A. LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWSLETTER

NOVANEWS


Australians are increasingly vocal about Israel
Posted: 04 Jun 2010

Today’s letters in the Sydney Morning Herald show a combination of anger, defensiveness (on the part of Zionists who dishonestly claim that they actually think independently from the Israeli government) and passion:

Immanuel Suttner and David Tester (Letters, June 4) ask if and when Bishop George Browning and others would express outrage about attacks by Islamic militants, rather than singling out Israel.
I can assure them that most, if not all, of us deplore such mindless acts. We know that is how fanatical groups operate.
But Israel prides itself on being a humanitarian, civilised state, and declares itself a vibrant, liberal democracy – the only one in the Middle East. It is expected to conduct itself accordingly.
The Taliban and al-Qaeda make no such claims. We cannot expect them to behave by standards they abhor, scorn or know nothing about. Israel’s friends expect better.
John Apostolakis Lockleys (SA)
Israel is held to a higher standard than Islamic terrorists because it repeatedly claims that standard for itself. How often have we heard about Israel’s democracy and freedoms, its respect for human rights and its professional army? If it wants to claim that status, it should act accordingly and expect to be called to account when it fails to do so.
Unless, of course, it is happy to be lumped together with terrorists and other nutcases.
Anura Samara Calwell (ACT)
Your editorial calls on diaspora Jews ”to question Israel’s actions” (”Candour is not Israel’s enemy”, June 4). Within Israel, public opinion and media coverage, usually hypercritical of the government, have shown unusually strong support for its actions in regard to the flotilla.
Most Israelis do not accept the image of the flotilla organisers as non-violent peace activists. They have been given far more information than readers of the Herald about the group that organised the flotilla, its alleged links to al-Qaeda, Hamas and other jihadist groups, and about the motives of the Turkish government in supporting it. The views of Australian Jews tend to reflect Israeli public opinion on this issue.
Diaspora Jews question Israel’s actions constantly. But we seek balance and context in media coverage, and are careful to do that questioning in ways that will not further the cause of those who have a long history of seeking Israel’s destruction.
Vic Alhadeff Chief executive, NSW Jewish Board of Deputies, Darlinghurst
Yesterday’s editorial is repugnant and offensive to me, an Australian Jew. The Herald is entitled to its views but so am I. So don’t tell me what my views should be, on Israel or any other topic. You have slandered me and the Jewish community with your slurs and innuendos. I demand an immediate apology.
Gaby Berger Point Piper
Eric Borecki (Letters, June 4) defends Israel’s blockade of Gaza ”to ensure [ships] are not carrying rockets to Hamas”. One wonders why Israel has the right to import high-tech weaponry, yet denies its neighbours the same right. As the primary aggressor, occupier and nuclear power in the region, Israel’s only defence appears to be that might is right.
Michael McGrath Manly Vale
Eric Borecki has a selective view of history. In 1948 the British and US air forces broke the Soviet blockade of Berlin, supplying it for nearly a year from the air. It seems blockade-breaking is acceptable if you are powerful enough.
Laurie Eyes Wyong Creek
”They hunted like hyenas”, says Paul McGeough (”Prayers, tear gas and terror”, June 4). Give us a break. McGeough should stick to reporting and leave out the emotive, dehumanising similes. ”They” were the young Israeli conscripted men sent to stop a supposedly peaceful protest. ”Hunted” suggests they went out to kill, when it seems the protesters were the ones preparing for that. ”Hyenas” is an attempt to turn Israeli people into animals in the eyes of readers. McGeough should report the full story and leave out the creative writing.
David Whitcombe Randwick
Am I the only one who finds it ironic Kate Geraghty’s ”photos they didn’t want seen” show the same thing as the footage the Israel Defence Forces released? All I see is an angry mob waiting to attack the commandos.
Danny Rod Rose Bay

The threat of female flesh in the streets of Tehran
Posted: 04 Jun 2010

Life for young people in Iran is a constant struggle and I deeply admire the men and women who challenge the hard-liners regressive view of human rights and decency:

