Antony Loewenstein

You meet the Israeli Prime Minister. You can ask him anything. Do you want to mention the occupation? Of course not. Much easier, as per Greg Sheridan in the Australian, to get Netanyahu to recall those glorious days in the Australian sun. Yes, this is Murdoch “journalism”:

Benjamin Netanyahu, Israel’s Prime Minister, has very strong feelings about Australia, as he does about many things.

On Australia, however, his feelings are wildly positive.

“I love Australia,” he tells me during a long interview in the Prime Minister’s office in Jerusalem.

He appreciates Australia’s support for Israel, but he has much more personal feelings, and experiences, especially a vacation here more than a decade ago.

“I was happily unemployed and I received an invitation to go to Australia,” he says.

“It was the second visit I had to Australia. I went there first as United Nations ambassador (in the mid-1980s).

“I came there with my wife and my two boys and we had a wonderful time. I climbed Ayers Rock, again, barefoot, with my boy. He was young, 10 years old, he climbed it with me and nearly fell off the cliff.

“It was absolutely spectacular. Then we had a vacation in Hayman Island. We saw some whales and giant turtles in a nearby island. I don’t think you can beat that.

“I swam and sunbaked and didn’t do anything connected with politics for a couple of weeks. I’d say that’s pretty good. I can tell you I enjoyed it mightily. When I think of Australia, I think good thoughts.”

More seriously, I ask Netanyahu whether Australian support for Israel has been important.

Again, the response is pretty unequivocal: “Yes, very much so. It has been consistent, by and large. You can have here and there a difference. There’s also a sense of warmth and identification, which reflects the position of successive governments.

“But also there’s a sense of warmth of the people, which we don’t always enjoy elsewhere.

“In a world where Israel is vilified, castigated, where a beleaguered democracy is defending its very life against radical Islamist forces, we don’t always get credit. We don’t always get fair play. We feel that happens more often than not with Australia.”

A year ago, Australia’s Foreign Minister, Kevin Rudd, on a visit to Jerusalem invited Netanyahu to visit Australia as Prime Minister.

Would he like to do that?

“Absolutely.”

Julian Assange tells The Power Index that Canberra needs to grow a back-bone (fat chance):

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remains frustrated by the lack of assistance from the Australian federal government over his prolonged overseas legal plight, three weeks ahead of his appeal against extradition in the UK Supreme Court.

In an exclusive interview with The Power Index, the platinum-haired whistleblower revealed Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd’s office had been in contact with his lawyers in the past month but with “no results”.

When asked if he had been receiving adequate assistance from the federal government over his potential extradition from Britain to Sweden, Assange replied: “Of course not”.

“Almost no Australian who is involved in trouble overseas receives the assistance they should,” he said. “Australia is famous for its lack of assistance to its people who enter into difficulty overseas.”

A clearly-discouraged Assange said Prime Minister Julia Gillard, former Attorney-General Robert McClelland and other members of the ALP had “risen above their population and developed network connections with elites in other countries”.

“That is their game … and in doing so they develop a base outside their own country and are no longer political accountable to the people of their country,” he told The Power Index.

“[They] have been working their international connections, yes at my expense, but also at the expense of the Australian people.”

Assange is currently awaiting a hearing in the Supreme Court to be held early in February, where a panel of seven judges will consider his appeal against extradition on accusations of rape and sexual assault of two women.

If Assange loses the appeal he could face extradition within weeks. There is another option of appeal which could see him take the case to the European Court of Human Rights.

The 40-year-old Australian said the prime minister, who has denounced the actions of WikiLeaks as “illegal” in the past, had not been in contact recently.

A spokesperson for foreign minister Kevin Rudd told The Power Index that consular officers have been in touch with Assange’s lawyers and were “closely monitoring” his case.

“The Australian government cannot interfere in the judicial processes of other governments but Australia’s ambassador to Stockholm has sought and obtained assurances from Swedish authorities that Mr Assange’s case will proceed in accordance with due process,” the spokesperson said.

“Such assurances have also been sought and obtained from the relevant UK authorities.”

Greens Senator Scott Ludlam said he believed the government had not done enough to assist Assange, who has been under house arrest for more than a year.

“I think it would be much better for the Australian government to pull out all the stops and that means not just consular assistance, it means diplomatic activity and it means political statements,” he told The Power Index.

“We need to hear the prime minister and the attorney-general quite clearly advocating to the US that they would not support onward extradition of an Australian journalist to face trumped up charges in the United States.”

A Sydney-based friend wrote the following letter to members of the Labor Party in early November 2011:

Dear Member

I wake this morning to hear once more, with dismay, of the craven obeisance of the Australian Labor government to the wishes of the United States in voting against the recognition of Palestine at UNESCO.  At least a vast majority of other member nations were not so pathetic and self-interested, and voted to recognise and hopefully speed an end to one of the most heinous human rights abuses currently being perpetrated on the planet.

I spent 10 days in the West Bank earlier this year, and as one of (very) few Australians who has thus witnessed first hand the nature of the oppression and discrimination being inflicted on the Palestinian people, I find it incumbent to inform as many people as possible of the actual situation in the Occupied Territories.  Naturally this includes informing Australian voters of the disgraceful track record of the Australian Labor Party in backing every policy and opinion of the Israeli government.

The ALP is in sufficient trouble without further alienating what is a core constituency, those informed and decent people who regard human rights as pre-eminent in the conduct of its foreign policy.  Especially those ALP members currently sitting in marginal inner city electorates in Australia should be aware that such policy decisions as that enacted overnight at the UN force all thinking Australian voters to direct their attention to the only party with a principled policy position on Palestine, the Greens, whatever misgivings we may have about other aspects of their policy-making.

I have recently given a presentation to group of interested Australians about my trip to the West Bank.  I would be very happy to give a similar presentation to ALP members and anyone else who is interested in what is really happening in Israel.  It might offer some balance to the views proffered to those ALP members who are so quick to accept Israeli-government sponsored junkets to the Middle East.

Regardless, I hope some realistic understanding of the oppressive policies of the Israeli government might inform future ALP decision making, and that voters interested in human rights will be able to look to the ALP once more as a party who can be trusted to defend the rights of suffering people around the world.

With the release of Gilad Shalit (and his subsequent call for peace and reconciliation) the ALP could begin with one small step and push Israel to lift its illegal blockade of Gaza.

A few days ago The Hon. Tanya Plibersek MP, Federal Member for Sydney and Federal Health Minister, responded and her comments show just how utterly compliant Canberra is with Washington on Middle East policy. We aren’t independent. We don’t think for ourselves. We parrot talking points given to us by DC. We don’t truly care for Palestinians and their freedom. And for that reason, Australia, along with America, will never bring peace to Palestine and they should both be shunned as honest peace-brokers:

Dear ****,

Thank you for your recent correspondence regarding Palestinian statehood.

Australia strongly supports a negotiated two-state solution that allows a secure Israel to live side-by-side with a secure and independent future Palestinian state.

The Minister for Foreign Affairs, the Hon Kevin Rudd MP, underlined to both sides Australia’s strong support for a negotiated two-state solution during his visits to Israel and the Palestinian Territories in December 2010 and March and April 2011, and urged parties to return to negotiations.

I have raised this issue with the Foreign Minister who assures me that Australia’s decision to vote against the Palestinian resolution reflected Australia’s strong concern that consideration of Palestinian membership in UNESCO was premature.

The matter of Palestinian membership of the United Nations (UN) had only recently been placed before the UN Security Council (UNSC). 

Australia believed we should allow the process of UNSC consideration of Palestinian membership of the UN to run its course, rather than pre-empt it by seeking to address this question in different UN forums.

The Foreign Minister assures me that if a Palestinian resolution is introduced to the UN General Assembly the Australian Government will consider it carefully before deciding how to vote.

The Australian Government strongly supports the aspirations of the Palestinian people for their own state and is providing practical support for Palestinian institution-building in support of a future state.

On 18 September 2011 in New York Mr Rudd signed with Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad a five-year, $120 million development partnership with the Palestinian Authority. 

This partnership includes regular budget support delivered through the World Bank. It is part of more than $300 million in development and humanitarian assistance Australia will provide to the Palestinian people over the next five years.

This increase is expected to place Australia in the top ten donors to the Palestinian Territories next year.

Australia has also launched a scholarship program focusing on disciplines critical to institution building including law and public sector management. Under this program Australia will provide up to 50 post-graduate scholarships to public officials and legal academics. The first scholars under the program will commence study next year.

Australia is also the 10th largest donor to the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East – the main provider of social services to the 4.7 million Palestinian refugees.

Thank you for taking the time to write to me and letting me know your views on this important issue. Regarding federal issues in the future, it would be best for you to contact your Federal Member of Parliament, the Hon. Anthony Albanese MP and Member for Grayndler, as Kingston Rd Camperdown is outside the electorate of Sydney. 

Best wishes,

Tanya

I’m proud to sign this letter:

This is an open letter to Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd and Attorney-General Nicola Roxon. It calls on the Australian government to take steps to ensure Julian Assange’s human rights are protected. It will be delivered on 19 December 2011, but we encourage members of the public to sign the letter below by adding their full name in the comments section, together with any comment they may wish to make. Please feel free to spread the word about the letter to others who may be interested.

Bernard Keane and Elizabeth O’Shea

The Hon Kevin Rudd
Minister for Foreign Affairs
Parliament House ACT 2600

Dear Minister

We write to express our concern about the plight of Julian Assange.

To date, no charges have been laid against Mr Assange by Swedish authorities. Nonetheless, we understand that should he be sent to Sweden, he will be held on remand, incommunicado. We note your comments last year about the need for Mr Assange to receive appropriate consular support. We trust that this consular support is being provided and will continue.

We are concerned that should Mr Assange be placed in Swedish custody, he will be subject to the process of “temporary surrender”, enabling his removal to the United States without the appropriate legal processes that accompany normal extradition cases. We urge you to convey to the Swedish government Australia’s expectation that Mr Assange will be provided with the same rights of appeal and review that any standard extradition request would entail.

Any prosecution of Mr Assange in the United States will be on the basis of his activities as a journalist and editor (Mr Assange’s status as such has been recently confirmed by the High Court in England). Such a prosecution will be a serious assault on freedom of speech and the need for an unfettered, independent media.

Further, the chances of Mr Assange receiving a fair trial in the United States appear remote. A number of prominent political figures have called for him to be assassinated, and the Vice-President has called him a “high-tech terrorist”. Given the atmosphere of hostility in relation to Mr Assange, we hold serious concerns about his safety once in US custody. We note that Mr Assange is an Australian citizen, whose journalistic activities were undertaken entirely outside of US territory.

Mr Assange is entitled to the best endeavours of his government to ensure he is treated fairly. He is entitled to expect that his government will not remain silent while his liberty and safety are placed at risk by a government embarrassed by his journalism. Australians also expect that their government will speak out against efforts to silence the media and intimidate those who wish to hold governments to account.

We ask that you convey clearly to the United States government Australia’s concerns about any effort to manufacture charges against Mr Assange, or to use an unrelated criminal investigation as the basis for what may effectively be rendition. We also urge the government to publicly affirm that Mr Assange is welcome to return to Australia once proceedings against him in Sweden are concluded, and that the government will fully protect his rights as an Australian citizen once here.

We have copied this letter to your colleague, the Attorney-General.

Yours sincerely

Phillip Adams AO
Adam Bandt MP
Wendy Bacon
Greg Barns
Susan Benn
Senator Bob Brown
Dr Scott Burchill
Julian Burnside QC
Dr Leslie Cannold
Mike Carlton
Professor Noam Chomsky
David Collins
Lieutenant Colonel (ret) Lance Collins, Australian Intelligence Corps
Eva Cox
Sophie Cunningham
Roy David
Andrew Denton
Senator Richard Di Natale
Peter Fitzsimons
Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser AC CH
Anna Funder
Professor Raimond Gaita
David Gilmour and Polly Samson
Kara Greiner
Senator Sarah Hanson-Young
Liz Humphrys
Professor Sarah Joseph
Bernard Keane
Professor John Keane
Stephen Keim SC
Steve Killelea
Andrew Knight
Mary Kostakidis
Professor Theo van Leeuwen
Ken Loach
Antony Loewenstein
Senator Scott Ludlam
Associate Professor Jake Lynch
Professor Robert Manne
Dr Ken Macnab
David Lyle
Alex Miller
Senator Christine Milne
Alex Mitchell
Reg Mombassa
Gordon Morris
Jane Morris
Julian Morrow
The Hon Alastair Nicholson AO RFD QC
Nicolé Nolan
Rebecca O’Brien
Elizabeth O’Shea
Michael Pearce SC
John Pilger
Justin Randle
Senator Lee Rhiannon
Guy Rundle
Angus Sampson
Senator Rachel Siewert
Marius Smith
Jeff Sparrow
Professor Stuart Rees AM
Rob Stary
Stephen Thompson
Dr Tad Tietze
Mike Unger
Dale Vince
Brian Walters SC
Rachel Ward
Senator Larissa Waters
Tracy Worcester, Marchioness of Worcester
Senator Penny Wright
Spencer Zifcak

My following piece appears in today’s ABC The Drum:

In late September, the government of Sri Lanka released 1,800 former Tamil Tiger fighters.

Colombo claimed they had been rehabilitated as President Mahinda Rajapaksa told them at a ceremony in the capital:

“I hope you will work for peace and ethnic harmony in this nation of ours. We must not dwell on the bitter past, but look to a prosperous future.”

Many other former fighters remain incommunicado, housed in secret camps away from international inspection or human rights protection.

This is occurring in “democratic” Sri Lanka, a nation still deeply divided along racial and political lines.

The over two years since the official end of the country’s brutal civil war has seen an attempted re-branding exercise by the Rajapaksa regime, including the encouragement of a vibrant tourist sector.

Despite the fact that the government murdered at least 40,000 Tamil civilians during the last period of the war (a figure confirmed by then UN spokesman in Colombo, Gordon Weiss), the international community has been reluctant to hold officials to account.

A thorough UN-led investigation found overwhelming evidence of war crimes committed by both sides during the conflict and Ban Ki-Moon recently submitted this report to the UN Human Rights Council for investigation. The move was condemned by Colombo.

After a 10-month investigation, the UN found that “most civilian casualties in the final phases of the war were caused by government shelling”. Furthermore, it made accusations that Sri Lankan troops had shelled civilians in the “no-fire zone” and targeted hospitals in its desire to crush the Tamil Tigers.

A recently released WikiLeaks cable revealed that when Ban Ki-Moon visited the country in 2009 he witnessed “complete destruction” when he flew over the former “no-fire zone”. He described the conditions of Manik Farm refugee camp as worse than anything he had ever seen before.

This background is essential to understand as we approach the next Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM), being held in Perth in late October. Sri Lanka President Rajapaksa will be attending and Sri Lanka is scheduled to host CHOGM in 2013. Serious questions are now being asked by human rights groups in Australia and globally, Tamil organisations and some brave politicians; why is Sri Lanka being indulged at the expense of justice for its countless victims?

In September a letter was sent to the Commonwealth foreign ministers that was signed by the world’s leading human rights groups.

It read in part:

“We are gravely concerned about the ongoing discussions on holding the 2013 CHOGM in Sri Lanka. At the 2009 CHOGM, Sri Lanka’s candidature for hosting the meeting was deferred from 2011 to2013 because of concerns about human rights abuses by the Sri Lankan government. While war-time abuses have ended, the situation in Sri Lanka continues to be characterised by serious human rights violations, including assault on democratic institutions, such as the media and trade unions. The Panel of Experts appointed by the UN Secretary-General to advise him on the status of allegations of war crimes during the last weeks of the conflict in Sri Lanka has concluded that serious abuses were committed by the government and by the LTTE, and warrant an international investigation.”

The statement called on Sri Lanka to implement numerous changes before it would be awarded hosting honours in 2013. Furthermore, Sri Lanka is keen to host the Commonwealth Games in 2018 and the Commonwealth itself, never known to be overly pro-active against human rights abusers, is being asked to not consider Colombo’s application.

Federal Greens MP Lee Rhiannon has been one of the most consistent Australian politicians keeping the issue of war crimes in Sri Lanka in the public arena. Although her party failed to convince the Labor and Liberal parties to support a Senate motion to suspend Sri Lanka from the Councils of the Commonwealth, she pledged to continue pressuring the Federal Government to convince Colombo to establish an independent war crimes commission.

Rhiannon hosted a roundtable of experts in the Federal Parliament in September that called for Sri Lanka’s suspension of the Commonwealth. She said:

“With CHOGM shortly to be held in Perth, the Australian government needs to add its voice and ensure that all Commonwealth nations uphold principles of human rights and the rule of law.”

