Antony Loewenstein

Gideon Levy in Haaretz on the Obama administration’s disastrous decision last week:

The first veto cast by the United States during Obama’s term, a veto he promised in vain not to use as his predecessors did, was a veto against the chance and promise of change, a veto against hope. This is a veto that is not friendly to Israel; it supports the settlers and the Israeli right, and them alone.

The excuses of the American ambassador to the UN won’t help, and neither will the words of thanks from the Prime Minister’s Office: This is a step that is nothing less than hostile to Israel. America, which Israel depends on more than ever, said yes to settlements. That is the one and only meaning of its decision, and in so doing, it supported the enterprise most damaging to Israel.

Moreover, it did so at a time when winds of change are blowing in the Middle East. A promise of change was heard from America, but instead, it continued with its automatic responses and its blind support of Israel’s settlement building. This is not an America that will be able to change its standing among the peoples of the region. And Israel, an international pariah, once again found itself supported only by America.

Gideon Levy writes in Haaretz: “How school trips to Hebron resemble visits to Auschwitz“, scaring children and making them far more nationalistic. Arabs must be feared and settlers celebrated.

This Haaretz editorial reveals the fascist bent of the Zionist state:

From Gideon Levy in Haaretz, of course:

At 6 A.M. yesterday, shortly before dawn in Cairo, Al Jazeera correspondent correspondent, Jacky Rowland, described the massive street party happening around her as “the hangover of the revolution.” The big words are being taken out of storage. They are still wrapped in a plethora of fears and reservations, but one can easily say that Egypt has never before seen the dawn of a new day such as this, with the possible exception of the morning of the coup by Gamal Abdel Nasser’s Free Officers Movement, more than half a century ago. That ended the monarchy; on Friday night the dictatorship ended. In between, the land of the Nile was tossed from hungry mouths to silenced mouths.

The news from Egypt is good news, not only for that country and the Arab world, but for the entire world, including Israel. Now is the time to be happy for the Egyptian people, to hope that this amazing revolution will not go wrong. Let us lay aside all our fears – of anarchy, of the Muslim Brotherhood or a military regime – and let this great gamble have its say. Let us not wallow in the dangers; now is the time to bask in the light that shines from the Nile, after 18 days of popular, democratic struggle. Of all countries it was Egypt, ironically, that proved that yes, it can. That it is possible to bring down a dictatorship, and even to do so by peaceful means.

…

But of course the struggle is not finished, it has just begun. The beginning of the end of the ancien regime is only the end of the beginning of the revolution. But one can already predict that even if Egypt experiences another undemocratic phase along the way – a military regime or an Islamic takeover – even if it does not turn into a liberal Western democracy, with an opposition and freedom, overnight, it will get there eventually. There is almost no way back, and Egypt has never been closer. The Orientalists can go hang: The racist idea that the Arabs aren’t ready for democracy has already received a knockout blow. What is more democratic than this uprising?

Gideon Levy in Haaretz reminds us that the struggle there for independence from Zionist occupation may take a little longer but justice is on the right side:

This week, Jenin’s wonderland was to be found in Egypt. Residents of the refugee camp closely followed events in the land of the Nile, in a mood of melancholy jealousy. Each night they crowded into homes to watch television and see what was going on in Cairo. But no winds of change are blowing in the West Bank. No solidarity demonstration was staged; not a single poster of support was to be seen on the streets. The pining for freedom is to be found only in the Jenin theater.

Camp residents saw what just a few days of popular protest can do – topple a tyrannical regime that has been in power for decades. Yet here in the camp, a struggle that has lasted decades, a mass, armed and sometimes violent campaign for freedom, has changed nothing. All is despair. At the end of last week, the IDF once again invaded the camp and in the dark of night whisked four young men from their beds. Nobody in the camp knew why this happened, or where the men were taken. That’s just the way the world turns

Gideon Levy in Haaretz:

The Egyptian regime became an ally of the Israeli occupation. The joint siege of Gaza is irrefutable proof of that. The Egyptian people didn’t like it. They never liked the peace agreement with Israel, in which Israel committed itself to “respect the legitimate rights of the Palestinian people” but never kept its word. Instead, the people of Egypt got the scenes of Operation Cast Lead.

