A.LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWSLETTER

NOVANEWS

Can we have a mature discussion about the war in Afghanistan?

Posted: 22 Jun 2010

An aide to General Stanley McChrystal (currently in the firing line for making disparaging comments about Barack Obama over Afghanistan) tells journalist Michael Hastings that, “if Americans pulled back and started paying attention to this war, it would become even less popular.”

This story isn’t about McChrystal’s criticisms but about the futile war in Afghanistan and why the West is there. It’s really about empire maintenance and giving the impression of taking the fight to “terrorists”.

We lost there years ago.

Israel makes it clear that Palestinians are not fully welcome

Posted: 22 Jun 2010

An Haaretz editorial on something that should outrage Jews the world over and yet elicits little more than silence:

Dr. Immad Hammada and Dr. Murad Abu-Khalaf are both lecturers in electrical engineering born in East Jerusalem. Their families have lived in the city for generations.

They both left years ago, each one separately, to study in the United States, and after graduating and consolidating their careers they want to return to live in their home town.

But their right to be reunified with their families is being denied by the Interior Ministry, as Amira Hass reported in Sunday’s Haaretz. Hammada has been living in his city for some three years illegally, without any rights and under constant danger of being arrested and deported, while Abu-Khalaf is finding it difficult to return, even for a visit.

Judge Noam Sohlberg of Jerusalem District Court is hearing their cases against the ministry this week.

Interior Ministry regulations provide for the abrogation of the rights of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem who leave the city for a period of over seven years. Citizens of Israel can leave the country for any length of time, and their citizenship and all their rights are theirs in perpetuity.

But when it comes to Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, Israel applies draconian regulations whose covert intent is to bring about the expulsion of as many Palestinians as possible from their home city.

This situation is intolerable: At a time when the prime minister speaks grandiloquently of the reunification of Jerusalem, Israel practices inequality and discriminates against the city’s Arab residents. At a time when Benjamin Netanyahu speaks of the economic advancement of the territories, Israel prevents the Arab residents of East Jerusalem from advancing their careers abroad and returning afterward to their home city to contribute toward the development of its economy.

The screws have been tightened in recent years: In 2008 the residents’ rights of 4,557 Palestinian inhabitants of the city were abrogated, the highest number ever.

Waiting on Judge Sohlberg now is not only the fate of two electrical engineering lecturers, but a far weightier question: Will Israel continue treating the Palestinian inhabitants of its capital as if they were foreign migrants whose rights are conditional?

The rights of the Palestinian residents of Jerusalem must be equal to those of Jews. All Jerusalemites have the right to live in their city, to go abroad and return as they will, without any danger posed by the authorities lying in wait for them.

Hating Arabs and getting Murdoch to pay for it

Posted: 22 Jun 2010

Former Republican Presidential candidate and Fox News host Mike Huckabee loathes Arabs and Palestinians and believes Israel has the right to do what it wants, where it wants. Christian Zionism in action.

A New Yorker profile of the man provides an indication of the kind of mindset Rupert Murdoch hires for his “news” channel:

Sun was bouncing off the miles of Jerusalem stone and the black hats of the Hasidim on the afternoon when Mike Huckabee went to visit the Wailing Wall, earlier this year. Huckabee—the former governor of Arkansas, the host of a Fox News show, and, according to the most recent Rasmussen poll, the top pick among likely Republican primary voters for President in 2012—was making his fourteenth trip to Israel.

This time, he was leading a group of a hundred and sixty evangelicals on a tour of Christian holy sites with the singer Pat Boone. Huckabee wore mirrored Ray-Bans and a polka-dot shirt with gold cufflinks in the shape of Arkansas. Boone, who is seventy-six and still keeps his hair strawberry blond, was in a light-blue leisure suit and white bucks. Both men were wearing yarmulkes.

“I think what I should do is convert,” Huckabee said, squinting in the sunshine. “This covers my bald spot completely.”

Huckabee was a Baptist minister before he went into politics, but, like Boone and most of the other people in their group, he is crazy about Israel and extremely enthusiastic about Jews. “I worship a Jew!” Huckabee said. “I have a lot of Jewish friends, and they’re kind of, like, ‘You evangelicals love Israel more than we do.’ I’m, like, ‘Do you not get it? If there weren’t a Jewish faith, there wouldn’t be a Christian faith!’ ” In recent weeks, Huckabee has defended the Israeli attack on a Turkish flotilla headed for Gaza, in which nine people were killed.

 He does not support a two-state solution, or, at least, as he told numerous reporters in the course of the trip, “not on the same piece of real estate”—which is to say he thinks that coming up with a place for the Palestinians ought to be an Arab problem. In fact, Huckabee does not believe that Palestinian is a legitimate nationality.

 “I have to be careful saying this, because people get really upset—there’s really no such thing as a Palestinian,” Huckabee told a rabbi in Wellesley, Massachusetts, at a kosher breakfast on the campaign trail in 2008. “That’s been a political tool to try to force land away from Israel.”

In a speech to the Knesset on our trip, Huckabee said, “I promise you, you do not have a better friend on earth than Christians around the world, who know where we have come from and know who we must remain allies and friends with.” The members of his tour group who were seated in the audience applauded vigorously; several rose to their feet and shouted, “Amen!”

Bush explains how war has helped the US prosper

Posted: 22 Jun 2010

Former Argentine president Néstor Kirchner reveals in the new film by Oliver Stone, South of the Border – about the rise of socialism in Latin America – something very revealing of George W. Bush:

NÉSTOR KIRCHNER: [translated] I say it’s not necessary to kneel before power. Nor do you need to be rude to say the things you have to say to those who oppose our actions. We had a discussion in Monterey.

 I said that a solution to the problems right now, I told Bush, is a Marshall Plan. And he got angry. He said the Marshall Plan is a crazy idea of the Democrats. He said the best way to revitalize the economy is war and that the United States has grown stronger with war.

OLIVER STONE: War. He said that?

NÉSTOR KIRCHNER: [translated] He said that. Those were his exact words.

OLIVER STONE: Was he suggesting that South America go to war?

NÉSTOR KIRCHNER: [translated] Well, he was talking about the United States. The Democrats had been wrong. All of the economic growth of the United States has been encouraged by the various wars. He said it very clearly. President Bush is—well, he’s only got six days left, right?

OLIVER STONE: Yes.

NÉSTOR KIRCHNER: [translated] Thank God.

Don’t step out of line on Israel or an irrelevant Australian MP will slam you

Posted: 22 Jun 2010

Australian NGO APHEDA is the aid arm of the country’s largest union, the ACTU. It has a history of speaking strongly against Israeli aggression and this will only continue in the coming months.

So when the APHEDA head recently called for the Israeli siege on Gaza to be lifted, it was almost inevitable that a Zionist-friendly politician would be outraged. What’s so shameless about Labor’s David Feeney’s response is how many of the Israeli government talking points he quotes without question.

It’s like a mantra without reason or facts. Israel is always right and the siege is necessary (though, er, Israel has just heavily reduced the blockade, rather ruining one of his talking points).

Perhaps one day we’ll have independent thinking from our politicians on the Middle East but it may take a while.

Only US-friendly terror groups are welcome

Posted: 22 Jun 2010

The latest decision by the US Supreme Court seems highly problematic, not least because America backs terrorists group every day (hello Afghanistan and Iraq, as two recent examples) yet wants to tell its citizens that they can only back groups that speak in lovely, warming tones about the super-power:

The US supreme court has upheld a broad-ranging law that allows Americans who offer advice to banned organisations, including legal assistance and information on conflict resolution, to be prosecuted as terrorists.

The case arose out of human rights advice given by a California group to Kurdish and Tamil organisations that are listed as terrorist groups in the US.

The supreme court upheld the Obama administration’s argument that even advice intended to be used for peaceful purposes amounted to “material support” for terrorism.

That includes a lawyer submitting a friend-of-the-court brief on behalf of a banned group or helping a proscribed organisation to petition international bodies to bring an end to a violent conflict.

“The supreme court has ruled that human rights advocates, providing training and assistance in the nonviolent resolution of disputes, can be prosecuted as terrorists,” said David Cole, a Georgetown university law professor who argued the case before the court.

“In the name of fighting terrorism, the court has said that the first amendment [on free speech] permits congress to make it a crime to work for peace and human rights. That is wrong.”

The ruling is likely to further complicate the work of activists in support of controversial causes that has already seen highly contentious prosecutions over other forms of support, such as fundraising.

Palestinian activists have been prosecuted and jailed for raising cash for social groups dealing with issues such as housing and welfare that have ties to Hamas, which governs Gaza.

Individuals and groups offering legal or other specialist advice to such groups are also now open to prosecution.

Get used to the growing isolation

Posted: 22 Jun 2010

Israeli historian Tom Segev:

This is something Israelis know: that they very, very much depend on both America and Germany, or in the larger sense, Europe. And there’s nothing they fear more than being alone in the world.

The Amazon rainforest remains in trouble despite Murdoch’s best efforts

Posted: 22 Jun 2010

Rupert Murdoch’s Sunday Times is forced to acknowledge that a key story that questioned the validity of climate change was riddled with lies and untruths:

The article stated that the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report had included an “unsubstantiated claim” that up to 40% of the Amazon rainforest could be sensitive to future changes in rainfall.

Tony Blair is the face of Israel’s new Gaza policy

Posted: 22 Jun 2010

Tony Blair’s role in the Middle East is to appear balanced but is in fact designed to please Israel and offer a nice, kind face for Israeli occupation.

And now the Israeli press confirms yet more shameless propaganda:

It turns out that Quartet envoy to the Middle East Tony Blair was the person who in fact presented to the international media the change in the policy of the Israeli government on the Gaza blockade. This was decided in coordination with Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu.

And what was the prime minister’s contribution to helping Israeli PR efforts? He made do with a short statement to the press that he gave at the Likud faction meeting, and another laconic statement in English that was given to the foreign media.

Indeed, since two evenings ago, Blair has been going from one television studio to the next; he gave six interviews in two days, he handled tough questions from interviewers and he is trying to employ his great experience to enlist support in international public opinion for the relaxing of the blockade and for Israel’s new policy.

Netanyahu’s aides explained that the most important arena was that of the media and international public opinion. It was therefore decided that it would be better to have Blair present the important change in the government’s policy since he is considered objective and of international stature and since the decision about relaxing the blockade was made in coordination with him.

Blair met in Israel yesterday with a series of public figures and politicians, among them Regional Development Minister Silvan Shalom, Deputy Prime Minister and Intelligence Affairs Minister Dan Meridor and Opposition Chairwoman Tzippi Livni. Earlier he met in Ramallah with PA Chairman Abu Mazen and Prime Minister Salam Fayyad.

Afghan warlords thank the coalition for its kindness

Posted: 22 Jun 2010

A timely reminder of what the West is actually doing in Afghanistan (removing one dictatorship and helping establish another):

The U.S. military is funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country, according to congressional investigators.

The security arrangements, part of a $2.16 billion transport contract, violate laws on the use of private contractors, as well as Defense Department regulations, and “dramatically undermine” larger U.S. objectives of curtailing corruption and strengthening effective governance in Afghanistan, a report released late Monday said.

The report describes a Defense Department that is well aware that some of the money paid to contractors winds up in the hands of warlords and insurgents. Military logisticians on the ground are focused on getting supplies where they are needed and have “virtually no understanding of how security is actually provided” for the local truck convoys that transport more than 70 percent of all goods and materials used by U.S. troops.

Alarms raised by prime trucking contractors were met by the military “with indifference and inaction,” the report said.

See: www.antonyloewenstein.com

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *