A.LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWSLETTER

• Fidel visits a dolphin show and reflects on his legacy
• Spluttering gasps of Murdoch’s British power
• Reporters need to be reminded that they should not follow every leaked morsel
• America, the same old torturing nation as under Bush
• Murdoch mantra; whatever it takes
• US-led “peace talks” going the way Israel hopes (ie. nowhere)
• Washington has reason to smear Wikileaks
• Keeping children in prison to manage our fears
• Democracy and Zionism can never work together

Fidel visits a dolphin show and reflects on his legacy Posted: 09 Sep 2010 Credit where it’s due. The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg may have spread propaganda about Saddam, Iran and Israel, but he can write and his latest dispatch about meeting Fidel Castro (here’s the first) is fascinating: There were many odd things about my recent Havana stopover (apart from the dolphin show, which I’ll get to shortly), but one of the most unusual was Fidel Castro’s level of self-reflection. I only have limited experience with Communist autocrats (I have more experience with non-Communist autocrats) but it seemed truly striking that Castro was willing to admit that he misplayed his hand at a crucial moment in the Cuban Missile Crisis (you can read about what he said toward the end of my previous post – but he said, in so many words, that he regrets asking Khruschev to nuke the U.S.). Even more striking was something he said at lunch on the day of our first meeting. We were seated around a smallish table; Castro, his wife, Dalia, his son; Antonio; Randy Alonso, a major figure in the government-run media; and Julia Sweig, the friend I brought with me to make sure, among other things, that I didn’t say anything too stupid (Julia is a leading Latin American scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations). I initially was mainly interested in watching Fidel eat – it was a combination of digestive problems that conspired to nearly kill him, and so I thought I would do a bit of gastrointestinal Kremlinology and keep a careful eye on what he took in (for the record, he ingested small amounts of fish and salad, and quite a bit of bread dipped in olive oil, as well as a glass of red wine). But during the generally lighthearted conversation (we had just spent three hours talking about Iran and the Middle East), I asked him if he believed the Cuban model was still something worth exporting. “The Cuban model doesn’t even work for us anymore,” he said. This struck me as the mother of all Emily Litella moments. Did the leader of the Revolution just say, in essence, “Never mind”? I asked Julia to interpret this stunning statement for me. She said, “He wasn’t rejecting the ideas of the Revolution. I took it to be an acknowledgment that under ‘the Cuban model’ the state has much too big a role in the economic life of the country.”

Spluttering gasps of Murdoch’s British power Posted: 09 Sep 2010 New Statesman examines the worsening problems for David Cameron’s spin doctor, Andy Coulson, former editor of Murdoch’s News of the World: I ask another former Met commander if the New York Times allegations of a “long-term” relationship between News International and Scotland Yard are true. “I couldn’t possibly comment,” he tells me with a chuckle, adding: “But feel free to draw an inference from my silence.” The former senior Met official draws my attention to how the former assistant commissioner Andy Hayman, who led the original police investigation into the phone-hacking allegations, is now a columnist on the News International-owned Times. “It’s not necessarily improper but it doesn’t help, does it?” says the retired officer. But Coulson is regarded as too valuable – both as a spinner and as a bridgehead to the Murdoch media empire. Even his critics seem to assume that he is very good at his job. Yet, despite operating in a rather benign media environment, dominated by the pro-Cameron echo chamber in the press, Coulson’s links to the Murdochs did not translate into votes. As the Labour leadership contender Ed Miliband pointed out to me: “The Murdoch press has less influence than it used to . . . Twenty-three front pages [in the Sun] supporting the Tories and the Tories got 36 per cent of the vote.”

Reporters need to be reminded that they should not follow every leaked morsel Posted: 09 Sep 2010 What a revelation (via The Failed Estate): Just because someone in Canberra said something doesn’t make it news. Are press gallery hacks listening?

America, the same old torturing nation as under Bush Posted: 09 Sep 2010 This is Obama’s America, siding with those who torture, use rendition and want to keep it secret: A federal appeals court on Wednesday ruled that former prisoners of the C.I.A. could not sue over their alleged torture in overseas prisons because such a lawsuit might expose secret government information. The sharply divided ruling was a major victory for the Obama administration’s efforts to advance a sweeping view of executive secrecy powers. It strengthens the White House’s hand as it has pushed an array of assertive counterterrorism policies, while raising an opportunity for the Supreme Court to rule for the first time in decades on the scope of the president’s power to restrict litigation that could reveal state secrets. By a 6-to-5 vote, the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit dismissed a lawsuit against Jeppesen Dataplan Inc., a Boeing subsidiary accused of arranging flights for the Central Intelligence Agency to transfer prisoners to other countries for imprisonment and interrogation. The American Civil Liberties Union filed the case on behalf of five former prisoners who say they were tortured in captivity — and that Jeppesen was complicit in that alleged abuse. Judge Raymond C. Fisher described the case, which reversed an earlier decision, as presenting “a painful conflict between human rights and national security.” But, he said, the majority had “reluctantly” concluded that the lawsuit represented “a rare case” in which the government’s need to protect state secrets trumped the plaintiffs’ need to have a day in court. While the alleged abuses occurred during the Bush administration, the ruling added a chapter to the Obama administration’s aggressive national security policies. Its counterterrorism programs have in some ways departed from the expectations of change fostered by President Obama’s campaign rhetoric, which was often sharply critical of former President George W. Bush’s approach. Among other policies, the Obama national security team has also authorized the C.I.A. to try to kill a United States citizenblocked efforts by detainees in Afghanistan to bring habeas corpus lawsuits challenging the basis for their imprisonment without trial, and continued the C.I.A.’s so-called extraordinary rendition program of prisoner transfers — though the administration has forbidden torture and says it seeks assurances from other countries that detainees will not be mistreated. suspected of terrorism ties,

Murdoch mantra; whatever it takes Posted: 09 Sep 2010 This just gets better and better and proves once again the essential need for a vibrant, non-Murdoch press. Such illegality rather neatly matches Rupert’s belief in illegally bombing and occupying nations. That’s his legacy: A former senior News of the World journalist has gone public to corroborate claims that phone-hacking and other illegal reporting techniques were rife at the tabloid while the prime minister’s media adviser, Andy Coulson, was deputy editor and then editor of the paper. Paul McMullan, a former features executive and then member of the newspaper’s investigations team, says that he personally commissioned private investigators to commit several hundred acts which could be regarded as unlawful, that use of illegal techniques was no secret at the paper, and that senior editors, including Coulson, were aware this was going on. “How can Coulson possibly say he didn’t know what was going on with the private investigators?” he asked. Coulson has always said he had no knowledge of any such activity. News International has maintained that royal reporter Clive Goodman, jailed for hacking phones belonging to members of the royal household, was the only journalist involved in the practice. McMullan is one of six former News of the World journalists who have independently told the Guardian that Coulson, who was deputy editor from 2000 and editor from January 2003 to January 2007, knew that his reporters were engaging in unlawful acts. McMullan’s decision to speak publicly about illegal techniques at the paper came as the Commons Speaker, John Bercow, paved the way for a second, powerful committee of MPs to investigate the scandal. The cross-party standards and privileges committee has more powers to summon witnesses than the culture committee which has already reported on the affair, and the home affairs committee which announced on Tuesday that it would examine phone-hacking. Coulson also faced mounting pressure to step down from his £140,000 post as David Cameron’s communications chief as a YouGov poll found that 52% of voters thought he should quit with just 24% saying he should stay in the job. All six of the former journalists who worked for Coulson at the News of the World paint the same picture of a newsroom where private investigators were used routinely to gather information by illegal means and where some reporters did so themselves. They say senior editors knew about this, because reporters could not commission private investigators without going through their desk editor; because editors routinely demanded to know the source of information in stories; and because executives kept tight control of their budgets.

US-led “peace talks” going the way Israel hopes (ie. nowhere) Posted: 09 Sep 2010 My following article appears today on ABC Unleashed: The resumption of self-described peace talks between Israel, Washington and the Palestinian Authority produced headlines across the world last week. The public was told that each side was pessimistic about the prospects of finally sealing a deal after decades of stop-start negotiations. The stated goal was a two-state solution, the supposed ideal of both Israelis and Palestinians. But most Western media coverage has simply accepted the talking points offered by the major players and not examined facts on the ground in the territory itself. As leading Israeli blogger Noam Sheizaf documented, the US media was more excited about peace talks than the Israeli press itself. Sheizaf noted: “The current stage in the conflict is not just about peace. It’s about ending the occupation and getting the Palestinians their rights. Some people in the American administration understood that, but for their own reasons, they decided to pursue the failed policies of the past two decades.” Equally on the Palestinian side, recent polling by the Palestinian Centre for Public Opinion found only one in three Palestinians supported the current negotiations but neither did they support another intifada. There is a feeling of resignation that the status-quo is likely to continue for years to come, despite one prominent Palestinian journalist optimistically writing that the world will soon have to accept an independent Palestinian state. One of the greatest reasons for global scepticism is Israel’s insistence on continuing to build illegal colonies in the West Bank. Despite the oft-repeated and false claims that Israel is currently having a “settlement freeze”, there is vast evidence that building has continued across the West Bank and even accelerated in some places. More than 1000 new homes are being constructed. Israel’s Netanyahu government initiated a “settlement freeze” as a political tool to fool America and it’s worked comprehensively (though it’s likely many in the Obama administration were very happy to play along with the fraud). One of Israel’s leading followers of the colonies, Dror Etkes, told Der Spiegel last week that, “It’s not just that the building freeze has been undermined – it was a fiction right from the outset” and complicit construction firms have not been fined or punished for the breaches. It’s been business as usual. I’ve heard from various Israeli peace activists who visit the West Bank weekly and tell me that countless settlements have continued expanding in the last months. Even worse are the growing attacks by settlers and the IDF against innocent Palestinians in the West Bank. An ever-deepening occupation makes a viable Palestinian state impossible and alternative ideas are inevitably gaining traction. Documents proving a covert Israeli plan to permanently divide the West Bank and Gaza recently emerged as well as serious discussion within Israel about what kind of Palestinian entity is imagined by the Israeli elites (a nation with no army, borders, control over airspace or communications). But ideas once seen as radical are growing in stature. Palestinian academic George Bisharat had published in last week’s Washington Post a compelling argument for a one-state solution, an increasingly discussed option due to the logical call for “principles of ethnic rights rather than ethnic privilege”. Despite these sensible solutions, it appears likely that talks about the two-state solution will continue for many years to come. Ahmad Tibi, an Israeli Palestinian and member of the Knesset, writes that the Israeli government has no desire for a just resolution and prefers inequality before the law. There is great fear within Palestinian circles of an imposed two-state solution, whereby the Obama administration is so desperate for a foreign policy success (there have been none of note thus far) and twists the arm of the Palestinians to accept a truncated “state”. One has to ask why the global Jewish Diaspora continues to back racial discrimination in a way they would never accept in their own countries. All Australian Zionist spokespeople want to do is improve the community’s PR and use Twitter instead of realising that apartheid in Palestine is causing incalculable damage to Brand Israel. Even Australia’s leading churches have initiated a boycott against products made in the occupied territories. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, in office illegally after his term expired and yet he refuses to hold new elections, is weak. Although he has belatedly refused to accept Israel’s demand that the Palestinian Authority accept the country as a Jewish state – therefore disenfranchising the over one million Israeli Arabs – he has nothing to show for years of fruitless negotiations. Many in the Western press accept the exclusion of the democratically elected government of Hamas, a futile act, as its leader Khaled Meshaal said last week. His group had realised that “the legitimate rights of the Palestinians will only be gained by snatching them, not being gifted with them at the negotiating table” and “resistance” was the only way to achieve Palestinian independence. However, Meshaal “does accept a Palestinian state on the lines of 1967.” The occupation has corrupted Israeli souls, as evidenced by a new study of Israeli teens aged 15 to 18 that found 59 per cent didn’t believe Israelis Arabs should have equal rights. The dehumanisation of Arabs is part of daily life, rendering true reconciliation extremely difficult. Zionists constantly talk these days about the growing global trend of “delegitimisation” of Israel, implying that Israel is entitled to exist in whatever form it wants and behave as it chooses. Instead, Palestinian rights have been ignored and delegitimized for decades, every motive questioned and thanks to the occupier expected. The most hopeful sign of progress in the last years have been the explosion of BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions). Just last week the band Massive Attack announced its support with member Robert Del Naja saying that, “I can’t play in Israel when the Palestinians have no access to the same fundamental benefits that the Israelis do. I think the best approach is to boycott a government that seems hell-bent on very destructive policies.” The internet has been central in raising this worldwide awareness. The movement is starting to bite. The sentiments were best expressed in Haaretz in early September: “…Underlying the anger against Israel lies disappointment. Since the establishment of the state, and before, we demanded special terms of the world. We played on their feelings of guilt, for standing idle while six million Jews were murdered… But then came the occupation, which turned us into the evil Goliath, the cruel oppressor, a darkness on the nations. And now we are paying the price of presenting ourselves as righteous and causing disappointment.” It is past time to simply repeat the tired mantras of failed paradigms and American Presidents keen to do the vision thing who end up frozen by the Zionist lobby. The situation is already headed for Greater Israel and the Palestinians will be blamed. This is the real legacy of the “peace process”. Antony Loewenstein is a journalist, blogger and author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution.

Washington has reason to smear Wikileaks Posted: 09 Sep 2010 Wikileaks founder Julian Assange says his website has “two reliable intelligence sources that state that Swedish intelligence was approached last month by the United States and told that Sweden must not be a safe haven for WikiLeaks”.

Keeping children in prison to manage our fears Posted: 09 Sep 2010 So-called civilised nations, such as Britain, imprison children in immigration detention and the psychological scars are massive. Australia is no different.

Democracy and Zionism can never work together Posted: 08 Sep 2010