Antony Loewenstein

After a year of unprecedented Zionist assaults on democracy in Palestine and Israel itself, the NSW Greens capitulate to intense Murdoch media pressure and internal conservatism to back down from fully supporting BDS. News flash to the party: apartheid in Palestine isn’t going anywhere and avoiding a key human rights issue only makes you look weak. Via the Sydney Morning Herald:

The NSW Greens have abandoned their official support for an international boycott of the state of Israel, a policy that drew unprecedented ire towards Marrickville Council this year and exposed broader rifts within the party.

At a State Council meeting yesterday, which was not open to the media, every local Greens group voted to support a revised motion which recognises the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign as a legitimate political tactic, but to abandon it as an official party position.

The policy provoked a huge backlash from Jewish groups and some sections of the media when it was adopted in-principle by Marrickville Council last December, with support from Greens, Labor and an independent.

Some Green party members, including Bob Brown and MLC Cate Faehrmann, blamed the policy for contributing to former mayor Fiona Byrne’s unsuccessful tilt at the seat of Marrickville in the March state election. Immediately after the election, the council abandoned the policy when two of the Greens on the council split and voted with others to overturn it at a dramatic meeting.

Greens MLC Jeremy Buckingham more recently criticised the targeting of Israeli-owned Max Brenner chocolate shops by BDS protestors.

In May, the party convened a working group of about 25 people to reconsider the divisive policy. Their report provided the basis for the revised position.

Ms Rhiannon, a strong proponent of the policy over the last year, denied the policy had exposed a rift within the party, and said a consensus view had now been reached.

“The resolution recognises the legitimacy of the BDS as a political tactic and also recognises that there is a diversity of views in the community and the Greens,” she said.

“While there have been a variety of views among Greens members on BDS there was strong and united commitment to continue our work for Palestinian human rights.

“The Review rejected and condemned false accusations of anti-Semitism.”

The BDS policy had drawn high profile support to the party and Marrickville Council too, with Bishop Desmond Tutu and human rights advocate Julian Burnside QC sending messages of support.

The motion adopted at yesterday’s conference reaffirmed their position that the Australian government should halt military cooperation and military trade with Israel and resolved that the party would also work to develop a broader ethical procurement policy.

It also recognised the right of individual Greens members to participate in BDS campaigns.

The News of the World’s former Deputy Features Editor Paul McMullan spoke last week at London’s Leveson Inquiry. Behold the kind of culture supported, indulged and paid by the Murdoch family:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Another week and another column by a Melbourne Herald Sun editor Alan Howe on just how dysfunctional is the Middle East, Arabs, Muslims, Palestinians, Islamists etc. The man has form.

Yes, this is what countless Zionist lobby trips to Israel do to a Murdoch man. Hatred Inc:

In Arab lands, like-minded, militant Islamists abound. Some are Sunni. Some are Shia. Some are just bonkers.

Democracy? It’s all Greek to them.

The wave of uprisings this year is being called the Arab Spring, a name derived from the so-called Prague Spring of 1968 in which Czechoslovakian leader Alexander Dubcek untied a few of the shackles of Moscow-enforced communism.

He was a man before his time. Within months the Warsaw pact nations invaded Czechoslovakia sending 200,000 troops and 2000 tanks to forcefully take control of the nation, Soviet boss Leonid Brezhnev installed a puppet leader and communism was quickly restored.

That back-to-the-future lesson is a powerful one for the Arab world.

At first blanch, the Arab uprisings of this year looked to be advances for people often trapped by clerics and tyrants who have used Islam to enslave, torture and kill their people so that they can live in opulent grandeur among some of the planet’s poorest populations.

Iran might appear to be the odd man out. For a start its people prefer to fashion themselves as Persians, but it has a significant Arab core. Its supreme leader seems to shun the indulgences that define the lifestyles of his neighbouring leaders, but he and his president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are still the two of the most dangerous men on earth.

Ahmadinejad is mad. Barking. And soon to be nuclear armed.

This year saw movements for freedom in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain, Morocco, Iran, Syria, Jordan and even Saudi Arabia.

The tyrannical states that enjoy Western support – Bahrain and Saudi Arabia – have largely survived, although Egypt fell quickly. Those who alienated the West, or threatened it, or attacked it, are gone. By the hand of their own people.

…

If the Palestinians put down their weapons, there’d be peace. If the Israelis put down their weapons, there’d be genocide.

British MP Tom Watson offers a lesson in media management:

The following Press Council decision appears in today’s Murdoch Australian newspaper:

The Australian Press Council has considered complaints by Dale Mills and Vivienne Porzsolt about headlines on articles in The Australian on July 28, this year related to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign that is aimed at businesses associated with Israel. One complaint related to the headline on a print article and the other to the headline on the somewhat different online version.

The articles reported a public protest against BDS by a number of people several weeks after a BDS protest against an Israeli-owned chain of confectionery stores that is part of a broader food and beverage company that supplies the Israeli army. The print version was headed “Anti-Jew protest condemned” and the online version was headed “Prominent Australians fight anti-Semitism with hot chocolate”. The articles noted the BDS protest had been condemned as “violent” and “anti-Semitic” and the online version added a quote that it had been “anti-Jewish”.

Mr Mills claimed that by describing the BDS protest as “anti-Jew” and “anti-Semitic” the headlines were inaccurate, because it was actually a protest against Israeli government policies. He said these assertions involved matters of opinion being presented as facts. He also said the newspaper should have published the letter to the editor in which he sought to correct the inaccuracy.

The newspaper initially said the headlines were accurate because, if the BDS protest was simply anti-Israeli, it should have been targeted at agencies or representatives of the Israeli government. Mr Mills replied the organisers live in Melbourne and there are no Israeli government agencies in that city.

The newspaper added that concerns about the anti-Jewish nature of the protest, together with the accompanying violence, were at the heart of the story’s newsworthiness. It subsequently informed the council, however, that since these articles appeared it had clarified that the BDS campaign should not be described as “anti-Jew” and had advised its staff accordingly.

The council has concluded that the headline on the print version, “Anti-Jew protest condemned”, was a clear breach of the council’s standards of practice because it reported a matter of opinion as if a fact. It also failed reasonably to convey the tenor of the article itself, in which the original demonstration was described as “anti-Israel” but not as “anti-Jew”. Accordingly, the complaint against the headline is upheld on both these grounds.

The council has concluded that the headline on the online version, “Prominent Australians fight anti-Semitism with hot chocolate”, is reasonably capable of being read as a description of the prominent Australians’ opinions, rather than a statement of fact. This interpretation also means that the headline fairly reflects the tenor of the online version especially as, unlike the print version, it included a quote that the campaign was “not anti-Israel but anti-Jewish”. On balance, therefore, the complaint against the online headline is not upheld.

I appeared last night on ABCTV News24′s The Drum (video here).

I argued that chequebook journalism is only problematic when the public increasingly distrusts the media and presumes exploitation is taking place.

The mainstream media far too often simply accepts the allegedly unbiased reports released by think-tanks and interest groups. More skepticism required and independent analysis.

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has just visited Afghanistan and talked about staying the course, holding fire and finishing the job. Add a few other cliches to the mix. Most Australians oppose the mission and understand that we are supporting a fundementally corrupt Kabul government.

Finally, the massive payment to the former Murdoch employee in the UK, Rebekah Brooks, proves that this organisation has little understanding about accountability and would, if it were an honest group, not reward a woman who is now under suspicion of being involved in phone-hacking in Britain.

Herald Sun senior editor Alan Howe loathes Muslims, Arabs, Palestinians and anybody who doesn’t embrace US foreign policy.

Today he takes his hatred even further. “Journalism”, Murdoch style:

There was some truth told last week, and the usual suspects – devious and untrustworthy – found it most uncomfortable.

The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation, not for the first time, acted out another UN farce and voted to grant membership to Palestine.

Not enough people in Palestine know much about science, or education, or culture, so on the surface it might look a good idea.

The truth is that it is a dangerous ploy by the Palestinians to try to get the UN to grant them nationhood.

Palestine is not yet a nation – it rejected that opportunity in a generous offer made by Israel 11 years ago – and so should not be part of any UN body. It’s the United Nations.

In all, 107 nations voted away their souls on the Palestine issue. They predictably included Russia, China, Austria and South Africa. Oh, and France, of course; there’s a country that never passes up an opportunity to display how contemptibly weak it is.

The noble nations that told the truth – just 14 of them – included Australia, the US, Canada, Israel and Sweden, while 52 nations, only slightly to the north of the French when it comes to courage, abstained.

There was pressure on Julia Gillard for Australia to abstain. Instead, she told the truth.

While some in the Western media are accurately assessing the validity of the global Occupy movement, Murdoch’s New York Post takes the low road to typical sleaze (though with unintentional comedy):

Some 50 Occupy Wall Street protesters saw red yesterday — giving an enthusiastic welcome to a genuine communist.

Alex Callinicos, a professor of European Studies at Kings College in London, announced to his rapt audience, “I am a Marxist.’’

Asked if the upcoming revolution can be non-violent, he parroted the party line of the demonstrators, who call themselves the 99 percent of Americans lined up against the “1 percent’’ with power and money.

He said violence could be avoided only if the “1 percent accept the decisions of the 99 percent,’’ which he predicted would never happen.

Today’s editorial in the Australian praises those calm and lovely voices who speak nicely about “democratic” Israel and salute a “peace process” (that has only entrenched occupation of Palestine):

Given the increasingly febrile tone of anti-Israel rhetoric and protests this year, it was comforting yesterday to hear sensible words of moderation from the Palestinian Territories’ Australian representative.

The head of the General Delegation of Palestine to Australia, Izzat Abdulhadi, poured oil on the waters stirred up in recent months by Greens and academic activists. Mr Izzat told The Australian’s Imre Salusinszky that he did not support full-scale or violent imposition of the boycotts, divestments and sanctions campaign. This campaign has seen protesting mobs descend upon Max Brenner chocolate shops, urging a customer boycott because the company also supplies chocolate to the Israeli defence forces. “I don’t think it’s the right of anybody to use BDS as a violent action,” Mr Izzat said, “or to prevent people from buying from any place.” He should be heeded by the activists, some of whom would go so far as to have Sydney’s Marrickville Council sign up to the BDS campaign, and by the protesters, whose ugly intimidation has conjured up distasteful comparisons with the targeting of Jewish shops in Germany in the late-1930s.

Mr Izzat also sensibly defended a Sydney University Israel Research Forum, noting that a similar Arab forum would be held next year. An enlightened exchange of ideas must not be held hostage to partisan posturing over a conflict where there is plenty of blame to share around. This newspaper, along with the Palestinian and Israeli leaderships, supports a two-state solution for Israel and Palestine. While the anti-Israel protesters often focus on Israeli settlements outside the 1967 borders, they avoid any criticism of Palestinian actions. Resolution of this conflict cannot occur without considering how Israel’s complete withdrawal from Gaza was greeted only with a menacing stream of deadly rockets targeting its citizens. While Arabs in Egypt, Libya, Syria and Bahrain have taken to the streets demanding an end to tyranny and a say in their own affairs, their sympathisers in the West have assailed chocolate stores, railing against the Middle East’s only established democracy. Israel is a place where Arabs already have a vote, and continue to hold seats in parliament. As Mr Izzat suggested, rather than foment hatred, there are good reasons for people to be constructive on this issue.

UPDATE: After a great deal of criticism of Izzat’s position, the Ambassador released the following response re BDS and Palestine.