A.LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWSLETTER

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• The American media and race relations on crack, smoked by Rupert
• A joint Jewish and Arab party to move forward in I/P
• Stealing people shows that we aren’t democracies at all
• Ahmadinejad wants a good bombing campaign
• Israel should be for Jews, mainly
• Aslan says 2-state solution is dead, and Indyk calls him a liar
• Australian politicians love to embrace apartheid Israel
• Slamming Islam isn’t just encouraged, it’s praised
• BDS starts knocking on American doors

The American media and race relations on crack, smoked by RupertPosted: 23 Jul 2010 The parallel universe known as the American media. Trumped-up stories, white paranoia, Fox News inflaming and utterly devoid of true meaning. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow offers a few thoughts (and being here in New York at the moment it’s almost comical how little serious news is reported by the major TV networks, except for faux scandals): Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

A joint Jewish and Arab party to move forward in I/PPosted: 23 Jul 2010 Former Zionist leader and speaker of the Knesset Avraham Burg has a long, recent history of condemning the decline of Israel into a racist and discriminatory country. Now he believes a new political party is needed to almost save Israel from itself: The party Israel Equality (Shivyon Yisrael ) – with the acronym Shai in Hebrew, gift – will fight for a state that will be a total democracy; everything else will be either personal or on the community level. The party will wrestle with the sanctimonious internal contradiction of “a Jewish and democratic state,” which means a great deal of democracy for the Jews and too much Jewish nationalism for the Arabs. It will be the party of those who are committed to the supreme universal and Israeli cultural values of human dignity, the search for peace and a desire for freedom, justice and equality. Those who vote for it and its candidates will accept the definition of Israel as “a state whose regime is democratic and egalitarian, and which belongs to all its citizens and communities. The state in which the Jewish people have chosen to renew their sovereignty and where they realize their right to self-determination.” The practical expression of this commitment will be a supreme effort to change the social balance of power, which is unjust, to give equal opportunities to the entire population in Israel, regardless of national background, ethnic origin, race, sex or sexual preference. It’s a gamble and very hard to tell at this stage whether it’ll have any success or truly addresses the injustice towards Palestinians. But a cautious welcome is probably warranted.

Stealing people shows that we aren’t democracies at allPosted: 23 Jul 2010 How many other countries, including Australia, have used rendition to deal with “terror” suspects? MI5 was directly involved in the rendition of a Moroccan national, illegally taken from a Belgian prison to work for Britain’s Security Services in London, an investigation by The Independent has discovered. The man, now aged 29 and who cannot be named for his own safety, was secretly transferred from a Brussels jail in April 2004 and then further held and interrogated by senior MI5 officers at a secret base near London. Documents seen by The Independent show that in September 2003 a Belgian court sentenced the man to four years in prison for the use of false documents and association with terror suspects. Yet less than a year later Home Office papers reveal that the Moroccan, who was born in Rabat, was in Britain and had been granted leave to remain in the UK by the British Government. The Home Office document, dated 4 November 2004, says: “It has been decided that the Secretary of State’s discretion should be exercised in your favour and you have been granted limited leave to remain in the United Kingdom for a reason not covered by the Immigration Rules.” The case is the first evidence of a UK-based rendition recruitment programme operated by the Security Service after the 11 September attacks on America. Until now, Britain’s involvement in the practice appeared to be limited to providing assistance to American renditions. In an interview with The Independent, the man’s Belgian lawyer, Christophe Marchand, said that the rendition took place while the suspect was waiting to appear before the central criminal court in Brussels in relation to his appeal. Mr Marchand, Belgium’s foremost defence attorney and author of the book European Trends on the War on Human Rights, said his client, then 23 years old, had been questioned by MI5 agents in Forest Prison in Brussels where he had been detained without trial and held in solitary confinement for more than two years. During his later interrogation and detention at an MI5 safe house 40 minutes from central London, the man did not have access to a lawyer. Last night MPs and human rights groups said the case illustrated the extent of Britain’s illegal role in the war on terror. Andrew Tyrie MP, chairman of the All Party Parliamentary Group on Extraordinary Rendition, said: “If it were to turn out that this man had been transferred to the UK against his will and against due legal process, we should well be concerned. Stories such as this underline the need for an inquiry to get to the bottom of what happened after 11 September.” Clive Stafford Smith, director of the legal charity Reprieve, said: “We simply cannot be in the business of snatching people from foreign countries without any legal process. Why have we fought for the rule of law for all these decades if it is simply to be ignored when the Security Services decide it is not convenient to let judges into the debate?”

Ahmadinejad wants a good bombing campaignPosted: 23 Jul 2010 The ongoing guessing game over America bombing Iran. Steve Clemons claims it’s highly unlikely that Barack Obama will order a strike against Tehran, a god-send for the mullahs. As for Israel launching a strike, that’s maybe another story.

Israel should be for Jews, mainlyPosted: 23 Jul 2010 In a New York Jewish newspaper Forward editorial on Israel’s attempt to exclude non-Orthodox converted Jews from full acceptance in Israel – and note the Jewish Diaspora’s outrage over this issue but little care about the millions of Palestinians who can’t exercise their legitimate right of return – see how Zionists view their holy land: Israel must assert its fealty to religious pluralism and recognize the absolute necessity for the Jewish state to act as a state for all Jews, to live up to its founding ideals and its contemporary promise. Exclusion of Palestinians is the key.

Aslan says 2-state solution is dead, and Indyk calls him a liarPosted: 23 Jul 2010 My following article is published today on US website Mondoweiss: “The future of relations with the Muslim world” was the UN-sponsored event hosted at the New York Times building in central Manhattan on 21 July. Filled with journalists from Egypt, China and Turkey and the foreign policy establishment, roughly 150 people came to hear Roger Cohen, Joe Klein, Martin Indyk, Reza Aslan, Dalia Mogahed and Marc Lynch chew over issues related to Barack Obama’s Cairo speech in 2009 and efforts to re-engage the Muslim world. The general consensus was that Obama had failed, even if his intentions were noble. The primary focus was Israel/Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan were mostly ignored, Iran was briefly mentioned and Muslim views of America were highlighted. Foreign Policy blogger and participant Marc Lynch wrote that it was disappointing but unsurprising that Israel/Palestine was the key area of discussion as his “main concern was the dangerous resilience of ‘clash of civilizations’ narratives in American and global discourse about Islam.” Such views remain disturbingly common in the US. I didn’t really know what to expect from the evening and there was an air of unreality about the event, a troubling distance from addressing the crux of Washington’s problems in the Muslim world. The presumption of the evening was that America could noticeably change its image while still occupying Iraq, Afghanistan and backing Israeli occupation in Palestine. Most Muslims would regard the premise as a joke. As Rami Khouri wrote in this week’s New York Times: “One cannot take seriously the United States or any other Western government that funds political activism by young Arabs while it simultaneously provides funds and guns that help cement the power of the very same Arab governments the young social and political activists target for change.” Pollster Mogahed revealed that a forthcoming Gallup study of the Arab world finds Iraq still topping even Israel/Palestine in issues of concern related to US foreign policy in the region. The open wound of the Iraq conflict, the millions of internal and external refugees – the largest refugee crisis in the Middle East since 1948 –and daily brutality put paid to claims that America will soon be withdrawing. Just this week the Obama administration announced an expansion of paramilitary forces in Iraq to replace the forthcoming declining troop numbers. Roger Cohen, a usually thoughtful writer who has sadly recently embraced Salam Fayyad’s economic “miracle” in the West Bank (essentially a police state with Western aid), was a considered moderator, probing the guests about the profound separation between rhetoric and reality. Time’s Klein was effusive in his praise for Fayyad, called for immediate engagement with Hamas, chastised Obama for not pressuring Israel far more and threatening to cut aid, vehemently opposed a “mad” attack on Iran, damned the colonies in the West Bank and the bullying Zionist lobby. Klein is a colourful and slightly arrogant speaker, proud of telling an audience he’s spent time in the Middle East and mixing with the people there. The most revealing part of the evening was when Reza Aslan told the crowd, near the end of the event, that a two-state solution was dead due to ongoing Israeli colonisation. He urged consideration of a one-state solution. He wrote strongly months ago about the impossibility of a viable Palestinian state and this week urged more imaginative ways of framing a nation that “would be shared by both Palestinians and Jews.” Aslan also outlined the Likud charter, a racist document that does not allow an independent Palestinian entity in Palestine. Former AIPAC employee, Vice President for Foreign Policy at the Brookings Institution and former US Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk shook his head and said these were “lies”. He argued that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had said last year that he accepted a two-state solution and people should “wait until the end of Obama’s third year and you will see some major progress on Middle East peace.” Indyk angrily rejected a one-state solution as “guaranteed to bring never-ending conflict” and said the two-state solution was the only game in town. Aslan didn’t give up, reiterating his request for Indyk to explain how two, viable states would develop. This testy exchange was symptomatic of the anaemic state of establishment thinking on the Middle East in America. Indyk was asking to be rewarded for ongoing failure, a man and idea that had been tried for decades and brought increased settlement activity. Like J Street, Indyk and his ilk can only conceptualise a racially exclusionary state, partition in the name of “two states for two peoples”. I remember thinking during the J Street conference in Washington last year about the blind faith in Barack Obama bringing peace to the Middle East. What happens if he doesn’t deliver? J Street and Indyk have nowhere to go, no intellectual or moral framework from which to offer alternative perspectives. For them, a Jewish state must be maintained at any cost. Democratic values will always come second. Loewenstein, who blogs here, will be speaking at Revolution Books in New York on Sunday at 1, along with Michael Otterman, about Palestine and Iraq, two occupations.

Australian politicians love to embrace apartheid IsraelPosted: 23 Jul 2010 The utterly depressing state of mainstream Australian politics on the Middle East. Beyond embarrassing. Stuck in a bad Zionist lobby time-warp from 1948. Somebody, save us: The three major candidates contesting the seat of Wentworth in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs, addressed the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies plenum last night…J-Wire filmed the event. Addressing the plenum were, Malcolm Turnbull [sitting Liberal member], Steven Lewis [Australian Labour Party candidate] and Matthew Robertson [Australian Greens candidate]. First to speak was former Leader of the Opposition Malcolm Turnbull. He told the meeting that in Australia there was bipartisan support for Israel, a country which “stands in the front line in the battle against terror  – a battle we cannot afford to lose. Australia is one of Israel’s few unequivocal allies.” He said that Australia stood “shoulder by shoulder” with Israel. Turnbull added that Israel must be in a position to defend itself within secure borders and that it is “geographically vulnerable”. TUrnbull made reference to Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza and said that at the time he had expressed hope that it would not signal the start of attacks on Israel from within Gaza. He added that “the fundamental duty of every State, including Australia, is to defend its citizens”. But his main point was to describe the difference between the strategic issues such as Israel’s right to defend its borders and its right to prevent armaments being smuggled into Gaza and the tactical issues as to how Israel goes about that indicating that it is difficult “to second guess and critique as to how the Israeli Defence Force handles a particular mission.” He said that Israel would always have “unequivocal support from the Coalition”. Turnbull added….”and you know you will always have it from me.” ALP candidate Steven Lewis told the meeting his introduction to political activism within communal politics when he was taken as a young boy to protest outside the visiting Moscow Circus at the time when it was difficult for Jews to leave Russia. Later in his life, he was to personally visit Russia and witness the plight of the country;s Jews first hand. Lewis agreed with Turnbull that bipartisan support for Israel is a reality but was jeered by a member of the audience when he said that “the Australian Labour Part has been and remains a friend and strong ally of Israel”. He told the audience of the ALP’s historic links with the establishment of the State of Israel and how Prime Minister Julia Gillard when in charge of the education portfolio introduced Holocaust studies into Australian schools’ curriculum. He highlighted the financial help the Government had given to the Australian Jewish schools. Lewis added that he opposed the demonisation of refugees and says that as a society “we do not need to go down that path”. Mark Robertson confined his remarks to the Greens’ policy on climate change…he did not refer to Israel or any Jewish issues. But he had to face questions on the Greens’ attitude towards Israel during question time.

Slamming Islam isn’t just encouraged, it’s praisedPosted: 22 Jul 2010 This is from a major political leader in the US, a growing trend of open bigotry towards Muslims and likely to lead to growing schisms between the faith and wider community: There should be no mosque near Ground Zero in New York so long as there are no churches or synagogues in Saudi Arabia. The time for double standards that allow Islamists to behave aggressively toward us while they demand our weakness and submission is over.

BDS starts knocking on American doorsPosted: 22 Jul 2010 The growing momentum of BDS hits the US, the most key country of all: