Me at ABC’s The Drum today: The BDS movement is a logical and non-violent response to human rights abuses in Palestine, so why is it being threatened in a country like America that prides itself on free speech, asks Antony Loewenstein. It seems barely a week passes without a student union or corporation somewhere in…
Articles in ABC The Drum
Why boycotting Israeli academia is necessary and principled
My following piece appears today in ABC’s… The Drum: An academic boycott of Israeli universities isn’t an attack on freedom of speech. The evidence tells us these institutions are key battlegrounds for breaches of international law towards the Palestinians, argues Antony Loewenstein. New Zealand’s $20 billion national pension fund… announced this month… that it was divesting from three…
My 2012 PEN Free Voices lecture on free speech and why it matters
The following is published today as the lead piece by ABC’s The Drum: The two-hour drive from Islamabad to Peshawar is along a surprisingly smooth road. Mud-brick homes sit amongst lush, green fields. Police checkpoints are set up routinely to stop unwanted visitors. I am asked why I want to see the troubled Pakistani town…
CHOGM perfect place to hold Sri Lankan war criminals to account
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…
Palestine statehood bid signals long struggle ahead for equal rights
My following piece is published today on ABC’s The Drum: Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas returned from New York to occupied Ramallah on the weekend as “an Arab leader of significant standing“, according to writers from the liberal Israeli paper Haaretz. The Abbas speech in front of the United Nations, calling for the international body to…
9/11 legacy is an Israeli/American catastrophe
My following essay is published today on ABC online: The 9/11 attacks had barely happened and the smouldering wreckage in New York and Washington was still shocking America and the world. Israel already saw an opportunity. Then former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked to express his feelings about the terrorist action in the immediate…
The West has much to learn post Bin Laden death
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…
What Wikileaks Gitmo files says about our Western “values”
My following article appears in today’s ABC The Drum: The Wikileaks-released Guantanamo Bay files provide an invaluable insight into the mindset of the US and its allies since September 11. An infrastructure of torture was implemented, a practice still defended by the US government today, to allegedly protect the homeland from future attack. The result…
Hypocrisy trumps policy in Western alliance with Libya
My following article appears today on ABC’s The Drum: The latest BBC interview with Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, situated in a fancy restaurant on the Mediterranean, was painful to watch. Clearly delusional and blaming drug-addled youth and al-Qaeda for the ongoing revolution in his country (which he claimed he didn’t lead, the “masses” were in…
A little taste of what kind of democracy Egypt deserves
My following analysis appears on ABC Unleashed/The Drum today: An Egyptian blogger displayed characteristic humour when news broke overnight that president Hosni Mubarak would not be stepping down: Mubarak (n.): a psychotic ex-girlfriend who fails 2 understand it’s over. If Mubarak and his new deputy Omar Suleiman thought their speeches would placate the protesters, they…