not two equal sides in this conflict, there is an occupier and an occupied.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Eventually after much vitriol and name calling from the public gallery, the majority of councillors voted to end the council’s support for the ban.

There are claims the Labor Party pressured its members on the Marrickville Council to withdraw their support for the boycott.

Marrickville’s Mayor, Fiona Byrne staked a lot of political capital on supporting it. It may have cost her the seat of Marrickville in last month’s state election. It also made her the focus of a lot of media attention, not all of it favourable.

FIONA BYRNE: We have created a little egg which is support for the plight of the Palestinian people and a sledgehammer is being used to break that.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Even though she lost the vote, Fiona Byrne says she doesn’t regret supporting the boycott.

FIONA BYRNE: Certainly we have put BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) on the national agenda, whatever that means.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: Many opposed to the boycott say it’s just not the place of a local council to weigh into international politics.

But there were many Palestinians among those watching the debate. They say the boycott would be an effective method of protest.

Samah Sabawi is a Palestinian human rights activist.

SAMAH SABAWI: There is a lot of support and there is a lot of interest in the boycott, divestments and sanctions campaign and it is a growing campaign and this is just the beginning in Australia. I don’t think that this is a loss, in fact I think it really has put BDS on the agenda and it’s put it in newspapers and people are talking about it and we’re getting lots of questions about what it is, so it’s an educational opportunity.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: But many among Marrickville’s Jewish community say they’re relieved the boycott isn’t proceeding.

Uri Windt is a spokesman for the Inner-west Jewish community.

URI WINDT: The nature of the global boycott is universal and has no end point or political demand that can possibly met. That leads you to the conclusion that it is so broad and so universal as to be distinctly hostile to Israel or the Jewish people per se.

That is not a way in which to advance the cause of the Palestinian people.

MICHAEL EDWARDS: The New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies was unavailable for comment due to the festival of Passover.

In a statement, it says it’s against the boycott and a reversal of it would be a welcome victory for commonsense.

TONY EASTLEY: Michael Edwards with that report.

This is what matters and why Israel must pay a price for murdering Palestinians:

The US worked behind the scenes to help Israel contain United Nations probes into possible war crimes committed during the 2008/’09 Gaza war, Foreign Policy reported today.

The online foreign affairs magazine cited exclusive WikiLeaks cables, detailing moves by Washington’s UN ambassador Susan Rice to prevent a more thorough UN investigation of alleged abuses in the conflict.

Some 1400 Palestinians and 13 Israelis were killed during the three-week Israeli offensive in December 2008 and January 2009, which was aimed at halting Palestinian rocket attacks.

According to one cable, Rice spoke with UN chief Ban Ki-moon three times on May 4, 2009 to urge him to remove recommendations for a wider investigation from a board of inquiry report into attacks on UN sites in Gaza.

Rice “underscored the importance of having a strong cover letter that made clear that no further action was needed and would close out this issue,” the US diplomatic cable said.

Ban said his staff was working with the Israeli delegation and “called her after the letter had been finalised to report that he believed they had arrived at a satisfactory cover letter”.

Later that year, Israel and the US pushed back against a similar effort to investigate the war by the UN Human Rights Council, which appointed a team led by the South African jurist Richard Goldstone.

The release of the Goldstone probe coincided with US efforts to revive Israeli-Palestinian peace talks and, in another cable, Rice linked the two during a meeting with Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon.

Rice told Ayalon that Washington “is still studying the report, remains concerned about the fact-finding mission’s mandate and many of the recommendations in the report”, according to the cable.

She then urged him to “help us help them with progress on the peace process, saying that the report can be more easily managed if there is progress”.

The Goldstone report said there was evidence that both Israel and Palestinian militant groups had committed war crimes and possible crimes against humanity, urging independent probes on both sides.

Two weeks ago, Goldstone stepped back from the report, saying new information about Israel’s military actions led him to believe he had erred in concluding that Israel targeted civilians during the 22-day conflict.

He cited a UN committee of independent experts that followed up on the report and found Israel “has dedicated significant resources to investigate over 400 allegations of operational misconduct in Gaza”.

In contrast, Hamas, the Islamist militant group ruling Gaza, “have not conducted any investigations into the launching of rocket and mortar attacks against Israel” that triggered the offensive, Goldstone wrote.

Israel, which bitterly opposed the investigation from the beginning, had since demanded that the UN rescind the report.

But last week, three report co-authors – Pakistani human rights’ lawyer Hina Jilani; Christine Chinvin, a professor of international law at the London School of Economics; and former Irish peacekeeper Desmond Travers – rejected calls to retract it.

I was present at last night’s Marrickville council meeting over BDS. It was a circus. Hundreds of people attended. Protesters, Zionists, students, unionists, Palestinians, Arabs, citizens. Countless numbers of people couldn’t fit into the council chambers (luckily I was inside for proceedings). In the end, the BDS didn’t succeed but in many ways this wasn’t the only issue at hand; raising the question of Palestine in a way that was being noticed locally and globally. There was passion in the room. Mayor Fiona Byrne kept her cool and has spent months bravely trying to defend BDS against a barrage of hate and lies from the Murdoch press.

Predictably, most of the anti-BDS speakers – there were around 17 speakers and the meeting lasted for over three hours – talked in motherhood statements. Peace. Harmony. Two equal sides (Israel and Palestine). Little about occupation.

At the last minute I was asked to speak. I focused on the realities in Palestine and Israel’s racial discrimination. This is something that impacts us all, the lack of dignity of the indigenous peoples of the land. One side is the occupier and the other is occupied. It’s not really all that complicated. This is what Zionism is.

I spent my allotted three minutes detailing how the West props up Israel and it is our responsibility to speak up for human rights. Jewish-only roads in the West Bank. The siege on Gaza and ever-increasing settlements in the West Bank. Nearly universal backing in the UN for Palestinian rights (except Nauru, Marshall Islands, Australia, Israel and the US). As BDS takes off in countless places, the arguments against it become even further removed from Palestine itself. If you can’t argue on the facts, change the subject. Talk about local politics, or “balance” or “peace”.

Last night BDS was defeated in Sydney but the message I’m hearing from countless activists is that this has galvanised people to step up the campaign for Palestinian rights. The politicians who last night didn’t vote on principle but for partisan, political reasons (also known as selling out) will not be so easily forgotten. Isn’t it about time the corporate press looked seriously into the role of the Zionist lobby in this country and how it influences public and political debate?

It’s just beginning.

Here’s the Sydney Morning Herald report:

Marrickville Council’s controversial push for a boycott of Israel was quashed at a tempestuous, crowded meeting last night.

Gallery members reported being spat on, accusations of cowardice were screamed at councillors and flags and banners were waved as police looked on.

Labor councillors and two Greens who had supported the initial push to support the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, voted with two independent councillors against it.

The council’s support for the movement has drawn unprecedented ire, including from the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, and the Premier, Barry O’Farrell, and messages of support from figures such as John Pilger and Julian Burnside.

The Greens councillor Max Phillips denounced the attacks on the council but said: ”I do not believe there is sufficient understanding or support to justify council [supporting] a boycott of Israel … It must not be imposed.”

He was jeered with calls of ”there goes your preselection.” The Labor councillors Mary O’Sullivan and Sam Iskander spoke passionately about their trips to Bethlehem and their support for Palestinian human rights, but said ultimately they could not continue to support the boycott. Cr O’Sullivan moved the motion which brought the boycott down.

A separate motion by the mayor, Fiona Byrne, to retain in-principle support for the boycott was rejected. The only councillors who continued their support were the mayor, the independent Dimitrios Thanos and Greens pair Marika Kontellis and Cathy Peters.

