A.Loewenstein Online Newsletter

For most of my life I have been a liberal Zionist. Since childhood my Judaism had always been connected with a progressive Zionism.
In 1987, I delivered a Yom Kippur sermon, “A Generation of Occupation,” about the corrosive moral effects of twenty years of Occupation on Jews and Judaism. This sermon cost me my first position as a congregational rabbi. Back then, as a liberal Zionist, I saw the injustice to Palestinians within Israel and under Occupation as moral perversions of the progressive Zionist vision — “warts” that needed correction.
Over the twenty-three years since then, I have seen many disturbing instances of blatant discrimination against Palestinians and my view has fundamentally changed. I have seen a Palestinian home being demolished and have stood on the demolished ruins of Palestinian homes. I have walked down streets restricted to Jews in what was once a bustling Palestinian neighborhood. I have replanted trees uprooted by settlers knowing they would be uprooted again. These and many more disturbing personal encounters with discrimination led me to the painful understanding that political Zionism, at its core, is a discriminatory ethnic nationalism that privileges the rights of Jews over non-Jews.
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I once was a liberal Zionist, but now I see myself as a religious American Jew in solidarity with justice for the Palestinian people. Israel’s security and our liberation as Jews are both tied to justice for the Palestinians.

The fight is on & the enemy doesn’t distinguish between Israeli Jews or the wider Jewish community. The hate is deep set & rising. The western community is feeling duped about a decade long conflict & is looking for someone to blame. When europeans are dissatisfied with anything they will turn to the old punching bag- dem evil kid killin jude!! Their snarling like hungry rabid dogs & when the catalyst arrives, they will come hunting for us- regardless of political affiliation. You can bow & scrap at the mobs feet as much as you like but don’t ask for our help when they kick you in the teeth. Your on your own. I do not waste my words on blind hate groups & I will no longer waste my time on you- he who is simply known as ‘Antony’.

In a small cell in Egypt‘s al-Marj prison, the BBC World Service brought encouraging news to Ayman Nofel. The seniorHamas commander from Gaza had just passed the third anniversary of his imprisonment on unspecified charges.
The voice coming from his radio told him that prisoners at another Egyptian jail had been freed amid the chaotic uprising sweeping the country. He saw his chance and wasted no time.
“I shouted to other prisoners to break down the doors and gates,” said Nofel, who described himself as the only political prisoner among al-Marj’s criminal population. Using smuggled mobile phones to mobilise locals to storm the prison gates, Nofel and his fellow-prisoners fought their way outside the walls and to freedom.
In an unintended consequence of the Egyptian people’s revolt against decades of repression and economic misery, the Hamas militant accused of planning bomb attacks against Israel found himself at the centre of a hero’s welcome in the Nuseirat refugee camp in central Gaza.
One by one, men queueing under the blue tarpaulin of a reception tent stepped forward to embrace the commander of the al-Qassam Brigades, Hamas’s military wing. They flung arms around his shoulders, clapped his back vigorously and planted kisses on each cheek before turning to accept a celebratory sticky pastry and cup of potent Arabic coffee. Despite the festivities, Nofel, 37, a stocky man in a checked shirt, said he was ready to return to “work”. Three years “and a few days” in the dank and wretched conditions of an Egyptian jail had not dulled his eagerness for what he described as “the next battle”.
The Hamas commander claimed he was held for political reasons in Egypt after being detained at a security checkpoint in Sinai in 2008. “I never went on trial. My family got a lawyer, who went to court and got an order to release me but I was never freed.”
His escape came amid the chaos of the early days of Egypt’s revolution. Having broken out of the prison with help from local people he contacted “people here in Gaza”. Hamas? “Yes, of course. They arranged for some Egyptians to pick me up,” he said. Nofel stayed in a house in the area for about seven days “until the situation was more stable”. Finally he was brought through a tunnel dug beneath the Egypt-Gaza border to his home and family. He was grateful to the Egyptian protesters who “inspired us to rise up against the prison guards. This should have happened earlier. They have spent 30 years being enslaved by the regime.” He hoped to see the Muslim Brotherhood in power in Egypt – “and all over the world, not just Egypt”.

The new vice-president of Egypt, Omar Suleiman, is a long-standing favourite of Israel’s who spoke daily to the Tel Aviv government via a secret “hotline” to Cairo, leaked documents disclose.
Mr Suleiman, who is widely tipped to take over from Hosni Mubarak as president, was named as Israel’s preferred candidate for the job after discussions with American officials in 2008.
As a key figure working for Middle East peace, he once suggested that Israeli troops would be “welcome” to invade Egypt to stop weapons being smuggled to Hamas terrorists in neighbouring Gaza.
The details, which emerged in secret files obtained by WikiLeaks and passed to The Daily Telegraph, come after Mr Suleiman began talks with opposition groups on the future for Egypt’s government.
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Leaked cables from American embassies in Cairo and Tel Aviv disclose the close co-operation between Mr Suleiman and the US and Israeli governments as well as diplomats’ intense interest in likely successors to the ageing President Mubarak, 83.
The documents highlight the delicate position which the Egyptian government seeks to maintain in Middle East politics, as a leading Arab nation with a strong relationship with the US and Israel. By 2008, Mr Suleiman, who was head of the foreign intelligence service, had become Israel’s main point of contact in the Egyptian government.
David Hacham, a senior adviser from the Israeli Ministry of Defence, told the American embassy in Tel Aviv that a delegation led by Israel’s defence minister, Ehud Barak had been impressed by Mr Suleiman, whose name is spelled “Soliman” in some cables.
But Mr Hacham was “shocked” by President Mubarak’s “aged appearance and slurred speech”.
The cable, from August 2008, said: “Hacham was full of praise for Soliman, however, and noted that a ‘hot line’ set up between the MOD and Egyptian General Intelligence Service is now in daily use.
“Hacham noted that the Israelis believe Soliman is likely to serve as at least an interim President if Mubarak dies or is incapacitated.” The Tel Aviv diplomats added: “We defer to Embassy Cairo for analysis of Egyptian succession scenarios, but there is no question that Israel is most comfortable with the prospect of Omar Soliman.”
Elsewhere the documents disclose that Mr Suleiman was stung by Israeli criticism of Egypt’s inability to stop arms smugglers transporting weapons to Palestinian militants in Gaza. At one point he suggested that Israel send troops into the Egyptian border region of Philadelphi to “stop the smuggling”.
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The files suggest that Mr Suleiman wanted Hamas “isolated”, and thought Gaza should “go hungry but not starve”.
“We have a short time to reach peace,” he told US diplomats. “We need to wake up in the morning with no news of terrorism, no explosions, and no news of more deaths.”

Some recently released Wikileaks cables (here, here and here) all show an Egyptian political elite working very closely with Israel to screw over the Palestinians in Gaza. Suleiman seems to believe he could dictate the behaviour of Hamas. The former was never elected and the latter were (from a cable in early 2008):

The bottom line for Hamas, according to Soliman, is that they must be forced to choose between remaining a resistance movement or joining the political process. They cannot have it both ways, he said.

This cable from 2009 shows that Israel knew and acknowledged the ceasefire was being held by Hamas in Gaza:

Regarding the Tahdiya, Hacham said Barak stressed that while it was not permanent, for the time being it was holding. There have been a number of violations of the ceasefire on the Gaza side, but Palestinian factions other than Hamas were responsible. Hacham said the Israelis assess that Hamas is making a serious effort to convince the other factions not to launch rockets or mortars. Israel remains concerned by Hamas’ ongoing efforts to use the Tahdiya to increase their strength, and at some point, military action will have to be put back on the table. The Israelis reluctantly admit that the Tahdiya has served to further consolidate Hamas’ grip on Gaza, but it has brought a large measure of peace and quiet to Israeli communities near Gaza.

In other words, Operation Cast Lead was all about making a political point for Israel and even then it failed miserably. Israel’s rabble army was tasked to destroy Gaza and its infrastructure. In that they succeeded but Hamas rule was only deepened.

