|
|
home / subscribe / donate / tower / books / archives / search / links / feedback / events / faq
|
Hezbollah's Rise, Israel's Fall |
|
Today's Stories September 13, 2006 Jim Bensman September 12, 2006 Norman Finkelstein Seth Sandronsky John Walsh Alan Maass David Krieger Nate Mezmer Kathleen Christison
Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Col Dan Smith Dr. Susan Block Anthony Alessandrini Dave Lindorff Niranjan Ramakrishnan Joshua Frank Jean Bricmont Sprague / Emesberger Website of
the Day
September 9/10,
2006 Alexander Cockburn Jeffrey St.
Clair Greg Grandin Peter
Stone Brown Ralph
Nader Brian
Cloughley Col.
Chet Richards David
Model Dave
Himmelstein Ron
Jacobs Fred
Gardner Mike
Whitney Josh
Gryniewicz Daniel
Gross / Joe
Bageant Nicole
Colson Alexander
Billet Poets'
Basement
September 8, 2006 Uri
Avnery Paul
Craig Roberts Bill
Quigley Robert
Jensen Norman
Solomon Keith
Bolin
September 8, 2006 Uri
Avnery Paul
Craig Roberts Bill
Quigley Robert
Jensen Norman
Solomon Keith
Bolin Kristin
S. Schafer Jeffrey
St. Clair Patrick
Cockburn Website
of the Day
Marjorie
Cohn Sharon
Smith René
Drucker Colín Michael
Donnelly John
Borowski Lucinda
Marshall Charles
Sullivan Jeffrey
St. Clair Jonathan
Cook Website
of the Day
September 6, 2006 Stephen
Soldz Dave
Zirin Ramzy
Baroud Noel
Ignatiev Dave
Lindorff Norman
Solomon Binoy
Kampmark Jeffrey
St. Clair John
Ross Website
of the Day
September 5, 2006 Jonathan Cook Patrick Cockburn Mike Whitney
Roland Sheppard James Petras Alexander Cockburn
September 4, 2006 Clancy Sigal Jeffrey St.
Clair Anthony Alessandrini Dennis Perrin
Daniel Cassidy
Paul Craig
Roberts
September 2 / 3, 2006 Uri Avnery Jeffrey St.
Clair Ralph Nader Noam Chomsky Allan Lichtman Stanley Heller Rana el-Khatib Peter Montague Laura Carlsen Dr. Susan Block Joe Bageant Scott Stedjan / Matt Schaaf Gary Leupp Stephen Fleischman Paul Balles Ingmar Lee Jane Stillwater Ron Jacobs St. Clair /
Bossert Poets' Basement Website of
the Weekend
September 1, 2006 Uri Avnery Paul Craig
Roberts Bill Ayers Kevin Zeese Xochitl Bervera Norman Solomon Alexander Cockburn Richard Neville Website of the Day
August 31, 2006 David MacMichael John Ross Edward Said Amira Hass Missy Comley
Beattie Lee Sustar Jonathan Cook Website of the Day
August 30, 2006 Paul Craig
Roberts George Salzman Dave Lindorff Leigh Davis Alan Maass Mike Whitney Eliza Ernshire Website of
the Day
Saul Landau Jeffrey Buchanan Dave Lindorff James Brooks John F. Burnett Walter A. Davis Rich Gibson Amira Hass Paul Craig
Roberts
August 28, 2006 John Walsh Sibel Edmonds
/ William Weaver Ramzy Kysia Ron Jacobs Gideon Levy Missy Beattie Virginia Tilley
Uri Avnery Alexander Cockburn Jordan Green Azmi Bishara Ray Close Gary Leupp Ralph Nader Joe Allen Fred Gardner Dave Lindorff David Krieger Stephen Fleischman Mary Turck Walter Brasch Jim Scharplaz Israel Shamir Alexander Cockburn Charles Henderson Jeffrey St. Clair Poets' Basement
August 25, 2006 Elena Everett Juan Cole Chris Moore James Marc Leas Salah Obeid Claudio Albertani Tom Barry Website of
the Day
CounterPunch
News Service Uri Avnery Nermeen al-Mufti Norman Solomon Megan Wiles Laura Santina Mike Whitney Seth Sandronsky Christopher
Brauchli
August 23, 2006 Dr. Trudy Bond Ramzy Baroud Ron Jacobs Heather Gray Amira Hass Mavis Anderson Ingmar Lee Francis Boyle John Ross
Gilad Atzmon Jack Heyman Eamon McCann Sharon Smith Edward S. Herman Ramzi Kysia Bill Quigley August 21, 2006 Jonathan Cook Paul Craig
Roberts Kathy Kelly Mike Roselle Lenni Brenner Maher Osseiran
August 19 /
20, 2006 Uri Avnery Eliza Ernshire Virginia Tilley Kathy Kelly Marc Levy Stephen Bradberry / Barbara Rose
Johnston William Blum Stephen Fleischman Ralph Nader Dave Lindorff Fred Gardner David Krieger Dan La Botz Poets' Basement
August 18, 2006 Brian M. Downing John Blair Alan Hart Craig Murray Chris Dols Emily Kirksey Joaquín Bustelo William S.
Lind Podcast of the Day Website of
the Day
August 17, 2006 CounterPunch
News Service Barucha Peller Ramzy Baroud Rothem Shtarkman Craig Murray Samar Assad Mike Ferner Arnold Kohen Kevin Zeese Missy Comley Beattie Uri Avnery Video of the Day Website of
the Day
August 16, 2006 Merav Yudilovitch Robert Fisk Mark Williams John Ross Christopher
Brauchli John Walsh Ron Jacobs Rachard Itani Felice Pace Niranjan Ramakrishnan Frank, Sharma
and Peterson Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
August 15, 2006 Andrew Ford
Lyons Binoy Kampmark Robert Fisk Ralph Nader Todd Chretien Chris Floyd Mark Engler George Galloway Laray Polk Trish Schuh Website of the Day
Uri Avnery Karim Makdisi Kathy Kelly Robert Fisk Norman Solomon Sunsara Taylor Robert Jensen Mike Whitney P. Sainath Goretti Horgan Christopher
Reed
August 12 /
13, 2006 Jean Bricmont Norman Finkelstein Robert Fisk Adrian Grima Barucha Peller Omar Barghouti Adam Engel Conn Hallinan John Stauber Rev. William
Alberts Fred Gardner Lucinda Marshall Ron Jacobs CounterPunch
News Service Poets' Basement
Col. Dan Smith John Ross Michael Donnelly William S.
Lind Linda Milazzo Rep. Cynthia
McKinney Azmi Bishara Henri Picciotto CounterPunch News Wire Dave Lindorff Jonathan Cook
Uri Avnery Dave Marsh Gabriel Kolko Arthur Versluis Jennifer Loewenstein
Linda Schade Jackie Mason Jonathan Cook Gilad Atzmon
Charles Hirschkind
Tom Barry Cockburn &
St. Clair
August 8, 2006 Patrick Cockburn Paul Larudee Joan Roelofs Dimi Reider John A. Murphy Tim Llewellyn Website of the Day
August 7, 2006 Uri Avnery Karim Makdisi Nadia Hijab Sharon Smith Magan Wiles George Beres Rachard Itani Norman Solomon Stan Cox Mickey Z. Jonathan Cook Website of
the Day
August 5 / 6, 2006 Virginia Tilley Uri Avnery Patrick Cockburn Sgt. Martin Smith Gary Leupp Neve Gordon Ralph Nader Peter Bouckaert Peter Montague David Krieger Michael Donnelly Fred Gardner Catherine Norris Imraan Siddiqi Missy Comley
Beattie Ira Kay Dave Lindorff Pratyush Chandra Ron Jacobs St. Clair / Donnelly Poets' Basement Website of the Day Video of the
Weekend
August 4, 2006 Ralph Nader Brian Cloughley Eliza Ernshire Roger Assaf George Bisharat Remi Kanazi Laura Carlsen Niranjan Ramakrishnan Derrick O'Keefe Mickey Z. Col. Dan Smith Website of the Day
Jonathan Cook Uri Avnery Saree Makdisi Robert Fisk Farrah Hassen Nicola Nasser Ron Jacobs Mitchel Cohen Seth Sandronsky Bruce K. Gagnon Alexander Cockburn
John Ross Chip Mitchell Saul Landau Naseer Aruri Winslow T.
Wheeler Matthias Gebauer Joshua Frank Bill Quigley Manuel Yang Shamai Leibowitz David Himmelstein Lara Marlowe Website of
the Day
August 1, 2006 Michael Neumann Robert Fisk Omar Barghouti Marc Levy Diana Barahona / Jeb Sprague Claud Cockburn Ross Eisenbrey Dave Lindorff John Chuckman Francis Boyle Phil Doe Stephen Soldz Website of the Day
Subscribe Online
|
September 13, 2006 There are No Monopolies on SufferingMy Israel QuestionBy ANTONY LOEWENSTEIN Jamie Glassman is a British Jewish writer on The Ali G show, a comedy program known for intentionally offending deserving establishment figures. Glassman recently attended the Edinburgh Arts Festival and was disturbed. He wrote in the London Times:
His conclusion was perhaps understandable but thoroughly inaccurate. There was, he noted:
How often do we hear that the Left is infected with a vicious Jew-hatred? And how often do Jews tell each other that every criticism of Israel is driven by a pathological rejection of Israel's right to exist? I'm here to tell those Jews that it's time to stop living like it's 1948. Israeli actions in Palestine and Lebanon are directly contributing to worldwide legitimate criticism of the Zionist state. For a growing number of global citizens, Israel is a pariah. It's about time we discovered why. Real anti-Semitism does exist, of course. Sydney's Daily Telegraph newspaper reported recently that a number of Jewish students at Sydney University had recently suffered verbal and physical abuse and "Kill Jews" had been spray-painted around Sydney. All these acts are unacceptable and patently racist. But none of this means that Jews fear leaving their houses or should remain in ghettos. Many do a pretty good job on their own without needing encouragement. I wanted my book, My Israel Question, to offer divergent views. I asked the majority of so-called Jewish leaders in Australia for comment, but they either ignored the request or offered verbal abuse. Federal Labor MP Michael Danby announced last August, before the book was finished and without having read any of it, that my publisher, Melbourne University Publishing, should "drop this whole disgusting project" and instructed the Jewish community to not buy the book. The message was clear. The Jewish leadership was petrified of open and honest debate on the Middle East conflict; they simply had too much to lose. Over two years of writing, researching and spending time in the Middle East and the US--as well as being slammed by simply defending the rights of Palestinian human rights campaigner Hanan Ashrawi after she won the 2003 Sydney Peace Prize--I soon realised that I wasn't being silenced but the issues of Israeli occupation and the Zionist lobby were routinely avoided by the mainstream media. I wanted my book to readdress that imbalance. Honest debate about Israel and Palestine is sadly lacking in Australia and much of the Western world. It's invariably overly emotive, factually challenged, partisan and counter-productive. Arabs, Palestinians, Israelis, Jews, Muslims, atheists and concerned citizens rarely find middle-ground on the most contentious areas, such as Palestinian refugees, the dividing of Jerusalem and the occupation of Gaza and the West Bank. Discussing Israel and Palestine is therefore vital in an age of rising fundamentalisms. Labelling critics of Israel as anti-Semitic or anti-Israel merely attempts to silence individuals who passionately believe the current political path of the Jewish state is destined to lead to its disappearance. I share this fear. The simple truth is that Israel's long-term security lies with the Arab world, not a superpower thousands of miles away. A superpower, it should be noted, that has suffered an inglorious and welcome defeat in Iraq and whose reputation in the Arab and Muslim world has never been worse. Martin Jacques, a visiting research fellow at the London School of Economics Asia Research Centre, writes in the Guardian:
For too long, Jews have refused to take responsibility for Israeli actions in Palestine. No longer is it acceptable to argue that ethnic strife is worse in Sudan, Congo or Bosnia. Let's stop changing the subject and face up to some uncomfortable realities. The nearly 40-year occupation has corrupted Israel's soul. On the sixtieth anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, Israeli writer Tom Segev explained the sickness:
A true supporter of Israel can both love and loathe the homeland. Automatic support only serves to prove that Israel and Jewish Diasporas everywhere are not sufficiently mature to debate this long-standing conflict. In the few months, we have seen another war initiated by Israel. After destroying much of Lebanon--and Amnesty International said that attacks on civilian targets by Israeli military forces appeared to be deliberate war crimes--the world community has gained an even greater insight into the Israeli establishment's mindset. What has been achieved? The country's first military defeat, over one hundred Israeli soldiers killed, a resurgent Hizbollah and Iran and increased hatred around the world. Some victory. And yet the Australian Jewish community meekly mouths every press release coming from the Israeli Foreign Ministry. In the occupied territories of West Bank and Gaza, Israeli forces kidnap democratically elected Palestinian leaders. Around 10,000 Palestinians reside in Israeli jails, many never facing trial. Israel does not even respect the international right of these individuals to receive regular family visits. The great Israeli journalist Amira Hass wrote recently in Haaretz newspaper how the Jewish state corrupts the legal process when dealing with the Palestinians:
The release of My Israel Question has provided great insight into the inability of the Jewish community to handle robust debate on the Middle East dispute. Simply put, the Zionist leadership isn't ready and neither is the community newspaper, the Jewish News. They have preferred to highlight personal gripes, character assassinations and gossip. They've too much at stake to honesty assess their own responsibility in perpetuating the myth that loyal obedience to the Israeli state is the only noble and acceptable face of Diaspora Jewry. They will start to pay dearly for this misnomer in years to come, as the ghetto-mentality worsens proportionate to Israel's falling international standing. I've been pleasantly surprised by the vast mainstream media coverage offered to the book across print, TV and radio. After five weeks on the shelves, it's already in a 2nd re-printing and a best-seller. A book of this nature is bound to generate varying opinions, and I certainly havn't been disappointed. I've been compared to accused anti-Semite Helen Demidenko by Zionist lobbyist Jeremy Jones in the Jewish News. Sydney Morning Herald David Marr was kinder and launched the book in Sydney because he believed in "argument - the need for honest, tough, passionate and fair argument about issues that for 50 years have threatened to bring the world to war." I've received hundreds of supportive messages from Jews and non-Jews in Australia and overseas, desperate to find an alternative to bellicose and bullying Zionism, but I've also copped emails such as the following:
But the media has deliberately avoided one of the key findings of My Israel Question, namely the ways in which the Zionist lobby intimidates editors, journalists and board members to silence viewpoints that don't fit their militaristic and pro-Israeli worldview. I spoke a few weeks ago to an editor at one of the country's leading newspapers who told me that elements of the Jewish community, through their persistent aggressive tactics, are in fact contributing to senior journalists growing more sceptical towards the Israeli perspective. Are Zionists listening? In a recent edition of the Jewish News, so-called Jewish leader Sam Lipski praised Rupert Murdoch's Australian newspaper for editorially supporting Israel during the recent war in Lebanon. Lipski virtually acknowledged that Israel had lost the war of ideas, and the Jewish state needed all the friends it could get, so "let the record show that in its war of self-defence in 2006, a series of editorials in an Australian newspaper contributed on both counts." It was a startling display of intellectual laziness, though revealed the sickness that pervades the Jewish community. Lipski argued for uncritical reporting. He encouraged a newspaper that shamelessly ignored the rights of Palestinians, Lebanese and Arabs. And he celebrated perspectives that blindly supported the Jewish state, with no questions asked. Lipski must be a very insecure man if he can't handle criticism of his beloved homeland. Besides, such debate is currently occurring within Israel itself, where a majority of Israelis now realise they lost the recent war against Hizbollah. Lipski's anti-intellectualism was unsurprising for a Jewish leadership that refuses to recognise that we no longer live in 1943 Poland. Of course, Lipski probably just received his talking points from Australian editor-in-chief Chris Mitchell, who told this week's Jewish News that many critics of Israel, including the Fairfax press, "take the view that Israel is sort of an occupying power and that the Palestinians are freedom fighters who should deserve editorial sympathy." Mitchell said he had spent time in Israel and argued it was difficult to see "how you can pull back without threatening security." He claimed the lands taken by Israel in 1967 were "essentially defensive in nature," despite the fact that the Israeli establishment clearly believed in the original Zionist, expansionist dream; namely, greater dispossession for the Palestinian people. Here's a memo to Mitchell and his cheer-leaders in the Jewish community: Israel is an undisputed occupying power of Palestinian land. "Pulling back", as he puts, is not simply necessary, it's both immoral and illegal to do otherwise. It's important to acknowledge some realities. There is a Zionist lobby in Australia. It has every right to lobby its position, like every other ethnic group. It certainly does not have the right to bully journalists, editors and politicians. In a recent article in the Australian newspaper, a Jewish rug-seller said that even mentioning the existence of the Zionist lobby is anti-Semitic. The Israelis openly discuss the role of the Zionist lobby in the US. The mainstream media is largely sympathetic to the Israeli worldview, classing Hizbollah, Hamas and indeed much of the Arab world as "terrorists", and unjustly resisting imperial occupation. Dissenting opinions occasionally permeate the stuffy, largely Anglo offices of Fairfax, News Limited and the ABC, but we need to encourage more Arab, Palestinian and less militant Jewish voices to be heard. Why, for example, isn't there one weekly Arab columnist in any Australian newspaper? It's time to retire the drooling old males that populate opinion pages across the country. The Jewish community's apparent universal support for Israel right or wrong is far more fragmented than we are led to believe. Many do love the Zionist state, but many also express profound distaste for Israeli actions in the occupied territories. It is now time for those individuals to stand up in public and challenge the dominant narrative. The sight of the Jewish establishment discovering that their Zionist thinking is as tired and irrelevant as their insistence on Jews giving money to planting trees in Israel will be a day to savour. I believe in a safe and secure Israel and Palestine and I say this as a proud Jew. Let's not wait for the day when support for the Jewish state is largely centred in Washington, London and Canberra. The current militaristic path ensures that Israel is destined to disappear if it doesn't make more friends in the Arab and wider world. So enough talking about the Holocaust, Jewish suffering, victimhood, hateful Arabs, terrorists and peace-loving Israel. Jew don't have a monopoly on suffering. We're all human beings who deserve far better than our leaders are currently providing. It's time for a revolution. Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based journalist, author
and blogger. His websites are: http://myisraelquestion.com/
and http://antonyloewenstein.com/.
His email is antony [at] antonyloewenstein [dot] com
|
from CounterPunch Books! The Case Against Israel By Michael Neumann  Grand Theft Pentagon: Tales of Greed and Profiteering in the War on Terror by Jeffrey St. Clair          Sick of sit-on-the-Fence speakers, tongue-tied and timid? CounterPunch Editors Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St Clair are available to speak forcefully on ALL the burning issues, as are other CounterPunchers seasoned in stump oratory. Call CounterPunch Speakers Bureau, 1-800-840-3683. Or email beckyg@counterpunch.org.                     |