Hundreds of people attended the passionate meeting, which was filled with shouting, flag waving and jeers. Many could not find a seat in the chamber and stood in corridors and on the street.

A Jewish blogger and pro-Palestinian rights activist, Antony Loewenstein, said he was spat on on his way in and called a pig. Proceedings were repeatedly interrupted. One woman called Arab councillors who did not support the boycott ”f—ing cowards”, first in Arabic, then in English, before storming out.

Cr Byrne said she shocked by the vitriol the issue had attracted. ”I personally don’t understand why we’ve had a sledgehammer used to crack the egg that is Marrickville Council on this issue,” she said.

Though the boycott was voted down, the council formally registered that it remained ”concerned about Palestinian human rights and calls on Israel to end the occupation of Palestinian lands”.

Twelve councillors and 18 members of the public addressed the three-hour debate.

And here’s the Australian story (thank God the paper didn’t include any Arabs voices; they don’t want to pollute their pages):

A Greens-dominated Sydney council was last night forced to abandon its bid to implement a boycott of goods and services from Israel, after a fiery meeting that lasted more than three hours.

Two of the five Greens on Marrickville Council repeatedly split from their colleagues by refusing to back motions to water down the original proposal to support the global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign.

The council finally passed a motion that resolved not to pursue the BDS “in any form” with the support of the same Greens councillors, Peter Olive and Max Phillips, four Labor councillors and two independents.

A report by council staff that put the cost of the boycott to ratepayers at more than $3.7 million was repeatedly cited as a reason to dump the BDS campaign, passed by 10 votes to two last December. Last night, only four councillors – three Greens including mayor Fiona Byrne and an independent, Dimitrios Thanos – sought to maintain the boycott.

Labor councillor Mary O’Sullivan, who put forward the motion to dump the boycott, accepted a last-minute amendment by Greens councillor Peter Olive that stated the council remained concerned about Palestinian human rights and called on Israel to end the occupation of Arab lands.

The decision to dump the boycott followed three hours of robust debate during which 17 members of the public and all 12 councillors of the inner-western Sydney council exchanged views.

Several members of the public were ejected from the gallery; on more than one occasion tempers flared and it appeared fights might break out.

The Israel boycott has plagued Marrickville Council and the Greens since the campaign for last month’s NSW election. Ms Byrne, who supported the boycott, failed in a bid to snatch the state seat of Marrickville from former Labor deputy premier Carmel Tebbutt after it was revealed she had proposed to introduce a motion for a statewide boycott of Israel if she entered parliament.

Ms Byrne was greeted upon entrance to the council chambers last night by raucous boos and cheers from about 70 banner-wielding locals – a mixture of pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian supporters.

Resident Leslie Marsh began the meeting with an impassioned rejection of the global BDS campaign, pointing out it counted among its supporters Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. “The division in this room is the perfect example of what the BDS does: it takes moderate people and moves them to extremes,” he said.

The boycott had become an umbrella for a “whole range of extreme viewpoints”.

Another local, a church minister who identified himself as Father Dave, spoke in support of the boycott, pointing out that the movement aimed to challenge the military occupation of Palestine by non-violent means.

He blamed “months of lies, threats and political intrigue” for the controversy.

Independent Morris Hanna, who has consistently opposed the boycott, said he felt “ashamed” to be a Marrickville councillor. He said numerous residents had approached him with their concerns since the boycott had drawn widespread scrutiny.

“I hope for the Palestinians and for the Israelis that they live in peace in the future without Marrickville Council trying to interfere,” he said.

Greens councillor Cathy Peters spoke most forcefully in support of the boycott, claiming the campaign against it had created an atmosphere of bullying and intimidation, and had threatened democracy.

Ms Byrne spoke briefly at the start of the meeting, to commend a watered-down version of the original motion that expressed support for the BDS movement in principal.

At the end of the debate she quipped: “We have certainly put the BDS on the national agenda, whatever that means”.