While the Egyptian masses are uprising in unprecedented ways across the country against a Western-backed dictator, Israel fears the worst.
The country’s President Shimon Peres said last week that, “no matter what they say, we owe Mubarak true gratitude for being as steadfast as a rock and for working towards peace and stability in the Middle East.”
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair told CNN that Mubarak was “immensely courageous and a force for good” for theIsraeli/Palestinian “peace process.”
The Israeli mainstream media is filled with apocalyptic visions. Ben Caspit writes in Maariv that, “Al-Jazeera has become the greatest enemy of the old world, the world of stability and moderate Middle Eastern regimes.”
Truly free speech in the Arab world threatens Israel because a wide diversity of views, including Islamists and critics of Zionism, will be more loudly heard and necessarily incorporated into the political mainstream.
The American media and our own are filled with neo-conservative doomsayers who argue the Muslim Brotherhood is on the verge of taking over Egypt though there is no evidence for this.
Indeed, Washington and Britain have a history of working alongside Islamists in their battles against Communism and the years after September 11, 2001.
Israeli-connected “experts” routinely feature in our media despite having no success in bringing peace to the Middle East. Here in Australia, last week’s ABC TV’s Lateline interviewed former American ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk though he wasn’t once asked about Israel.
What we are seeing is nothing less than a profound identity crisis for the Zionist state. The region is awake and Israel fears losing its mantle as the “Middle East’s Only Democracy” Inc.
Naomi Klein tweeted last Wednesday: “Israel, call your brand managers, the whole world sees your claim to being ‘only democracy in ME’ relies on supporting dictatorship.”
Jewish Israeli blogger Magnes Zionist articulated the sentiment well a few days ago :
“For if the price to pay for a Jewish state is acquiescing in tyranny and injustice for reasons of realpolitik – as Israel did with apartheid South Africa – then arguably that price is too high…”
Washington, via its mouthpiece the New York Times, has essentially acknowledged that the Egyptian crisis for them is all about Israel.
Daniel Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator, told The New York Times what was keeping Washington up through the night: “It really can be distilled down to one thing, and that’s Israel.”
For decades Israel has maintained regional hegemony through a combination of US protection and bribery. Jordan, Egypt and Saudi Arabia are relied upon to take American money to maintain the fiction of peace with the Jewish state while abusing the Palestinians living within their borders.
Indeed, mainstream Jewish writers in the US have been continuing this delusion, stating that Egypt’s “moderation” under Mubarak allowed Israeli/Arab peace to develop. Leslie Susser wrote in JTA that President Obama was sending the wrong message to “moderate” Arab regimes such as Saudi Arabia that they “might be as peremptorily abandoned in time of need.”
Women can’t work or drive in “moderate” Saudi Arabia.
Middle East “stability” has led to this: the West Bank occupation has deepened, fascism has gone mainstream within Israel, the siege on Gaza continues (with Egyptian help) and Israel’s Jewish mainstream increasingly turns away from democratic norms (a new study found more than half polled would limit media freedom if Israel’s image was being threatened).
Mubarak has provided false comfort for too long. He was feted by every Israeli Prime Minister since the 1980s, happy to collude with the ongoing degradation of the Palestinian population because he was paid to do so. He wasn’t an independent actor – alongside Jordan and Saudi Arabia’s leaders – because he knew his role and received countless billions to fulfil his mission.
Egypt has been the second highest recipient of US aid after Israel for years and money has bought him Western political elite legitimacy. But his people largely loathed him (something I heard time and time again during my various visits to Egypt).
The brutal siege on Gaza, maintained by Israel and Cairo, is a discriminatory policy designed to crush the Hamas party that rules there. But the opposite has happened; the Islamist group has been strengthened. Israel is now even demanding that whatever new Egyptian government may emerge must recognise the peace treaty with the Jewish state, regardless of what it has done to the Palestinians under occupation.
Thomas Friedman in the New York Times is urging the Israelis to do a deal with the Palestinians in light of the Egyptian uprisings, as a way to save the Jewish state. The wishes of the Palestinian people are clearly secondary. Egyptians (or Palestinians for that matter) can never see the West as an honest broker when their opponents are funded and armed to oppress them.
Some in Israel are realising an opportunity. Haaretz has editorialised that Benjamin Netanyahu should prepare for a “new regional order…in which the citizens of Arab states, and not just tyrants and their cronies, influence the trajectory of their countries’ development.”
Anshel Pfeffer argued in Haaretz that Israel’s image, by so closely backing a brutal Arab regime, is shown to be saying that only the Jewish state deserves choice and freedom from authoritarianism:
“But even if it is difficult for us to accept it, Israel was simply not a factor in the whole Egyptian saga of the past week. And there is no reason that it should be. True, they don’t like us, and why should they? They are Arabs and Muslims, and rightfully or not, they see Israel as an occupying country, and they want an Egyptian government to do more to right the wrong. Been to Europe lately? They don’t like us much there either, for precisely the same reasons — but the Europeans apparently deserve democracy more than Egypt. After all, we were happy when the Berlin Wall fell.”
Israel fears losing its status as the Middle East’s brave island of democracy. The threat of a true Arab democracy, writesYoav Fromer in Tablet, is “the chance that a genuine Arab democracy might raise the bar for Israel and prompt international calls for it to get its own democracy in order, end the occupation of Palestinian territories, and amend its discriminatory policies toward its Arab minority.”
*Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist and author of My Israel Question

…The power of the cultural boycott in disrupting the apathy that pervades middle class, urban Israeli society. Apathy allows Israelis to live in comfort behind iron walls while remaining immune to the occupation and innoculated from its horrors. The culture of apathy allows them to watch the news and let out a groan of concern without thinking seriously about political engagement.

Respect the Village EldersMost political reporters live in Washington. So it’s not really surprising that they tend to respect presidents who show respect for Washington culture, Washington rituals, and above all Washington operatives.Early in his presidency Obama—like many of his predecessors when they first arrived—was seen as cool or even hostile to permanent Washington.After the midterm defeats, it was an important part of his rehabilitation to be seen as having learned his lesson.Among the stops in this process was consulting with eminent Washington worthies who are themselves veterans of White Houses past. Aides let it be known that Obama had huddled with Ken Duberstein, a lobbyist who was chief of staff under Ronald Reagan; John Podesta, who was chief of staff under Clinton and now runs the Center for American Progress; and Gergen himself, who doesn’t actually live in Washington but (so far) has served under four presidents (Nixon, Ford, Reagan, Clinton) and is the high priest of Washington bipartisanship.