My following article appears in today’s edition of Crikey: Antony Loewenstein writes from New York: The glittering New York Times building in Manhattan is a striking, architectural wonder, exuding success and power. Unfortunately, the reality of the paper’s financial decline is far less glamorous. The world’s most famous newspaper is struggling like most media companies.…
Showing all posts in June 2019
They don’t want a massive revolution
Hamid Dabashi, the Hagop Kevorkian Professor of Iranian Studies and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, on what’s happening in Iran: This, in my judgment, is a post-ideological generation. My generation was divided into third world socialists, anti-colonial nationalists and militant Islamists. These are the three dominant ideologies with which we grew up. But if you…
Free him now
I’ve just discovered that a journalist colleague with whom I’ve corresponded over the years, Greek reporter Iason Athanasiadis, was arrested a few days ago in Tehran and remains imprisoned. We call for his unconditional release.
The rise of the Judeans
Israeli writer Bernard Avishai writes in the Nation on why his country is moving further and further to the right: The problem is not some spontaneous drift “to the right” in Israel owing to, say, Hamas’s missiles or Ahmadinejad’s threats. Israel, after all, has been integrating these territories for forty years; Hamas did not even…
How to defile a nation in many easy steps
There exists on an almost daily basis a profound disconnect between reality and rhetoric in the Middle East. On the one hand, Israel wants to find a way, any way, to continue building illegal settlements in the West Bank. Jewish fundamentalists in the area are routinely allowed to cause destruction against Palestinians and the state…
Israelis clearly fear their stories
The difficulties of reporting from inside Gaza are revealed by this story told by Palestinian journalist Rami Almeghari: For the past three years I have been a correspondent for the US-based Free Speech Radio News (FSRN). Until recently, I had been using a minidisc recorder that was sent to me from a friend in the…
Long may this Jewish attitude prosper
A really wonderful piece by Joseph Dana, Israeli human rights activist, about the role of dissent in Israeli society. The Iranian uprisings are having an effect: There is a minority in Israel that is willing to risk life and limb to stand up to the occupation at its core. Multiple times a week, groups of…
Where to now for Jewish America?
My latest column for New Matilda is about the American Jewish community and its inability to see the writing on the wall regarding Israel: In the US, moderate Jewish voices on the Middle East are gaining strength, but many American Jews are still reluctant to criticise Israel, writes Antony Loewenstein During the “Salute to Israel”…
The man above will not be pleased
Cockroaches can allegedly survive a nuclear holocaust, but an Orthodox man in Israel worries that God frowns upon his sullied behaviour: The Knesset cafeteria was closed Tuesday following an incident in which a cockroach was found in a plate of rice served up to Shas secretary Tzvika Yakobson. Yakobson discovered the cockroach Monday evening after…
A Palestine how to manual
Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide is a new book endorsed by Desmond Tutu and Professor John Dugard, South African ex-UN Special Rapporteur for Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (2001-2008).