A.LOEWENSTEIN ONLINE NEWSLETTER

• We invade and occupy Iraq and now it’s a petrol station for us all
• What a good journalist should do; ask the IDF for the truth
• Imperialism with a new face is still imperialism
• When we kill people, it’s a gentle kind of murder
• The almost banal nature of Zionist expansion in Jerusalem
• Zionist leaders in pyjamas
• Exclusive article: Israel’s economic susceptibility to the BDS movement
• Your mobile phone can be used to kill
• The Green Movement doesn’t need help from the Zionist lobby
• The paper of record waking up to Israeli colonies?

We invade and occupy Iraq and now it’s a petrol station for us all  01 Jul 2010 What we gave Iraq. One: The former chief executive of a British chemical company faces the prospect of extradition to the US after the firm admitted million-dollar bribes to officials to sell toxic fuel additives to Iraq. Paul Jennings, until last year chief executive of the Octel chemical works near Ellesmere Port, Merseyside, and his predecessor, Dennis Kerrison, exported tonnes of tetra ethyl lead (TEL), to Iraq. TEL is banned from cars in western countries because of links with brain damage to children. Iraq is believed to be the only country that still adds lead to petrol. Two: The map of the world’s main energy suppliers is about to change as Iraq’s oil output quadruples over the next 10 years according to new forecasts. Iraq will eventually displace Saudi Arabia as the world’s biggest exporter, experts predict, giving Baghdad crucial influence over the future price of oil. The rush to exploit Iraq’s “super-giant” oilfields, of which it has the largest concentration in the world, has gathered impetus with unexpected speed in the wake of BP’s disaster in the Gulf of Mexico which has raised fears over deep-sea drilling. Iraq’s oil has the advantage of being both onshore and cheap to develop. The intensifying political isolation of Iran, and the latest moves by the UN Security Council to target the Islamic regime with increasingly tough sanctions in a bid to prevent its development of nuclear weapons is a second key factor influencing Iraqi production. Iran may have unexploited reserves, but its oil output is expected to fall significantly as its old oilfields are depleted and not replaced. Iraq, by contrast, aims to raise its crude production from 2.5 million barrels a day today to 9.5 million in 2020 under contracts signed with the world’s biggest oil companies over the last 12 months. This development should be feasible, experts believe, because the rise in production will come from improved exploitation of oilfields already discovered rather than from the discovery of new ones. The outcome of what is being called “the great Iraqi oil rush” will inevitably transform the balance of power between oil-producing states with Iraq the winner, Saudi Arabia and Iran the losers.

What a good journalist should do; ask the IDF for the truth  01 Jul 2010 Sydney Morning Herald journalist Paul McGeough was recently on the doomed Gaza flotilla and wrote extensively about Israeli aggression. Australia’s Zionist lobby is upset that McGeough didn’t simply publish Israeli press releases.

Imperialism with a new face is still imperialism  01 Jul 2010 Hao Peng, the new vice-chairman of the regional government in Tibet, offers a novel interpretation of those living under colonialism: No sovereign country in the world would allow the hanging of a portrait of a person like that… the Dalai Lama colluded with anti-China forces abroad to make trouble in Tibet. What you see in the streets, including the police and other legal forces, are necessary measures to maintain stability… the local, ordinary people love the country, they love the Communist Party of China.

When we kill people, it’s a gentle kind of murder 01 Jul 2010 Need more evidence that the corporate media is broken? A newly released study from students at Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government provides the latest evidence of how thoroughly devoted the American establishment media is to amplifying and serving (rather than checking) government officials.  This new study examines how waterboarding has been discussed by America’s four largest newspapers over the past 100 years, and finds that the technique, almost invariably, was unequivocally referred to as “torture” — until the U.S. Government began openly using it and insisting that it was not torture, at which time these newspapers obediently ceased describing it that way. Similarly, American newspapers are highly inclined to refer to waterboarding as “torture” when practiced by other nations, but will suddenly refuse to use the term when it’s the U.S. employing that technique

The almost banal nature of Zionist expansion in Jerusalem  01 Jul 2010 Al-Jazeera English on Israel’s plans to demolish Palestinians homes in East Jerusalem to make way for Zionist settlers:

Zionist leaders in pyjamas  01 Jul 2010 What a serious government: Israel is expected to broaden the powers of an internal inquiry into the botched raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in May in the wake of a barrage of claims that its investigation lacks any credibility. Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli Prime Minister, appeared to cave in to domestic pressure after the committee was mocked in the Israeli media as a whitewash designed to defend the assault on 31 May that resulted in the death of nine Turkish nationals. A photograph of one 93-year-old panellist in his pyjamas looking at documents drew particular derision.

Exclusive article: Israel’s economic susceptibility to the BDS movement 30 Jun 2010 The following article is written by Sydney-based Evan Jones (his previous contribution to the site is here): Israel has long thumbed its nose at international law and its moral underpinnings. But its flouting of the International Court of Justice’s July 2004 ruling declaiming the illegality of the wall cutting through the West Bank was a threshold for dissenters. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel took off, and has acquired fresh impetus after each Israeli outrage that transcends its garden variety daily criminality. A decisive event was the campaign against French infrastructure services giant Veolia. Veolia was involved in a light rail project that was to connect West Jerusalem to West Bank settlements. In January 2009, the Stockholm community council declined to renew the operating contract for Stockholm’s subway system with Veolia’s subsidiary, Connex, the largest public sector contract then on offer in Europe. Isolated skirmishes have escalated. But what is the likelihood of such efforts having a substantial impact on Israel’s economy? Adam Horowitz and Philip Weiss (of the Mondoweiss blog) have neatly (if crudely) articulated the division of labour: “boycotts are commonly carried out by individuals, divestment by institutions and sanctions by governments.” What amongst Israeli exports provides prime opportunities for boycott? Fruit and vegetables? Demonstrations down the aisles of French supermarket giant Carrefour are heart-warming. But apart from the problems of accurate source labeling, fruit and vegetables constituted only 1.2% of merchandise exports in 2008 and 1.8% in 2009. Together with manufactured food products and textiles/clothing/footwear, these three important consumer categories constituted less than 5% of merchandise exports. Israel’s largest export category is diamonds. Diamonds (including rough) constituted over 30% in 2008 and 24% of exports in 2009 (adversely hit by the GFC). Here is the particular skill of Jewish communities that has survived 500 years of persecution and discrimination. In the hands of Lev Leviev and others, this hallowed occupation is now being employed for the persecution of others. The diamond trade is a key pillar of the Israeli economy, but diamond buyers are possibly the most apolitical of consumers. The bulk of Israel’s exports are manufactured intermediate goods and machinery/equipment, destined for business users. Intel, the largest private sector employer, alone contributed US$3.4 billion in exports in 2009. Boycotts are an improbable agenda in this realm. Some of this machinery and equipment is sophisticated and linked, as in the US, to an industrial sector embedded in military imperatives. Then there is the arms trade proper. Israeli arms exports ballooned in 2009 to US$760 million, destined to myriad countries (information from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute, SIPRI). India is now on the drip, with arms sales a key means of bringing India into Israel’s fold. From 2000 onwards Israel sold weaponry to Sri Lanka in facilitating the latter’s successful obliteration of the Tamil separation movement. Apart from armoured vehicles, Israel’s surveillance turned killer drone is a bit hit amongst potential customers. Arms sales are, of course, an ethics-free zone. But here is a dimension of interest. The most important 2009 customer for Israeli arms exports was Turkey (with close relations between the two militaries), to the tune of US$320 million. The Gaza massacre was a turning point for Turkey; a healthy earner for Israel may disappear from this most reliable of profitable sectors, assuming that US-Israeli subversion doesn’t overturn the incumbent Justice and Development Party beforehand. Israel’s overall current account balance was perennially in deficit (“living beyond their means”) but has been in surplus since 2003. The aggregate of net merchandise and services trade and capital financing costs remains consistently in deficit, but is offset by sizeable transfers from abroad which in 2008 topped US$9.4 billion. Part of this sum is the annual grant from US taxpayers, which helps foot the bill for Israel’s purchases of American weaponry. In spite of Israel’s self-confidence regarding its trade sophistication, Israel remains a mendicant state. Israel’s exports to Australia are representative of its export trade in general (apart from arms). Of total Australian imports of $715 million in 2008-09, the largest category is ‘pearls & gems’ (read diamonds) at $81.6 million. Politics is rarely uppermost in the minds of betrothed couples seeking to symbolise their union. Fertiliser (farmers, are you out there?), machinery and intermediate goods comprise the bulk of the remainder. Of the few consumer items on which Australians could exercise a personal boycott, caesarstone is a standout case, but also footwear. Playing the underdog card to the hilt (not least in the face of early boycotts from Arab countries) and pushing the cultural affinity line, Israel has worked assiduously for decades to secure and entrench trading and financial relationships, to make Israel economically impregnable. A breakthrough occurred in December 1994 when the European Union granted Israel ‘special economic status’, on the basis of ‘reciprocity and common interest’ (which incidentally included development of the Occupied Territories). The agreement gave Israel privileged access to the massive EU market. There has followed deeper integration of Europe-Israel economic relations with a series of arrangements for joint investment and research activities – in particular, the EU-Israel Association Agreement of 2000, and an April 2008 consolidation. The ongoing economic ‘integration’ was given a formal political dimension with the April 2005 Action Plan, claiming: “The EU and Israel share the common values of democracy, respect for human rights and the rule of law and basic freedoms. … Historically and culturally, there exist great natural affinity and common heritage.” Europe has long been Israel’s major trading partner, although Israel now exports more to the US than to all of Europe (US$ 16.8 billion and US$15.4 billion in 2009). Europe, however, remains Israel’s major source of imports, with Germany as Israel’s most important European supplier (Belgian trade is mostly about diamonds). Israel has also assertively pursued free trade agreements, beginning with the US in 1985. This FTA has been a boon to Israel, with the trade balance working consistently in Israel’s favour, underpinning the rise of the US as Israel’s dominant market. Israel has also established FTAs with the EFTA countries (1992), an Eastern European bloc (1996-99), Mexico (2000), Turkey (2000), the MERCOSUR countries (2007) and Canada (2009). Finally, in May Israel achieved membership of the OECD, which formally requires a decent record on human rights, and thus a monumental diplomatic achievement. The decision comes courtesy of the US strong-arming member states, not least Turkey. Haaretz correspondent Aluf Benn laid out the significance, with Israel selling itself as: “… a small island of Western values and development in an Arab and Muslim sea. Now we’re in the club and the Palestinians, Egyptians and even the Saudis aren’t. They’re not even on the waiting list. In the OECD they can’t bother Israel with decisions condemning the occupation.” On the sanctions front, the situation remains parlous. The edifice would start to crumble if the US pulled the plug, but hell will freeze over. The US Congress is owned by Israel, reflected in its indulgence of the 2008-09 Gaza massacre and its subsequent condemnation of the Goldstone report into Israeli culpability. Europe is equally in bed with Israel (Germany is under permanent blackmail), save for dissent on the margin from Norway and Sweden, and now Ireland. Europe raises muffled concern, but continues to extend measures furthering the miscreant’s integration into the fold of privilege. Civic boycotts were conceived because of Western governments’ complicity in Israel’s crimes, and the improbability of meaningful sanctions ever being applied. Yet Israel’s susceptibility to economic boycotts by consumers is walled about by the same political superstructure that prevents sanctions, and reinforced by the generally tightly packaged character of Israeli trade, integrated into supportive American and European markets and with industrial trade submerged within commercial supply chains. Consumer boycotts are limited in potential aggregate impact but can have effect on specific products (Ahava cosmetics, Max Brenner chocolates). Turkey is now a significant wildcard. But the heavyweight vehicle on the economic front is the docking boycott, which hampers all Israeli exports regardless of character and end user. Witness the blockage at Oakland by a pro-Palestinian coalition on 20 June, and that by Swedish dockworkers at Gothenburg after 23 June. Divestment, ironically mediated by corporate self-interest, appears to be an avenue less blocked. Alas, the heralded divestment of Deutsche Bank from Israel’s largest defence firm Elbit appears to have been a false alarm. But, despite the slow pace, not least due to the omnipresent shock troops for the status quo, there is momentum. Unsullied church groups and employee pension funds are leveraging shareholder power – if not in quantum at least in symbolism. The boycott resolutions by two of Britain’s largest unions, Unite (4 June) and UNISON (24 June) are probably also initially more symbolic than substantive. But symbolism matters, as embodied in the climactic isolation of the South African springboks and its after-effects. Add the cultural arena, where the potential impact is great. The September 2009 boycott of the Toronto Film Festival showcasing Tel Aviv is significant; ditto the protests against performances of the Jerusalem Quartet in Australia (late 2009) and London (March 2010). The recent cancellations of tours by music groups to Israel is an exemplary escalation of the cultural boycott. Exporting Israeli culture abroad is a formal strategic vehicle to deodorise the naked imperative of lebsensraum at home. Yet the highlighting of the explicit propaganda role of such connections by would-be boycotters is met with fury by that fusion of self-delusion and mendacity that is peculiar to the Israeli hasbara. Embarrassing for its degeneracy yet curiously comforting to watch because of its unsustainability. Bring it on.

Your mobile phone can be used to kill  30 Jun 2010 Foreign Policy features an article about the “geo-politics of the iPhone”. Perhaps the most revealing section: The business: If you thought military procurement was all about snapping up hardware like guns and tanks, think again. Increasingly, companies like Raytheon and Knight’s Armament are developing smartphone applications for the armed services. Apple and Google are marketing their respective products, too. And the Pentagon’s buying. The politics: Normally, military innovation drives advances in the private market. Take GPS satellite navigation, for instance, or the microwave oven. In the case of smartphones, though, the tables have turned. Web-enabled phones are going to war in ever greater numbers, and the U.S. military hopes that such devices, with the help of the Internet, can provide soldiers with reams of live battlefield data. But it isn’t just their passive capabilities that the military finds attractive. In the same way that civilian third-party apps have greatly expanded the potential of the iPhone and similar hand-helds, the Pentagon’s R&D house, DARPA, bets that a military app store can likewise reshape the way soldiers fight and interact with one another. One such app, BulletFlight, lets snipers plug in variables like windage, distance, temperature, and humidity to help them achieve the perfect shot. Another, the One Force Tracker, plots friendly positions on a map in real time, and a third, Vcommunicator, produces “spoken and written translations of Arabic, Kurdish, and two Afghan languages.” It’s no revolution in military affairs, but the smartphone revolution may still shake up war-fighting in a big way.

The Green Movement doesn’t need help from the Zionist lobby  30 Jun 2010 Beware hardline Zionists backing an Iranian opposition group, the People’s Mojahedin.

The paper of record waking up to Israeli colonies?  30 Jun 2010 Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times today: The Israeli occupation of the West Bank is widely acknowledged to be unsustainable and costly to the country’s image. But one more blunt truth must be acknowledged: the occupation is morally repugnant. On one side of a barbed-wire fence here in the southern Hebron hills is the Bedouin village of Umm al-Kheir, where Palestinians live in ramshackle tents and huts. They aren’t allowed to connect to the electrical grid, and Israel won’t permit them to build homes, barns for their animals or even toilets. When the villagers build permanent structures, the Israeli authorities come and demolish them, according to villagers and Israeli human rights organizations. On the other side of the barbed wire is the Jewish settlement of Karmel, a lovely green oasis that looks like an American suburb. It has lush gardens, kids riding bikes and air-conditioned homes. It also has a gleaming, electrified poultry barn that it runs as a business. Elad Orian, an Israeli human rights activist, nodded toward the poultry barn and noted: “Those chickens get more electricity and water than all the Palestinians around here.”