Is Barack Obama Jewish?
An alternative view on the recent arrest of Radovan Karadzic:
The spirit of the media frenzy surrounding the arrest of the former Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic on July 21 is based entirely on the doctrine of non-equivalence inaugurated in 1992: Serbs willed the war, Muslims wanted peace; Serb crimes are bad and justly exaggerated, Muslim crimes are understandable.
This doctrine was spectacularly reiterated a month before Karadzic’s capture, when the Muslim wartime commander of Srebrenica, Nasir Oric, was found not guilty by The Hague Tribunal of any responsibility for the killing of thousands of Serb civilians by the forces under his command in the three years before the fall of the enclave in July 1995. It is also apparent today, in the endless media repetition of Karadzic’s alleged bellicose intransigence before and during the Bosnian war.
Gideon Levy, Haaretz, July 24:
Israel might be able to go on claiming that it will not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons into the Middle East, but it cannot do the same regarding another weapon of mass destruction: the bulldozer. The claim that terror has adopted an original new weapon, a “new fashion” as the public security minister put it, once again shows how convenient it is for us to present a one-sided and distorted picture.
The bulldozer as a destructive and even lethal weapon was not invented by the Palestinians. They are merely imitating an Israeli “fashion” that is as old as the state, or at least as old as the occupation. Let us forget for a moment the 416 villages Israel wiped off the face of the earth in 1948 - that was before there were D9 bulldozers - and focus on a more modern fashion. In Israel’s hands the bulldozer has become one of the most terrifying weapons in the territories. The only difference between the Palestinians’ murderous bulldozer and the Israeli bulldozer is in color and size. As usual, ours is bigger, much bigger. There is no similarity between the small backhoe the Palestinian terrorist was driving and the fearsome D9 driven by Israel Defense Forces soldiers.
From the dawn of the occupation, Caterpillar has been a major arms supplier to Israel, no less than those who provide planes, cannons and tanks. Not for nothing are peace activists trying to call for a boycott of the manufacturer. Israel has sown almost unimaginable destruction using heavy equipment. Go to Rafah, stopping in Khan Yunis on the way, and see the results of the destruction scattered there to this day. Whole neighborhoods razed, the contents of houses - possessions and memories - crushed under the treads. Have you ever seen a street after being “stripped” by a bulldozer? Cars are crushed like tin cans and homes become piles of rubble, along with their contents. Any street in Rafah looks much worse than King David Street in Jerusalem this week.
Speaking of Israeli apartheid…
The American overseas in a post 9/11 world, curious about Arabic, worried about the Middle East and loving Israel.
What is the Girl Effect?
Just when the Middle East conflict couldn’t get any more heated:
After decades of bitter conflict and the loss of thousands of innocent lives, Israeli and Palestinian forces clashed once again this week, with each side laying claim to a five-mile stretch of desperately needed cemetery space.
Fighting over the disputed territory, which is located on the easternmost border of the Gaza Strip, has thus far resulted in more than four dozen casualties. According to sources, the swath of cemetery space is being called the rightful burial home of both the Israeli and Palestinian people.
“Israel has always been the deathplace of the Jews,” said Moshe Abrahim, a religion professor at Bar-Ilan University. “My father was killed here, and his father and mother, and both of his uncles before him were killed here. To have this area occupied by Palestinian bodies is an insult to our great history.”
From the New York Times, December 21, 1924:
Hitler Tamed by Prison: Released on Parole, He Is Expected to Return to Austria.
Jeremy Scahill, The Guardian, July 23:
It seems that executives from Blackwater Worldwide, the Bush administration’s favourite hired guns in Iraq and Afghanistan, are threatening to pack up their M4 assault rifles, CS gas and Little Bird helicopters and go back to the great dismal swamp of North Carolina whence they came. Or at least that’s how it is being portrayed in the media.
Shame on journalists for not recognising the noble work of the gallant heroes and patriots (who happen to be paid much more than US troops and have not been subjected to any system of law and who can leave the war zone any moment they choose) and forcing Blackwater to consider abandoning its (very profitable, billion-dollar) charitable humanitarian campaign in Iraq. Remember, according to Blackwater, it is not a mercenary organisation. It is a “peace and stability” operation employing “global stabilisation professionals“.
What next, the weather channel being sponsored by the nuclear industry? Oh wait:
The tentacle-like growth of clandestine advertising in American TV shows in the form of product placement has taken another controversial step with the introduction of McDonald’s products into regional news programmes.
Several TV outlets have begun to sell the fast-food giant the right to place cups of its iced coffee on to the desks of news anchors as they present morning current affairs shows.
Following my lead letter in yesterday’s Sydney Morning Herald, the following letters appear in response today (under the headline, “Define reasonable, Mr Loewenstein”):
Antony Loewenstein says “not many Jews” agree that the 2001 UN conference against racism in Durban was an anti-Semitic hatefest (Letters, July 23).
I was a delegate and I don’t remember Mr Loewenstein being there when hundreds of Palestinians and Muslims were screaming in our faces “death to the Jews”. Nor when Palestinians and members of the Arab Lawyers League were handing out leaflets saying that if Hitler had done his job properly, there would have been no Israel and no Palestinian problem.
More importantly, he misses Anne Bayefsky’s key point, which is that Western values of free speech and support for open interfaith dialogue are threatened, rather than supported, by the UN Human Rights Council.
Alan Gold Leura
The headline on Antony Loewenstein’s letter, “Israel the aggressor must accept reasonable and unbiased criticism” could have been more appropriately worded “Israel must accept reasonable criticism”.
Each of us brings our bias, our opinion weighted with life experience, when we enter into conversation. As a Jew, I recognise mistakes have been made on both sides of the conflict in the Middle East. But to argue as Mr Loewenstein does that the “Palestinians are the eternally demonised people, occupied, starved and killed with impunity by Israel” only presents another “biased” perspective, not reasonable criticism.
In the past week, Israel has mourned the losses of soldiers Eldad Regev and Ehud Goldwasser, while Hezbollah and Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of the Palestinian Authority, have praised the release of the murderer Samir Kuntar. I hope Mr Loewenstein, in his ardent pursuit of human rights, would not condemn Israel while its neighbours dance in the street when murderers go free.
Reasonable criticism and a pursuit of human rights will come only when we acknowledge the mistakes of both sides. But when one nation mourns and others celebrate a vigilante with seemingly no respect for human life, I reserve my right to be reasonably biased.
Paul Jacobson Bondi
A few comments are in order. The issue of human rights in the Middle East is indeed a fraught one, but far too many Jews seem able to convince themselves that Israelis are on the side of angels and only Arabs are the terrorists. Hardly. The occupation of Palestinian land is a daily attack on dignity. Until the Western world understands the reality of Arab resistance to Zionist designs on the region, conflict will continue.
It’s amazing, in the letters above, how I’m chastised for not appreciating the Jew-hatred of the “enemy.” I’m well aware of it, having travelling around the Middle East a number of times. But Zionists refuse to acknowledge their responsibility for creating anti-Semitism, defending the occupation or remaining silent about it.
Gender politics in Egypt has a long way to go:
Nearly two-thirds of Egyptian men admit to having sexually harassed women in the most populous Arab country, and a majority say women themselves are to blame for their maltreatment.
One female blogger, Cairo My Love, has a few things to say about this shocking statistic.
My following article appears in the Amnesty International Australia’s Uncensor campaign about human rights in China:
Sport isn’t the only thing on the minds of multinationals in Beijing, writes Antony Loewenstein
Human rights issues? What human rights issues?
With only a few weeks until the start of the Beijing Games, this seems to be the message from corporate sponsors of the event. The New York Times explains:
“McDonald’s is running a ‘Cheer for China’ television ad. Nike ads feature China’s star hurdler, Liu Xiang, and other Chinese athletes besting foreign competitors. Earlier this year, Pepsi even painted its familiar blue cans red for a limited edition ‘Go Red for China’ promotion.
