Antony Loewenstein

Roger Cohen has been writing in the New York Times for some time about the responsibility of Jews not to remain silent in the face of Zionist occupation and violence. It’s a rare voice in the American mainstream.

His latest missive, while dismissing boycotts as apparently morphing into anti-Semitism which ignores the failure of the political process to end the occupation, is nonetheless a strong challenge to the Jewish mainstream:

Where then should a Jew in Britain who wants to speak up stand? Not with the Knesset members who have met in Israel with European rightists like Filip Dewinter of Belgium in the grotesque belief that they are Israel’s allies because they hate Muslims. Not with the likes of the Jewish writer Melanie Phillips, whose book “Londonistan” is a reference for the Islamophobes. Nor with those who, ignoring sinister historical echoes, propose ostracizing Israeli academics and embrace an anti-Zionism that flirts with anti-Semitism.

Perhaps a good starting point is a parallel pointed out to me by Maleiha Malik, a professor of law at King’s College London. A century ago, during the Sidney Street siege of 1911, it was the Jews of London’s East End who, cast as Bolsheviks, were said to be “alien extremists.” Winston Churchill, no less, argued in 1920 that Jews were part of a “worldwide conspiracy for the overthrow of civilization and the reconstitution of society on the basis of arrested development.”

The lesson is clear: Jews, with their history, cannot become the systematic oppressors of another people. They must be vociferous in their insistence that continued colonization of Palestinians in the West Bank will increase Israel’s isolation and ultimately its vulnerability.

I’ve just received this message from a refugee activist in Perth, Western Australia. It’s a release from the Coordination of Hazara Refugees in Curtin immigration detention centre, a remote camp away from public view. 

Freedom

It is known to all and history has also proven that Hazaras have always and systemically been target of national, religious and ethnic oppression and cruelty and yet thousands of people including women and children have lost their life and thousands of families have lost their guardian and thousands of children are now orphan, who do not just have access to education but also experiencing a horrible and miserable life.

Taliban, predominant Pashtuns are the very actual face of national, religious and significantly ethnic oppression and cruelty who have taken the annihilation of Hazaras serious and have declared that killing of Hazaras is according to rules and regulations of Islam and hence mandatory.

Looting Hazara’s properties is same as their worship therefore consider it a gift from God and continue to their systematic oppression and harassment of Hazaras at any corner of Afghanistan with their barbaric attacks, counting it as their daily pray for god.The media has always been reporting about the barbaric attacks of marauder Taliban which have cost several lives and demolitions for Hazaras.

By passing each day , the situation for these people (Hazaras) is deteriorating . These people whose way of living is becoming harder tried to continue life and along with their families they have left their birthplace and sought refuge from other countries to just survive from the barbaric attacks of Pashtuns/Talibs. Hazaras , as seen in majority of European countries and even Canada have been seen to have requested for refuge and are now living in peace.

For the last three years that Australia has again opened the gate for asylum seekers, Hazaras traveling thousands of miles and going through 100% serious risks have escaped death to request protection from Australia and yet not every individual has conquered this deathly journey and even tens of people have lost their lives . Most of these people have sacrificed their life and are now spending in Malaysia’s appalling prisons with plenty of calamities and agony, a huge number is jailed in Indonesia and sadly a considerable number of them while carrying lots of hopes on this journey lost their life in depth of the ocean just like Boat SIEV 221 in a very sorrowful , painful and horrible way while sailing across Malaysia, Indonesia and Australian waters and turned into sea animals’ meal.

Luckily after spending three to eleven months of imprisonment in Malaysia and Indonesia, when we arrived in Australia, we thought Australia would embrace us and listen to our stories and treat our long time grief by granting protection, therefore we thought ourselves lucky and fortunate.

Since we deserved to be granted protection, we requested for protection from Australian Government. But, after a while in contrary to its prior policy, Australia granted protection visa to a very few number and rejected most of us saying that : The living condition for Hazaras in Afghanistan is fine now. While we had already explained the serious risks we are facing during our Immigration interviews.

We need to know that :

1. Is Australia not aware of how we (Hazaras) are being targeted in the most atrocious ways in Afghanistan?

2. Does Australia really don’t know that Qarabagh-Jaghuri Express way is still blocked to Hazaras and traveling on this destination equals to death for us ?

3. Does Australia really don’t know that every day our children’s faces are fogged with misery, deprivation and orphanhood?

4. Does Australia really don’t know why Pashtun gave birth to Taliban and what was their target?

5. Does Australia really don’t know that few moths ago Taliban beheaded a number of Hazaras just like sheep?

6. Does Australia really don’t know how Hazaras are being targeted in Quetta of Pakistan just for being Shia and Hazara.

And Does…. ? Does…. ? Does…. ? Does….?