It is not enough to have a handful of embassies in order to be accepted in the region. There also have to be embassies of goodwill, a just image and a state that is not an occupier. Israel has to make its way into the hearts of the Arab peoples, who will never agree to the continued repression of their brothers, even if their intelligence ministers will continue to cooperate with Israel.

One:

Just hours after the Knesset approved a motion calling for a parliamentary investigation into the activity of B’Tselem, Yesh Din, Breaking the Silence and other groups, National Union MK Michael Ben-Ari referred to members of the leftist organizations as “traitors who must be persecuted at any cost.”

Speaking at an SOS Israel conference in Jerusalem Wednesday evening, Ben-Ari called the leftists “germs” and “enemies of Israel.”

The rightist lawmaker went as far as equating the leftist organizations to Hamas and Hezbollah.

In an audio tape obtained by Ynet, Ben-Ari can be heard saying, “Elements that want to destroy the Jewish state are operating within the State of Israel. They are nothing short of traitors. They are persecuting IDF soldiers and want to castrate our resilience.

“I see the people from Peace Now; they each have a private car. Every clerk has the finest equipment. Who funds all of this? The greatest Israel haters are funding this. If we’ll have to enact a law in the Knesset to eradicate this dangerous enemy, that is what we’ll do. Such a germ can destroy Israeli society. This enemy threatens the state’s existence,” he added.

Extreme rightist Itamar Ben-Gvir, who also attended the conference, called on activists to protest outside the homes of the leaders of the leftist groups “and explain to their neighbors that these are people who harm IDF soldiers and cause Israel damage.

“We must also face them on the legal front – file lawsuits and show them we are not suckers. Those who harm the State of Israel and its soldiers will be punished,” he said.

In addition to the mass support from right-wing factions, the proposal to set up an inquiry commission into the activity of leftist groups was also backed by three members of Kadima, which heads the opposition. “We must erect a democratic and Zionist barrier against the use of human rights claims at the expense of Israeli patriotism,” MK Otniel Schneller said.

Today’s Haaretz editorial:

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

The Middle East “quagmire” is largely “the fault of Israel”, according to Paul Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers Union (AWU).

In an interview with Crikey, the author of Confessions of a Faceless Man said that he was a “critical friend of Israel” and the ongoing building of illegal settlements in the West Bank was “mad”.

An investigation into Australian’s union embrace of the Palestinian issue, the growing popularity of the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement and the pro-Israel stance of Howes and the AWU has discovered deep divides between the AWU and many other mainstream unions.

Following Britain’s biggest union decision earlier this year to boycott Israeli companies, Australian unions are also signing up to target firms that profit from Israeli colonies in the West Bank.

The unions include the Electrical Trades Union, the Australian Manufacturing Workers Union and the Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union. The move was condemned by The Australian and Howes last month. “We don’t believe that it’s in the interests of Palestinian or Israeli workers to seek to divide them in the peace process,” he said to the Murdoch paper.

Howes told Crikey that he opposed BDS because he supported a two-state solution and believed “Israel was a vibrant democracy”. But he included this: “If I thought BDS could solve the problem (the Middle East conflict) I would back it but I know it will have no effect on the ground in Palestine. The analogy with apartheid South Africa is wrong because BDS had no effect there until Western states, including the US, boycotted the country.”

Meanwhile, increasing numbers of Jewish writers overseas are expressing public concern over the direction of Israeli politics.

Gideon Levy, in Israeli daily Haaretz, says that “your beloved Israel is addicted to occupation and aggression”. Bradley Burston in the same paper claims that Americans are “emotionally divesting” from the conflict. This Washington Post report cites the fact that ultra-orthodox Jews are reproducing at such high rates that a more pro-settler mindset is gaining a foothold in the country and reducing its secular footprint.

More illegal structures are being built in East Jerusalem, yet barely any of this seems to enter the Australian discussion. Recent studies indicate the Jewish Diaspora here is “most closely tied to Israel” compared to every other Diaspora community.

This mindset has resulted in very few major figures speaking out against Israel’s occupation or ongoing siege of Gaza. I spoke to countless union officials and leaders across the country and most refused to talk on the record about these matters, the AWU and Howes.

