My following book review appeared in Saturday’s Melbourne Age: Gaza: Morality, Law and Politics Edited by Raimond Gaita University of Western Australia Publishing, $29.95 Raimond Gaita’s collection tries to analyse a contentious conflict, writes Antony Loewenstein. MONTHS after the release of the UN-backed Goldstone report that found alleged war crimes by both Israel and Hamas…
Articles in The Age
The Age on Google’s move highlights the role of China’s censors
My following article is published today in the Melbourne Age: About 100 Chinese citizens gathered outside Google’s Beijing office this week to sing the popular tune Grass Mud Horse. They paid their respects to the web giant after it announced the closure of its censored Chinese search engine and redirected users to a Hong Kong-based…
America’s journey to a rogue state
My following book review appeared in the Melbourne Age on January 10: The gloves came off after September 11 and left leaders petrified, writes Antony Loewenstein. The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals By Jane Mayer Scribe, $35 Near the beginning of this…
Government uploads hypocrisy with internet censorship
My following article appears in today’s Melbourne Age: Before this year’s Beijing Olympic Games, Prime Minister Kevin Rudd chastised the Chinese authorities for blocking full access to the internet for the assembled world media: “My attitude to our friends in China is very simple”, he said. “They should have nothing to fear by open digital…
New ways to make news matter
My following article is published today by the Melbourne Age: During the bruising Democratic Party tussle with Hillary Clinton in April, a citizen journalist recorded Obama saying that he understood why working-class voters in decrepit industrial towns were “bitter” and clung to “guns or religion”. Despite being a paid-up Obama supporter, writer Mayhill Fowler worked…
A celebration that ignores the plight of Palestine
My following piece in the Melbourne Age, co-written with Michael Shaik, reflects on Israel’s 60th anniversary: “If you will it,” wrote Theodore Herzl, the founding father of the Zionist movement, in 1902, “it is no dream.” The dream to which he referred was the establishment of a Jewish state in the Arab country of Palestine.…
Defeat: Why They Lost Iraq
My following book review appeared in the Melbourne Age on April 19: On the fifth anniversary the Iraq War, The Independent’s Patrick Cockburn, the finest Western reporter in Iraq, wrote that the conflict “has been one of the most disastrous wars ever fought by Britain. It has been small but we achieved nothing . .…
Self-defence or brutal occupation?
The following article, co-written with a colleague, appears in today’s Age newspaper: On the world stage, Israel has been traditionally cast as David in a battle against Goliath. But this is too simplistic, for Israel is not without its sins, write Peter Slezak and Antony Loewenstein. Speaking honestly about Israel and Palestine has always been…
No peace in Israel-Palestine
My following article in the Melbourne Age, co-written with Michael Shaik, the public advocate for Australians for Palestine, is about the realities on the ground in Palestine: It is difficult to overstate the lost opportunity that last week’s Annapolis conference represents. The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, had agreed to all of Israel’s preconditions for negotiations…
Ghost Plane
My following book review of Stephen Grey’s Ghost Plane appears in today’s Age newspaper: If the pain is too much, the CIA can ship you somewhere for treatment Torture is as American as apple pie. The Bush Administration and CIA may have implemented a worldwide system of “extraordinary renditions” (the removal of prisoners to foreign…