Considering all these issues , how Australia could not grant us protection ? This matter has turned into enigma for us which is never solvable.

The only good news we have been given by Immigration Department is that we may have more chances of granting protection visa in second stage called IMR ( Independent Merits Review).

As we have escaped death from Afghanistan and returning to Afghanistan is just like suicide for us, we don’t have any alternate choice but to suffer in detention centers. Now that we have spent considerable amount of time taken from 3 to 20 months in detention centers, we still suffer from the amount of time and only God knows how much more time we have to spend here for no reason and without destiny. The only reason which can be applicable is that we have sought protection from Australian Government and the only reason we have requested for protection is that we did not have any other remedy but to die in Afghanistan just for being Hazara.

We thought and still believe that Australia is a real humanitarian nation and really gives value to human rights but, things are upside down here in detention centers specially in Curtin IDC. With much grievance, we want to say that these people in detention center are going through a very serious condition which has caused both psychological and mental problems such as depression, insomnia, lack of endurance, self-harming, horrible nightmares and much more of other traumas.By passing each day the condition is getting worse , as few months before number of people here tried suicide attempts and only two of them could succeed, one of them by hanging up himself and the other one died of the sever depression and lost their dear life and luckily the other one who jumped off the window of his room survived and is now in Perth Hospital and much more of these deathly incidents are happening weekly in Curtin IDC.

We need to know that how long do we have to consume depression tablets and other depression medicines and how long do we have to line up before mental heath department here ? How long do we have to consume Dethop 25 and Dethop 75 mg, Mirtazapine 30 and 45 mg, Axit 15 and 30 mg and other tricyclic antidepressant and MAOI ? Why do we have to suffer from the side effect of these medicines such as unusual and disturbing dreams, thinking abnormal and much more other mental difficulties ? Its obvious how long it takes us to recover from this condition. As a matter of fact in Curtin, we are more familiar to the mental doctors than to our Case Managers.

This policy of Immigration Department is creating hate and disgust in the heart of these people and the only way to wash out this hate is to end up to our mandatory detention, give us hope, and let us join our families, let us feel that we are also human beings.

We are calling for your help and humanitarian assistance because we are experiencing a bleak situation this time here in Curtin IDC. We are requesting you to please contemplate and be more compassionate about us cause this time there is huge chance of human catastrophe, since predicament and chaos itself bring catastrophe where no one would be able to predict and prevention of such catastrophe will be impossible.

We once again point out that the problems and frustrating situation we are dealing with is not tolerable for any human being in normal status, therefore how can you accept that our families struggle with loneliness without guardian and we remain behind razors deprived from human rights, liberty and no destiny?

Hereby, we request from Australian Government specifically from Immigration Department to please being amendments to its ongoing policy and end up to our sufferings and free us from the detention centers like free pigeons.

We need this assistance and help from United Nations, Independent Organizations in Australia, Human Rights Commission of Australia, Red Cross, Refugee Rights Actions Network, Medias in Australia, Refugee Action Collective, Refugee Council, Act Now,Asylum Seeker Resource Center,Indymedia and any awaken human not just from Australia but from around the world.

Specially from you

FREEDOM IS WHAT WE ARE YELLING FOR !
WE ARE ONE OF YOUR KIND SO, PLEASE HELP US.

History is turning and proves that when a dictatorship makes “peace” with a Zionist state it breeds nothing more than resentment:

On August 20, 2011 Egyptians mobilized for a demonstration in front of the Israeli Embassy demanding the removal of the flag and for the ambassador to leave.

After hours of flag-burning trials. A man called “Ahmed El-Shahat” managed to climb the embassy building and remove the Israeli flag and replace it with the Egyptian one.

I was recently spoke in Sydney at the University of New South Wales at the conference of the Australian Law Students’ Association on the issues of privacy and censorship in Australia and globally. Here’s extracts from that event (though my comments here are very brief and rest assured I said many other things, including citizens treating web companies such as Google with necessary caution, as their influence in the corners of the globe often involves complicity with repressive regimes):

Indeed:

Obama roars. World trembles. If only.

Obama says Assad must “step aside”. Do we really think Damascus trembles? Or is going to? Indeed, the titan of the White House only dared to go this far after condemnation of Bashar al-Assad by Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Kuwait, Turkey, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, the EU and Uncle Tom Cobley and all (except, of course, Israel – another story). The terrible triplets – Cameron, Sarkozy and Merkel – did their mimicking act a few minutes later.