Why? Perhaps it indicates an awareness of Howes’ media reach, his likely longevity in the Labor Party and union movement — he was recently voted one of the most powerful people in Australia in the Australian Financial Review.

But Howes is a contradiction. He is a man of the Labor Right, who is pro gay marriage and pro-refugees, supportive of nuclear power and the US alliance, mildly open to climate change and vehemently pro-Israel.

Howes told Crikey that he opposed Israel’s attack on the Gaza flotilla, Israeli discrimination against Palestinians, settlement expansion and the blockade of Gaza and acknowledged that he displeased Zionist audiences when he told them these views. He constantly said that he was optimistic about Middle East peace under US President Barack Obama and was hopeful  Washington wouldn’t allow the situation to deteriorate further.

I asked Howes why his union was so active in pro-Israel activity, what his members thought about it and who was paying for it all. “Most AWU members probably don’t care about Israel but we are a democratic union and I’ve received virtually no criticism for our stance. I’ve received one letter about it and it was backing our position.”

A union source told Crikey that the AWU was run like a business with little member discussion about important issues, so any serious disagreement of the union’s Israel policy could be ignored. It is impossible to determine how much AWU members’ money is spent on pro-Israel advocacy.

In his younger days, when Howes was in the Trotskyite Democratic Socialist Party, he said he “may have been anti-Israel” but the issue barely came up. “I strongly believe that Israel has the right to exist but it has no right to occupy other’s lands.” He took comfort from the fact that “most Israelis oppose colonies” but I asked if this was truly the case when settlements continued to expand at an unprecedented rate. It was because of Israel’s political system, Howes countered, that allowed “fringe” parties too much power.

Howes has placed pro-Israel campaigning at the centre of his union’s business. At the 2009 national conference, an Israeli trade union leader praised the AWU’s stand against boycotts. Howes himself gave a speech recently at the Zionist Federation of Australia conference in Melbourne where he vehemently opposed BDS but barely said a word against the occupation and implied that Palestinian workers were against BDS. In fact, the opposite is true, with the vast majority of Palestinian civil society groups agreeing in 2005 to a cultural and academic boycott of Israel.

Zionist advocacy is conducted in the AWU by a handful of major figures: national communications co-ordinator Andrew Casey in Sydney and campaigns co-ordinator Daniel Walton, who just returned from a Zionist lobby-paid trip to Israel. Several union sources told Crikey that Casey and Howes spend considerable time trying to pressure other local unions not to join the BDS movement.

Howes said he spoke regularly to union leaders in Australia and overseas and the vast bulk of them who do back BDS are doing so “because of constant Palestinian activist pressure” rather than actual belief in the ideology behind it.

Indeed, although the Australian Manufacturing Workers’ Union recently signed up for BDS, national secretary Dave Oliver, when contacted by Crikey, refused to comment beyond simply acknowledging the union’s “support for BDS at the national council”. I have been informed that Oliver is concerned about talking publicly about BDS for fear of upsetting Howes.

Howes, who acknowledged many times during our interview that he “didn’t know that much about the issue”, told me that he spends “0.1% of my time on Israel” and fully backs the TULIP (Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine) campaign that links some Israeli and Palestinian workers and “challenges the apologists for Hamas and Hizbollah in the labour movement”.

Supporting TULIP  makes sense for Howes when he told me that the rise of Islamic fundamentalism in the Middle East — he included Hamas, Hizbollah, Islamic Jihad and al-Qaeda — “must be fought”. I challenged him to acknowledge that none of these groups are alike — for example, Hamas and Hizbollah have major electoral support — and conflating all Islamist organisations into one evil entity is the classic and deliberate mistake made by neo-conservatives since September 11.

Other union leaders do not share Howes’ liberal Zionist and rose-coloured view of the Middle East. The CFMEU’s John Sutton told Crikey that his union backed BDS and Palestine because of its history of supporting “left causes”. Israel was moving further to the right, he said, and he rejected allegations that he was anti-Semitic or anti-Israel. “I don’t back full BDS, just boycott of settlement products”, Sutton told me. “I back a two-state solution and UN resolutions.” He hoped the ACTU would follow the CFMEU’s embrace of BDS but knew Howes was desperate to avoid the major union body backing a partial BDS motion.

Former NSW CFMEU’s state secretary and political aspirant Andrew Ferguson told Crikey that the views of the AWU and Howes were “not relevant” to the BDS campaign. Ferguson’s union “has a large non-English speaking and Arabic membership, many of whom are pro-Palestinian”. He told me that Andrew Casey, AWU’s Jewish communications man, “reinforced Howes’ view on the Middle East”. Ferguson said Howes “has a strong point of view” on the Middle East and “he pushes that legitimately”.

It’s not a view shared by departed Labor politician Julia Irwin. She spoke exclusively to Crikey in August about the Zionist lobby’s infiltration of the ALP. When asked about Howes last week, Irwin said that her former Labor colleague Michael Forshaw, currently chair of the Joint Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade, “often argued that his union [the AWU] had long and binding ties with the [Israel union] Histadrut and this was the basis of his support for Israel”. The reason behind the affection for Israel felt by Howes was no different.

Irwin also expressed concern that ALP Jewish backbencher Michael Danby would likely become chair of the Defence and Foreign Affairs Committee next year, potentially upsetting Arab states with his hard-line Zionist views. She exclusively told Crikey that Minister for the Arts, Simon Crean, “who fought off a determined challenge from Jewish influences in the Victorian ALP to retain pre-selection”, was furious with the potential Danby position but Danby had “done his homework”, being close to the architects of Rudd’s deposing.

When I asked Howes about the only Labor MP who spoke publicly for the rights of the Palestinians, he said that Irwin had “gone as far as her abilities would allow”. He claimed that there were several other ALP parliamentarians who were critical of Israeli policies but he couldn’t name one who said anything on the public record.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the long interview with Howes was a discussion about what was actually happening in Israel and Palestine. He was not like Canadian leader Stephen Harper, who this week said that Israel must be supported no matter what. “Unless Israel moves soon [and ends the occupation], disaster awaits”, Howes told me. “I don’t give a blank cheque for Israel.”

However, one of his columns in this year’s Sunday Telegraph was a complete backing for the Israeli assassination of Hamas figure Mahmoud al-Mabhouh and the use of Australian passports in the hit. He argued that Israel, along with “moderate” Arab states and Australia, were engaged in a war “fighting Islamo-fascism” and the extra-judicial murder of untried “terrorists” was a “small victory”.

But Howes wanted to stress that even he had limits. “If Israelis become hell-bent on ethnic cleansing [of Palestinians] I’ll know, and my support won’t continue.” Although it is true that the ALP has a long tradition of blindly backing the Zionist state, Howes said that he regularly condemned Israeli actions “but The Australian and Australian Jewish News only report my pro-Israel comments”.

He denied having any ALP career ambitions but argued that “being critical of Israel isn’t an impediment to career progression” in the party.

Although Howes has long spoken warmly towards Israel, his planned upcoming Zionist lobby trip to Israel will not happen, along with Labor front-bencher Bill Shorten and ALP politician David Feeney, due to the presence and tensions with Kevin Rudd, according to comments by Howes on ABC in Melbourne on 11 November. Howes told me that he realised deeper involvement in the issue was required when former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd issued a motion to congratulate Israel on its 60th anniversary in 2008. “I thought it was highly inappropriate [for some union leaders and pro-Palestinian activists] not to praise Israel’s achievements. The activists had to be challenged.”

On the day of Rudd’s motion, a large advertisement appeared in The Australian condemning the move and accusing Israel of ethnic cleansing. Howes responded at the time: “In a de facto manner, Julie Irwin and some trade union people can be perceived to be supporting the lot of Islamic Jihad and Hamas through the action they have taken here.”

But union head Andrew Ferguson indicated to Crikey that he had recently noticed a small shift in the ability of the Zionist lobby to “convince Australian unions of the Israeli position”. Although he said the ALP was a “conservative party and never backed a pro-Palestinian position”, there was more questioning within ALP ranks and less fear of being accused of backing terrorism and Hamas for simply speaking out.

Demographic shifts in Australian society, Ferguson stressed, were changing perceptions of Palestine. As Israel moves further to the right, younger members of the ALP [such as Muslim and Arab members] and the general public were moving the Labor movement in a different direction. “In 10-15 years time,” he said, “we will see a real shift” towards more critical perspectives on Israeli actions.

