Antony Loewenstein

But, as Robert Fisk writes, Zionism only wants “democracy” for itself, screw the Arab masses:

Israel, which has been so skewed and immature in its response to the Arab awakening – why on earth did its leaders not welcome the Egyptian revolution, opening their arms to a people who showed they wanted the democracy which Israel always boasts of, instead of shooting dead five Egyptian soldiers in the latest Gaza shoot-out? – has much to ponder.

Ben Ali gone, Mubarak gone, Saleh more or less gone, Gaddafi overthrown, Assad in danger, Abdullah of Jordan still facing opposition, Bahrain’s minority Sunni monarchy still suicidally hoping to rule for eternity. These are massive historical events to which the Israelis have responded with a kind of appalled, hostile apathy. At the very moment when Israel might be able to claim that its Arab neighbours are only seeking the freedoms that Israelis already possess – that there is a brotherhood of democracy that might go beyond frontiers – it sulks and builds more colonies on Arab land and continues to delegitimise itself while accusing the world of trying to destroy it.

Another day and another serious allegation:

A former Serco employee at Curtin Detention Centre says treatment of detainees by some staff members was “outrageously brutal” and they were bullied constantly.

Seven asylum seekers were flown from Curtin and put in isolation on Christmas Island on Tuesday night because of increased tensions at the remote centre, 40km from Derby.

The Immigration Department confirmed two men tried to escape on Friday. They climbed an internal fence but did not get past the electric perimeter fence.

A spokeswoman denied the men were injured in the incident and said they were not among three detainees denied treatment at Broome Hospital on Tuesday for speaking to a member of the public in a waiting room.

The former employee, who recently resigned and asked not to be named, spoke of growing tensions at Curtin where there were three staff who had “no training, no idea and no perceived intention to provide any welfare” to detainees.

“The fact two Serco guards have committed suicided since April is evidence that not everyone can live with this on their conscience,” they said.

My following essay appears in New Matilda today:

Equating the BDS movement with Nazism is both offensive and outrageous. So why aren’t members of the Jewish community speaking out on this, asks Antony Loewenstein

Joseph Stalin changed his name and so did New South Wales Federal Greens MP Lee Rhiannon.

Stalin, writes Alan Howe, executive editor and columnist with Rupert Murdoch’s Herald Sun, was “perhaps the 20th century’s greatest murderer”.

Rhiannon backs the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and, argues Howe, people should know about “the 1930s where violent protests against Jewish traders may end. It was a colourful time of brownshirts, blackshirts and yellow Stars of David”.

In this fashion, Rhiannon is likened to a supporter of fascism and remains “against the only democracy in the Middle East and the one country in which the region’s Arabs are guaranteed safety”.

Welcome to the level of debate in Australia over the Israel/Palestine conflict. The last months have seen a litany of public figures that should know better accusing anybody associated with the BDS movement of embracing Nazism, anti-Semitism and outright Jew-hatred.

It shames the Australian Jewish establishment that no leading voices have challenged this odious and absurd comparison. Instead, they’ve cheered it on, coordinating nationally, with the support of an Israeli government desperate to distract from its own anti-democratic practices.

The Australian Jewish News has editorialised that boycotting Jewish businesses here will remind Jews of similar Nazi tactics in Germany and Austria in the 1930s. How on earth will the paper cover real anti-Semitism when they so casually compare today’s behaviour to Hitler’s Third Reich?

Back in early July, 19 pro-Palestinian activists were arrested and charged for protesting in front of a Max Brenner chocolate shop in Melbourne. Max Brenner was targeted because its parent company Strauss Group supports elements of the IDF accused of war crimes in both the West Bank and Gaza.

This campaign has continued globally for years. For example, a reader of my website in 2009 sent me a copy of a letter they sent to Max Brenner outlining the reasons the company was a legitimate target for boycott.

The Victorian Government recently continued to threaten the activists with further legal punishment, imprisonment and fines.

Max Brenner’s parent company Strauss Group is an openly political business that proudly states on its Hebrew website that “We see a mission and need to continue to provide our soldiers with support, to enhance their quality of life and service conditions, and sweeten their special moments”. Some of these soldiers were directly implicated in war crimes allegations during incursions into the West Bank and the invasion of Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009.

In late July, The Australian reported the campaign against the BDS movement in Australia with a story called, “Anti-Jew protest condemned”. Federal Labor MP Michael Danby, journalist Jana Wendt and union head Paul Howes met for a hot chocolate inside a Max Brenner shop in Melbourne, condemned the “violent” protest against the shop and again talked about Nazi Germany. Former Labor Party president Warren Mundine was quoted by journalist Leo Shanahan as saying BDS was not “not anti-Israel but anti-Jewish”.