But truly, are new sanctions against Assad “and his cronies” – I enjoyed the “cronies” bit, a good old 1665 word as I’m sure Madame Clinton realised, although she was principally referring to Bashar’s businessman cousin Rami Makhlouf – anything more than the usual Obama hogwash? If “strong economic sanctions” mean a mere freeze on petroleum products of Syrian origin, the fact remains that Syria can scarcely produce enough oil for itself, let alone for export. A Swedish government agency recently concluded that Syria was largely unaffected by the world economic crisis – because it didn’t really have an economy.

Of course, in the fantasy of Damascus – where Bashar appears to live in the same “sea of quietness” in which the Egyptian writer Mohamed Heikel believes all dictators breathe – the world goes on as usual. UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon – another earth-trembler if ever there was one – no sooner demands an “immediate” end to “all military operations and mass arrests”, than dear old Bashar tells him that “military and police action” has stopped.

Well, blow me down, as the Syrian population must now be saying. So what were all those reports coming in yesterday from Syria, of widespread gunfire in Latakia, of troops looting private property in the city, of a man arrested in his hospital bed in Zabadani, of snipers still on the rooftops of government buildings in Deir el-Zour? Crimes against humanity? Needless to say, the Syrian government knows nothing about this.

…

The real fear for Bashar is not oil sanctions but banks – especially the £12bn in foreign reserves that existed in Syria’s Central Bank in February, a sum which is now being depleted by around £50m a week. In May, Syria’s foreign minister – the mighty (physically) Walid Moallem – asked Baghdad for cheap Iraqi oil. Nearly 10 per cent of Syria’s banking deposits disappeared in the first four months of 2011; £1.8bn was withdrawn, some of it ending up in Lebanese banks.

Yet another skillful effort today in Murdoch’s Australian. It ain’t easy being so clueless on the Middle East but the paper strives for a moral blindspot and achieves an own goal:

What concerns many people about the Max Brenner campaign, apart from the shadow of history, is that it is directed against something that, although foreign owned, is a legitimate legal business in this country. That it is a chocolate shop only underlines the tenuous nature of claims that it bears some responsibility for Israel’s military and human rights policies in the occupied territories.

“In a democratic society anybody should be allowed to protest, but I find it really distasteful that a Jewish business is being targeted in this way,” Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes says. “If people are upset about the handling of the Middle East process then fine, but why don’t they protest outside the Israeli embassy and direct their protest to the Israeli state rather than a Jewish business? If people do not like the policies of the Australian government, I wouldn’t expect there to be a protest outside the RM Williams store.”

But Samah Sabawi, spokeswoman for the advocacy group Australians for Palestine, defends the targeting of Max Brenner because it makes a greater impact than traditional protests.

“Standing outside an embassy is not always the most effective form of protest,” she says. “We live in a democratic society and we have a choice of different types of campaigns.”

The Max Brenner campaign in Australia is part of the global campaign known as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, which seeks in part to boycott Israeli businesses as a means of pressuring Israel to improve its human rights record. The campaign in Australia involves a loose alliance of the radical Left, including greens, unions, socialists and Marxists, in addition to at least 14 separate pro-Palestinian groups.

…

Says Ted Lapkin, a conservative commentator and former employee of the Australia/Israel Jewish Affairs Council: “What is wrong with providing care packages to Israeli soldiers who are defending their country against terrorists?”

The BDS movement likens itself to the boycott movement against the apartheid South African regime in the 1970s and 80s.

Veteran pro-Palestinian campaigner and former Palestinian envoy in Australia Ali Kazak says that during the anti-apartheid struggle, boycotts on South African businesses were considered to be legitimate weapon of protest. “South African Airways and other businesses were targeted, so if it was OK for the apartheid regime, why not for Israel?” It’s a connection deeply offensive to many in Australia’s Jewish community.

“The Israel-Palestinian conflict is a struggle between two nations, not a struggle for equality within one nation,” the Executive Council of Australian Jewry’s executive director Peter Wertheim says.

“Within Israel all citizens, including Jews, Arabs and Druze, have the same voting and legal rights . . . Jews and Arabs use the same public transport, eat at the same restaurants, shop at the same malls and play in the same sports teams.

“The BDS [Max Brenner] campaign in Australia is not really about economic pressure, it’s about demonising and vilifying Israel.”

Union leader Howes says: “If they [anti-Israeli protesters] are trying to equate the campaign against apartheid in South Africa with a campaign against a Jewish chocolate shop, they’ve got rocks in their head.”

Wertheim says the common link between the anti-Jewish Nazi boycotts in the 30s and the present Max Brenner campaign in Australia is that “both are based on the calculated orchestration of hate”.

It is the historical echoes of the Nazi era and the refusal of the protest groups to recognise this, that makes the Max Brenner campaign so abhorrent not only to the Jewish community but also to many in the wider community.

