Antony Loewenstein

My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey:

Antony Loewenstein, author of My Israel Question, writes:

In late 2006, hardline Zionists in Israel and the United States raised the possibility of indicting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in the International Court of Justice (ICJ) for “direct and public incitement to commit genocide” against the Jewish state.

Former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that, “Iran is a danger to the entire world, because it envisions a 1,000-year Islamic Reich based on nuclear weapons.” A key problem for the case, casually slipped into the Jerusalem Post, was that, “the court is problematic for Israel — it has stipulated that settlements are tantamount to war crimes — and Israel is not a signatory to the Rome Statue upon which it is based.”

Before last year’s Australian election, the then Labor opposition advocated chasing Ahmadinejad in a shameless ploy for the paranoid, Jewish vote. The fact that the case had zero chance of success and was being pursued by leading, discredited neo-conservatives – including former US Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, who again recently advocated “responsible” bombing of Iran — appeared not to bother Kevin Rudd.

Perhaps most concerning was his acceptance of the widely mistranslated Ahmadinejad comment about wanting to “wipe Israel off the map”. In fact, he said nothing of the sort. The Iranian leader is certainly prone to making outlandish comments about Israel and denying the Holocaust, but that’s no more offensive than a host of Israeli leaders advocating the elimination or ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.

It appears that the Rudd government is still on the case. Yesterday’s front-page story in The Australian breathlessly reported that Attorney-General Robert McClelland is “currently taking advice” on the possibility of pursuing Ahmadinejad. McClelland told the paper that this course of action was preferable to “wholesale invasion of countries”. Well, yes, but what about direct engagement?

Iran’s regional challenge to the American and Israeli-imposed status-quo is the great untold story of the last eight years.

Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan backed the move and Rudd told Sky News that Ahmadinejad’s comments had a “roll-on effect across the Islamic world, particularly those who listen to Iran for their guidance”.

Crikey asked the Attorney-General’s office to clarify the latest developments and a spokesman from his office said that, “the Government strongly supports maintaining pressure on Iran to act as a responsible member of the international community.” Furthermore, “like many in the community, Labor has long expressed abhorrence at the remarks of Iranian President Ahmadinejad. We believe the international community should do all it reasonably can to pressure Iran to be a more responsible global citizen.”

Questions about the pressure from the local Zionist leadership on the government went unanswered.

A Sydney-based ALP source told Crikey that pursuing Ahmadinejad was a pet project for Rudd, not unlike his slavish motion in parliament in March celebrating Israel’s 60th anniversary. The source said that, despite the opposition of many in the ALP, the motion was written with the involvement of the country’s leading Zionist lobby, AIJAC, and was initially far more congratulatory before being tempered.

Regular, public displays of affection for the Jewish state are an article of faith across the political divide. Zionism has become a religion. As we’ve seen with Barack Obama, support for the Palestinian cause virtually guarantees political oblivion.

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Back in 2004, I interviewed a stateless refugee housed on Manus Island by the former Australian government. Aladdin Sisalem was a kind, quietly-spoken man who simply craved a better life for himself, but John Howard’s system wanted him to suffer for this desire.

I met with Aladdin a few times in Melbourne after his release. He seemed to be struggling with his new life, unsure what he would do and without a clear directive from the government on his legal status.

But now life has apparently turned the corner:

Coming to Australia after 18 months held in the Manus Island detention centre — 10 of them by himself — Aladdin Sisalem felt he had finally found a new beginning.

Instead, the stateless Kuwaiti-born Palestinian found that he had merely exchanged one form of living in limbo for another. He was placed on a temporary protection visa that banned him from applying for permanent protection for five years.

He has spent the past four years not knowing if he would have to uproot himself and try all over again to find another country to take him at the end of next year.

It is only now, after a change of government, that a relieved Mr Sisalem has been told his wait has been cut short by a year. He can apply immediately for permanent residency in Australia.

For the first time since he fled persecution after a backlash against Palestinians in Kuwait on November 15, 2000, the United Nations-certified refugee may have somewhere to call home.

“They called me last week as promised and told me the office of the Minister of Immigration has agreed to specify a shorter period to process your application,” he said.

The wait to apply for permanency, and its accompanying right to visit overseas, has come at a heavy personal cost for him.

The recklessness and cruelty of the Howard government towards asylum seekers will shame Australia for years to come.

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My following article appears in today’s ABC Unleashed:

The fifth anniversary in March of the Iraq war should have given the political and media elite time to reflect on their actions since 2003. Virtually ignored by the mainstream media were stories such as life in Fallujah, where citizens remain mired in poverty and resentment.

Despite the failings of the conflict, increasingly aggressive rhetoric against Iran suggests that a military strike against the Islamic Republic is being considered at the highest levels of the American and Israeli governments.

During the recent testimony of American General David Petraeus, he consistently blamed Iran, and not al-Qaeda, for Washington’s problems in the occupied nation. Tehran now complains that US-backed rebels are provoking its borders. New evidence proves that the Bush administration wanted to target Iran soon after 9/11.

Fox News‘ Bill Reilly blindly accepted the argument that, “Iran is directly responsible for killing and maiming thousands of American troops, and it is the primary reason Iraq remains so chaotic”. Bombing should clearly commence in five minutes.

The reality of Iran’s involvement in Iraq remains confusing, however, something confirmed by Independent journalist Patrick Cockburn. Tehran’s influence is complex, though undeniable.

Cockburn fears that an American attack on Iran is not unlikely, but for reasons other than currently stated. A regional challenge to America’s hegemony is not accepted lightly. Moreover, Washington will simply not tolerate a well-armed and relatively wealthy nation, Iran, challenging its unimpeded flow of oil from various, authoritarian client states.

The fact that America now has less control over the world’s global resources is something ignored by most commentators. The great, ironic legacy of the Bush administration will be its success in increasing the decline of America’s diplomatic influence. Large swathes of the world now largely ignore State Department dictates.

Israel also finds itself in a situation largely of its own making (not unlike its colonial addiction to the settlement project). Yossi Alpher, former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, has articulated the thinking in Tel Aviv:

“…In order to understand Israel’s response to both the current tension with Syria and Hizballah and the link between that tension and the status of Israeli-Palestinian relations, it is vital to recognize the major evolution that has taken place in recent years in Israel’s grand strategic thinking regarding the Iranian threat. Iran - not Syria and not Palestine - is today the prism through which Israeli security planners look at the region, its permutations and the threats it presents. Any effort at either war or peace with Syria is directed against Iran. The non-state Islamist actors Hizballah and Hamas represent Iranian footholds on Israel’s borders and on the shores of the Mediterranean. Israeli-Egyptian cooperation regarding Hamas relates to Iran.

“Of course, Israel still has a host of strategic threats and issues to deal with. But the prism is Iran.”

The last weeks have seen bellicose statements by various Israeli ministers, not least Infrastructure Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer who warned Iran that any attack on Israel would result in the “destruction of the Iranian nation”. The Iranian response was predictable. Gen. Mohammad Reza Ashtiani said that Iran would destroy the Jewish state if attacked.

The Bush administration provide valuable insights into the mindset that led Tony Blair, John Howard and a host of other leaders into the “war on terror’s” orbit. Time.com’s senior editor Tony Karon explains:

The U.S. or an ally or proxy launches a military offensive against a politically popular “enemy” group; Bush and his minions welcome the violence as “clarifying” matters, demonstrating “resolve”, or, in the most grotesque rhetorical flourish of all, the “birth pangs” of a brave new world. Each time, the “enemy” proves far more resilient than expected, largely because Bush and his allies have failed to recognize that each adversary’s power should be measured in political support rather than firepower; and the net effect of the offensive invariably leaves the enemy strengthened and the U.S. and its allies even weaker than before they launched the offensive.

Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd may be faced with a request from the White House – including from the next President, either Democrat or Republican – to support military action against Iran.

The Labor party has already stated that it intends to bring Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to the International Court of Justice (something praised by the local Zionist lobby). It will inevitably fail but worryingly associates Australia with a neo-conservative foreign policy agenda, something supposedly jettisoned last year. It’s a shame our media doesn’t investigate recent claims that Israel is purchasing oil from the Islamic Republic, fundamentally undermining its claims of victimhood.

Rudd’s recent world tour was praised by the Wall Street Journal, though journalists missed a far more important gauge of public opinion. Iranians, in a recent poll, expressed scepticism towards America but a willingness to have “direct talks on issues of mutual concern” and “more access for each other’s journalists” Iranian bloggers continue to be active, despite the onerous restrictions.

Our media has a responsibility to fully investigate the claims and counter-claims surrounding Iran’s alleged nuclear program (though Ahmadinejad’s rhetoric rarely helps matters). As former US President Jimmy Carter said this week about the necessity of including Hamas in any Israel/Palestine peace deal, Tehran will inevitably need to be engaged if Middle East peace is to be achieved.

That is, of course, if what America and Israel truly desires.

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Australia’s 2020 Summit currently taking place in Canberra is being described in the following way by Reuters:

Hollywood star wattage outweighed intellectual light at the opening of an Australian thinkers summit on Saturday, with cameras firmly focused on Oscar-winning actress Cate Blanchett and her newborn son.

The event is actually far more than this - the vast majority of delegates aren’t “names” and simply want to present ideas for a better Australia - but I share the cynicism towards the possibility of gaining anything positive from the talk-fest.

How does the new government actually decide which ideas are “worthy” and which are not? Having said all this, however, allowing different voices to be heard shows at least an element of inclusiveness (though may verge on simply re-enforcing elitism.)

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As a regular contributor to ABC Unleashed, I was asked to offer a suggestion for this weekend’s 2020 Summit on Australia’s future:

Australian troops are causing more harm than good in Afghanistan. Engaged in an unwinnable war against a so-called enemy that enjoys widespread public support and growing anger at NATO’s indiscriminate bombing of civilians, Kevin Rudd’s recent suggestion of eradicating poppy fields shows how out of touch he is with reality on the ground. The central government, run by a corrupt clique led by Hamid Karzai, controls little of the country and is filled with war-lords who terrorised the nation in decades past.

Australia should withdraw troops as quickly as possible and instead provide humanitarian support and UN backing.

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The following letter in today’s Age newspaper simply explains Kevin Rudd’s selective belief in human rights:

How dare Kevin Rudd tell the Chinese that there have been human rights violations in Tibet. Would he do the same and tell the Israelis that there are gross human rights violations in Palestine? On the contrary, at a recent dinner organised by an Australian Jewish organisation, he went to great lengths to say that Australians and Israelis are the same type of people.

Simon Chan, Port Melbourne

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My following article appears in today’s ABC Unleashed:

Prime Minister Kevin Rudd’s overseas trip has been extensively covered in the mainstream media. From George W. Bush to Gordon Brown, the travelling journalists have given readers and viewers a running commentary of his daily meetings.

Missing from the vast majority of the coverage, however, has been analysis of anything substantive. The trivial became “news” and constructed controversies were deemed worthy of discussion.

Take Chris Uhlmann’s report on ABC1’s Lateline last week that stated Rudd had “laid to rest the claim he would threaten the [US/Australia] alliance”. The only people who ever truly believed he would “threaten” the alliance were former Howard government ministers and a few conservative commentators.

Somehow this rump was suddenly worthy of note and repeated by journalists as established fact. It was nothing of the sort, but after being repeated by countless journalists for many years, Uhlmann simply repeated a familiar mantra.

Scott Burchill, senior lecturer in international relations at Deakin University, challenged an article by The Australian’s Foreign Editor Greg Sheridan, which states “Rudd will be a tremendous disappointment to the ideological Left in Australia”:

As is so often the case, Sheridan couldn’t be more wrong.

Rudd is the same on Israel. Same on China. Same on Indonesia. Same on everything that counts (Kyoto doesn’t). Why else would he give Bush an open-ended commitment to Afghanistan as a quid pro quo for a partial withdrawal from Iraq, when the war is hopelessly lost, has no coherent strategic objectives and only imperils Australia’s strategic position? Bipartisanship was never in doubt.

Perhaps the best example of the media amplifying trivialities to “news” was Rudd’s salute to Bush at the NATO conference in Bucharest. It was major news in Australia and across the globe, a supposedly poor reflection of subservience towards Washington. We’ll never know Rudd’s exact motivation for the gesture – probably nerves by the new leader in town – but it hardly warranted prime time coverage. It was a story in brief, at best.

ABC1’s Lateline claimed the salute signified Rudd “coming unstuck in Bucharest” with “critics” slamming the move. It was “news” because a few politicians in Australia were upset – Liberal leader Brendan Nelson and Greens leader Bob Brown – and therefore allegedly serious reporters had to quote them. The establishment media never seemed so servile.

Salon’s Glenn Greenwald has extensively documented the ways in which the American mainstream media consistently highlights the trivial over the meaningful. Here’s Greenwald on April 5:

In the past two weeks, the following events transpired. A Department of Justice memo, authored by John Yoo, was released which authorized torture and presidential lawbreaking. It was revealed that the Bush administration declared the Fourth Amendment of the Bill of Rights to be inapplicable to “domestic military operations” within the U.S. The U.S. Attorney General appears to have fabricated a key event leading to the 9/11 attacks and made patently false statements about surveillance laws and related lawsuits. Barack Obama went bowling in Pennsylvania and had a low score.

A search of journalism database Nexus found that Obama’s bowling featured thousands of times in the past 30 days, but the fact that the Bush administration authorised torture was largely ignored, as it was in Australia.

Greenwald rightly argues that the elite media focuses on the trivial because they believe that’s what the “regular folk” care about and don’t want to concern themselves with holes in the 9/11 story or US interrogators torturing prisoners around the world. This is what establishment media has become.

Republican presidential nominee John McCain has benefited from this unquestioning allegiance to his “war hero” status. The fact that he still doesn’t seem to understand the difference between Sunni and Shiite appears irrelevant.

Being “pro-war” is “serious” while being critical of the Iraq war is deemed by journalists to be weak, anti-American and emboldening the enemy. A majority of Americans embrace setting a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq, though this is lost in the distracting noise amidst fawning over a man, McCain, who believes in endless occupation of the country. Witness the love letter by The Australian’s Geoff Elliot in January.

One critic of Greenwald says that the media “appears to be more interested in events that determine the future… than in events that look back at the past.” Therefore, focusing on Obama’s bowling skills or Hillary Clinton’s cleavage – another “serious” story in 2007 - is merely want the public craves.

In fact, recent studies show that the American people are increasingly disillusioned with where their country is headed.

This is not a call for the media to solely report information that the “elite” think the public should care about. It’s a reality check.

One of the major stories in the past two weeks in Australia has been Rudd’s salute to Bush. Whatever the merits of Rudd’s overseas trip – and Scott Burchill’s point about his slavishness towards major powers rings true – journalists need to remove themselves from the insulated bubble and not simply repeat each others stories and repackage them as “news”.

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