Welcome to the smell of futility. The last months have seen an avalanche of Zionists, liberal Zionists, columnists and fear-mongers claiming that boycotts against Israel are dangerous, yet offering nothing to end the occupation. The latest, via Haaretz, is the Netanyahu government potentially spending huge dollars on attacking BDS backers. There’s one small problem (as…
Showing all posts tagged Zionism
The day Scarlett Johansson fell in love with Zionist occupation
During the SuperBowl last night, a game I watched here in New York with a mixture of confusion and amazement during the litany of mundane celebrity-endorsed advertisements, the questions over SodaStream were strong. This pro Israeli-occupation company, now supported by actress Scarlett Johansson, found itself in a storm of controversy. Deservedly so. Al Jazeera America…
A new year and BDS already challenging heart of Zionism
Strong piece in this weekend’s New York Times by Palestinian Omar Barghouti on the logic and increasing power of BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] against Israel: The… landslide vote… by the American Studies Association in December to endorse an academic boycott of Israel, coming on the heels of a similar decision by the… Association for Asian-American… Studies, among others,…
Being an Australian, pro-Palestinian Jew
I was recently interviewed for the Executive Style section (!) at Fairfax Media by Gary Nunn, under the headline, Winning By Putting Yourself Second, on my work over Palestine: Antony Loewenstein is an Australian-Jewish opponent of Israel. Having spent time in Israel, the West Bank and Gaza and written two books on the subject, he…
Why it's time for UN sanctions against Australia
My weekly Guardian column is published today: This month, the United Nations accused Canberra of… potentially breaking international law… by forcibly repelling refugee boats back to Indonesia.… Adrian Edwards, spokesman for the UN high commissioner for refugees,… said… that the international body was “concerned by any policy or practice that involved pushing asylum-seeker boats back at sea without a proper…
Boycott of Israel makes prime-time coverage in Israel
The Zionist lobby and its various backers can argue that global anti-Semitism is the reason the Jewish state is increasingly isolated. Dream on. Here’s Larry Derfner, writing in +972 Magazine, explaining the sign of the BDS times: On Saturday night the boycott of Israel gained an impressive new level of mainstream recognition in this country.…
How Israeli abuses splinters Jewish identity
Any thinking Jew (and/or human being) has major issues with the ways in which Israel occupies the Palestinians. It’s something I’ve written about and struggled with for years. Al-Jazeera journalist Matthew Cassel (a visitor to Australia in 2011 and we shared a stage talking about the Arab revolutions) has produced a moving, telling, revealing and…
Listen to cartoonists, sages of our age
The great American, Jewish cartoonist Eli Valley appears on MSNBC to discuss politics, Israel, Jewry and challenging conservative Zionism:
Nelson Mandela speaks in 1990 about Palestine and human rights
A fascinating town hall meeting filmed in New York that covers Israel/Palestine, Cuba, Libya, foreign policy and morality:
Slowly but surely US intellectuals challenge Israeli violence
As Israel continues its strangulation of the West Bank and Gaza, the Jewish state is starting to realise such actions come with a price (like South Africa during apartheid). This news is big and important (and ignore the typical and utterly tiresome accusations of anti-Semitism) and signals a growing shift to tackle Israel where it…