…

A news article in The Weekend Australian last week, which outlined the positions of each side of the debate, was attacked by one BDS supporter, anti-Israeli Jewish blogger Antony Loewenstein, as being typical of “a paper that loves the smell of bombed Muslims in the morning”.

The organisers of the Max Brenner campaign maintain that it is political, not racist.

“We stress that the BDS movement is an anti-racist movement that rejects all forms of racism including anti-Semitism and Islamophobia . . . they do not target any particular religious or ethnic group,” says the coalition of pro-Palestinian groups.

It takes effort to discuss Israel/Palestine and ignore the reason BDS is taking off around the world. Political hacks can whinge in Australia as much as they want – mostly people who have enjoyed the largesse of Zionist lobby hospitality in Israel itself – but nobody wants to talk about what Israel is doing in Palestine; suppressing dissent and crushing Palestinian self-determination.That’s why civil disobedience is vital and soaring globally.

But not to worry; a few media whores can enjoy a hot chocolate at a shop that backs Israeli soldiers complicit in war crimes in the occupied territories.

More here.

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald on what elections are really about; the corporate press and business with the general populace mere bystanders:

Obviously, at least in theory, presidential campaigns are newsworthy.  But consider the impact from the fact that they dominate media coverage for so long, drowning out most everything else.  A presidential term is 48 months; that the political media is transfixed by campaign coverage for 18 months every cycle means that a President can wield power with substantially reduced media attention for more than 1/3 of his term.  Thus, he can wage a blatantly illegal war in Libya for months on end, work to keep U.S. troops in Iraq past his repeatedly touted deadline, scheme to cut Social Security and Medicare as wealth inequality explodes and thereby please the oligarchical base funding his campaign, use black sites in Somalia to interrogate Terrorist suspects, all while his Party’s Chairwoman works literally to destroy Internet privacy — all with virtually no attention paid.

Paradoxically, nothing is more effective in distracting citizenry attention away from events of genuine political significance than the protracted carnival of presidential campaigns.  It’s not merely the duration that accomplishes this, but also how it is conducted.  Obviously, how the candidates brand-market themselves has virtually nothing to do with what they do in power; the 2008 Obama campaign, which justifiably won awards from the advertising industry for how it marketed its product (Barack Obama), conclusively proved that; or recall the 2000 George W. Bush’s campaign vow for a “more humble” foreign policy.

The message here is that privatised care enforces strict bounds of discussion, and honesty isn’t part of the equation:

And she said the human resources representative who sacked her over the phone admitted she did not know what was said in the training. The termination letter, obtained by the NT News, said she was sacked because of complaints from Serco managers, Immigration Department staff and the company’s employees.

The woman yesterday stood by her opinion.

“They said sometimes people’s suggestions can be implemented into policy and changes to the benefit of the detainees basically,” she said. “I said to someone, ‘I don’t believe in detention and I think it contributes to the mental illness of detainees’. I mean if you look on the net, there are millions of articles about it.

No, didn’t think Washington has any real idea:

The U.S. military has moved to stem the flow of contract money to Afghan insurgents, awarding at least 20 companies new contracts worth about $1 billion for military supply transport and suspending seven current contractors it found lacking in “integrity and business ethics.”

The new contracts, which were finalized Monday and will take effect next month, aim to eliminate layers of brokers and middlemen who allegedly skimmed money, and to allow more transparency in a complex web of Afghan subcontractors paid to provide security for the supply truck convoys.

“I think we’ve finally got our arms around this thing,” said a senior military officer who was authorized to discuss the matter only on the condition of anonymity. The new contracts, the official said, were the result of a year’s worth of “intelligence work and asking the right questions. We’re now starting to take action.”

Congressional investigators determined last year that much of the transport and security money went to the Taliban and Afghan warlords as part of a protection racket to ensure the safe arrival of the convoys, conclusions that were confirmed this spring by military and intelligence inquiries.

House and Senate committees have said that the military has long been aware of the problem but has been reluctant to disrupt the system and risk interrupting a supply chain that provides virtually all fuel, food and weapons for U.S. troops across Afghanistan. Some lawmakers have criticized the length of time it has taken the military to act and wonder whether the new system will change much.

“I appreciate that the Department of Defense has taken steps to reform its Afghan trucking contracts, but I am concerned that they still lack sufficient visibility and accountability to ensure that U.S. taxpayer dollars are not getting into the hands of the enemy,” said Rep. John F. Tierney (D-Mass.), whose House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee investigated the contract last year.

I recently wrote about progressive unions in Australia being pressured by the Zionist lobby, conservative politicians and elements within the Labor Party to stop supporting Palestine.

I was interviewed on Sydney 2SER radio’s AidWorks program about this issue and why BDS so scares Israel firsters opposed to Palestinian rights. The segment starts around 16.38:

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