Antony Loewenstein

2008:

Yadlin replied that the Palestinians are only Israel’s number four threat in the IDI’s assessment, following Iran, Syria, and Hizballah. Although the Palestinians are not the IDI’s top concern, Yadlin said he would answer the question by noting that it will take time to marry Netanyahu’s approach to Fayyad’s. If the parties attempt to move straight to resolving the conflict, the attempt will collapse and result in violence as in the start of the Second Intifada after the 2000 Camp David summit. The key question is how can the Palestinian Authority control terrorism. Yadlin said the USSC General Dayton is doing “a very good job” of training the PA Security Forces, but Yadlin quoted Dayton as saying that the PASF will need three to five years to build its counter-terrorist capabilities, including a functioning justice system.

Yadlin said the IDF is out of the Jenin area unless it receives reports of a “ticking bomb.” The PA, however, is ignoring Gaza and Fayyad insists on paying salaries in Gaza, which helps Hamas. Yadlin said this is a “big mistake.” Yadlin noted that the Palestinians have created two entities. President Abbas and Fayyad condemn terrorism and stress that Palestinian national goals can be achieved through negotiations. They rule in the West Bank with Israel’s assistance. In Gaza, a terrorist organization is in power and Hamas preaches that Palestinian aspirations can be achieved through terrorism. This division provides Israel with a “historic opportunity” to prove that Hamas’ approach will fail.

2004:

In terms of the U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship, the Israeli media overwhelmingly agreed that the first Bush administration had been a good friend to Israel. “Conventional wisdom in Israel,” wrote a senior columnist from pluralist Yediot Aharonot on November 1, “is that Bush was and will be the ideal American president from Israel’s perspective. The best there is. Israel has no interest in seeing him replaced, and it has every interest in seeing him reelected.” Most commentators agreed, however, that both candidates shared a political record of support for Israel – for better or for worse. A senior columnist for left-wing Ha’aretz observed on October 18 that “regardless of whether Bush is reelected or John Kerry takes his place, there will be no `pressure’ from America” in terms of U.S.-Israel relations.

When I was in Gaza in mid 2009, life was difficult for the residents due to the Israeli and Egyptian imposed siege. Outright hatred for Hamas was rare.

Times may be changing:

A budding middle class in the impoverished Gaza Strip is flaunting its wealth, sipping coffee at gleaming new cafes, shopping for shoes at the new tiny shopping malls, and fueling perhaps the most acrimonious grass roots resentment yet toward the ruling Hamas movement.

This middle class, which has become visible at the same time as a mini-construction boom in this blockaded territory, is celebrating its weddings in opulent halls and vacationing in newly built beach bungalows. That level of consumption may be modest by Western standards, but it’s in startling contrast to the grinding poverty of most Gazans, who rely on UN food handouts to get by.

Some of the well-off are Hamas loyalists. That rankles many Gaza residents because the conservative Islamic movement gained popularity by tending to the poor, through charitable aid, education and medical care – along with its armed struggle against Israel.

“Hamas has become rich at the expense of the people,” fumed a 22-year-old seamstress, Nisrine, as she stitched decorative applique onto a dress. She wouldn’t disclose her family name, not wanting to be seen criticizing the militant group.

Gaza’s Hamas government denies its loyalists have gotten wealthy since the group came to power. Corruption “doesn’t touch us,” said Hamas official Yusef Rizka.

But others – even those close to Hamas – say the militant group must pay attention. “There is a nouveau riche that has followed the rise of the government,” said Alaa Araj, a former Gaza economic minister and businessman considered close to Hamas. “We must sound the alarm,” he said. “(Resentment) is growing in Gaza.”

While both the Left and Right have widely discussed the political ramifications of the massacre in Norway, it takes a particular hardline Zionist, in the Jerusalem Post, to write this (thank you Barry Rubin for revealing what Zionism has done to my people):

One of the most sensitive aspects of the murderous terrorist attack in Norway by a right-wing gunman is this irony: The youth camp he attacked was engaged in what was essentially (though the campers didn’t see it that way, no doubt) a pro-terrorist program.

The camp, run by Norway’s left-wing party, was lobbying for breaking the blockade of the terrorist Hamas regime in the Gaza Strip, and for immediate recognition of a Palestinian state, without that entity needing to do anything that would prevent it from being used as a terrorist base against Israel. They were justifying forces that had committed terrorism against Israelis, killing thousands of people like themselves.

Even to mention this irony is dangerous, since it might be taken to imply that the victims “had it coming.” The victims never deserve to be murdered by terrorists, even victims who think other victims “had it coming.” This is in no way a justification of that horrendous terrorist act. It’s the exact opposite: a vital but forgotten lesson arising from it that can and should save lives.

Call it the Oslo Syndrome.

Last night I was on ABCTV News24′s The Drum (video here) talking climate change policy and the Gaza flotilla.

I argued that dwindling public support for real action on climate change was because too many of its backers refused to seriously engage with the general public and denigrated opponents. Labeling “deniers” akin to Holocaust deniers is not the way to win the argument. Besides, as somebody who recognises the damage caused by climate change, it’s heart-breaking to see the Australian government so utterly incapable of prosecuting an argument, speaking of “reform agendas” without being able to convince the public that lack of action is too dangerous for our future. Inner city folk spend too much time speaking to each other (and yes, I live in the inner city).

There’s a false discussion in Australia about which major political party is a better economic manager when in fact they both subscribe to the same neo-liberal policies that have only entrenched the divide between rich and poor. Little dissent from this line is ever heard, and the media perpetuates the lie.

The Gaza flotilla was discussed and I supported the right of global citizens to highlight Israel’s illegal blockade and occupation of Gaza. Thanks to Sydney reporter Kate Ausburn for transcribing some of my comments:

…there are profound restrictions on equipment getting in [to Gaza]. … the idea somehow that the Flotilla is designed to support Hamas, which is exactly what the Israeli government say, is nonsense. It is about highlighting to the world, in a way where governments have failed, that Israel occupies Gaza, and more importantly continues to persecute people collectively, which is illegal under international law for that very reason.

Speaking on Israel’s threat to journalists taking part in the Flotilla to cover the story that they could have their equipment seized and receive a ten year ban on entering Israel:

I think the issue of the journalists being threatened is very clear. It is because they are petrified of a different narrative emerging. Last year when there were countless activists who were filming what happened, all the equipment was taken and destroyed, or at least not given back, and the idea this time is they only want to have one narrative which is that Israel has the right to board the ships. You shouldn’t forget one final thing, Israel boarded the ships last year in international waters, so which is essentially an act of piracy.

Israel has reversed the ham-fisted policy of banning reporters but it’s the sign of a Zionist state that only knows how to threaten (here’s yet another recent example of an Israeli hoax, this time a gay man supposedly opposing the flotilla, that has turned into a complete Israeli PR debacle).

He’s compared the situation in Palestine today to those suffered by blacks under apartheid in South Africa.

But comically, Murdoch’s Australian newspaper – always a wonderful defender of the underdog as long as they have solid business or media contacts – thinks Tutu should shut up about Palestine. It’s not like he has any clue what he’s talking about:

Anglican archbishop Desmond Tutu played an outstanding role in opposing apartheid in South Africa and helping reconcile the nation after majority rule. But such experience in his own country does not qualify him to meddle in other complex conflicts. In praising the Greens-controlled Marrickville Council in Sydney’s inner west for its boycotts, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel, the Nobel laureate has lent unwarranted credibility to an absurd, unjust policy. His interference promotes the falsehood that life in Israel is akin to South Africa under apartheid. In reality, the 20 per cent of non-Jewish Israeli citizens, including 1.1 million Muslims, enjoy the same voting, property and employment rights as the Jewish majority, with whom they live side by side. Such equality was unheard of for the black majority under apartheid in South Africa and few Muslim women enjoy the same freedoms elsewhere in the Middle East.

The Australian opposes construction of settlements on the West Bank that take further Palestinian land. But until the Palestinians, including the Iranian-backed terrorist group Hamas that controls Gaza, recognise Israel’s right to exist and stop seeking its destruction, it is unreasonable to expect concessions. In recent decades, serious attempts by Israel to find a peaceful two-state solution have been rebuffed, often with hostility. In 2000, then-PLO leader Yasser Arafat, unwilling to be seen to give up the fight with Israel, foolishly rejected an offer by Ehud Barak to set up an independent state in Gaza and 95 per cent of the West Bank, and territory from Israel proper to compensate for the remaining 5 per cent. An even more generous offer, including much of East Jerusalem, was made by Ehud Olmert in 2008 and rejected by Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas. Recently, Mr Abbas claimed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s promise of “a far-reaching compromise” if the Palestinians recognised Israel’s right to exist was a “declaration of war”.

The Marrickville campaign, which was opposed by all political leaders including senator Bob Brown and which would have cost ratepayers dearly, was thankfully dumped. On the ABC’s Q&A on Monday, Greens senator-elect Lee Rhiannon made a fool of herself talking up the boycotts and claiming Palestinians were subject to apartheid. Archbishop Tutu should be wise to such nonsense.

Robert Fisk has the story:

Secret meetings between Palestinian intermediaries, Egyptian intelligence officials, the Turkish foreign minister, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal – the latter requiring a covert journey to Damascus with a detour round the rebellious city of Deraa – brought about the Palestinian unity which has so disturbed both Israelis and the American government. Fatah and Hamas ended four years of conflict in May with an agreement that is crucial to the Paslestinian demand for a state.

