Antony Loewenstein

My following article appears on ABC Unleashed today:

The rolling revelations of the WikiLeaks US embassy cables will continue for months but equally interesting is the reaction of the global media.

Many in the British media establishment, not given advance look at the documents, fumed against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and repeated government spin that the release would endanger lives. This is from media groups who claim to believe in press freedom and there is no evidence that any WikiLeaks releases have harmed a soul, something even acknowledged by the US government.

It is expected that governments affected by the leaks would be upset but this week has seen a very clear fault-line expanding between those who endorse an authoritarian mindset towards leakers and others who understand the importance of airing America’s dirty tricks to the world.

Assange makes no secret of wanting to harm the image of the US and lessen American power. Indeed, in an interview this week

“US officials have for 50 years trotted out this line when they are afraid the public is going to see how they really behave”, Assange said.

Ironically, many of the public figures today allegedly worried about US lives being lost are the same people who wholly backed the war in Iraq, Afghanistan and drone attacks in Pakistan.

It’s unsurprising that Fox News-funded Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin both condemn the release (with the latter comparing Assange to Al Qaeda). Bill O’Reilly said the “traitor” who leaked the information to WikiLeaks should be “executed”.

The Weekly Standard’s William Kristol, a Jewish neo-conservative who backs endless war in the Middle East, wants Assange silenced and the Washington Post’s Charles Krauthammer argues for the prosecution of journalistic “collaborators” with WikiLeaks. A senior adviser to Canadian leader Stephen Harper states Assange should be murdered by drone attack.

Predictably, many in the mainstream media have mimicked the Obama administration’s concerns over the leaks.

It was painful on Monday listening to ABC radio’s The World Today grilling a New York Times journalist about his paper’s decision to publish some of the revelations. Virtually every question asked by host Eleanor Hall could have come from the State Department. The contents and implications of the cables were mostly ignored.

The ABC reporter in Washington also heavily featured official perspectives at the expense of real analysis of the release. It’s been left to astute bloggers to articulate the importance of establishment embarrassment at a time when US foreign policy under Obama has mostly continued the pattern set by the Bush administration.

One example is the litany of documents that prove Israel and the US looking to spy on Palestinian officials and gather information such as frequent flyer and credit card numbers. Many in the Israeli press are pleased that the documents prove that US-backed autocrats support the hardline Israeli stance on attacking Iran. Why a supposedly democratic nation like Israel would want to be in bed with one of the most brutal regimes in the world, Saudi Arabia, has gone largely unremarked.

But little of this has surfaced in the corporate press as they’ve been too busy repeating the talking points of outraged officials in Canberra, London and Washington. The reaction of Arab bloggers has also been mostly ignored.

The details of the WikiLeaks story are arguably the most interesting. For example, the New York Times supposedly had to rely on the Guardian for the documents because Assange had been displeased with a recent profile of him in the Times. Editor Bill Keller was keen to negotiate with the White House which documents would not offend American goals.

The Washington Post reports that the Wall Street Journal and CNN, offered the cables but refused, were told by WikiLeaks that they would be liable for $US100,000 if any embargo was broken.

But where is the bravery in the media assessing the fallout of the leaks? Slate’s Jack Shafer calls for the resignation of Hillary Clinton because of the hard evidence that she demanded her foreign-service officials to spy on friend and foe. Here was – in black and white – documentation that shows Washington engaged in a global network of espionage. When Tehran or Beijing acts similarly, it’s called terrorism.

And where are the legal and civil rights lobbies in Australia as growing threats against Assange and his website increase by the day? A handful are speaking out, including Sydney University’s Ben Saul, claiming that Australia’s priority should be asking America about its crimes revealed in the WikiLeaks dump. Few journalists are arguing similarly.

Rupert Murdoch columnist Andrew Bolt defends the spying as a necessary price to pay to maintain American hegemony in the world seemingly oblivious to the fact that Washington’s ability to influence the world has irreversibly declined since September 11, 2001, helped by a lessening of fear towards American power.

