A. Loewenstein Online Newsletter

The role of real journalists is to question every allegation made by officials of whatever stripe.

If you work for the New York Times, however, you like to give anonymity to a motley collection of “American officials” to talk about allegedly malign Iranian influence on the world. Because of course Washington’s influence is so benign (Salon’s Glenn Greenwald has a few words to say about this, too).

Here’s the White House press release, or the New York Times:

Just hours after it was revealed that American soldiers had burned Korans seized at an Afghan detention center in late February, Iran secretly ordered its agents operating inside Afghanistan to exploit the anticipated public outrage by trying to instigate violent protests in the capital, Kabul, and across the western part of the country, according to American officials.

For the most part, the efforts by Iranian agents and local surrogates failed to provoke widespread or lasting unrest, the officials said. Yet with NATO governments preparing for the possibility of retaliation by Iran in the event of an Israeli attack on its nuclear facilities, the issue of Iran’s willingness and ability to foment violence in Afghanistan and elsewhere has taken on added urgency.

With Iran’s motives and operational intentions a subject of intense interest, American officials have closely studied the episodes. A mixed picture of Iranian capabilities has emerged, according to interviews with more than a dozen government officials, most of whom discussed the risks on the condition of anonymity because their comments were based on intelligence reports.

One United States government official described the Iranian Embassy in Kabul as having “a very active” program of anti-American provocation, but it is not clear whether Iran deliberately chose to limit its efforts after the Koran burning or was unable to carry out operations that would have caused more significant harm.

…

Iran has long faced a quandary in shaping an Afghan policy. It has wanted to target the Americans fighting in Afghanistan, and the best mechanism for doing that is the Taliban insurgency. But at the same time, Iran has little interest in the return of a Taliban regime. When they were in power, the Taliban often persecuted the Hazara minority, who, like most Iranians, are Shiite, and whom Iran supports.

What Iran has pursued more relentlessly is an effort to pull the Afghan government away from the Americans, a strategy that has included payments to promote Iran’s interests with President Hamid Karzai.

One American intelligence analyst noted that Iran had long supported Afghan minorities, both Shiite and Sunni, and had built a network of support among Hazaras, Uzbeks and Tajiks. Iran has exercised other means of “soft power,” the analyst said, opening schools in western Afghanistan to extend its influence. The Iranians have also opened schools in Kabul and have largely financed a university attached to a large new Shiite mosque.

Iran is thought to back at least eight newspapers in Kabul and a number of television and radio stations, according to Afghan and Western officials. The Iranian-backed news organs kept fanning anti-American sentiment for days after the Koran burnings.

Gideon Levy in Haaretz on how the two-state solution in Israel/Palestine is long dead – thank you America, settlers, the Israeli government and the Zionist Diaspora – and there’s only one outcome now:

Even a dead body can sometimes twitch reflexively. Here we go again: The settlers have occupied another building. Their lawyer isn’t ashamed to boast about the deceptive way the property was acquired. The ministers make their pilgrimages. The defense minister pulls a surprise eviction. The right is furious, the remnants of the left utter praise, and even Europe and America seem satisfied – look, another settler real estate grab has been thwarted.

If it hadn’t involved the private property of an unfortunate Palestinian family it would have been one more laughable farce. If we weren’t talking about a hopeless rearguard battle there would be a reason for outrage.

But there’s no point in outrage now. Migron, Hebron, whatever – the war is over. The victor was declared long ago, the vanquished was defeated long ago, notwithstanding yesterday’s evacuation in Hebron. All that’s left is the reflexive twitching of the corpse: the targeted removal – a drop in the bucket – and a last gasp from the moribund left.

The part of Hebron under Israeli control, H2 under the 1997 Hebron Protocol, has for years been a ghost town, with hundreds of abandoned apartments and dozens of shuttered stores; a mute testament to the purest and most undeniable form of apartheid. But the “protest” continues: Another house on the wild prairie was saved.

But we could have given the settlers that house; it wouldn’t have changed anything. Let them have Migron, that won’t make or break anything either. Even the 50 homes in Beit El’s Ulpana neighborhood won’t change the bigger picture. The occupation is more entrenched than ever, its end more remote than ever, and the settlers have won in a stinging knockout.

