A.LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWSLETTER

• The non-Ahmadinejad Iranians
• The one question nobody is asking about Afghanistan
• Finding a way to make Arabs invisible in Israel
• Fighting an invisible Taliban
• Australia still loves everything about Israel
• Why is it illegal to simply support Palestinians?
• Revealing the real agenda of the Time journalist on Afghanistan
• Ben Gurion and the Nazis
• Australia is being seen overseas as fearful of a few refugees
• We’re backing the brutes in Afghanistan

The non-Ahmadinejad Iranians 15 Aug 2010 We so rarely these days read accurate reports about life inside the Islamic Republic. A rare exception (via the ABC): While in the West some might associate Iran’s restrictions on freedom with the religion of Islam, it’s over-simplistic to assume that this mass dissatisfaction with the state of the country necessarily signifies dissatisfaction with the state religion. While a surprising number of people I spoke to declared they had “no religion”, almost all of them qualified that statement by declaring that they believed in God. “I am not a Muslim but I believe in one God and I think the Koran is a very good book,” the motorcycle man explained to me. “Islam is not a bad religion but this is a bad government and it makes Islam look bad.” “Islam is a good religion but I do not think this is Islam,” said a young woman. But the Islamic faith of some young Iranians comes with conditions. “In Iran the Koran is still made to mean that thieves must have their hands cut off and women who have sex with a man not their husband are stoned to death,” another man said. “The world changes with time and Islam must change with the world.” While Iran’s religion and Iran’s government might have a lot in common, many Iranians urge that they should remain separate lest one pollute the other. “In the West they see what the Iranian government does and thinks that this is Islam,” said one young woman, holding two cupped hands together and slowly pulling them apart, “but actually they are not the same.”

The one question nobody is asking about Afghanistan 15 Aug 2010 Tom Engelhardt: What if Washington declared a ceasefire in Afghanistan, expressed a desire to withdraw all its troops from the country in good order and at a reasonable pace, and then just left?

Finding a way to make Arabs invisible in Israel 15 Aug 2010 The fact that Palestinians living in Israel proper aren’t equal citizens in the state proves the lie of Israel being a real democracy. Gideon Levy in Haaretz outlines the growing push to eradicate Arabs from the Knesset altogether: The State of Israel owes a great debt to the Arab public and to the members of Knesset that represent it. They are more separatist than the Basques in Spain (although with many more reasons to be separatist than the Basques), and also, of course, much less violent and subversive than them. The fact that they have yet to choose to boycott the state and its institutions and to stop participating in the game of democracy, which is corrupt to begin with, as far as they are concerned – a game from which they are almost completely excluded – is nothing short of amazing. Instead of thanking them for this, instead of appreciating their tolerance and restraint, their basic loyalty – we push them out, specifically now. Forget morals and democracy, justice and equality – is there anything stupider than this? Is it not clear to the inciters what the alternative is to the continued participation of the Arabs in the game of democracy? The lives of Arab Israelis bear no resemblance to the lives of a Jewish Israeli. He is born into crowded conditions and neglected neighborhoods. In 62 years, the state has not lifted a finger to help the Arab populace, which constitutes a full fifth of the state’s citizens, to establish a single new settlement. The Arabs are weaned on deprivation from birth, the discrimination follows them from their earliest days. They can never bring up their past, they cannot define themselves as they wish (‘Palestinian?’ How dare they?), and sometimes they don’t even feel comfortable speaking their own language. Try being an Arab and finding an apartment or a job. Surrounded by Zionist institutions that work to banish them, from the Keren Kayemet LeIsrael – Jewish National Fund to the Israel Lands Administration, a new set of laws intended to repress them, a justice system that discriminates between them and the Jewish citizens – an entire web of life of a second-class citizen in every way possible. Day and night they hear that they are a ‘demographic threat’ or a ‘fifth column,’ that the Negev and Galil must be ‘Judaized,’ that they must be expelled from their lands. Now they hear that the Knesset must be purified of their representatives, as well. It’s likely to happen. In a society whose institutional defenses of democracy have started to deteriorate, nothing is safe any more. One day, perhaps we will no longer have Arab MKs, or at least none that represent their constituents. And on that day, Arab Israelis will know that their exclusion from their state has become total and complete.

Fighting an invisible Taliban 15 Aug 2010 A quote from a Taliban letter passed out in the northern part of Afghanistan: Come together as one hand to defeat the infidels of the world. And make Afghanistan a Jewish and Christian cemetery.

Australia still loves everything about Israel 14 Aug 2010 Surprise, surprise: The diplomatic relationship between Australia and Israel has resumed on its normal course, less than three months after Stephen Smith expelled an Australian diplomat from Canberra. And despite a frosty few months, the two countries – which both share a desire to see Iran’s nuclear weapons program halted immediately – never ceased to share intelligence on the rogue state. In a wide-ranging interview with The AJN during a campaign stop in Melbourne, Smith spoke about the resumption of that relationship. He made no pledges about the foreign policy direction a future Gillard government would take, but spoke in depth about some of the decisions made over the past almost three years. “I am now very confident that things are now back to business as usual,” he said of the diplomatic ties between Australia and Israel. “Often when you have a difficult issue that you’ve got to manage, your capacity to manage that and then to move reasonably quickly off it, reflects the strength of the relationship. “Yes it was a difficult time and I obviously thought very carefully about all of the issues and came to the decision that, as I said publicly, we could not turn a blind eye to what had occurred. “I’m very confident now that in terms of agency-to-agency relationship, government-to-government, nation-to-nation, it is business as usual.” He added that at no time during the diplomatic impasse, did the two countries stop cooperating to quash the rogue Iranian regime. “One area [of the Australia-Israel relationship] we did not want to see disturbed was the ongoing cooperation and exchange of information on Iran,” he said. Asked whether he thought the forthcoming direct talks between the Israelis and the Palestinians means that the time for peace is right, Smith showed some trademark diplomacy. “I think your attitude has got to be that it is always right,” he said. “You always have to try and take the opportunity and often when things appear to be at their worst is often a time when you can move forward.” “We’re very supportive of President [Barack] Obama’s efforts, we’re very supportive of Ambassador [George] Mitchell’s efforts and we make the point to all of the players in the Middle East … that it is absolutely essential that we get long-term enduring peace. “The issues are complex, complicated and there are strong views respectively on both sides, but we can’t give up because solving these Middle East issues is very important to peace and security, peace and stability throughout the entire world,” he said.

Why is it illegal to simply support Palestinians? 14 Aug 2010 The ever-growing oppressive legal situation in the US towards individuals or groups who back “terrorist” groups around the world, aka known as giving aid.

Revealing the real agenda of the Time journalist on Afghanistan 14 Aug 2010 This story gets worse by the day and yet the corporate press learn nothing and hear nothing: The maimed face of 18-year-old Aisha, her nose and ears cut off as punishment by her Afghan husband for fleeing his home, made the cover of Time magazine last week and changed the debate over the country’s military involvement in Afghanistan. Hitting stands just as a growing chorus of pundits and lawmakers had begun to question the costs, the goals and the point of the country’s longest war ever, the gut-punch cover image, beneath a stunningly blunt coverline conspicuously missing a question mark — “What Happens if We Leave Afghanistan” — and accompanying story by Aryn Baker, the magazine’s Afghan/Pakistan bureau chief, gave a boost to supporters of America’s continued military involvement in the country. But there was more than a question mark missing from the Time story, which stressed potentially disastrous consequences if the U.S. pursues negotiations with the Taliban. The piece lacked a crucial personal disclosure on Baker’s part: Her husband, Tamim Samee, an Afghan-American IT entrepreneur, is a board member of an Afghan government minister’s $100 million project advocating foreign investment in Afghanistan, and has run two companies, Digistan and Ora-Tech, that have solicited and won development contracts with the assistance of the international military, including private sector infrastructure projects favored by U.S.-backed leader Hamid Karzai. In other words, the Time reporter who wrote a story bolstering the case for war appears to have benefited materially from the NATO invasion.

Ben Gurion and the Nazis  14 Aug 2010 Zionist “pragmatism” in action, as evidence grows that Israel used Nazi scientists in the 1960s to assist in its development of a nuclear program.

Australia is being seen overseas as fearful of a few refugees 14 Aug 2010 How the London Independent is reporting the impending Australian election.

We’re backing the brutes in Afghanistan 14 Aug 2010 Don’t believe anything our leaders say about Afghanistan. Most of the corporate press are too invested/complicit in this debacle, too: There has been much discussion, as well as misunderstanding, of the Time magazine cover photo of the Afghan woman who had her nose cut off by the Taliban. The purported object lesson is clear: If we leave Afghanistan now, this is what will happen. The woman had tried to run away from her abusive husband, and this was her punishment. Despite the torrent of bad news about the war, Time would have us believe this is the choice we face. But that is a comic-book version of Afghanistan. The reality is even more disturbing: The repressive and misogynistic forces the picture depicts are the very ones now being bolstered by U.S. policy.