Antony Loewenstein

Norman G. Finkelstein is an American academic always guaranteed to generate debate and controversy. His insights into the Israel/Palestine issue have made him, in the words of Avi Shlaim of St Antony’s College, Oxford University: “…one of the most radical and hard-hitting critics of the official Zionist version of the Arab-Israeli conflict and of the historians who support this version.”

When he accused Harvard celebrity Alan Dershowitz of deception and plagiarism over his best-selling The Case for Israel, Finkelstein moved from notoriety to infamy. By early this year, Dershowitz was harassing Finkelstein’s publisher and threatening legal action. A new publisher was found, University of California Press, and the book, “Beyond Chutzpah”, should be released in August. Dershowitz even sent letters to the office of Californian governor Arnold Schwarzenegger because UC Press receives state funding as part of the California school system. Publisher’s Weekly (PW) recently revealed: “A response from that office to Dershowitz obtained by PW shows that it reads, in part, that the governor ‘is not inclined to otherwise exert influence in this case because of the clear, academic freedom issue it presents.’”

The past weeks has seen this issue explode. The New York Times covered it and Dershowitz hit back at Finkelstein, claiming that Noam Chomsky, journalist Alexander Cockburn and Finkelstein himself were conducting “literary McCarthyism” in their attempts at discrediting him.

“The mode of attack is consistent,” Dershowitz wrote. “Chomsky selects the target and directs Finkelstein to probe the writings in minute detail and conclude that the writer didn’t actually write the work, that it is plagiarized, that it is a hoax and a fraud. Cockburn publicizes these ‘findings,’ and then a cadre of fellow travellers bombard the Internet with so many attacks on the target that these attacks jump to the top of Google.”

Dershowitz’s suggestion that his voice is being marginalised is ludicrous. He appears regularly on TV and in newspapers around the world. His pro-Zionist agenda dominates the American mainstream media. To feel seriously challenged by three prominent leftist writers suggests a man not comfortable with scrutiny.

“The Case for Israel” is a book for people who like to be told that Israel is the Middle East’s only democracy that behaves humanely towards the Palestinians. Let them live with these delusions.

Finkelstein is a brave soul determined to challenge the region’s cliches. Don’t believe me? Read his Holocaust Industry and discover the ways in which the Jewish genocide has been used and abused by Jewish individuals and groups to further their bigoted agenda towards Israel.

“For only the sixth time in 127 years, the Great Synagogue, the mother church of Sydney’s Jewish community, has formally welcomed a new leader.”

The Sydney Morning Herald reports today on London-born and Oxford-educated Jeremy Lawrence being welcomed into the Sydney Jewish community. Lawrence has already “pioneered Sabbath greetings via SMS and set up adult education classes using his amateur magicians skills to bring Judaism to life for those who have had no prior religious instruction.”

He cautions any expectation of a more progressive attitude towards women, making it likely that only men will continue to be able to study the Torah. No mention of the Israel/Palestine conflict, either. With the Jewish state being a central platform around which many Jews congregate, we can probably presume that his position is reactionary and therefore predictable. But, I hope to be surprised. We can only hope in Australia for a mainstream Jewish figure taking a firm stand against oppression in the mould of US-based Rabbi Michael Lerner.

The Schapelle Corby case continues to dominate headlines. Once again, the obsessive focus on this one case appears to be excessive and completely disproportionate. Scott Burchill, lecturer in international relations at Deakin University, has a few words to add:

“Jolted by public outrage at Indonesian state terrorism in East Timor following the September 1999 independence ballot, the Howard Government reluctantly intervened to liberate the territory, aware of the consequent damage to the bilateral relationship but unwilling to defy community sentiment ventilated in response to shocking TV images.

For a while relations deteriorated. The exploitation of events for domestic electoral advantage (Tampa and the ‘boat people’), bravado (failing to correct a journalist’s “deputy sheriff” phrase) and clumsy diplomacy (the policy of pre-emption), coupled with an incompetent and disinterested Indonesian president ensured that suspicion and paranoia would prevent a normalisation of government to government links.

In Australia this state of affairs was deeply troubling to those in and outside government who place a premium on stability and good relations with Jakarta at all costs. The Indonesian military (TNI) has always been seen by the Jakarta Lobby as the best guarantor of social and political control of the Indonesian population. The Lobby has therefore sought to present the best possible image of the Indonesian military to the Australian public, playing down both its domestic repression and regular massacres during its brutal 24 year occupation of neighbouring East Timor. Australia’s de jure recognition of Indonesia’s incorporation of East Timor in 1985, the Timor Gap Treaty in 1989, and the 1995 agreement on security signed by the Keating Government and the Suharto regime, were the high watermarks of the Lobby’s influence.

The challenge of rehabilitating the reputation of a military force guilty of crimes against humanity - particularly during a so called ‘war against terror’ - has not been easy for those who want to restore formal ties between TNI (including the notoriously brutal Kopassus) and the ADF. The gap between popular perceptions of the Indonesian Government and its military, and the view of the policy elite, has long been a yawning chasm. Until recently the Lobby has been furious with the Howard Government for its neglect of the bilateral relationship with Jakarta.

However, in the last three years the tide has turned again. Opportunity (co-operation between the AFP and Indonesian police investigating the Bali bombings), happenstance (replacement of Megawati with the more technocratic SBY), expressions of goodwill (Tsunami aid) and sacrifice (deaths of ADF humanitarian personnel on Nias) have repaired much of the damage caused in 1999 and following months.

The Indonesian President has visited Australia and agreed to sponsor Australia’s participation at a regional summit to be held in Malaysia later in the year. And in regular ritualised pledges, the Howard Government has expressed greater support for Indonesia’s territorial integrity than is evident amongst those who actually live in the Republic’s Western (Aceh) and Eastern (West Papua) provinces.

Like its reluctant intervention in East Timor six years ago, the Howard Government’s response to the Corby case is driven by popular pressure. On the one hand the Government instructs the population that intervention in the judicial affairs of another country is inappropriate while on the other it goes to extraordinary lengths to do precisely that.

A letter to the court about an investigation into QANTAS baggage handlers, the facilitation of a remand prisoner as a witness for the defence, suggestions of a one-off prisoner exchange agreement with Jakarta, the visit of the Australian Justice Minister to lobby against the death penalty, and the offer of QCs for the appeal process are extraordinary interventions by themselves. In contrast to the Government’s responses to more than 40 similar drugs trials across Southeast Asia involving Australians, they are even more remarkable.

The Government of President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono must be as bemused by Canberra’s attention to this case as many Australians are. Contrasting attitudes to sentences for the Bali bombers Amrozi, Muhklas and Imam Samudra, as well as the case of radical cleric Abu Bakar Ba’asyir, must look hypocritical at best and at worst - racist.

And how must the people of East Timor feel? An Australian gets 20 years for importing marijuana while those who orchestrated and committed mass murder in East Timor - including Wiranto, Zacky Anwar, Hendropriyono, Sjafrie Sjamsuddin and Mahidin Simbolon - are either not even prosecuted or receive no punishment for their crimes because as defence minister Juwono Sudarsono conceded, “we can’t go up into the high ranks as they were just carrying out state policy.”

Foreign Minister Downer promised that these “rogue elements,” as he described them in 1999, would be prosecuted by an independent UN tribunal if they didn’t receive justice from the Indonesian legal system we are now told to respect for its independence. Judgement about the Corby case and the state of the Indonesian judicial system should therefore be reserved until those who have been waiting many years for justice see that the leopard has changed its spots.”

All I would add to Burchill’s incisive commentary is this: believing in Corby’s innocence is one thing (though the evidence presented in the Indonesian court by the defense was far from conclusive) but what is this kind of behaviour really going to achieve? Are people seriously suggesting that Corby should simply be released because we “think” she’s innocent? That they’re shouldn’t be an appeal? That she should be treated differently to every other drug case in Indonesia, or Asia or even the world? Dangerous precedents are on the cards. Let calmer heads prevail.

Clinton Fernandes is a Melbourne writer, historian and military man. His 2004 book, Reluctant Saviour, revealed Australian involvement in the 1999 East Timor massacres.