Unsurprisingly, Sri Lanka’s High Commissioner in Canberra, Admiral Thisara Samarasinghe (a man with a troubling past) rejected the roundtable’s recommendation, issuing the following Orwellian statement:

The [Sri Lanka] government had to take military action to defeat the terrorists to save the civilians.

In other words, we had to destroy the population in order to save it.

Intriguingly, conservative Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper, one of the world’s strongest backers of Israel, recently announced that he intended “to make clear to my fellow leaders at the Commonwealth that if we do not see progress in Sri Lanka in terms of human rights… I will not as prime minister be attending that Commonwealth summit [in 2013].”. Harper also strongly backed calls for an independent investigation of alleged war crimes during the war.

The British Tory government, at times critical of Colombo’s behaviour, is currently embroiled in a scandal involving the Defence Secretary Liam Fox. He is accused of both being far too close to the Sri Lankan government and backing its war against the Tamils.

Although Australian Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd has also called for an investigation, the Labor government remains desperate for Colombo to assist its flailing asylum seeker policy. Canberra has praised the Rajapaksa regime for stopping boats of Tamils fleeing the nation, a move rightly slammed by John Dowd, president of the International Commission of Jurists.

“It is likely these asylum seekers will be treated harshly when all they have done is exercise a legal right,” Dowd said. “People who are desperate to get away from Sri Lanka know that it is a dangerous enterprise coming by sea. We Australians praise ourselves as great humanitarians – this is hardly an example of compassion.”

Australia’s high commissioner to Sri Lanka, Kathy Klugman, recently told the state’s Sunday Times newspaper that, “close to 100 Sri Lankans have been returned from Australia in the past few years”. The fate of returned Tamils at the hands of government thugs is often brutal, according to investigations by human rights organisation.

Klugman was also recently publicly attacked for handing out certificates to alleged Tamil rebels after the alleged “rehabilitation” program, legitimising a program that is both secretive and unproven. Rehabilitation can take many forms post conflict.

For the Australian Government, in the midst of a refugee drama it has no idea how to manage politically or legally, war crimes in Sri Lanka is far less important than stopping refugee boats.

The status of Sri Lanka in the 21st century is of a political elite triumphantly thriving on racial supremacy ideology.

The recent discovery of gas deposits in its waters will only strengthen the fears that a resource curse will benefit the Sinhalese majority against the Tamil minority.

The international community has a moral and legal responsibility to hold Sri Lanka to account. Failing this basic task will merely encourage other states engaged in a “war on terror”, from America to Israel and Yemen to Afghanistan, to act with impunity against civilians.

CHOGM is the perfect opportunity to challenge Rajapaksa over his government’s wilful murder of Tamils under the guise of defeating terrorism. It is arguable whether he should even be allowed into the country but if he arrives in Perth he should be made to realise that he has the blood of innocents on his hands.

Antony Loewenstein is an Australian independent journalist who sits on the advisory council of the UK-based Sri Lanka Campaign for Peace and Justice.

The Australian Zionist lobby has spent years demonising Arabs, Palestinians and moderate Jews in the name of “saving Zionism”. The effect? A Jewish state with a serious image problem. That’s money well spent, people.

Now, a more “moderate” Zionist lobbyist is around, Albert Dadon. There’s nothing really different here – “we want peace”, he says, “we really love Palestinians” and “we’re happy to take politicians and journalists on a propaganda trip to Zionist paradise” – but his piece in today’s Murdoch Australian is a gem:

Fortunately, Julia Gillard, whose moral clarity on the Middle East was first evident when she backed Israel in its war against Hamas in December 2008, is reportedly at odds with Rudd’s view [to abstain from the forthcoming UN vote on Palestine]

Fourth, a yes vote at the UN General Assembly will be nothing but a Pyrrhic victory for the Palestinians. Why? Because full membership requires the backing of the 15-member Security Council and the US has already stated its intention to veto the proposal.

So what the Palestinians will likely end up with is the status of a non-member state, an upgrade from its observer status but a step short of full membership, which requires a two-thirds majority of the 193 countries in the General Assembly. Abbas will achieve a toothless resolution in the General Assembly with no legal force.

…

Finally, an abstention by Australia’s envoy to the UN would be (mis)construed by the Greens — and their leftist allies — as a victory.

For despite Bob Brown’s public statements, among his growing ranks are those who try to disguise their anti-Israel vitriol under the veneer of progressive politics.

The newly elected senator for NSW, Lee Rhiannon, is the quintessential case in point. She openly defended Marrickville Council’s ill-fated support for the Israel boycott, a campaign that has morphed into the targeting of Max Brenner chocolate shops across Australia.

Make no mistake. Factions of this mob of anti-Israel protesters — some of whom are due in court next month for breaching bail conditions after they were initially arrested in the melee outside Max Brenner in Melbourne on July 1 — are red, not green.

One of their chants reveals their true colour: “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”

This is straight out of the Hamas song sheet and is not-so-subtle code for the elimination of Israel and, in its place, a Palestinian state between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean.

Moreover, what is so galling is their rank hypocrisy. Where are the mass protests about the slaughter of innocents in Syria, or Libya, or Egypt? Their silence about these crimes is deafening.

Optimists hope that this act of unilateralism by the Palestinians will help resuscitate the stillborn peace process because the alternative is much worse. But it’s a forlorn hope.

Dadon and his friends will come to regret such pointless vitriol. No path to ending the occupation (no mention of it, actually) and a message straight out of the Israeli government.

How’s that two-state solution dream coming along, Zionists?

Perhaps we should be thankful for small mercies but such thoughts are written in a bubble, utterly removed from the fact that a two-state solution will never happen. Occupation is Israel’s only reality:

The United Nations General Assembly vote next month for unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state is designed to put pressure on Israel, in a direction Israel itself says is the best solution to the conflict with the Palestinians. This is the creation of a separate state for them in the territories outside the 1967 border of Israel (with some minor land swaps). An affirmative UN vote would not produce a Palestinian state. It would signal a world impatient with the stubborn reluctance of the Israeli political right to accept this compromise in its quest for complete control of Jerusalem and more of the West Bank lands.

The vote calls on the heads and hearts of Israel’s friends, such as Australia. As the Herald reported yesterday, the Foreign Affairs Minister, Kevin Rudd, and his department are advising that Australia should abstain from the vote. The Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, may be inclined towards a vote against it. Whether this is the case, we believe Rudd’s advice is the sound course – and hardly radical – even though the various supporters of Israel in Australia seem to have lobbied intensively against it.

The decision should not be obscured by two side issues. One is Rudd’s quest for election by the UN membership to one of the rotating seats on the Security Council. A win would not be worth having if it meant casting aside the values and interests on which our foreign policy rests, which include support for a secure Israel. Nor should it be seen in the light of leadership issues between Gillard and Rudd, as something on which Gillard should assert pre-eminence. It must be a decision calculated to help advance security for Israel and to gain a place in the sun for the Palestinians.

The Labor government has already brought Australian policy back to a better balance, from which we are in an improved position to join international efforts to achieve faster progress towards peace. On returning to power under Rudd, it reverted to support for UN resolutions calling on Israel to stop expanding Jewish settlements in the Palestinian territories and calling for the Geneva Conventions to apply in those occupied lands. For several years previously, the Howard government had voted against or abstained in these votes, putting Australia in the company of mini-American dependencies such as Micronesia, Palau and the Marshall Islands. The switch put us back in better company, and we should stay there – where we are more likely to help Israel and its main backer, the United States, grasp the two-state nettle.

On current evidence, the Australian government is (close to being) utterly captured by the Zionist lobby, the US alliance and blindness towards racial apartheid in the occupied territories. Are we capable of leading on this issue, and recognising that simply indulging Israeli behaviour is the worst possible friendship?

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd wants Australia to abstain in a potentially explosive United Nations vote to recognise a Palestinian state, pitting him against Julia Gillard’s declared strong support for Israel.

Mr Rudd has written to the Prime Minister recommending Australia vote neither for nor against a resolution set to dominate a UN summit in New York next month.

If followed, the letter – sent before Mr Rudd had heart surgery on August 1 – would result in Australia trying to duck the controversy over efforts to allow Palestine into the UN as a sovereign state.

Mr Rudd’s suggested tactic is being interpreted as an attempt to avoid antagonising Arab nations and to protect Australia’s campaign for a temporary seat on the Security Council, due to go to a vote next year.

But abstaining from any vote on Palestinian statehood would annoy Israel – which has mounted a worldwide diplomatic offensive against the resolution – and would likely leave Australia out of step with the US.

Ms Gillard has made support for Israel one of her foreign policy priorities since toppling Mr Rudd for the leadership. Australia has a policy of supporting a two-state solution but has not backed unilateral moves towards Palestinian statehood in the past, calling for a negotiated settlement to the long-running conflict.

Three prominent Jewish groups held talks in Canberra with Mr Rudd and Ms Gillard in early June to express opposition to the UN vote, which is expected in late September around the opening of the annual General Assembly.

The meetings – led by Executive Council of Australian Jewry president Danny Lamm, the Zionist Federation of Australia’s Philip Chester and the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council’s Jeremy Jones – were described as a presentation rather than lobbying.

”We went to present and asked to be listened to about where we stood on particular issues,” Mr Jones said yesterday.

Palestinian Authority spokesman Ghassan Khatib was in Canberra last month to put the Palestinian case in favour of the resolution and met Chris Evans, who was acting foreign minister while Mr Rudd was in hospital.

Moammar Mashni, of Australians for Palestine, said his organisation had met a number of government members in June urging Australia to back the UN resolution in line with Labor’s support for a two-state settlement.

My following investigation appears in Online Opinion:

Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA does essential work in many corners of the globe. But its focus in Palestine has caused the local Israel lobby to pressure the Australian government to sever ties to the group. This isn’t likely but once again highlights the aim of the Zionist mainstream against any assistance to the occupied Palestinians.

During a recent parliamentary committee in Canberra, Liberal Senator Eric Abetz asked AusAID what exactly it was backing in the Middle East.

There’s no problem with such questions in theory but the aim was twofold: do the Zionist lobby’s bidding and attempt to demonise any kind of support for Palestinians; and frame Israel as a benevolent power in Palestine.

A recent report from the Australia/Israel and Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC), stated:

“At the October 2010 Estimates hearings, Senator Eric Abetz questioned AusAID on elements of its funding dispensed to APHEDA. Senator Abetz asked AusAID whether it funded organisations associated with BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] or the APHEDA ‘study tours’ to the Middle East. AusAID responded that “no AusAID or other Australian Development Assistance funds are provided to any groups for the BDS campaign” and that “AusAID does not provide any funding for the [APHEDA] study trips.” However, regarding Ma’an Development Centre AusAID conceded that while “AusAID does not directly fund Ma’an Development Centre… under the Australian Middle East NGO Cooperation Agreement (AMENCA) AusAID provides funding to Union Aid Abroad APHEDA.””

APHEDA released a statement clearly explaining that, “no AusAID funds or resources are used to support campaigning by MA’AN or APHEDA.” AIJAC apparently doesn’t understand the concept of independent Palestinian organisers making independent decisions about policies without Australian NGO or government direction.

AIJAC continued:

“Senator Abetz returned to these issues at the 2 June 2011 Estimates hearings, eliciting yet more revelations. Abetz asked AusAID: “What are the safeguards in place that prevent AusAID funding being used by APHEDA or any of the other in a manner that contravenes Australian government policy on Israel? Let us just pluck an example out of the air like BDS?” AusAID replied simply: “We have no information that any of the NGOs we are supporting…are involved with that program.”

“But Senator Abetz then pointed out to AusAID that: “According to APHEDA’s annual reports all of APHEDA’s funds for Middle East projects originate from AusAID,” which would seem to imply that it must be AusAID’s tax dollars being given to the Ma’an Development Centre by APHEDA. In response, AusAID did not contest this claim, merely re-stating its position that no AusAID funds are contributed towards organisations that support BDS. The AusAID representative offered no concrete assurances that the Australian taxpayer money apparently being given to the Ma’an Development Centre via APHEDA is not being used for BDS activities.”

Again, AIJAC fails to understand the realities in Palestine itself. Officially Australia claims to be opposed to the illegal colonies in the West Bank but also states its opposition to the BDS movement. These are inherently contradictory positions on the ground because there are no Palestinian groups of importance that aren’t engaged in some kind of political or economic opposition to creeping settlement expansion. In other words, AIJAC is calling for the severing of assistance to all Palestinian groups because they dare to protest against the illegal colonies.

The Gillard government has thus far avoided tackling this question, simply calling BDS “nuts” but offering no alternative to a non-existent peace process in the region.

AIJAC concludes:

“Given the information revealed in these hearings, there now seems ample reason to raise such questions about the AusAID funding to APHEDA. Given AusAID’s inability to provide adequate answers to Senator Abetz’s questions, the ball must now move to the court of Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, as AusAID implied. There is now a good basis for expecting a review of his department’s funding of APHEDA in light of these revelations and the fact that on 1 April 2011, Mr. Rudd assured Australians that his government “did not condone nor support any boycotts or sanctions against the Jewish state.””

It is interesting how the other three relevant Australian NGOs (CARE, World Vision and Actionaid) did not get questioned and odd also how their Palestinian partner NGOs (like just about every Palestinian NGO, according to an aid insider who spoke to me) have equally signed up to the 2005 BDS call, yet it is the APHEDA partner that gets singled out.

The Palestinian NGO Network (PNGO Network) is signed up to the BDS and all the Australian NGOs have at least one Palestinian NGO partner who is a member of the PNGO Network. If the Australian government (or AIJAC) were really serious about severing connection with any Palestinian group that backs BDS, then the Palestinian Authority would also have to be shunned because it has implemented partial BDS against settlement goods.

The Australian union movement is increasingly backing BDS against a recalcitrant Zionist state. There are a handful of prominent unionists, such as ACTU Assistant Secretary, Michael Borowick, an Orthodox Jew, who opposes BDS and organises Zionist lobby trips to Israel and Palestine but they are a dwindling minority.

An aid insider tells me that a number of key unionists continue to bully APHEDA behind the scenes in an attempt to stop its work in Palestine, including the successful study tours led by APHEDA. The pressure has singularly failed.

These trips are seen as a threat because they refuse to follow the path set by AIJAC, Albert Dadon and other Zionist lobbyists who take politicians and journalists on propaganda tours around Israel (with five minutes in Ramallah). The Greens recently obtained a long list of media and political elite figures that took the Dadon trip last year and this proved that both major political parties and corporate press are ideologically compromised by such visits.

For those who know the reality in the region, advocating for Palestinian rights under occupation has become unavoidably and necessarily linked to some form of BDS endorsement.

It is ironic that the right-wing Israeli Knesset is making it illegal for Israeli’s to support BDS and yet this is the “democratic” state that Zionists argue we must uncritically support.

Even in Australia, it’s apparently illegal to simply protest outside a shop, Max Brenner, which supports the Israeli army. It is not, as claimed by blind defenders of Zionism, an attack on Jewish businesses but rather a non-violent and legitimate form of protest, like what occurred against companies and individuals who supported apartheid in South Africa.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is always quoting the fact that Australia has “greatly” increased aid to the Palestinians to $56m in 2011-12 and the important activities the aid is doing. However, he uses this “fact” to erroneously answer questions about Australia’s support of Palestinian aspirations (statehood, refugee right of return, end the occupation, human rights etc) for peace. In a political conflict such as this, providing aid is only half the answer: it must also be coupled with the insistence that Israel comply with relevant international, humanitarian law. The Australian government is silent on law enforcement against its great friend and ally.

Following the ripple effect of the Marrickville BDS campaign and rising public support for the Palestinians, there is growing scrutiny in Parliament on AusAID’s Palestine program. It’s tragic that Palestine, with the least resources available to it and under siege, has to answer for the world’s ills and people’s petty prejudices.

APHEDA’s Middle East project officer Lisa Arnold tells me: “Gaza is a man-made disaster of more than five times the scale of the Indian Ocean tsunami; it’s just that the deaths and destruction occur over the course of decades, not minutes.”

The reality remains that APHEDA operates vitally important programs across Palestine – a few years ago I visited one of its programs at Gaza’s only rehabilitation hospital – and the Zionist lobby with its corporate and media mates should not be allowed to threaten this life-line to a people under occupation.

It is not the right of the Australian Senate to pry into what APHEDA or their Palestinian partners do with their own monies or other donor funds. What AIJAC and its lobby friends desperately want to avoid is any examination of what Israel is doing in the West Bank and Gaza and why hysteria against any critics of Zionist policies is now par for the course by its Israeli government masters.

Union Aid Abroad – APHEDA does wonderful work in many corners of the globe. But its focus in Palestine has caused the local Israel lobby to pressure the Australian government to sever ties to the group. This isn’t likely but once again highlights the toxic nature of the Zionist mainstream on decency and morality.

During a recent parliamentary committee in Canberra, Liberal Senator Eric Abetz – who sees to love Israel more than his own children – asked AusAID what exactly it is backing in the Middle East. There’s no problem with such questions in theory but the aim is to a) do the Zionist lobby’s bidding and attempt to demonise any kind of support for Palestinians and b) frame Israel as a benevolent power in Palestine. Here’s the lobby’s AIJAC report:

At the October 2010 Estimates hearings, Senator Eric Abetz (Tas. Lib) questioned AusAID on elements of its funding dispensed to APHEDA. Senator Abetz asked AusAID whether it funded organisations associated with BDS or the APHEDA ‘study tours’ to the Middle East. AusAID responded that “no AusAID or other Australian Development Assistance funds are provided to any groups for the BDS campaign” and that “AusAID does not provide any funding for the [APHEDA] study trips.” However, regarding Ma’an Development Centre AusAID conceded that while “AusAID does not directly fund Ma’an Development Centre… under the Australian Middle East NGO Cooperation Agreement (AMENCA) AusAID provides funding to Union Aid Abroad APHEDA.”

Senator Abetz returned to these issues at the 2 June 2011 Estimates hearings, eliciting yet more revelations. Abetz asked AusAID: “What are the safeguards in place that prevent AusAID funding being used by APHEDA or any of the other in a manner that contravenes Australian government policy on Israel? Let us just pluck an example out of the air like BDS?” AusAID replied simply: “We have no information that any of the NGOs we are supporting…are involved with that program.”

But Senator Abetz then pointed out to AusAID that “According to APHEDA’s annual reports all of APHEDA’s funds for Middle East projects originate from AusAID,” which would seem to imply that it must be AusAID’s tax dollars being given to the Ma’an Development Centre by APHEDA. In response, AusAID did not contest this claim, merely re-stating its position that no AusAID funds are contributed towards organisations that support BDS. The AusAID representative offered no concrete assurances that the Australian taxpayer money apparently being given to the Ma’an Development Centre via APHEDA is not being used for BDS activities.

As a result of Senator Abetz’s efforts, it now seems established as fact that AusAID is indirectly supporting the Ma’an Development Centre via APHEDA. Further, AusAID is apparently unable, to date, to provide concrete assurances that these monies are not going to fund the Ma’an Development Centre’s efforts to promote BDS.

When Senator Abetz asked: “if it established that APHEDA’s official position is to support the BDS campaign, would AusAID reconsider its funding of APHEDA?” AusAID replied “it would be the decision of the Minister to make if there were information that caused us to question the way in which Australian aid funds are being used.”

Given the information revealed in these hearings, there now seems ample reason to raise such questions about the AusAID funding to APHEDA. Given AusAID’s inability to provide adequate answers to Senator Abetz’s questions, the ball must now move to the court of Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd, as AusAID implied. There is now a good basis for expecting a review of his department’s funding of APHEDA in light of these revelations and the fact that on 1 April 2011, Mr. Rudd assured Australians that his government “did not condone nor support any boycotts or sanctions against the Jewish state.”

Where to begin? It is interesting how the other three Australian NGOs (CARE, World Vision and Actionaid) did not get questioned and odd also how their Palestinian partner NGOs – like just about every Palestinian NGO – have equally signed up to the 2005 BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] call, yet it is the APHEDA partner that gets singled out.

I’ve been told for years by APHEDA staff that the Australian Workers Union’s Paul Howes and his Zionist lieutenants are upset that any major union would seriously challenge Israel and they work continuously to bully both APHEDA and its Labor Party-aligned backers to stop campaigning so strongly for Palestine. In this they have failed. But it won’t stop them trying. It is ironic in the extreme that a union that claims to care for workers and human rights spends time defending Israel, a nation that actively oppresses Palestinian workers under occupation. Principle has nothing to do with this position.

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd is always quoting the fact that Australia has “greatly” increased aid to the Palestinians to $56m in 2011-12 and the important activities the aid is doing. However, he uses this “fact” to erroneously answer questions about Australia’s support of Palestinian aspirations (statehood, refugee right of return, end the occupation, human rights etc) for peace. In a political conflict such as this, providing aid is only half the answer; it must also be coupled with the insistence that Israel comply with relevant international, humanitarian law. The Australian government is silent on law enforcement against its great friend and ally.

APHEDA’s Middle East project officer Lisa Arnold tells me: “Gaza is a man-made disaster of more than five times the scale of the Indian Ocean tsunami; it’s just that the deaths and destruction occur over the course of decades, not minutes.”

The reality remains that APHEDA operates vitally important programs across Palestine – a few years ago I visited one of its programs at Gaza’s only rehabilitation hospital – and the Zionist lobby with its corporate and media mates should not be allowed to threaten this life-line to a people under occupation.

My following article appears in today’s ABC’s The Drum:

The triumphalism after the American targeted assassination of Osama bin Laden is a sure sign that the US is incapable of understanding the significance of the painful years since September 11. We suffered and now you must, too.

“I’ve never been so excited to see the photo of a corpse with a gunshot wound through the head”, tweeted Emily Miller of The Washington Times.

Most in the mainstream press have simply regurgitated White House propaganda without question, including key details of bin Laden’s death and lifestyle.

The glee with which many in the American public, political and media elites have celebrated the murder of bin Laden may be unsurprising but it provides a welcome insight into an infantile and violence-obsessed culture. He used mayhem against Us and We must unleash overwhelming firepower against Him and His followers.