Howes said the protesters were “mimicking the behaviour of the Nazi thugs” and it was necessary to “nip this in the bud”. Howes said most people who voted for the Greens had no idea how “xenophobic” its policies were. Not one journalist asked him whether he truly believed waving placards outside a shop in Melbourne is akin to the Gestapo arresting and murdering millions of Jews in the gas chambers. And no Jewish leaders took him to task for the comparison.

Last weekend’s article by The Australian’s Cameron Stewart allowed this misperception to perpetuate. Like Shanahan, Stewart quoted Wendt as saying that, “As the daughter of refugees whose lives were critically affected by both fascism and communism, I’m grateful for what Australia has to offer”.

A week later, the Victorian Government announced that it was investigating “anti-Israel activists” — by asking the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) if the BDS-ers were breaking federal law by “threatening” Israeli stores.

The state’s Consumer Affairs Minister Michael O’Brien raised the spectre of 20th century attacks on Jewish businesses and claimed BDS was a threat to democratic order. Bizarrely, he singled out the Maritime Union Of Australia, Geelong Trades Hall Council, the Green Left Weekly magazine, Australians for Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. For the record, Australians for Palestine had nothing to do with the BDS protest against Max Brenner, though they do back BDS.

The Australian followed up with a story recently headlined, “Targeted chocolatier ‘a man of peace’”. “Max Brenner says he is a man of peace who hates all forms of violence,” the article says. Reporter Cameron Stewart doesn’t mention the serious allegations against the IDF soldiers supported by Max Brenner. (And besides, Max Brenner is the name of the business — not of the company owner. Actually, it’s an amalgam of two names.)

One of the activists interviewed by Stewart, Kim Bullimore, spokesperson for Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, told me that little of what she said to the journalist ended up in the article.

The Australian editorialised further on the matter last week by arguing “for any student of 20th-century history there is something deeply offensive about targeting a Jewish-owned business”.

And the Jewish establishment said nothing.

BDS is a peaceful, non-violent movement, like that which campaigned against apartheid South Africa. It aims to put pressure on a state that refuses to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

What Australian politicians will not acknowledge is the real face of modern Israel. Calling for BDS inside Israel is now illegal. As an Arab member of parliament recently told the New York Times, a member of the Knesset wanted to sue him for simply calling for a boycott against the illegal settlement of Ariel. This is in “democratic” Israel.

With Israel announcing yet more illegal colonies in the West Bank, the international community has a clear choice: engage in empty rhetoric about “democratic” Israel or find alternative ways to target a state with one of the most unequal class systems in the developed world.

Australian politicians and all public figures should be strongly challenged on comparing BDS to fascist hoodlums, and rejected.

So here’s how it works. Find a dictator, love him then hate him, bomb him to smithereens and look for unique business opportunities. Asia Times:

Think of the new Libya as the latest spectacular chapter in the Disaster Capitalism series. Instead of weapons of mass destruction, we had R2P (“responsibility to protect”). Instead of neo-conservatives, we had humanitarian imperialists.

But the target is the same: regime change. And the project is the same: to completely dismantle and privatize a nation that was not integrated into turbo-capitalism; to open another (profitable) land of opportunity for turbocharged neo-liberalism. The whole thing is especially handy because it is smack in the middle of a nearly global recession.

It will take some time; Libyan oil won’t totally return to the market within 18 months. But there’s the reconstruction of everything the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) bombed (well, not much of what the Pentagon bombed in 2003 was reconstructed in Iraq …)

…

So the winners in the oil bonanza are already designated: NATO members plus Arab monarchies. Among the companies involved, British Petroleum (BP), France’s Total and the Qatar national oil company. For Qatar – which dispatched jet fighters and recruiters to the front lines, trained “rebels” in exhaustive combat techniques, and is already managing oil sales in eastern Libya – the war will reveal itself to be a very wise investment decision.

Prior to the months-long crisis that is in its end game now with the rebels in the capital, Tripoli, Libya was producing 1.6 million barrels per day. Once resumed, this could reap Tripoli’s new rulers some US$50 billion annually. Most estimates place oil reserves at 46.4 billion barrels.

And yet so recently Gaddafi was a glorious American friend:

Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) promised to help former Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi obtain U.S. military hardware as one of the United States’ partners in the war on terror, according to a U.S. diplomatic cable released Wednesday by anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks.