In the wake of the Schapelle Corby guilty verdict today, Fernandes has a few thoughts about Indonesian justice:

“Commit mass murder in East Timor = no punishment.
Import marijuana = 20 years.

Foreign Minister Downer has praised the new Indonesia with “an independent judiciary and a democratic political system and a free press”. Fair enough. But remember that in this new Indonesia, its first civilian defence minister, Juwono Sudarsono, rejected calls to investigate high-ranking war criminals within its military: “We can’t go up into the high ranks as they were just carrying out state policy”*.

Accordingly, no action has been taken against the architects of the ethnic-cleansing campaign in the final days of the occupation of East Timor**:

a. Feisal Tanjung remained active in party politics after he lost ministerial office in October 1999.
b. Mahidin Simbolon, the deputy commander of the military region that included East Timor, was promoted to his own command in West Papua, where pro-democracy activists began to experience another reign of state-sponsored terrorism.
c. Former information minister Yunus Yosfiah remained free of meaningful legal sanction.
d. Zacky Anwar Makarim remains in the Indonesian army, attached to the headquarters without specific assignment.
e. Sjafrie Sjamsuddin, who presided over atrocities against students in 1998 when he was chief of the Jakarta garrison, was appointed official spokesman for the military.
f. Hendropriyono, the former transmigration minister who helped organise the mass deportations, was appointed head of the new National Intelligence Body.”

* “Reluctant Saviour”, p 75.
**”Reluctant Saviour”, p 117.

Australia’s treatment of asylum seekers is an issue I’ve written about previously and one that causes me great pain. Both Labor and Liberal have failed miserably on this issue. Today Immigration Minister Amanda Vanstone defended the policy of locking up children. How enlightened.

The introduction of a private member’s bill by a brave Victorian Liberal backbencher, Petro Georgiou, is a welcome sign that maybe, just maybe, the tide is turning on this issue. The ending of mandatory detention is but one of the prerequisites for a humane refugee policy.

The blunders of the Immigration Department, including the locking up of innocent people and forced deportation of Australian citizens, was canvassed during last night’s ABC Lateline. Interviewer Tony Jones grilled Vanstone in a way rarely seen in the genteel world of Australian journalism:

Tony Jones: “…There was a time in Australian politics when the head of a department which had overseen a failure at this level might have considered resigning.”

Meanwhile, Murdoch minion and potential future Liberal MP, Andrew Bolt, always ready to slam “evil” wherever he finds it (usually on the Left, laughably), appears to have turned into the devil in his latest photo. Check it out. Andrew, squinting towards your proud or inflamed readers is a sure way to channel evil onto the entire Murdoch empire. Perish the thought.

Tony Blair’s New Labour lies? A British documentary tells all:

“Britain’s Channel 4 documentary “Undercover in New Labour” includes footage from “a reporter wearing hidden cameras who volunteered to work on the party’s election campaign and ended up being drafted to work at its national PR headquarters.” The documentary shows Labour staff using “party supporters in key professions from medicine and the law to the armed forces and the police, who were prepared to appear on TV and in the papers and lie through their teeth that their support for this or that policy was entirely unsolicited,” writes reporter Mark Borkowski. But “is singling out New Labour for criticism reasonable,” Borkowski asks, when astroturfing “has been going on for decades in business, especially among the oil, pharmaceutical and tobacco industries?” Undercover reporters were placed with Britain’s three main political parties, “but it was decided the strongest story was the way the Labour campaign was run,” an anonymous source told the Guardian.”

This gets me thinking. Why don’t Australian filmmakers, documentary makers or current affairs programs more actively engage in undercover work? Gaining information through deception is ethically problematic, I agree, but sometimes the greater truth is much more important. Take this 2004 BBC documentary expose on Britain’s far right party, the BNP. Perhaps our journalists lack the requisite fortitude?

Here is my review from last Sunday’s Sun Herald of Suad Amiry’s “Sharon And My Mother-In-Law: Ramallah Diaries.” Amiry is a guest of this year’s Sydney Writer’s Festival and will undoubtedly talk about life under Israeli military occupation.

Condoleezza Rice was key speaker at the pro-Zionist American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s (AIJAC) Annual Policy Conference on May 23:

“Let me begin by saying that Israel has no greater friend and no stronger supporter than the United States of America. (Applause.) For over half a century, AIPAC has strengthened the religious, cultural and political bonds that unite our two great nations, and I thank you for that. (Applause.)”

And America is touted as an honest broker in the Israel/Palestine conflict?

Rice: “The United States and Israel share much in common. We both affirm the innate freedom and dignity of every human life, not as prizes that people confer to one another, but as divine gifts of the Almighty.”

The sheer hypocrisy of such a statement is breathtaking. Indeed, many in the Arab world recognise this. Israel’s treatment of Palestinians and American forces abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, along with so-called “rendition” of “terror” suspects to dictatorships for torture, shows the world the real face of Bush’s much touted freedom and democracy. Rice continues:

“Some in the Arab media have even asked why the only real democracies in the Middle East are found in the “occupied lands” of Iraq and the Palestinian territories. What an incredible thought. Today, citizens in the region are demanding that their governments respond to this simple, audacious question.”

Freedom of speech is indeed missing from most of the Middle East but to legitimise two illegal occupations, and suggest that only through occupation can truly open expression occur, is classic imperial thinking: only “we” can bring what “they” want.

I spent some time today with cultural critic and political thinker, Tariq Ali, in Sydney for the Writer’s Festival. His eloquence on the Israel/Palestine question reminded me of the lack of real debate on this matter in Australia. In the West, he told me, many official organs are only capable of seeing issues as what serves Western interests. In the Middle East, for example, Islamist parties could well win government in many countries if true democracy would be allowed to flower. This, of course, would be totally against American interests and is therefore unacceptable. Take the Bush rhetoric on democracy with this in mind.

Scribe Publishing recently released a collection of Ali’s talks called “Speaking on Empire and Resistance.” Many issues are discussed, but on Israel and America’s role towards the Middle East’s Jewish “democracy”, he has this to say:

“In the US, they [Israel] don’t need to worry, because the House and the Senate essentially passed a blank cheque of support for Israel. It’s unheard of - they don’t give that sort of support to their own government, but they’re prepared to give that support to Israel. There is an Israeli offensive against dissent, abroad and at home…the Palestinians have become the indirect victims of the Judeocide of the Second World War.”

I’ve deliberately avoided commenting on the Schapelle Corby case for a variety of reasons. Some in the blogosphere, such as Weezil, have thrown themselves into fighting for her freedom. All well and good for a woman seemingly set for a long prison term in Indonesia. Personally, the case against Corby has always seemed highly questionable, to say the least.

Believing her innocence is one thing, slamming Indonesian justice is another. Last night’s ABC Media Watch revealed a presenter on Sydney’s 2GB Radio, Malcolm T. Elliot, making some utterly unacceptable racist jibes against our northern neighbour. Some “highlights”:

“I believe right now Bambam Yodhoyono is sitting up there and his hands are tied because it’s a legal matter. Wham Bam Thank You Mam Yiddi-yono is going to be called into all of these — well, that’s what he is, isn’t he — have you ever seen them? Whoa, give them a banana and away they go …”

“I have total disrespect for our neighbouring nation my friend. Total disrespect. And then we get this joke of a trial, and it’s nothing more than a joke. An absolute joke the way they sit there. And they do look like the three wise monkeys, I’ll say it. They don’t speak English, they read books, they don’t listen to her. They show us absolutely no respect those judges.”

“What about that little midget woman who was up there, what was her name? Midget. Who was the president? Megawati. Megawati midget, yeah. Goodness.”

The emotion charged proceedings, and foreign surroundings of the Indonesian justice system, has brought up the sadly familiar Australian trait of mocking a foreign culture. If an Indonesian radio presenter made similiar statements about the Australian legal fraternity, rest assured Ray Martin, Channel 9 and the pack of media hounds would be demanding an official apology. But it’s silence when directed elsewhere.

Professor Tim Lindsay, a specialist in Indonesia law and society and Director of the University of Melbourne’s Asian Law Centre, argues that the Indonesian legal system has been woefully misrepresented over the past months. Take this exchange from a recent ABC World Today interview:

ELEANOR HALL: “Is it the case that the Indonesian legal system is based on the presumption of guilt?”

TIM LINDSAY: “No, that is completely false. As a matter of fact it is completely the opposite. The system in Indonesia is the same as the system in Australia, and our Commonwealth system. Article 66 of the Criminal Procedure Code specifically states that the burden of proof to prove guilt in a criminal case lies with the prosecution. In other words, that unless the prosecution can prove guilt, the person is innocent. So the common furphy that is being circulated in Australia in the media at the moment that people in the Indonesian system are presumed guilty until proven innocent is totally false.”

Presenting these facts is no justification for the myriad of failures at the heart of the Corby case, not least of which was the absence of fingerprinting the suspect’s bag of marijuana. My point simply lies in not presenting this case as a prime example of a debauched system up north and a perfect, more fair and equitable arrangement in Australia, one clearly more likely, in the eyes of critic, to return a not-guilty verdict.

On the other hand, many in the Australian media have prejudiced the case beyond belief, making assumptions and claims that would be completely unacceptable if the case was running here. Last weekend’s Australian carried a remarkable headline: “Meet the Corbys - a dad with a drug record, a brother in jail, a former bankrupt who wants 50 per cent of the action.” ABC’s Tony Jones asked Attorney General Phillip Ruddock last night if such behaviour was prejudicial:

RUDDOCK: “Oh, look, I think if it was run in an Australian court, it would be seen as very prejudicial and unhelpful and wouldn’t be run in the media. But you still have to look at these matters in the context of how, right from the beginning, these matters have been addressed by the defence using the media.”

TONY JONES: “Yes, but this is a case of the media apparently making up its mind about a family and putting out a headline which suggests the family essentially have criminal connections, at a time, just a week away from the actual verdict. Now, given the Internet, given satellite broadcasting, given the judges may actually read that headline, could it be prejudicial to the trial in Indonesia?”

RUDDOCK: “Well, I think you made the point right at the beginning that people have been barracking for both sides. It seems to me that’s been part of the barracking that’s occurred on both sides, and I’ve made the point that I consider it very unhelpful.”

Today’s Sydney Telegraph reveals the Australian pastor who baptised Corby behind bars and her snap decision to embrace God. Media organisations are struggling to find new angles only days before the verdict. Nothing surprising there, that’s what journalists should be doing.

Unacceptable is the denigration of a country, its legal system and people simply because one woman may well be innocent. Indonesia has a history of avoiding taking responsibility for past crimes (including those behind the 1999 massacres in East Timor) but this should not be carte blanche to express cultural superiority.

Racism is never far away in the Corby debate.

Morgan Spurlock, agent provocateur of anti-McDonalds documentary, Super Size Me, returns with a book called “Don’t Eat This Book”, exclusively extracted in yesterday’s Independent on Sunday. Adults clearly bear much responsibility for the kind of food their children are consuming, but as Spurlock suggests, “they’re going up against billions and billions of dollars spent every year in corporate marketing, all aimed at teaching kids to make exactly the opposite sorts of choices.”

“…McDonald’s marketing genius M Lawrence Light - the guy who rolled out the ‘I’m lovin’ it’ campaign - wants to surround the youth of the world with McDonald’s brand images. ‘Light wants to turn everything he can into an ad for McDonald’s,’ wrote Business Week magazine in July 2004. “He’s pushing the Oak Brook chain to open clothing shops so kids will walk around in T-shirts with the Golden Arches logo, just as they already do with Old Navy or Disney. He envisions a deal with the National Basketball Association to play the five-note tagline of the ‘I’m lovin’ it’ ad in the stadium every time a player shoots a three-pointer. He’s even toying with making the jingle available over the internet so it could be downloaded as a mobile phone ring tone.”

Some may argue that McDonalds has the right to advertise to whomever it chooses. True enough in our economic system, but surely there is a need for debate around the ways in which young children are being sold a message of “consume and be happy”.

It’d be a pleasant thought indeed to see companies like McDonalds sued by concerned parents who argue that their children are not happy after consuming a Big Mac. False advertising?