Writing personally about Israel/Palestine, why I have the positions I do, is something I mostly avoid. But a notable exception is my long essay in this week’s edition of the Good Weekend magazine, inserted every Saturday into the Sydney Morning Herald and Melbourne Age. The readership is over one million people and it’s one of…
Australian academic Nick Dyrenfurth clearly has much time on his hands, writing essay after essay defending the glories of Israel but essentially ignoring the reasons so many people are increasingly against a state that willingly discriminates against Arabs based on race. He’s… s a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Discipline of Work and Organisational Studies at…
The first rule of liberal Zionism is never talk about what liberal Zionism means. The second rule of liberal Zionism is never acknowledge the inherent blindspots within liberal Zionism. Hence an essay in this month’s Monthly magazine by Australian academic Nick Dyrenfurth – yes, the man does spend an amazing amount of time policing the…
So I wrote an article for the ABC last week on the murder of Osama Bin Laden. I asked questions about his death, the significance of his assassination, the role of Al-Qaeda in making the US an insanely paranoid security state post 9/11 and the terror leader’s relevance (or otherwise) during the Arab Spring. But…
I’ve spent years being told that my work on the Middle East was extreme, irrelevant and dangerous and therefore should be ignored. Alas, this didn’t stop a litany of critics continually speaking out against it. Threatened much? This is how we should see the ongoing Murdoch campaign against the Australian Greens and its policy towards…
My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey: Overland is a quarterly publication published in Melbourne since 1954 and aims to give, in the words of… editor Jeff Sparrow, “space for radicals and liberals”. Over the past few years a handful of articles have appeared written by Jews (including me, principally on peak oil)…
A sorry saga that needs no introduction. Independent Australian magazine Overland recently received this letter from six Jewish academics. It was sent to the editors of the publication and the editorial board: 20/4/10 Dear members of Overland Editorial Board, We are writing to express our grave concern about your journal’s unbalanced coverage of Israeli-Palestinian issues…
Following the article in yesterday’s Australian newspaper by Philip Mendes and Nick Dyrenfurth – lovers of enforcing “acceptable” boundaries over Israel/Palestine – that claimed “fundamentalists” have hijacked the Middle East debate, I submitted the following, unpublished letter: Blind supporters of Israel have for decades framed the Jewish state as the victim of a vicious, global…
Following my letter in last week’s Australian supporting the targeted boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel, Labor MP Michael Danby responds: Antony Loewenstein and Jake Lynch (The Australian, Letters blog, 22 September) criticise Philip Mendes and Nick Dyrenfurth for their opposition to the campaign for “boycott, disinvestment and sanctions” directed at Israel. But they…
Following an article in the Australian on the weekend – that accused critics of Israel of extremism – the paper publishes the following letters today: This week a leading US Jewish newspaper, The Forward, has published an article with the headline “Palestinian-led movement to boycott Israel is gaining support”. It explains how the global and…