Indeed, there seems to be a major degree of jealousy within the mainstream media. Why haven’t more of them been leaked key documents? Why did sources rely on WikiLeaks instead of a major news organisation? As Assange told Forbes this week, in lieu of another major leak related to a major US bank in early 2011:

“We’re totally source-dependent. We get what we get. As our profile rises in a certain area, we get more in a particular area. People say, ‘Why don’t you release more leaks form the Taliban?’ So I say ‘Hey, help us, tell more Taliban dissidents about us’.”

Many journalists and editors would read that and wonder why Taliban dissidents hadn’t contacted them.

Perhaps somebody should examine what the motives of Assange actually are; he’s written a manifesto of sorts years ago.

But professional frustration isn’t the only key issue here. It’s the media’s overly-respectful posture towards authority. There is an overly-suspicious attitude towards people like Assange who refuse to play the traditional media game. He’s an outsider with exclusive information. He hasn’t spent years cultivating contacts inside the media tent. And he doesn’t spend most of his free time socialising with political staffers, editors and insiders.

John Kampfner, chief executive of Index on Censorship, reminds journalists of the truth:

“All governments have a legitimate right to protect national security. This should be a specific, and closely scrutinised, area of policy. Most of our secrecy rules are designed merely to protect politicians and officials from embarrassment.”

The Australian media’s performance this week has been mixed at best. There has been a fascination with the Gillard Government’s response and an attempt to mitigate the potential embarrassment for authorities.

The vast bulk of the local reporting – Paul McGeough in Fairfax was a notable exception though he mistakenly claimed the previous WikiLeaks drops on Iraq and Afghanistan were “relatively harmless” – has challenged the reliability of Assange and questioned his sanity and seriousness. A Fairfax video was entitled, ‘Assange reliability under question’ when in fact nobody credibly claimed the cables were falsified.

It’s as if the corporate press can’t quite bring itself to acknowledge the lies told by the US government, fearful of losing access in the process. Instead, many in the Australian press are giving valuable space to the US ambassador in Canberra who unsurprisingly condemns the leaks.

Moreover, one of the key take-away points from the revelations is the US contempt for democracy around the world. Public opinion can be essentially ignored for the perceived greater good; backing Zionist and Arab dictatorships in the name of oil security. We should care that US officials pressured nations not to investigate alleged human rights committed by the US post 9/11.

Interestingly, the Australian Communications and Media Authority (ACMA) just announced that no part of WikiLeaks remains on the Australian blacklist of banned websites.

All WikiLeaks releases bring up questions of accountability of the organisation itself. This week leading human rights groups expressed concern that activists in repressive regimes, who may have had contact with US embassies, could be named in the cables and threatened.

Pentagon Paper’s leaker Daniel Ellsberg said this week that WikiLeaks had made “mistakes” in the past by inadvertently releasing names and personal details in previous dumps. He also stressed that the Pentagon was prone to exaggerating the threat posed to anyone listed in the documents. Quite simply, there is zero evidence of lives being threatened or lost over any WikiLeaks documents though a Canadian aid worker claims the cables will hurt dissidents in repressive regimes.

The job of real journalists is not to insulate officials or governments from embarrassment but to investigate legitimate stories relevant to the public interest. Note how many reporters are primarily worried about Washington’s loss of information, not the details contained within the files.

Damaging the “national interest” is a principle that should be questioned when policies of the state are deliberately designed to ensure secrecy over state-sponsored terrorism. Transparency and accountability are what WikiLeaks offers. Those who oppose it must be vigorously challenged. with America’s ABC he said that Washington simply wasn’t credible when they claimed the release of documents would hurt individuals.

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.

The strange and disturbing mix of radical Zionism, hatred of Muslims, neo-conservatism and increasingly mainstream politics:

The English Defence League, a far-right grouping aimed at combating the “Islamification” of British cities, has developed strong links with the American Tea Party movement.

An Observer investigation has established that the EDL has made contact with anti-jihad groups within the Tea Party organisation and has invited a senior US rabbi and Tea Party activist to London this month. Rabbi Nachum Shifren, a regular speaker at Tea Party conventions, will speak about Sharia law and also discuss funding issues.