Crikey has obtained a motion that was passed at the Brisbane South ALP regional conference (and other regional conferences) in late October, which signals growing anger within Labor ranks. It stressed support for a two-state solution but called for an end to Israel’s “separation wall” through the West Bank, an end to the siege on Gaza, cessation of West Bank colonies and a fair outcome for Palestinian refugees.

It was then sent to the ALP National Executive for action and shows frustration that the Gillard Government and Labor leadership are willing to simply mouth the official US policy on the region. Howes had no criticism of Gillard’s position on the Israel/Palestine conflict.

But Ferguson warned me not to under-estimate the power of Zionist lobbying and money on mainstream politicians to be seduced by the Zionist narrative. Witness the upcoming largest Australian parliamentary delegation ever to visit Israel organised by Melbourne-based, Zionist lobbyist Albert Dadon. They will be accompanied by journalists from most major Australian media companies.

Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist and author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution.

Crikey Ed: This story originally cited national occupational health and safety unit director Dr Yossi Berger in Victoria in relation to Zionist advocacy conducted in the AWU; this reference has now been removed due to inaccuracy.

Gideon Levy in Haaretz on challenging delusional Zionism:

Today, your representatives will open your great annual convention, the General Assembly. Between New Orleans’ Marriott and Sheraton hotels, you will be sated with lectures and lecturers, panels and discussion groups. Some will be about you, and some will be about us Israelis. Once again, you will hear all the cliches – and Joe Biden, Benjamin Netanyahu and Tzipi Livni, too.

But this year, you will be meeting in the shadow of last week’s midterm elections – many of you are surely rejoicing over the president’s defeat – and on the eve of fateful decisions.

I read that your menu includes an Israeli breakfast, and also several discussions about the global delegitimization of Israel. Doubtless the speakers will tell you it’s because of anti-Semitism.

Don’t believe them. There is anti-Semitism in the world, but not to the extent they will tell you. Nor is there any “delegitimization of Israel.” There is only delegitimization of Israel’s policy of force and occupation.

That same “anti-Semitic” world knew how to embrace Israel when the latter chose the right path – during the Oslo era, for instance. What most of the world has become fed up with is only Israel’s ongoing occupation and violent policy. And the responsibility (and blame ) for their existence lies with Israel, not the world. The world is hard on Israel, but it also grants it special rights that no other country enjoys.

If Israel is dear to you – and that is true of most of you – then be honest enough to criticize it as it deserves. Think about your personal friends. What would they value more: your blind, automatic support, or criticism born of love when it is warranted?

Your beloved Israel is addicted. It is addicted to occupation and aggression, and someone has to wean it from these addictions. Like any other junkie, it is incapable of helping itself. Thus the job falls to you.

My following article appears in today’s Sydney Morning Herald:

Imagine a mainstream Australian politician saying that Aborigines should be banned from leading tourists around Uluru because they might “present anti-Australian positions” to visitors. The outcry would be furious.

But a bill is currently before the Israeli Knesset, led by a parliamentarian from the “moderate” Kadima party, that would bar Arab residents of East Jerusalem from working as tour guides in the city. Knesset member Gideon Ezra said it was essential tourist groups are “accompanied by a tour guide who is an Israeli citizen and has institutional loyalty to the [Jewish] state of Israel”.

It is just the latest sign in an ever-tightening noose around Arabs from the Zionist mainstream in the self-described Jewish nation.

Journalist Gideon Levy writes in the Israeli daily Haaretz that no politician “has even begun to think of Arabs as being equal to Jews”. The Israeli Jewish public increasingly shares these authoritarian views. In a study published in the newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth, 36 per cent of Israeli Jews urged the revoking of Arab voting rights and restriction of free speech in “times of political difficulty”.

Israel is not a democracy for all its citizens but an insecure nation demanding obedience to an ideology that deliberately excludes the legitimate rights of its Arab population.

The occupation in the West Bank is deepening daily, after more than 43 years, with colonies expanding at the fastest rate in two years. The illegal siege on Gaza contributes to Palestinian children suffering debilitating malnutrition.

This is the Israel that Western politicians prefer to ignore. When I recently confronted Opposition Leader Tony Abbott over his blind backing for Israeli “democracy”, he muttered something about the Middle East not being “perfect.” But, I countered, what about Jewish-only settler roads in the West Bank? That was “bad”, he acknowledged, before looking away nervously.

Julia Gillard’s Labor Party shares these delusions. It is one of the reasons that the Independent Australian Jewish Voices group published newspaper advertisements nationally this month demanding the Australian government “exert pressure on Israel to conform to international law and humanitarian standards”.

The growing global concern over Israeli values has been crystallised by the Netanyahu cabinet voting to force non-Jews seeking citizenship to swear allegiance to Israel as a “Jewish and democratic state”.

The decision was met with furious indignation from a vocal minority in Israel, not least Palestinians who were being asked to negate their historical rights. Leftist Jewish Israelis marched through Tel Aviv chanting, “Fascism and ethnic cleansing are standing proud”.

In the Diaspora there was virtual silence. Blind loyalty came before defending democratic values. The Achilles heel is its deference to Israeli government decisions, a Maoist-like devotion to a country increasingly delegitimised by its own occupying policies.

One of the main reasons the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign is thriving around the world – alongside the one-state solution idea – is that Israel ignores global demands to change its behaviour. Cultural and economic isolation worked against apartheid South Africa.

Just the latest example of a principled stance in reaction to the loyalty oath, was the refusal of the English filmmaker Mike Leigh to participate in a program at a Jerusalem film school. He also cited expanding West Bank settlements and the brutal attack on the Gaza flotilla.

Leigh was praised by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel for highlighting “the fact that collaborating with institutions of a state that practises occupation, colonisation and apartheid, as Israel does, cannot be regarded as a neutral act …”

No other Western state has tried to introduce anything like the loyalty oath. The oath is on an ever-growing list of anti-democratic proposals before the Knesset, including a one-year prison term for “incitement for the negation of the existence of the state of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state”.

Palestinians and leftist Jews are loathed fifth-columns to be smeared and isolated.

No obfuscation about the supposedly devilish plans of Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran or al-Qaeda can distract from the reality of Israel’s inherent racism. The world should stop pumping in funds to perpetuate the infrastructure of oppression.

Antony Loewenstein is a freelance journalist and author of My Israel Question.

A story that only Gideon Levy in Haaretz would write. Piercing and spot-on:

The voice of joy, the voice of rejoicing is heard in Israel: The Americans and British have also committed for war crimes, not only us. WikiLeaks’ revelations have inflamed all our noisy propagandists: Where is Goldstone, they rejoiced, and what would he have said? They were relieved. If the Americans are allowed to do it, so are we.

Indeed, the Americans are not allowed, and neither are we. When the traffic police stop a driver for speeding, the argument that “others do it” will not help him. When Richard Goldstone exposes war crimes in Gaza, the claim that “everyone does it” will not help us. Not everyone does it, and when they do, they should be excoriated and penalized.

According to the logic of Israeli propagandists, some of whom are disguised as journalists, Israel should now proudly look at the rest of the world: They killed more people there. There is no need to improve prison conditions in Israel – in China the situation is much worse; there is no need to upgrade health services – in America 50 million people have no insurance; no need to reduce the gap between rich and poor – in Mexico it is greater; we can continue to assassinate without trial – the British also do it; human rights are protected here – the Iranians are much worse; Israel has no corruption – look what’s happening in Africa; the United States has the death penalty – let’s have it too; it is even permissible to kill dissident journalists – look at the Russians.

Yes, war is cruel, the world is full of crimes and injustice, but not one of them exonerates Israel, even if Israel’s sins seem pure as snow compared to those of the great United States. Now is the time to sharply censure America, not to forgive Israel.

It is the task of all patriots and people of conscience to express their fury over any such revelations, especially, of course, in their own country. Israelis must aspire to a more just and much more law-abiding country, without reference to what is going on in the world. True, we are not the worst; far from it. The number of civilians killed in Iraq, as was revealed, is a thousand times more horrific than the number killed in Gaza. So what? Even if the world holds us to a harsher standard, our hands do not become any cleaner. The world is more strict with us for various reasons, some justified, and at the same time treats us favorably and turns a blind eye to many other things. And in any case, the determining factor should be what we see in the mirror, if we look at it honestly.

