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A. Loewenstein Online Newsletter

By SHOAHJune 29, 2011Middle East

ABCTV News24 on climate change and Gaza flotilla 2

Posted: 27 Jun 2011

Last night I was on ABCTV News24′s The Drum (video here) talking climate change policy and the Gaza flotilla.
I argued that dwindling public support for real action on climate change was because too many of its backers refused to seriously engage with the general public and denigrated opponents. Labeling “deniers” akin to Holocaust deniers is not the way to win the argument. Besides, as somebody who recognises the damage caused by climate change, it’s heart-breaking to see the Australian government so utterly incapable of prosecuting an argument, speaking of “reform agendas” without being able to convince the public that lack of action is too dangerous for our future. Inner city folk spend too much time speaking to each other (and yes, I live in the inner city).
There’s a false discussion in Australia about which major political party is a better economic manager when in fact they both subscribe to the same neo-liberal policies that have only entrenched the divide between rich and poor. Little dissent from this line is ever heard, and the media perpetuates the lie.
The Gaza flotilla was discussed and I supported the right of global citizens to highlight Israel’s illegal blockade and occupation of Gaza.Thanks to Sydney reporter Kate Ausburn for transcribing some of my comments:

…there are profound restrictions on equipment getting in [to Gaza]. … the idea somehow that the Flotilla is designed to support Hamas, which is exactly what the Israeli government say, is nonsense. It is about highlighting to the world, in a way where governments have failed, that Israel occupies Gaza, and more importantly continues to persecute people collectively, which is illegal under international law for that very reason.

Speaking on Israel’s threat to journalists taking part in the Flotilla to cover the story that they could have their equipment seized and receive a ten year ban on entering Israel:

I think the issue of the journalists being threatened is very clear. It is because they are petrified of a different narrative emerging. Last year when there were countless activists who were filming what happened, all the equipment was taken and destroyed, or at least not given back, and the idea this time is they only want to have one narrative which is that Israel has the right to board the ships. You shouldn’t forget one final thing, Israel boarded the ships last year in international waters, so which is essentially an act of piracy.

Israel has reversed the ham-fisted policy of banning reporters but it’s the sign of a Zionist state that only knows how to threaten (here’s yet another recent example of an Israeli hoax, this time a gay man supposedly opposing the flotilla, that has turned into a complete Israeli PR debacle).

The real threat of allowing flotilla boats into Gaza

Posted: 27 Jun 2011

A good Haaretz editorial:

The term “flotilla” is understood in Israel as a declaration of war. This is the case with respect to the latest Gaza-bound flotilla, just as it was with the one that set off from Turkey in May 2010. Furthermore, due to unstable relations with Turkey, Israel is still feeling the repercussions of its deadly raid on that maritime convoy.
The latest flotilla, which has already begun heading toward the Gaza Strip and is scheduled to reach its shores Thursday, will apparently be far larger than the previous one. It will include about a dozen ships holding some 500 activists, along with food and medicine that is considered to be humanitarian aid for Gazans.
At first glance, there does not appear to be a practical reason to send the aid, since in the wake of the 2010 flotilla, Israel was compelled to lift many restrictions it had put in place as part of its brutal blockade, and Egypt has decided to open the Rafah crossing to civilians. Moreover, Israel has even offered to transfer the aid shipment to Gaza, as long as the ships don’t dock there.
At best, the flotilla’s contribution to lifting the blockade is symbolic, in that it reminds the world that Israel’s closure policy is still partially in effect, and that the population of Gaza remains under occupation. But the Israeli government imputes far greater significance to symbols than it does to wise policy. The government seems to be as frightened of the flotilla as one would think it would be of an attack by an armed naval fleet. It is preparing to keep the ships from reaching the Gaza coast as though it were preparing to fight an enemy seeking to infringe on Israeli sovereignty.
It appears that even though a year has passed since the first flotilla fiasco, Israel is showing that it has learned just one lesson: the military lesson. As though better military preparation or training for specific scenarios are what will save Israel’s honor. The country is not willing to give up a display of power, thereby no doubt contributing to inflating the flotilla’s importance.
Now trying to find ways to reconcile with Turkey, Israel would do well to avoid simultaneously finding new means to engage in conflict with countries whose activists will be on the Gaza-bound ships. A less fearful country would certainly have offered even to go as far as escorting the flotilla to the Gaza coast.
From Israel, we can at least demand that it let the flotilla get through to the Gaza Strip without once again endangering the country’s position in the world.

Hands up who knows the enemies in the false “war on error”?

Posted: 26 Jun 2011 07:56 PM PDT

Robert Fisk on the “terrorists” so needed by the West to assist them in their own “war on terror”:

If you held a mirror up to the vast “anti-terrorism” conference in Tehran this weekend – the anti-Iranian version of terrorism, of course – you would see three men sitting down in private to discuss what happens when the US and its Nato partners stage their final retreat from Afghanistan.
Messieurs Ahmadinejad of Iran, Karzai of Afghanistan and Zardari of Pakistan – all jolly presidents sharing the stage with Talabani of Iraq, Rahmon of Tajikistan and (speak it in hushed tones), that elderly wanted man, President Omar Hassan al-Bashir of Sudan – spent time discussing how all would react when the West ends its adventure in the graveyard of Empires.
Ironies were legion. The modern-day descendant of the Persian empire, so often accused by America of helping the “terrorists” of Iraq to kill US troops, is none too keen on the “terrorists” of the Taliban – at the very moment when the Americans are keen to talk to the very same Taliban so that they can high-tail it out of Afghanistan.
The flamboyantly cowled President Hamid Karzai, whose speech to conference delegates lasted a mere four anodyne minutes – anyone can condemn “terrorism” of any variety in that amount of time – is keen to have Iran help reconstruct his country, which was supposed to be what the Americans and the Brits and everyone else who loved democracy were keen to do after the Taliban’s brief defeat in 2001.

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