The league has also developed links with Pamela Geller, who was influential in the protests against plans to build an Islamic cultural centre near Ground Zero. Geller, darling of the Tea Party’s growing anti-Islamic wing, is advocating an alliance with the EDL. The executive director of the Stop Islamisation of America organisation, she recently met EDL leaders in New York and has defended the group’s actions, despite a recent violent march in Bradford.

Geller, who denies being anti-Muslim, said in one of her blogs: “I share the EDL’s goals… We need to encourage rational, reasonable groups that oppose the Islamisation of the west.”

Great post by MJ Rosenberg on Jonathan Franzen’s new best-seller Freedom and its deep message about the Zionist lobby:

I just want to comment on a minor stream that runs through the book: it is that neo-conservatives are loathsome, that they joined up with war profiteers to get us into Iraq, and that they were motivated by a combination of pro-Israel zeal, profits, and the belief that we must Americanize the Middle East. One character, who I think is modeled on Norman Podhoretz, gets to pronounce the neocon philosophy at a Thanksgiving dinner (basically a thanks giving for the blessing of the Iraq war).

Before the crazies say it, I want to add that Franzen is by no means anti-Jewish, just anti-neocon. In fact, there is an ultra-Orthodox family in the book, whose dream is to live in the West Bank, who are lovely people — just a little muddled.

So why is this significant? It is significant because this book is so huge (about as big as any work of fiction can be in this country) and that it’s “oh-by-the-way” incorporation of the Walt-Mearsheimer thesis demonstrates that the two professors have won. Nobody much argues about the role of the neocons in promoting Middle East wars.

Communism is dead. Islamism is the new threat. And the same radical Zionists who once fought (from their bedrooms, of course) against the Evil Empire are now focusing on Islam and Iran.

Richard Silverstein uncovers the role of neo-conservatives Jews who once again want to be defined solely through war.

Blogger Andrew Sullivan, recently made aware of the disastrous and destructive actions of radical Jews and hardline Zionists, gets it in one:

Peter Beinart heralds it in:

“Ever since 9/11, according to opinion polls, Republicans have worried more about terrorism than have Democrats. Initially, this fear translated into overwhelming support for military action abroad. But as Republicans (like everyone else) have grown tired and embittered by America’s wars, they have turned their anxiety inward, lured by the same idea that attracted Palmer and the McCarthyites: that America could guarantee its safety on the cheap by ferreting out the real threat, which resides within.”

They have found the new communism. It’s called Islam. But I fear, unlike Peter, that they have not tired of wars, just counter-insurgencies, and will never support actual withdrawal from Iraq and Afghanistan ever, because it reveals “weakness” in the war they want to escalate rather than defuse, and to use for domestic purposes rather than to understand and win.

I also predict that a military attack on another Muslim country, Iran, will be the next outward expression of this new McCarthyism. And if Israel does it, it will be used by the neocon and Palinite right as a sign that Obama was too Muslim and too weak and too un-American to do it himself. The script is pretty obvious. What the neocons have to do first is kill off the peace process to pave the way for the Greater Israel Palin supports and believes in. Watch them do it.

When the “moderate” Zionist lobby takes on the far-right Zionist lobby:

Tony Karon @ Tom Dispatch attempts to stop the Zionist push for military action against Iran.

The fact that the same frauds who pushed us into war against Iraq are now trying similar tactics against Tehran – “Iran is a grave threat etc” – should worry us all.

Hard to tell if this New York Times story is supposed to calm nerves or simply give neo-cons the excuse to bomb Iran sooner:

The Obama administration, citing evidence of continued troubles inside Iran’s nuclear program, has persuaded Israel that it would take roughly a year — and perhaps longer — for Iran to complete what one senior official called a “dash” for a nuclear weapon, according to American officials.

White House officials said they believe the assessment has dimmed the prospect that Israel would pre-emptively strike against the country’s nuclear facilities within the next year, as Israeli officials have suggested in thinly veiled threats.

For years, Israeli and American officials have debated whether Iran is on an inexorable drive toward a nuclear bomb and, if so, how long it would take to produce one. A critical question has been the time it would take Tehran to convert existing stocks of low-enriched uranium into weapons-grade material, a process commonly known as “breakout.”

Israeli intelligence officials had argued that Iran could complete such a race for the bomb in months, while American intelligence agencies have come to believe in the past year that the timeline is longer.

“We think that they have roughly a year dash time,” said Gary Samore, President Obama’s top adviser on nuclear issues, referring to how long it would take the Iranians to convert nuclear material into a working weapon. “A year is a very long period of time.”

Mr. Samore said the United States believed international inspectors would detect an Iranian move toward breakout within weeks, leaving a considerable amount of time for the United States and Israel to consider military strikes.

The New York Sun wishes the US occupation of Iraq (and anywhere, really) could last forever:

We don’t make any predictions about what the Congress is going to do now that President Obama has withdrawn the last combat brigade from a country where, during his campaign, he insisted we never should have fought a war. We simply offer a lesson from history. When the Congress talks about bringing our GIs home, our enemies are emboldened and trouble lies around the corner. The fact is that the cause of freedom is less secure when American GIs come home than when they venture abroad.

Another angle of the Wikileaks information dump is the way in which it may be used to justify military action against Tehran.

Foreign Policy’s Marc Lynch explains and refutes that bogus comparison (neo-cons and the Zionist lobby, are you listening?)

Most of the response to the WikiLeaks Afghanistan document release thus far has focused on the absence of major revelations, with most of the details reinforcing existing analysis rather than undermining official discourse about the war. A similar response is appropriate to a story making the rounds that the documents bolster the case for significant connections between Iran and al-Qaeda. Information in the documents, according to the Wall Street Journal, “appear to give new evidence of direct contacts between Iranian officials and the Taliban’s and al Qaeda’s senior leadership.” What’s more important in these stories than the details found in the documents about Iran’s activities in Afghanistan is the attempt to spin them into a narrative of “Iranian ties to al-Qaeda” to bolster the weak case for an American attack on Iran.

There’s no secret about Iran’s role in Afghanistan, of course — this has long been a staple of the debate over Afghan policy, and has also long been pointed out as an area of potential cooperation or conflict between Washington and Tehran. As with much of the rest of the WikiLeaks documents, much of what has been found about Iran’s role in Afghanistan is already generally known, while other information in them is of dubious provenance. It’s not like we didn’t know about Iran and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. These new details do add to the case for taking Iran into account more effectively when designing Afghanistan policy, on both the military and political dimensions. But they don’t add up to some kind of smoking gun demonstrating an Iranian alliance with al-Qaeda.

Following the desperate smear of neo-con Lee Smith against dissenting bloggers on the Middle East, two leading writers weigh in.

Max Blumenthal explains how how frustrating it must be Zionists who simply can’t believe that their views are no longer sacrosant.

And Israel Lobby co-author Steve Walt explains that the blogosphere has truly liberated debate over the Middle East and Israeli crimes can no longer be denied:

What is really going on here? Smith’s article is just another illustration of what has become a familiar and depressing story here in the United States. Anyone who writes or says something that is critical of Israeli policy, who questions the wisdom of the special relationship, or who talks about the negative influence of the Israel lobby, is almost certain to smeared, usually by being labeled either an anti-Semite or a self-hating Jew. It is as predictable as the sun rising in the east each morning.

It doesn’t matter how often you remind people that lobbying on behalf of a foreign country is a legitimate political activity in the American political system, how often you emphasize that you support Israel’s existence, or how often you denounce genuine anti-Semitism. Nor does it matter how carefully you document your claims.

People like Smith (and Goldberg) will simply ignore all of that and instead come up with bizarre arguments designed to portray you as a virulent and dangerous bigot. Of course, the purpose of this smearing is two-fold: to deter others from speaking out in public, and to discourage those who have spoken out from doing so again. And when someone cannot be silenced, the goal is to marginalize them so that they cannot influence the discourse about Israel and Middle East politics in meaningful ways.