The meeting, which took place just over a year ago on Aug. 14, 2009, included other influential Americans, such as Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT), Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), Sen. Susan Collins (R-SC) and Senate Armed Services Committee staffer Richard Fontaine, the document explains.

McCain opened the meeting by characterizing Libya’s relationship with the U.S. as “excellent,” to which Liebermann added: “We never would have guessed ten years ago that we would be sitting in Tripoli, being welcomed by a son of Muammar al-Qadhafi.”

“Lieberman called Libya an important ally in the war on terrorism, noting that common enemies sometimes make better friends,” the cable continues. “The Senators recognized Libya’s cooperation on counterterrorism and conveyed that it was in the interest of both countries to make the relationship stronger.”

Part and parcel to that relationship: military hardware, including helicopters and non-lethal weaponry, meant to ensure the security of Tripoli. In exchange for this and assisting the nation in rehabilitating its image with other lawmakers, Gaddafi pledged to send Libya’s highly enriched uranium supplies to Russia for proper disposal.

The cable does not mention anything about the senators pressing Gaddafi for democratic reforms.

But not to worry. The Libyan “rebels” are already using Western technology to win the war (though I wonder who pays for all this?):

While NATO countries fly unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) high above Libya, none of these UAVs, or the vital intelligence they provide, was available to the Libyans fighting to free their country – they were fighting blind. So, they got one of their own. It can now be disclosed that the Libyan rebels have been using the Aeryon Scout Micro UAV to acquire intelligence on enemy positions and to coordinate their resistance efforts.

Representatives from the Transitional National Council (TNC) were looking for an imagery solution to provide to the troops on the ground. They evaluated a series of micro UAVs and chose the Aeryon Scout – and they needed it delivered immediately to those fighting at the front. Large UAVs are often flown far away from the frontline – often overseas – making it difficult to get the imagery to troops in combat. With the Aeryon Scout, the operator has direct control over the UAV and is able to see imagery in real-time.

The Aeryon Scout is a small, easy-to-fly man-packable flying robotic reconnaissance system design for operation in real-world, harsh conditions. It weighs just 3 pounds, packs into a suitcase or a backpack and can be quickly and easily deployed and operated by soldiers in the field. Instead of using joysticks, the Scout uses a map-based, touch-screen interface that allows new users to pilot the system in just minutes. The Scout essentially flies itself allowing the operator to focus on acquiring imagery.

In cooperation with the Zariba Security Corporation and the Libyan Transitional National Council, Libyan troops were trained in-country on the use of the Aeryon Scout UAV. Docking in the besieged city of Misrata, after an 18-hour boat ride from Malta, a representative from Zariba Security delivered and conducted Scout UAV training. With enemy artillery landing nearby and rockets still falling on the city, training began at the Misrata Airport. “After only one demonstration flight, the TNC soldiers operated the following flight,” said Charles Barlow of Zariba. “I was amazed how easy it was to train people with no previous UAV or aircraft experience, especially given the language barrier. Soldiers need tough, intuitive equipment – and the Scout delivered brilliantly.”

Democracy is safe.

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2008:

Yadlin replied that the Palestinians are only Israel’s number four threat in the IDI’s assessment, following Iran, Syria, and Hizballah. Although the Palestinians are not the IDI’s top concern, Yadlin said he would answer the question by noting that it will take time to marry Netanyahu’s approach to Fayyad’s. If the parties attempt to move straight to resolving the conflict, the attempt will collapse and result in violence as in the start of the Second Intifada after the 2000 Camp David summit. The key question is how can the Palestinian Authority control terrorism. Yadlin said the USSC General Dayton is doing “a very good job” of training the PA Security Forces, but Yadlin quoted Dayton as saying that the PASF will need three to five years to build its counter-terrorist capabilities, including a functioning justice system.

Yadlin said the IDF is out of the Jenin area unless it receives reports of a “ticking bomb.” The PA, however, is ignoring Gaza and Fayyad insists on paying salaries in Gaza, which helps Hamas. Yadlin said this is a “big mistake.” Yadlin noted that the Palestinians have created two entities. President Abbas and Fayyad condemn terrorism and stress that Palestinian national goals can be achieved through negotiations. They rule in the West Bank with Israel’s assistance. In Gaza, a terrorist organization is in power and Hamas preaches that Palestinian aspirations can be achieved through terrorism. This division provides Israel with a “historic opportunity” to prove that Hamas’ approach will fail.

2004:

In terms of the U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship, the Israeli media overwhelmingly agreed that the first Bush administration had been a good friend to Israel. “Conventional wisdom in Israel,” wrote a senior columnist from pluralist Yediot Aharonot on November 1, “is that Bush was and will be the ideal American president from Israel’s perspective. The best there is. Israel has no interest in seeing him replaced, and it has every interest in seeing him reelected.” Most commentators agreed, however, that both candidates shared a political record of support for Israel – for better or for worse. A senior columnist for left-wing Ha’aretz observed on October 18 that “regardless of whether Bush is reelected or John Kerry takes his place, there will be no `pressure’ from America” in terms of U.S.-Israel relations.

Let nobody say the Palestinian Authority has the best interests of the Palestinians in mind:

The Palestinian team responsible for preparing the United Nations initiative in September has been given an independent legal opinion that reveals a high risk involved with its plan to join the UN.

An initiative to transfer the Palestinians’ representation from the PLO to a state will terminate the legal status held by the PLO in the UN since 1975 that it is the sole legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, according to the document.

Crucially, there will no longer be an institution that can represent the inalienable rights of the entire Palestinian people in the UN and related international institutions, according to the brief.

Representation for the right to self-determination will be gravely affected, as it is a right of all Palestinians, both inside and outside the homeland, the legal opinion says. This change in status will severely disenfranchise the right of refugees to return to their homes and properties from which they were displaced.

KBR is a leading contractor that operates in America, Australia and across the world. Its human rights record is constantly found wanting time and time again and yet governments continue giving them contracts. That’s privatisation on crack.

Read this and weep:

The skirmishing has not yet subsided in the high-profile suit brought by Jamie Leigh Jones, the Houston woman who claimed that she was raped while working in Iraq for defense contractor KBR.

Jones had sought $145 million in damages against KBR, claiming it condoned a hostile sexual climate in Iraq, but a jury last month rejected her claims.

Now, KBR wants Jones to pay for its legal fees and court costs. Here’s a report on the filing by the Disputing blog.

In its motion seeking to recover more than $2 million in fees, KBR alleged that Jones’ rape and hostile work environment claims were fabricated and frivolous. The company has also requested that she cover its court costs of $145,000.

In a reply brief, Jones countered that there is “nothing frivolous” about her claims, as evidenced by the fact that the judge agreed to let her proceed to trial and the jury deliberated for more than 10 hours before reaching its verdict.

Her lawyer, Todd Kelly, told the Law Blog that in 16 years of practicing law he has never had a case where a defendant requested that a plaintiff cover its legal fees.

Jones does not have the means to cover KBR’s fee request, “nor could I,” Kelly said. “They have beaten us and now they are attempting to crush us,” he added. “This is an attempt by KBR to chill other people from bringing claims against them.”

The kind of story that is happening every day around the country:

Three asylum seekers were denied appointments at Broome Hospital and returned to Curtin Detention Centre after speaking to a member of the public in the waiting room.

The news comes amid reports that seven asylum seekers were flown to Christmas Island from Curtin last night due to increased tensions at the remote facility, 40km from Derby in the Kimberley.

Broome nurse Jacqueline Rehmani, 32, a long-time refugee supporter, said she walked into the reception yesterday morning and realised that the men, watched over by four Serco guards, were asylum seekers.

“I said ‘hello how are you’ in Farsi and then I proceeded to sit down next to them to ascertain whether they could speak English,” she said.

She said a Serco guard warned her not to speak to the men.

“I said ‘well, it’s a public place – I can talk to people I want to talk to’ and they became very angry at that,” she said.

Ms Rehmani said the men, aged in their 20s and 30s, told her they had been at Curtin for up to 13 months and two were awaiting a review to determine their refugee status.

She gave the men a piece of paper and asked them to write down their names and boat numbers and one man obliged.

“I went to hand it to the next asylum seeker and he shook his head and told me ‘the officer has said I’m not allowed to give you my name”, she said.

“His legs were shaking because the officers were being so intimidating and writing down everything we said … they got increasingly angry.”

Ms Rehmani said one guard rang Curtin Detention Centre and told the others to put the detainees back in the bus.

The appointments were cancelled.

Ms Rehmani said that when she went outside, police stopped her from re-entering and told her it was illegal for her to speak to the asylum seekers, she said.

She said she was warned she could be issued with a move-on notice for disturbing the peace, but as the Serco officers were leaving there was no longer an issue: “The police left and I went back and had my appointment,” she said.

Broome Police Sen Const Mike Burger confirmed officers had spoken to both parties but decided no further action was necessary.

Ms Rehmani said to cancel detainees’ appointments just because a member of the public said “hello, how are you” was “appalling”.

“They probably waited months to get an appointment, because specialists only come to Broome once every six months,” she said.

Refugee Action Coalition spokesman Ian Rintoul said the incident showed Serco’s “contemptuous attitude” and complete disregard for detainees’ health and well-being.

“Serco has shown yet again that they are not fit to have responsibility for the care of vulnerable people,” he said.

Well, that’s my words, not his, Labor MP Doug Cameron, but his comments on this week’s ABC TV’s Q and A were rare for a mainstream politician:

Look, I think the issue of Israel and Palestine is huge in terms of trying to get world peace. I think Israel have had a massive amount of support from the world community over the years to establish the Israeli state but with that, I think, comes responsibility. And I don’t think it’s a beacon of democracy to have Operation Cast Lead. I don’t think it is a beacon of democracy to use phosphorous bombs on kids. I don’t think it is a beacon of democracy to be demolishing infrastructure in Palestine. So I just think we’ve got to get a bit of balance in this.

Yet another article in a long line of pieces in the Australian media – this time in Murdoch’s Adelaide Advertiser – that obscures the real issue behind BDS against Israel. The photo caption is wrong (there is no person called “Max Brenner”), the word “occupation” is absent and the real reason activists are protesting Max Brenner ain’t in there, either.

Nice work, hacks:

To Palestinians it is the final option against an oppressive invader, to Israelis it is a racist policy conducted by a blood-thirsty enemy from within.

The decision by pro-Palestinian groups to protest for a boycott of Israeli businesses, such as cosmetic store Seacret in Rundle Mall, has polarised public opinion and shown that the tentacles of the dispute are so widespread that it has reached the far corners of the world, even Adelaide.

The Australian Friends of Palestine Association (AFPA) regularly has been picketing Seacret, and are buoyed by news a coalition of anti-Israeli groups has been targeting chocolate shop chain Max Brenner in the eastern states.

…

Jewish Community Council of South Australia President Norman Schueler calls the campaign “pointless” and claims it has actually promoted sales in SA for Seacret.

“When the BDS campaign unfolded during the last NSW election it showed the extent it had backfired,” he said. “If taken to the enth degree you would have to boycott so much; personal computers because they have Intel chips in them, medicines, equipment, communications, Australia would be ground to a halt.”

He said most “reasonable” people realised Israel was not the aggressor in the Middle East and showed their support for the businesses under boycott by buying their products.

“Israel is the underdog in this conflict, it is surrounded by enemies who are hell bent on the destruction of Israel.

“The charters of some of these countries have so much ill-will that we can never make peace with them, even though we are quite prepared to do so.”

…

However, Australia Israel Chamber of Commerce South Australian President Allen Bolaffi condemned the boycotts.

He said such practices reminded him of the boycotting of Jewish businesses in Germany under Nazi rule.

“It is quite abhorrent, Australians will not relent to such behaviour,” he said. “If you have a political issue, take it to a political forum.

“We will defend anyone’s right to protest but it has to be channelled to the right place.”

He said he did not expect Adelaide boycotts to be as widespread as the eastern states.

“People here are a bit more respectful.”

AFPA co-founder Moammar Mashni said it was time for stronger measures against Israel – which he believes is guilty of crimes against humanity.

“We are boycotting against the companies who say their products are `Made in Israel’ when in fact the natural resource is actually being extracted from Palestinian land,” he said.

“It is a blatant violation.”

Max Brenner himself, whose real name is Oded Brenner, is a 43-year-old Israeli-born and New York-based pastry chef and chocolate maker whose only obvious personal connection to the Israeli military was the fact that he, like other Israeli men, had to complete mandatory military service as a young man.

Occupation Inc:

Although the Obama administration has made much of the fact that U.S. forces are scheduled to leave Afghanistan by the end of 2014, it clearly has no intention of leaving that war-ravaged country to its own devices. In fact, plans are afoot to keep as many as 25,000 American troops in Afghanistan for at least a decade longer than the official deadline, according to the Daily Telegraph. “America and Afghanistan are close to signing a strategic pact which would allow thousands of United States troops to remain in the country until at least 2024,” the London newspaper reports. “The agreement would allow not only military trainers to stay to build up the Afghan army and police, but also American special forces soldiers and air power to remain.” Both sides hope to seal the deal by December.

Some observers have commented that, in short, the American empire is not about to relinquish control over one of its satrapies. As former Indian diplomat M.K. Bhadrakumar observed, “The ‘hidden agenda’ of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan can no longer be disowned. Quite obviously, the U.S. intends to plunge into the ‘great game’ in Central Asia.”