Sydney Writer’s Festival 2009

I’ll be appearing tomorrow at the Sydney Writer’s Festival. The first one, at 10am, is described thus: James Maskalyk’s and Christian Lander’s books found their genesis in the new and powerful form of journalism, the blogosphere. Antony Loewenstein’s The Blogging Revolution is about the global tribe of bloggers who live and write under repressive regimes.…

What good little Zionist thugs set out to do

Letters in the Age newspaper over the play Seven Jewish Children continue today: I was in the queue an hour early for the 7 Jewish Children performance and the diverse crowd (Jew and non-Jew) was peaceful until a group of Australian Union of Jewish Students arrived around opening time and positioned themselves, with placards and…

Just let the bloody Jews fight it out

Following this letter in yesterday’s Melbourne Age, the paper today publishes two responses: Eli Court (Letters, 20/5) speaks with all the disdain of the ivory tower intellectuals who wouldn’t “soil” their hands by being on the street. If Eli had taken the trouble to attend the debate after the performance of Seven Jewish Children —…

What, you missed the peaceful attempt to just stage a play?

An interesting letter in today’s Melbourne Age about Monday’s staging of Seven Jewish Children: The saga over the play Seven Jewish Children again highlights the poor quality of debate on issues of anti-Semitism and the Middle East. After several days of intensive media scrutiny, and the usual acrimony between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian groups, I am…

When a decent view came to town

I reported last night on the scuffles in Melbourne outside a performance of Seven Jewish Children. The Melbourne Age adds more detail today: The play Seven Jewish Children last night achieved the effect its writer no doubt intended when it provoked passionate and diverse views from a panel of Jews and Palestinians. Palestinian lawyer and…

Is expressing skepticism too much to ask?

I often write about the failings of the corporate media in fairly reporting conflict zones and far too keenly adopting the “official” position. The latest example is Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamil people (allegedly at its end today). An article in the Green Left Weekly highlights the dangers of corporate journalists taking government-arranged trips…

When every Arab is quiet, they’ll be happy

BBC reporter Jeremy Bowen was recently censured by the BBC Trust for “biased” reporting on the Middle East. It was just another attempt by the Zionist lobby to silence any criticism of Israel. And it will fail. But, argues British broadcaster Jonathan Dimbleby, the costs could be great: Dimbleby said that Zionist publications, lobby groups…

What to do with dwindling friends?

The saga of the “controversial” play Seven Jewish Children continues in the letter’s section of today’s Age newspaper: Amid the anger over Jewish Care’s decision to cancel the performance of Seven Jewish Children, I feel facts have been neglected in the debate. The performance was sponsored by Australians for Palestine, a virulently anti-Israel lobbying group,…

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

Site by Common