A series of detailed letters, accepted by all sides, of which The Independent has copies, show just how complex the negotiations were; Hamas also sought – and received – the support of Syrian President Bachar al-Assad, the country’s vice president Farouk al-Sharaa and its foreign minister, Walid Moallem. Among the results was an agreement by Meshaal to end Hamas rocket attacks on Israel from Gaza – since resistance would be the right only of the state – and agreement that a future Palestinian state be based on Israel’s 1967 borders.

“Without the goodwill of all sides, the help of the Egyptians and the acceptance of the Syrians – and the desire of the Palestinians to unite after the start of the Arab Spring, we could not have done this,” one of the principal intermediaries, 75-year old Munib Masri, told me. It was Masri who helped to set up a ‘Palestinian Forum’ of independents after the Fatah-dominated Palestinian Authority and Hamas originally split after Hamas won an extraordinary election victory in 2006. “I thought the divisions that had opened up could be a catastrophe and we went for four years back and forth between the various parties,” Masri said. “Abu Mazen (Mahmoud Abbas) asked me several times to mediate. We opened meetings in the West Bank. We had people from Gaza. Everyone participated. We had a lot of capability.”

How can American Jews show their love for the Jewish state? March in the centre of New York, of course. Back in 2009, I reported on the Salute to Israel event, with tens of thousands of young and old Jews singing, saluting, parading and waving Israeli and American flags in an orgy of Zionist love. It looked and felt desperate.

Yesterday I again attended the march here in New York (only around 30,000 people took part) and the overwhelming feeling was one of increased anger and defensiveness. Countless Jews shouted out against Hamas, 9/11, terrorism, suicide bombing and Islam, as if they’re all connected. In the small mind of pro-settler Jews, they are, and this shows the level of paranoia shown by so many Zionist Jews. It’s a “the whole world hates us and always will” mentality. Occupation and military and racial discrimination don’t exist in yesterday’s rally.

It reminded me of whites marching for apartheid South Africa in the 1980s and believing history was on the side of hating blacks. These days, it’s hard to find many South Africans who proudly say they backed the apartheid regime.

Yesterday I spent time in the roped-off protest area, where Jews and Palestinians stood bravely against the masses and peacefully demonstrated against the Israeli state. We were clearly out-numbered and even then the marchers hurled abuse at us. Are Zionists so insecure that any dissent is seen as an existential threat? I guess shooting largely unarmed demonstrators is something to be proud of.

If the mainstream people at the march yesterday are the future of Israeli support in the US, then anti-Zionists have been given a gift. Extremism and virulent Zionism is not embraced by growing numbers of global citizens and yet Orthodox Zionism and Christian fundamentalism are becoming the key drivers of pro-Israel sentiment here.

A day to both despair and celebrate.

UPDATE: Need more evidence that the mainstream political elite sees Israel not as a country, but a fundamentalist religion that can’t be challenged? A leading New York politician is damned for not appearing at yesterday’s Israel parade.

Leading Australian academic Scott Burchill (we like his thoughts here) on specious Zionist claims:

Since the 1970s, Israel’s leaders have insisted that their Palestinian interlocutors acknowledge Israel’s “right to exist” as a pre-condition for negotiations on a settlement of the conflict.

Amongst other concessions, the governments of Israel and the United States insist that Hamas makes precisely this declaration before being allowed to join Fatah in direct talks with their Israeli counterparts.

The problem with such a demand is that no such abstract “right to exist” can be found in international law or in any serious theory of international relations.

To put it succinctly, a “right to exist” does not exist for states. Nor does such a right exist in practice. Australia, for example, does not recognise Israel’s “right to exist”. Nor do any other states.

…

The question of what it would actually be recognising by acknowledging Israel’s “right to exist” has only one answer. Hamas would be acknowledging the legitimacy of the dispossession of the Palestinian people from their homeland.

Why would they ever want to concede this, let alone as a precondition for peace negotiations? It would amount to a pre-emptive surrender.

Bravo:

Really:

White House spokesman Jay Carney expressed satisfaction with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Congress address and his commitment to peace. The White House is satisfied with the commitment Netanyahu expressed for the two-state vision, Carney said.

Ben Rhodes, a senior official in the US National Security Council who is currently touring Europe with President Barack Obama, also praised Netanyahu’s speech. He noted that he himself would not equate Hamas with al-Qaeda but could not help agree with the comparison.

Senator John McCain tweeted “Just left strong speech by Israeli PM Netanyahu. America stands with Israel and always will.”

Netanyahu declared “Israel will be generous about the size of the Palestinian state” but stressed he will not accept the right of return, will not divide Jerusalem and will insist on military presence along the Jordan River.