Palestine matters, but not alone

Why, asks Geoffrey Alderman in the Guardian, isn’t the carnage in Sri Lanka receiving blanket coverage in the UK and internationally? I’ll tell you why. Because Sri Lanka is not Israel. Because the Tamils are not Arabs. And because here, in the UK, the Tamil vote is negligible whereas the Muslim vote is not. Yes,…

A witness to terrorism

Rachel Johnson, an Australian human rights activist with the International Solidarity Movement, was in Gaza during the recent war. I heard her speak recently in Sydney and she articulated the indiscriminate shooting, shelling and killing by the IDF in the occupied zone. She explains more: “The huge civilian death toll is largely a result of…

Western supported colonialism on show

Another day and another announcement that Israel continues to flout international norms, law and decency: Israel has taken a step towards expanding the largest settlement in the West Bank, a move Palestinians warn will leave their future state unviable and further isolate its future capital, East Jerusalem The Israeli Peace Now group, which monitors settlement…

Maybe black people simply don’t matter

The US has finally released a strong statement about the massacres in Sri Lanka. But while talk is important, the realities on the ground remain dire. This report from somebody in the conflict zone itself: More than 1500 people, innocent civilians perished today.…  Who knows?…  The number will certainly be more.…  What hurts the most…

Don’t regard Iran as the saviour of anyone

The case of journalist Roxana Saberi is shocking: US-Iranian reporter Roxana Saberi, who faces an eight-year jail sentence on charges of espionage, will continue her hunger strike until she is released, her father told AFP on Sunday. “We just had a 15-minute talk with her, and she has lost nearly 10 pounds (4.5 kilos). She…

When the military is king

Civil disobedience is central to any democratic society, though it’s not unusual for authorities to crack down hard on non-violent protests for daring to challenge the rule of the state. For example: Six suspects, one of them a 70-year old woman, were detained for questioning and released Sunday on suspicion that they preached in favor…

Taking care of your own problems

One of Israel’s leading historians, Benny Morris – a fine scholar who now represents the bigoted underbelly of Israeli society – knows how to solve the Middle East conflict: Morris concludes that a majority of Jews during the Mandate and Israelis in the years since have come to accept the notion of two states for…

When peace will never occur

The latest Middle East delusion: There is no end to the list of new words and phrases invented for the diplomatic dictionary. The latest gimmick is called “regional peace.” It is based on the following formula: Israel and the Arab states have a common enemy called Iran. In order to neutralize the Iranian threat, Israel…

Taking on Goliath

The campaign against corporations that benefit from the Israeli occupation is only growing (including favoured Palestinians close to colluding President Mahmoud Abbas). The latest from suburban Melbourne: A small band of residents in the West urged commuters at the Footscray train station last Thursday to “dump Connex” as the State Government reviews shortlisted contenders for…

Perhaps they should have their balls electrocuted now

A few words about torture from somebody who would know. Major Matthew Alexander personally conducted 300 interrogations of prisoners in Iraq: The reason why foreign fighters joined al-Qa’ida in Iraq was overwhelmingly because of abuses at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib and not Islamic ideology. It plays into the hands of al-Qa’ida in Iraq because it…

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

Site by Common