MEDIA RELEASE 3 MARCH, 2010 Today is the national launch of a prominent new Australian initiative that rejects Israel’s automatic right of return for Jews across the world. Following a recent similar project in the US, 35 distinguished Australian Jews have signed a petition that indicates growing dissent from Zionist policies and dispossession of Palestinian…
Showing all posts tagged United States
Violence is a means and an end: an interview with Mark Danner
My latest article for New Matilda is an interview with leading American reporter Mark Danner: Leading US journalist Mark Danner calls a spade a spade and examines the political value of violence in this exclusive interview with Antony Loewenstein Mark Danner has some unusual characteristics for a mainstream US journalist. He has published in some…
Rights is the key question for Israel/Palestine, not just peace
A fine post by Promised Land blogger Noam Sheizaf: When discussing the Palestinian-Israeli political process, the most common error is setting peace as its goal. This is not only incorrect, but also counter-productive, because it serves those who wish to maintain the status quo. The key to ending hostilities is to reframe the received narrative,…
Secrets and lies between friends over Mossad murder
My following article is published today on ABC Unleashed/The Drum: Israel is a protected species in the international arena. Many Western states, including Australia, have long tolerated behaviour by the Jewish state that is condemned if committed by any other democracy. This reality makes the current scandal over the alleged Mossad hit last month in…
Australians discuss how Israel uses/abuses the Holocaust
The following letters appear in today’s Australian newspaper: IT was shocking to read that Malcolm Fraser accused Israel of using the Holocaust to justify state-sanctioned murder (“Holocaust no excuse for murder: Fraser”, 27-28/2) . No, it is not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel, but to suggest that the alleged killers of Hamas militant Mahmoud al-Mabhouh are…
Training the next generation to kill
The ever-increasing closeness between the video game industry and the US military is disturbing. Foreign Policy provides the necessary context: The stakes are high. Modern Warfare 2 came out on Nov. 10, 2009. By the end of the next day, it had racked up $310 million in sales. To put this in perspective, Avatar, James…
Bush administration kindly asked soldiers not to kill innocents in Iraq
America, an army politely instructed to avoid massacres: A 2003 handbook for the U.S. 1st Infantry Division in Iraq exhorts soldiers to “Do your best to prevent war crimes” and warns that “when an Arab is confronted by criticism, you can expect him to react by interpreting the facts to suit himself or flatly denying…
Former Aussie ambassador questions the closeness between Israel and Australia
The following article in today’s Sunday Age is by Ross Burns, a former Australian Ambassador in the Middle East: In the course of a career in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, much of it spent handling Middle East matters, I rarely heard language as portentous as the statements on relations with Israel from…
Americans still seem to overwhelmingly love the Jewish state
For those of us who know and believe that debate in the US is shifting over Israel/Palestine, this Gallop poll is sobering: For the first time since 1991, more than 6 in 10 Americans — 63% — say their sympathies in the Middle East situation lie more with the Israelis than with the Palestinians. Fifteen…
Murdoch and his intimate Saudi mates
Via ThinkProgress: Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal now owns a 7 percent stake in Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp., the parent company of Fox News, making him the company’s largest shareholder outside of Murdoch’s own family. Alwaleed is best known for going to Ground Zero after the 9/11 World Trade Center attacks and personally handing then-mayor…