“The campaigns for Western companies are part of an advertising blitz the likes of which this ostensibly communist nation has never seen. Ads are papered over bus shelters, projected on giant outdoor television screens and plastered on billboards. Commercials even flicker at commuters as they zoom through subway tunnels.
“China, already the world’s second-largest advertising market, after the United States, is a dream for consumer product companies. ‘For most international brands here, China is the growth market for the next 10 years,’ said Jonathan Chajet, strategic director at Interbrand, which consults on brands.”
Despite pressure some months ago to persuade multinationals to boycott the “Genocide Games”, China’s nationalism is clearly too strong a factor to avoid (along with the potential of massive profits.) The International Olympic Committee is also behaving badly.
Arvind Ganesan, the Director of the Business and Human Rights Program at Human Rights Watch, told Harpers magazine last week that he was concerned about the role of multinationals in China and their deafening silence over abuses:
“…All of the companies claim to have some sort of ‘socially responsive’ policies and two of them, GE and Coke, are actually part of an initiative called the ‘Business Leaders Initiative on Human Rights.’ They have made public commitments to be progressive companies when it comes to human rights, but they have been silent about the situation in China.”
And the reason why?
“Through NBC, GE has paid hundreds of million of dollars to broadcast the Olympics. Given how much it has invested as a sponsor, let’s see how critical they are going to be.”
It’s inevitable that some of the Western media covering the sporting events will also discuss human rights abuses. It’s important that dissidents are not forgotten in the rush to celebrate athleticism. Take the case of imprisoned Du Daobin, whose case has been highlighted by the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ):
“Du, 43, a dissident writer and former editor of Human Rights Poetry, was sentenced in 2004 to three years’ jail for ‘inciting subversion of state power’ for publishing 26 articles in 2004 that were critical of the Government. The sentence was suspended to four years’ probation with two years’ deprivation of political rights.
“The IFJ has learnt that Du, a member of the Independent Chinese PEN Centre’s Writers in Prison Committee, was detained by police in Hubei on July 21 for allegedly publishing dozens of articles under a pseudonym during his probation.
“The charge of ‘inciting subversion of state power’ has frequently been levelled at writers and journalists who publish articles critical of any aspect of Chinese government policy.”
Beijing is afraid of both aggrieved citizens reaching the capital to protest and any sign of trouble from the outside. There are reportedly 110,000 security personnel and more than one million citizens to protect the Games against alleged terrorist threats.
Unfortunately, at least one athlete, an Israeli settler, will be representing the worst aspect of human nature, namely the dispossession of Palestinian land, in her pursuit of a taekwondo medal.
Perhaps the most surreal story of the week was the news that some American participants are considering wearing high-tech masks to protect them from pollution. It may cause problems, however. “When you’re walking around with a mask on, you’re basically saying, ‘You guys stink,’ “ says Scott Schnitzspahn, performance director of the U.S. triathlon team.
Some civilians deaths in the “war on terror” matter more than others.
My following piece is the lead letter in today’s Sydney Morning Herald:
Supporters of Israel write as though the Jewish state is isolated and reviled around the world for no other reason than irrational anti-Semitism.
Nothing could be further from the truth. [Professor at York University, Toronto and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute] Anne Bayefsky (”Australia must boycott the next racist hatefest“, July 22) continues this unfortunate trend. She paints Israel as a poor, defenceless nation in the heart of the Middle East that is likely to be devoured by the Arab world’s uncontrollable racism. In fact, it is Israeli actions that have led it to become an international pariah. Do Zionists really believe expanding illegal settlements in the West Bank can continue without paying a high diplomatic and military price? Bayefsky criticises Durban I as “a notorious anti-Semitic hatefest”, a view not shared by many Jews.
The Palestinian peace activist Hanan Ashrawi told the conference its aim was “to give voice to the silenced, to give a reality to the invisible, to give recognition to the denied, and to give credence to the victimised”. The Palestinians are the eternally demonised people, occupied, starved and killed with impunity by Israel.
Although Durban focused excessively on the Jewish state to the exclusion of human rights abuses elsewhere, some Jews seem to think even raising the issue of Israeli rights violations is anti-Semitic. Participants focused on Israeli “apartheid”, much to the consternation of Western powers.
Earlier this month, a group of veteran South African activists visited the West Bank and concluded the situation there was worse than life for black South Africans under apartheid. Bayefsky, and Zionists like her, know that opinion polls across the world view Israel as the aggressor in the conflict. Since when does an occupier ask for sympathy?
Durban II offers the possibility for dialogue with the world’s powers over key issues of human rights. Australia, like other Western powers, should participate, but leave their pro-Israel grandstanding at home.
The Jewish state is clearly not the only nation worthy of condemnation, but it should not be excluded from the debate due to Zionist pressure or Holocaust guilt.
Israel is hardly in a position to dictate what constitutes democracy. After all, it actively discriminates against non-Jews and continues to expand settlements. Where is the Jewish outcry over that?
Antony Loewenstein Petersham
Almost two-thirds of American newspapers publish less foreign news than they did just three years ago, nearly as many print less national news, and despite new demands on newsrooms like blogs and video, most of them have smaller news staffs, according to a new study.
Who can really rely on the mainstream media anymore to understand the world?
Is the era of free internet access coming to an end?
Saudi Arabia is one of the most gender-separated nations on earth.
The idea, suggested by some leading Saudi bloggers, to “segregate the blogrolls on blogs for the links of female and male Saudi bloggers”, is a sign of religious insanity. One female blogger explains:
…A number of bloggers have separated the blogrolls and posted them in separate blogs, with no connections between them, in a bid to protect the morals of bloggers and maintain the chastity of Muslim girls.
Muslim girls are just as able to watch satellite television and surf the internet and have their “chastity” confronted.
My latest New Matilda column is about the Western media’s delusions over the Middle East:
Distortions, delusions, misrepresentations. No wonder Western leaders and media don’t understand the popularity of groups like Hezbollah and Hamas in the Arab world
It shouldn’t come as any surprise that Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah is consistently voted the most popular leader in the Arab world. The Islamist group is praised for its disciple and resistance. Not only Israel’s loss in the 2006 Lebanon war mark a welcome shift in regional power, Hezbollah’s opposition to the Bush administration’s increasingly unsuccessful policy of divide and conquer is guaranteed to generate respect.
Some sections of the Western media are registering the reasons for Hezbollah’s popularity. The New York Times journalist Michael Slackman stated the blindingly obvious last week:
“The United States, Israel and some of their European allies have begun to recognize that their policy of trying to defeat their enemies by isolating and vilifying them has failed.”
If only Slackman was completely right.
In some ways, of course, he’s not mistaken. Israel last week did indirectly negotiate with Hezbollah for the mutual release of prisoners and murdered soldiers. America is now indirectly talking to Iran over its nuclear program and proposing the establishment of a mission in Tehran, the first time this has been raised since the 1979 Revolution. And Hamas is indirectly initiating a prisoner swap with Israel. But by dissecting recent events it becomes clear that Israel’s behaviour remains directed solely towards fruitlessly trying to destroy perceived enemies in its neighbourhood.
The Jewish state might be finally realising that bombing and killing its way to strength is a losing game but Haaretz journalist Ari Shavit certainly isn’t alone in expressing concern over Israel’s loss of prestige:
“In two and a half years of [Ehud] Olmert’s government, Israel has failed in four different campaigns. None of these failures was necessary. Basically Israel was and remains a very powerful country. However, when a stupid government conducts a foolish policy in every field and respect, the result is a resounding failure. This failure could become a real threat. No, not a threat to our survival, but definitely a strategic one.”
Take the Hezbollah/Israeli prisoner swap. The liberal US Jewish weekly Forward reluctantly praised the event. Whilst the swap was widely debated within Israel and even criticised within Lebanon, the Western media has focused instead on convicted killer Samir Kuntar. An alleged “terrorist” committed to Israel’s destruction, differing versions of his supposed crimes have emerged.
It’s impossible to determine the truth of the story, but a number of Arab bloggers have asked questions that no Western outlet would even consider publishing. What about the nearly 200 dead Arab bodies returned to Israel, the vast majority of whom were not “terrorists”? The reason for the skewed coverage, wrote The Angry Arab, was outright racism:
“These are 197 dead bodies delivered by Israel to Lebanon in the prisoner exchange. The two dead Israeli soldiers have received more coverage than those 197 dead Arab bodies. Hell, dead Israeli soldiers receive more coverage than all the Arab living. Such are the racist standards of the White Man.”
A prime culprit of this bias was The New York Times, ably assisted by every major Australian media outlet. The Angry Arab wondered why the American media failed to see the Arab world without the filter of belligerent Zionism:
“I was reading their [The New York Times] accounts of the prisoner exchange and remembering the words of the late George Carlin: why are Israeli terrorists called commandos, and why are Palestinian commandos called terrorists? And there are always stories about the ‘victims’ of Palestinian operations on Palestinian lands but never stories about the victims of Israeli crimes. Not one story about those Israeli ‘prisoners’: What were those Israeli occupation killers doing in Lebanon in the first place?
“And I hate how Israeli (and American and Saudi) propaganda keep referring to Israeli prisoners by their names, to humanize them. You will never see refer to them by their names here because I refuse to succumb to the media standards that distinguish between expensive human beings and the cheaper human beings. You want me to feel sorry for an Israeli pilot who was downed while dropping cluster bombs on villages and towns in South Lebanon? Are you kidding me?”
It should never be forgotten that Israel killed more children during the 2006 Lebanon war than Samir Kuntar ever allegedly did. But, of course, Israeli lives have always been worth more than Arabs in the Western media. Double standards incorporated.
Levels of delusion remain central to the Middle East equation. Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in mid-July that Israel and the Palestinians have “never been this close” to a peace deal. Impotent figurehead Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian President, muttered something similar about both sides being “serious and [wanting] to achieve peace.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
A former Israeli ambassador to South Africa complained last week that the world unfairly used the term “apartheid” to describe conditions in the occupied territories. Defending roadblocks and other signs of oppression by saying Israel erected them for a “good reason”, her tortuous explanations were like those made by white South Africans defending their measures against blacks before 1994.
More credible witnesses are veterans of the anti-apartheid struggle who recently visited the West Bank and concluded that, in many instances, the situation was far worse than anything they ever experienced. “Even with the system of permits, even with the limits of movement to South Africa, we never had as much restriction on movement as I see for the people here,” said an ANC parliamentarian, Nozizwe Madlala-Routledge. “There are areas in which people would live their whole lifetime without visiting because it’s impossible.”
Israel’s political and media culture is sick, mired in corruption and self-doubt. Aggression is a substitute for rational thought — witness historian Benny Morris’ diatribe in last week’s New York Times arguing for military strikes against Iran, even with nuclear weapons. Fear, insecurity and a lack of coherent narratives have resulted in a Jewish state that ambles from one disaster to another as it expands its illegal occupation of Palestine. This tendency is exemplified by footage released this week which shows an Israeli soldier firing a rubber bullet at close range into a Palestinian detainee. Such a situation precludes peace almost by definition.
The forthcoming US presidential election is unlikely to change this equation. Recent Israeli polling indicated fear of Democratic candidate Barack Obama due to his apparent sympathy towards the Palestinians, something he’s hidden or abandoned many years ago. Consistent American pressure was once seen by the Israelis and hardline Zionists as the only way to ensure a peace deal between Israel and Palestinians, but Washington’s impotence and bias has resulted in a neutered super-power.
Given these circumstances, it’s logical that resistance by Hamas and Hezbollah would be so warmly received across the Muslim world. And if the reportage in the Western media were more balanced, perhaps Western leaders and their constituents would be better placed to understand the grounds for their ongoing popularity.
How do blogs, new technology and good ol’ fashioned web activism help reporting in conflict zones?
Robert Fisk talks about the fact that until Washington partly disengages from Israel - something that simply won’t happen under Barack Obama - the Middle East will remain mired in crisis (which suits the Western powers just fine):
