A.LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWSLETTER

• Has Wikileaks been spun?
• Joseph Dana on Wikileaks, non-violent Palestinian resistance and subverting Zionism
• ABCTV News24 on Wikileaks cablegate
• New Zionist aim; target “political left” to soften occupation brutality
• What rhymes with Wikileaks?
• Wikileaks hits front cover of Time
• Why Wikileaks matters part 9753

Has Wikileaks been spun? 03 Dec 2010 Take this with caution – the people saying it are your run-of-the-mill US elite types who love a good, covert US war – but interesting thought: My powder is dry on the interesting subject that Zbigniew Brzezinski raised on PBS NewsHour. He suggested that in this enormous Wikileaks data dump of largely trivial cables, there are selections of highly pointed and embarrassing material. Brzezinski asks if someone with designs has planted this or selectively leaked to the operation. Stephen Hadley, former National Security Advisor to President George W. Bush, agrees that it’s a scenario that deserves review.

Joseph Dana on Wikileaks, non-violent Palestinian resistance and subverting Zionism 03 Dec 2010

ABCTV News24 on Wikileaks cablegate 03 Dec 2010 Following my analysis on ABC this week about the Wikileaks story (353 comments and counting) I was invited onto ABC TV News24′s The Drum on Thursday to discuss my criticism of the media’s coverage. Alongside ABC’s Leigh Sales and Annabel Crabb and The Daily Telegraph’s Joe Hilderbrand (video here for two weeks) I argued that many in the corporate media were too keen to focus on government embarrassment over the cables. The panelists didn’t share my skepticism and felt that the press was just doing its job by reporting official anger over the documents. But why then were so many commentators and journalists (with notable exceptions) always framing their stories around the establishment view? Government anger is a given with these stories but the key points are far more important; how the US routinely pressures allies and foes to bend to its will. And now we have the documents to prove it. America as the “indispensable nation”?

New Zionist aim; target “political left” to soften occupation brutality 03 Dec 2010 So let me get this right. A city with countless activists who campaign against Israeli apartheid are automatically merchants of hate? Nice try, Zionists: The UK has become the centre of a systematic assault on Israel’s right to exist that unites Middle East resistance networks with allies on the liberal-left in Europe, according to a new report by an influential Israeli think tank. According to the Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute, which examines the threat posed to Israel’s national security by Iran, Hizbollah and Hamas, the movement to “delegitimise” Israel aims to bring about the country’s implosion on the model of apartheid South Africa. The institute, led by Gidi Grinstein, suggests that London has become a “Mecca of Delegitimisation” for activists working to undermine Israel’s political model. The report, a draft of which has been seen by the JC, is part of an attempt by supporters of Israel to build what they call a political firewall against the assault on the country’s legitimacy. It calls on British Jews to establish a grassroots movement to take on Israel’s opponents and persuade liberal opinion that much of the activity of the “delegitimisers” is driven by UK-based Islamists and the hard-left. This so-called Red-Green Alliance is seen as particularly influential in the UK capital through the work of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. The authors conclude that the fightback needs to begin in London, which acts as the “hub of hubs” of the movement to undermine Israel. It is understood that the Israeli government and Israeli diplomats in London are supportive of many of the findings of the report, which urges the construction of a loosely co-ordinated pro-Israel network to rival that of its enemies. This will require a new mindset from Israel itself in order to allow the UK diaspora to take the lead in any future campaign. The origins of the Building a Political Firewall report can be traced to the aftermath of the 2006 Lebanon War. Hizbollah and other extremist organisations were able to win the propaganda war by representing themselves as resistance movements rather than terrorist organisations. A series of events, including the Gaza war and the boarding of the Turkish flotilla, have further entrenched this position. Since then, the report claims, the PR assault on Israel has been very successful at blurring the lines between criticism and delegitimisation. This has focused on identifying Israel with apartheid-era South Africa and has led to a boycott campaign which draws its inspiration directly from the struggle against apartheid. At the same time “lawfare” has been used to threaten Israeli politicians with arrest for alleged war-crimes. The radical new approach proposed by the Reut researchers will be a challenge to the Israeli government and will cheer those such as UJIA chairman Mick Davis, who have called for a new relationship between Israel and the diaspora. A key paragraph in the introduction calls on all parties in the pro-Israel movement to leave their comfort zones: “Israel will have to let the Jewish community lead the counter-attack in places, such as London, that require nuance and cultural sensitivity”. At the same time it challenges the Jewish leadership to “allow for innovative thinking, new tools and aggressive experimentation that usually takes place outside of the established community”. At the heart of the strategy is a plan to target left-liberal opinion in Britain. “Importantly, critics from the political left, because they represent liberal values, are also an invaluable voice in delegitimising Israel’s delegitimisation, notwithstanding their common criticism of the Jewish community’s traditional institutions and the policies of the state of Israel.” For this to be successful, the report argues that only those who are working for the destruction of Israel should be targeted, not those who are critical of individual policies. Other strategies involve naming and shaming key “delegitimisers”, building a network within liberal and progressive circles, focusing on Hamas’s presence in London and promoting Israel’s record in science, the arts and emergency humanitarian response. Jeremy Newmark, chief executive of the Jewish Leadership Council, said: “Together with many other communal agencies we contributed heavily to the compilation of the Reut report.”

What rhymes with Wikileaks? 03 Dec 2010 Julian Assange taps into public culture and raps it up (at roughly 4.55):

Wikileaks hits front cover of Time   03 Dec 2010

Why Wikileaks matters part 9753 03 Dec 2010   There is SO much about Wikileaks at the moment that it’s truly hard to keep up. The following is a select selection of some of the more revealing revelations, related stories and controversies. Laurie Oakes in Sydney’s Daily Telegraph: Julia Gillard couldn’t help herself. She had to join the chorus of American hard-liners calling for action against WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Assange’s action in making thousands of leaked US diplomatic cables public via the website was, the Prime Minister declared, “an illegal thing to do”. Attorney-General Robert McClelland also got in on the act. “Obviously Australia will support any law enforcement action that may be taken,” he said. “The US will be the lead government in that respect, but certainly Australian agencies will assist.” The Government’s attitude towards the US was already starting to look rather sycophantic over the Afghanistan conflict. Gillard went even further than President Barack Obama when she said Australia would be committed in Afghanistan for at least another decade. Now she and McClelland are taking a tougher line on the WikiLeaks issue than the American Defence Secretary Robert Gates. “We think there are potentially a number of criminal laws that could have been breached by the release of this information,” thundered McClelland. Given that the leaked documents are American, not Australian, it is hard to see how any Australian laws could have been breached. But McClelland ordered Australian Federal Police to look into it, just in case — as though they did not have genuinely important matters to occupy their time. It is not clear that WikiLeaks has broken US laws, either. Some of Assange’s US critics want him prosecuted for espionage. Specialist lawyers, however, say that such a prosecution would require evidence that Assange had been in contact with a foreign power and intended to provide secrets. Simply putting material on a website, or passing it on to newspapers, does not cut the mustard. The UN is routinely so compromised that this quasi-apology will change little. The US thinks it has the right to behave as it does: HIllary Clinton has tried to repair strained relations with UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon after revelations that US diplomats were told to spy on him. The US Secretary of State personally expressed regret to Mr Ban yesterday about the embarrassing disclosure by the WikiLeaks website that US diplomats had a significant intelligence-gathering operation at the UN. According to US officials, Mrs Clinton stopped short of an apology when the pair met in Kazakhstan at a summit of the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe. The UN confirmed they had discussed “complications” caused by the WikiLeaks revelations. A UN statement said Mr Ban reiterated his commitment to working “in a transparent manner” with trust and confidence. He went further in comments to reporters: “I do not believe that anybody would be happy when somebody knows that he or she is under watch by somebody.” Public opinion can have an effect: The Irish government has acted to limit transfers of American weapons to Israel and Iraq through Shannon Airport in the wake of public outrage after the Second Lebanon War, an American diplomatic cable published by WikiLeaks reveals. A cable sent in 2006 by the U.S. ambassador to Ireland at the time, James C. Kenny, discloses that the deputy head of mission warned Irish officials that the United States would begin using other European airports. Such a move could cost the Irish economy tens of millions of dollars. After the Second Lebanon War, the Israel Defense Forces needed to restore its depleted ammunition stocks, but the ambassador’s cable indicates that the Irish government has been making it increasingly difficult for American weapons shipments to Israel to pass through its airport. The cable, sent from the Dublin embassy in September 2006, says that “although supportive of continued U.S. military transits at Shannon Airport, the Irish Government has informally begun to place constraints on U.S. operations at the facility, mainly in response to public sensitivities over U.S. actions in the Middle East.” According to the ambassador, “Segments of the Irish public … see the airport as a symbol of Irish complicity in perceived U.S. wrongdoing in the Gulf/Middle East.” He said the Irish government “has recently introduced more cumbersome notification requirements for equipment-related transits in the wake of the Lebanon conflict.” The ambassador noted that the Irish foreign office protested to him that in February 2006, Apache helicopters were sent to Israel via Ireland without the local authorities being appropriately informed. The ambassador wrote that senior Irish officials told him informally that if the United States made further mistakes in its conduct at the airport, the matter could become a central issue in Ireland’s 2007 elections. Dangers exist: Despite warnings from the U.S. government that the publication of secret diplomatic cables could put the local reporters and human rights activists identified in them at risk, WikiLeaks this week published the name of an Algerian reporter who accused Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika of manipulating a 2006 parliamentary election during talks with American diplomats, according to a journalists’ rights group. The reporter’s name was redacted on Thursday, two hours after the New York-based advocacy group, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), asked a lawyer representing WikiLeaks, Mark Stephens, to remove it. The disclosure shows that despite measures by WikiLeaks and some news organizations to prevent exposure of individuals at risk, some vulnerable names continue to slip through the cracks. “This was a case in which the mere fact of interacting with U.S. diplomatic officials in this particular country could put this journalist at risk,” Joel Simon, CPJ’s executive director told Turtle Bay. “It seems to us that by deleting the names they mitigated that risk. Whether they completely eliminated it, I can’t say.” Bravery from an unlikely quarter: The Lahore High Court on Friday dismissed a petition registered by one Arif Gondal seeking a ban on the Wikileaks website. Gondal in his petition termed the leakage of secret information by WikiLeaks (a not-for-profit media organisation) a conspiracy to create a rift among Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim and Western countries. Requesting the court to issue orders for imposing a ban on the website, the petitioner argued that since Pakistan had good bilateral relations with a number of countries, particularly Saudi Arabia, the leakage of secret information would adversely affect these ties. LHC’s Justice Sheikh Azmat Saeed dismissed the petition, calling it non-maintainable. We must bear the truth, no matter how harmful it is, television reports quoted Justice Saeed as saying. Roger Cohen in the Times seems to praise US diplomats for pressuring foreign nations to insulate Washington from criticism. What an achievement. And the truth is now clear for all to see: Let’s hear it for the men and women of the U.S. Foreign Service! They are, to judge from the WikiLeaks dump of a quarter-million of their private or secret cables, thoughtful, well-informed and dedicated servants of the American interest who write clear, declarative English sentences. I’ve not heard much in the torrent of Wiki-chatter about these admirable career diplomats whose diplomacy is now condemned to be unquiet. Yet it is they whose lives have been upturned. Every journalist knows that if their correspondence over several years was suddenly made public, they would lose most of their sources. That should give every journalist pause. So it will be on the front line of U.S. diplomacy. Contacts will self-censor. They will go quiet, particularly in the more conspiratorial parts of the world which also tend to be the most unstable, like the Middle East. Layers of secrecy will be added. Julian Assange, the thin-skinned founder of WikiLeaks, has hurt U.S. interests across a broad but probably shallow spectrum. That will satisfy him in that he’s a self-styled foe of the United States. The guy makes me queasy.