9/11 was slaughter on a huge scale and American hurt, confusion and anger was understandable. Finding the perpetrators of the crime was essential but it is difficult to cheer when a man receives bullets to the head unless, of course, we want to marinate in the juices of a John Wayne fantasy.

“We responded [to 9/11] exactly as these terrorist organizations wanted us to respond”, says former New York Times Middle East correspondent Chris Hedges. “They wanted us to speak the language of violence”.

The corporate media is filled with undeniably fascinating stories of how the US tracked bin Laden to his Pakistani hideout. The potential complicity of forces within the Pakistani intelligence services will be investigated but is unlikely to lead to a serious reduction in US funding for the corrupt elites there. The ongoing US-led war in Afghanistan guarantees Washington is joined at the hip to the Pakistani military. And once again, the Pakistani people will be killed without mercy.

But largely missing from the mountains of coverage in the last days are the profound changes 9/11 brought to the world, and the pyrrhic victories scored by bin Laden and his group of murderous thugs.

The militarisation of America and the engagements in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia and elsewhere has not made the US homeland any safer. In fact, the opposite is true. The thought that an old man sitting in an expensive compound in Pakistan with no internet or phone access is truly the most dangerous and wanted man in the world shows the skewed priorities of a brutal super-power hell-bent on revenge.

The murder of bin Laden wasn’t justice, as claimed by Obama and a range of commentators. It was a targeted assassination, an art perfected by Israel, and an illegal tool that has not made the Zionist nation any less likely to face attack from designated enemies. America will be no different.

The post 9/11 security state is now well and truly entrenched in our lives. The arrival of President Barack Obama did nothing to change that; it was merely accelerated with a nicer, kinder face. Privatised killing is now ubiquitous in Iraq and Afghanistan as an out-of-control and multi-trillion dollar industry finds ways to kill and make new foes in the process.

The US and its allies have provided over the last years an overwhelming range of weapons to murderers (former opponents now known as “allies”) in nations where conventional US forces have been unable to subdue a legitimate insurgency.

It’s grimly ironic that the Australian media obsesses over every word of supposed terrorism expert Australian David Kilcullen – described on Monday night’s ABC TV Lateline as “one of the world’s top counter-insurgency specialists” – without asking whether his skills have actually succeeded and at what cost.

An insurgency still rages in Iraq and has never been stronger in Afghanistan, and the methods by which US forces tried to destroy resistance movements involved arming former enemies and unleashing horrific violence against those who wouldn’t accept US rule. That’s some victory that plays directly into the narrative articulated by bin Laden from the 1990s: Western forces only want to occupy and subjugate Muslims.

Besides, Kilcullen is closely associated with the likely next CIA director David Petraeus, whose military tactics against insurgents have been vicious and counter-productive. He will certainly bring a far more militarised mindset to America’s intelligence community.

But resistance to Western domination of the Arab world wasn’t achieved by Al-Qaeda. Their murder of countless Muslims and quasi-death cult ideology failed to connect with enough people looking for something more than just opposition to sclerotic Western-backed dictatorships across the region.

Hamas, Hizbollah head Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have succeeded where Al-Qaeda failed; they spent years cementing themselves in the fabric of societies that were being ignored by the state. These nationalist movements, with various degrees of aggression and repression, have far more successfully captured the spirit of the post 9/11 times than bin Laden’s superficially appealing dogma. And most Muslims worldwide haven’t bought the hardline Islamist line for years.

This year’s Arab revolutions have shown the almost irrelevance of Al-Qaeda. Millions of Arabs in Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, Libya, Saudi Arabia and beyond have found ways to challenge despots and US-backed autocrats in ways unimagined and impossible for bin Laden. Freedom movements, partly religious and partly secular, have fundamentally transformed a region that most of its largely young population only associated with social and political stagnation. Al-Qaeda has been almost silent in the last while, a force that had no way to harness, let alone lead, grievances of the oppressed masses.

None of us will feel safer with the death of bin Laden and why should we? The arguments for his organisation’s force have only strengthened since 9/11, even if his tactics were abhorrent and failed to attract huge numbers of followers. America and its allies are now far widely engaged across the Muslim world, militarising lands in the name of “fighting terrorism”. Wikileaks has shown the futility of such actions, detailing US officials attempts to pressure autocratic nations to crack down on unwanted elements while stirring up hatred of citizens under the path of ever-increasing drone attacks (in Yemen, Pakistan and now Libya).

The West will never feel more secure with the murder of a terrorist leader. Almost nowhere in the media orgy of celebration (including, disappointingly, Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show) was anything discussed about occupation. It didn’t exist, seemingly completely separate to the rise and once high popularity of bin Laden. Pakistan’s apparent protection of the Al-Qaeda leader will only deepen America’s desire to further occupy that nation’s mind. Obama is a war President, a badge he wears with pride, such is his escalation of covert missions in numerous nations in the last years.

There has been a deliberate conflation by a litany of politicians, corporate journalists and think-tankers in the last decade to frame every resistance to Western policy as terrorism. It is not. Take Afghanistan, where the Taliban has virtually no relationship with Al-Qaeda anymore and will continue to fight for the liquidation of foreign forces, whether we like or not. They’ll have no concern with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd mouthing platitudes about staying the course in Afghanistan with a warlord infested, Kabul government.

bin Laden died a man who had profoundly changed the landscape of the world. He failed to rally Muslims to his brutal cause but his shadow will continue to hover over Western policy towards the Islamic world. We have been sold a lie, one pushed by the Israelis for decades, that the killing of countless terrorists will bring peace. Colonising Muslim lands is seemingly irrelevant, or locking up innocent men in Guantanamo Bay or escalating a drone war in Pakistan.

The West has much to learn.

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