Our rejoicing propagandists have changed their tactics now: no longer “the most moral army in the world,” a contention any reasonable person can see is ridiculous. Now they say: “We are terrible, like all the rest.” That claim does not hold water, especially because Israel is not judged only by one or another of its military operations, but by its decades-long occupation, with no end in sight. Such a lengthy occupation is unparalleled in the modern world and a disgrace to Israel, no matter what America is doing in Iraq and Afghanistan.

WikiLeaks has proven that in the end the truth will out; it is hard to hide anything in this era. Goldstone also showed it, albeit much less dramatically. Some two years after Operation Cast Lead, even the Israel Defense Forces is still dealing with it here and there, investigating and trying officers and soldiers who did what the Goldstone report, which so infuriated Israel, said they did.

Israel should thank Goldstone, and America should thank Julian Assange. Their revelations prove the futility of war and its crimes. Imagine how much hatred America has sown in Iraq, with its thousands of mourning families, and how much hatred Israel has sown in Gaza, with its thousands of mourning families and its ruination.

How futile are all the assassinations and the torture, abuse and false arrests, with Iraq and Gaza looking as they do.

What are we brandishing? More than 100,000 dead in a terrible, useless war, the whim of a democratic leader? True, George W. Bush should now be sent to The Hague. But the fact that others are doing it, as Assange’s revelations show, is the consolation of fools, and theirs alone.

Gideon Levy in Haaretz writes in customary fiery fashion (and check out the recent Independent feature on this truly remarkable and unique man) about his country’s seemingly daily descent into deeper intolerance:

The photograph was recently distributed by the IDF’s propagandists: Mairead Corrigan-Maguire is seen being taken off the abducted ship Rachel Corrie at Ashdod port, as a soldier from the world’s most moral army holds out his hand to help the honorable woman disembark. It was not long after the IDF’s violent takeover of the Mavi Marmara, and Israeli propagandists were now hastening to peddle their cheap merchandise, showing how Israel treats “real” peace activists, as opposed to the Turkish “terrorists” on the earlier vessel.

Only four months have passed since the earlier event, and the very same lady has now spent a weekend in the deportees’ cell at Ben-Gurion Airport. While we were having another warm, pleasant weekend, the Nobel Peace Prize laureate sat in an Israeli jail and nobody seemed to care. We were not ashamed, we were not outraged, we did not make a sound. It was a spectacle that could only have taken place in Israel, North Korea, Burma (Myanmar ) and Iran – the state imprisoning and deporting a winner of the Nobel Peace Prize – and raised no more than a yawn here.

One court has already upheld the deportation, in a characteristically automatic action, and the Supreme Court will debate it today.

The new Israel is once again portrayed as an indrawn, detestable state, with a branch of the thought police at Ben-Gurion Airport. World-renowned intellectuals such as Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein, Spain’s most famous clown Ivan Prado and now Mairead Corrigan-Maguire, are deported from it shamefacedly only because they dared to visit the country. And all this is backed by pathological public indifference.

What kind of Jewish newspaper would publish a letter like this?

Having written a book The Punishment of Gaza – with an obvious content – Jewish Israeli Gideon Levy took great pleasure in making a vile speech at a meeting hosted by the Manchester Palestinian Solidarity Campaign.

I ask several questions about this hideous man:

1. Why hasn’t be been expelled from Israel?

2. Why hasn’t Mossad been ordered to eliminate him? After all, this group gained recent notoriety for targeting an enemy of Israel. And isn’t the worst enemy a citizen?

3. Why hasn’t this man been arrested on a charge of treason?

Arab members of the Knesset frequently attack Israel – and I find it incredulous they can remain MPs.

It would not be tolerated in this country.

Israel also tolerates the loathsome Neturei Karta and even pays them to spread their message that the country which gives them freedom and safety, can tour the world, siding with the Palestinians to proclaim that Israel shouldn’t exist.

They have expressed horror that a senior Israeli rabbi had suggested it was OK to kill Palestinians, yet they never express outrage when Israel Jews are murdered by their Palestinian friends.

Crazy standards.

Brian Lux,
49 Abbey Road,
Llandudno.

Britain’s Jewish Telegraph has, a literal incitement to murder.

Yet another sign of ever-worsening Zionist extremism in the Diaspora.