Iranian authorities have begun police patrols in the capital to arrest women wearing clothes deemed improper. The campaign against loose-fitting veils and other signs of modernism comes as government opponents are calling for rallies to mark the anniversary of the disputed presidential election, and critics of the crackdown say it is stoking feelings of discontent.
But hard-liners say that improper veiling is a “security issue” and that “loose morality” threatens the core of the Islamic republic.
Iran’s interior minister has promised a “chastity plan” to promote the proper covering “from kindergarten to families,” though the details are unclear. Tehran police have been arresting women for wearing short coats or improper veils and even for being too suntanned. Witnesses report fines up to $800 for dress considered immodest.
Some here say the new measures are part of a government campaign of intimidation ahead of the election anniversary this month. The hard-liners have grown more influential since the vote, which led to months of anti-government demonstrations that leaders saw as the biggest threat to the Islamic system in decades.
Iranian women are obliged by law to cover their hair and wear long coats in public. The Islamic veil protects the purity of women, preventing men from viewing them as sex symbols, clerics here say. But the law is imprecise, and interpretations vary.
On a recent day, two young women wearing bright pink lipstick and identical thigh-hugging beige coats strolled down Tehran’s affluent Bahonar Street. Their peroxide-blond hair, emphasized by delicately positioned brown scarves, spilled onto their shoulders.
When seminary student Fatemeh Delvari, 24, moved to Tehran from a provincial town eight months ago, she was shocked to see how some women dressed.
“My own veil oppresses my feminine side, so I can be free and active,” she said of her black chador, a garment that covers the entire body except the face and hands. “But some women seem to be only interested in looking beautiful.”

Public opinion is lost
Posted: 04 Jun 2010

While Israeli bloggers debate the rights and wrongs of this week’s Gaza flotilla massacre (there’s something right about it, I hear you ask?) this piece of news is pretty damning:

Israel was tonight under pressure to allow an independent inquiry into its assault on the Gaza aid flotilla after autopsy results on the bodies of those killed, obtained by the Guardian, revealed they were peppered with 9mm bullets, many fired at close range.
Nine Turkish men on board the Mavi Marmara were shot a total of 30 times and five were killed by gunshot wounds to the head, according to the vice-chairman of the Turkish council of forensic medicine, which carried out the autopsies for the Turkish ministry of justice today.
The results revealed that a 60-year-old man, Ibrahim Bilgen, was shot four times in the temple, chest, hip and back. A 19-year-old, named as Fulkan Dogan, who also has US citizenship, was shot five times from less that 45cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back. Two other men were shot four times, and five of the victims were shot either in the back of the head or in the back, said Yalcin Buyuk, vice-chairman of the council of forensic medicine.
The findings emerged as more survivors gave their accounts of the raids. Ismail Patel, the chairman of Leicester-based pro-Palestinian group Friends of al-Aqsa, who returned to Britain today, told how he witnessed some of the fatal shootings and claimed that Israel had operated a “shoot to kill policy”.

More testimonies from survivors (here and Sydney Morning Herald’s Paul McGeough has a long piece today here and another one where he reveals the presence of Australian-accented Israeli troops storming the ship) paint a grim picture of extreme Israeli violence.
Israel has no evidence that the activists were connected to al-Qaeda (a lie that was initially used and is now a smear that’s stuck).
And who is going to truly investigate the situation of Palestinians in Israel and Palestine, the wider and far more imporat question? Yes, the UN has appointed the Sri Lankan representative in New York, a member of a government facing serious allegations of war crimes:

Sri Lanka’s permanent representative to the UN Dr. Palitha Kohona is to head a UN delegation to investigate Israeli practices affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories, UN officials said.
The Special Committee to Investigate Israeli Practices Affecting the human rights of the Palestinian people and other Arabs of the occupied territories will visit Egypt from 8 to 11 June, Jordan from 11 to 16 June, and Syria from 16 to 19 June 2010.

Where’s the Tea Party anger over Israeli killings?
Posted: 04 Jun 2010

A little message from Juan Cole:

Hey, Tea Party. A foreign navy boarded an unarmed ship flying the flag of a NATO member in international waters and shot dead an American citizen with four bullets to the head and one in the chest on Memorial Day. It did this while the head of the belligerent state was on his way to a state visit to Washington, DC, to be awarded a further $200 million in aid on top of the $3 billion of American taxpayer money the US gives away to him every year.
If you are not upset by this, your tea is weak, man. Weak.

BDS gets noticed by Murdoch press
Posted: 04 Jun 2010

This piece in the Wall Street Journal highlights a serious problem faced by Israel and its Diaspora supporters:

Israel’s bungled attempt to stop the aid flotilla from reaching Gaza also highlights how an increasingly forceful strategy by Palestinians and their supporters to turn to boycotts, international isolation, and relatively nonviolent protests is confronting Israel with a challenge it appears ill-prepared to counter.

Bush wishes he used the water-board himself
Posted: 04 Jun 2010

Just in case anybody missed the former US President admitting his regime used torture and was proud of it:

George Bush admitted yesterday that Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the self-proclaimed mastermind of the 9/11 attacks, was waterboarded by the US, and said he would do it again “to save lives”.
“Yeah, we waterboarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed,” the former president told a business audience in Grand Rapids, Michigan. “I’d do it again to save lives.”
Waterboarding is a simulated drowning technique that the Obama administration has said is torture. Mohammed was captured in Pakistan in 2003 and is the most senior al-Qaida operative in US custody.
In his speech, Bush also defended the decision to go to war with Iraq in 2003. He said ousting Saddam Hussein “was the right thing to do and the world is a better place without him”.

Happy birthday, occupation
Posted: 04 Jun 2010

Blair suddenly shows some care for Gaza
Posted: 04 Jun 2010

Tony Blair, the man behind the Iraq war, Lebanon war and Gaza war, now calls for the lifting of the siege on Gaza. But these comments are simply delusional. Hope left Gaza many years ago:

What is important is that we don’t end up with people [in Gaza] losing hope for the future, alienating young people we don’t need to alienate. Don’t forget that 50 per cent of people in Gaza are under the age of 20 – and we don’t want to kill the private sector in Gaza.

“There was live ammunition flying around”
Posted: 04 Jun 2010

Democrats, Republicans, Zionist groups and Christian Zionists are falling over themselves to express their deep love for Israel. Touching.
Perhaps they should listen to people other than the government in Tel Aviv:

The first British survivor of the assault on the Mavi Marmara Gaza aid ship to return to London has told of her terror as Israeli troops ignored SOS calls for medical aid and continued to fire live rounds at activists.
Sarah Colborne, director of campaigns and operations at the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who was on board the Turkish ship when the Israeli navy mounted a raid early on Monday, gave a press conference in central London still wearing her grey prison fatigues from her spell in jail in Be’er Sheva, southern Israel. She described how she saw one man fatally wounded from a gun shot to the head and how passengers feared for their lives as Israeli troops trained laser sights on the activists through the ship’s windows.
Colborne, 43, from London, insisted the activists on the boat were on a purely humanitarian mission and the passengers were aged between one and 89. She claimed:
• Unarmed activists were shot by Israelis using live ammunition;
• The death toll of nine is likely to rise, because some activists remain missing;
• The Israelis ignored calls over the Tannoy and on written signs calling for them stop firing and to evacuate the critically injured;
• The Israeli forces handcuffed members of the activists’ medical team who were sent to help treat the injured.
Colborne said she was positioned on the deck when the assault was at its peak.
“It felt a bit surreal,” she said. “I couldn’t quite believe they were doing what they were doing.
“There was live ammunition flying around and I could hear the sounds of the bullets flying and the whirr of the helicopter blades as people were dropped down onto the roof. What I saw was guns being used by the Israelis on unarmed civilians. I saw a bullet wound in someone’s head. It was very clear it was live ammunition.”
She said the activists had set up a makeshift medical centre below deck on the previous evening, after Israeli naval vessels were detected on the ship’s radar. They also donned lifejackets and some went to sleep.
“At around 4.10am I woke up, went up to the deck so I could see outside and I saw small dinghies bristling with guns and Israeli military speeding towards the ship,” she said.
“Helicopters then appeared and gas and sound bombs were used … We then had the first passenger fatally injured. He was brought to the back of the deck below. He was shot in the head.
“I saw him. He was in a very bad way and he subsequently died. There were bullets flying all over the place. We asked for the Israelis to stop the attacks. We asked this in English: ‘We are not resisting, please help the injured.’ Instead of helping the injured the saloon remained surrounded by soldiers targeting individuals with laser sights.
“The captain announced live ammunition was being used, to stop resisting and to go downstairs. At 5.15am we started broadcasting over the Tannoy for help to evacuate the critically injured and for emergency medical assistance. We asked the Israelis to stop the attacks in English.”

See: www.antonyloewenstein.com

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