It’s time to raise the white flag, to admit publicly that the two-state solution has been foiled. There’s no point in celebrating yesterday’s evacuation of Hamachpela House, because there are thousands of other buildings just like it. It doesn’t even pay to fight for the rule of law; if the state has the audacity to try to circumvent a ruling of the High Court of Justice, as it tried to with Migron, even that looks like a lost cause.

If the apartheid neighborhood in Hebron could not stir Israelis from their moral fog – and any decent person who visits there is shocked to the depths of their being – and if life goes on undisturbed, with no moral questions, even as this horror occurs in our own backyard, then what difference does another stolen house make? Let it go, let other houses go; the chance for a solution is long past.

Even the twitching of the dead are moving. The determination of organizations such as B’Tselem, Breaking the Silence and Gush Shalom not to surrender should evoke admiration here and abroad. But it’s hard to revel in them when they are fighting a final battle.

Hamachpela House was evacuated. But like its predecessor in Hebron – known variously as “Peace House,” “The Brown House or “Beit Hameriva” (“The House of Contention” ), which has stood empty for more than three years, and hundreds of abandoned homes whose sole occupants are the ghosts of justice and of Israeli democracy – its owners will presumably never be able to return to live there.

The battle for Hebron has been decided. All that remains is to ask what will replace the solution that was put to death. There will not be two states. Even a child knows the alternative: one state. There is no third option. Israel’s most radical left won. For years it said one state, even as we played with ourselves at two states. Now everyone says two states, in unison, only because they know that train has left the station, and the great train robbery was pulled off.

From now we need only take care with our definitions: The extreme left is whoever endeavors toward a single state – the plundering settlers, the establishment that embraces them and the majority of Israelis, who do not lift a finger to stop them.

The Palestinians, as everyone knows by now, aren’t going anywhere. There is even a handful of settlers that has begun talking about giving them citizenship. If this, too, is not a ruse, then this little group is openly reconciling with the great victory of Israel’s most extreme left.

The struggle? From now on it must focus on human rights. Yes, equal rights for everyone who lives in Greater Israel, just as you wanted.

The American Jewish community is slowly but surely becoming more willing to critically debate Israel’s brutal policies towards Palestinians. Norman Finkelstein, here interviewed by Haaretz, says occupying Israel has a problem on its hands:

“Nobody really defends Israel anymore,” he said in an interview. “If you go on college campuses, there are some Hillel faithfuls who are bringing an IDF soldier to try to explain that not all IDF soldiers are war criminals. And among the 60 to 100 people in the audience, there are Palestinian supporters who come with tape over their mouth, and when the soldier starts to speak, many people stand up and walk out.

“They’ve lost the battle for public opinion,” he says. “They claim it’s because American Jews know too little – I claim it’s because they know too much about the conflict, and young liberal Jews have difficulty defending the use of cluster bombs in Lebanon or supporting the Israeli settlements. I was bashing Israel in the past because nobody else was exposing its true record. Many people are doing it now, so I switched hats from a critic of Israel to a diplomat who wants to resolve the conflict. I have not changed, but I think the spectrum has moved.”

Finkelstein’s book is suprisingly optimistic about the chances of settling the confict, and about changing the debate, even among American Jewry. The tide of public opinion is turning against Israel, he says, and once support for Israeli policy becomes widely unacceptable in the United States, the “self-designated voices for Israel,” as he calls them, will quickly drop out. Meanwhile, American Jewish college students are having their eyes opened.

“The academic research on Israel is no longer the footnoted “Exodus,” and younger Jews, when they go to college, are walking away with very different picture of Israel,” he said. “And the American Jewish community that for a long time was a huge obstacle to resolving the conflict is breaking up. If you put forth a reasonable and principled goal, I think a resolution is possible. We might be entering the endgame, but one that might take a long time.”

Last night, Al-Jazeera’s The Stream (great show, by the way, that allows new voices to be heard in the international arena) tackled the American Jewish community and its young people not simply blinding defending Zionism: