Antony Loewenstein

Via the Guardian:

The owner of a Jewish newspaper in Atlanta has said he deeply regrets writing a column suggesting that Israel consider “a hit” on Barack Obama if he stands in the way of the Jewish state defending itself.

Andrew Adler told the Guardian he wrote the column in the weeklyAtlanta Jewish Times ”to get a reaction” from the paper’s readers.

“The headline for the column was: ‘What would you do?’ That’s what I wanted to see,” he said. “It’s got like a Dr Phil reaction: what were you thinking? I feel really bad it did that.”

The column, first brought to light by Gawker, asks readers to imagine that they are the Israeli prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, confronting the threat posed by Hezbollah and Iran’s nuclear programme while also under pressure from a US president with an “Alice in Wonderland” belief in diplomacy over force.

Adler lays out what he says are the three options available to Netanyahu: attack Hezbollah and Hamas; defy the US – which is willing to let “Israel take a lethal bullet” – by striking against Iran’s nuclear facilities; or a third option.

“Three, give the go-ahead for US-based Mossad agents to take out a president deemed unfriendly to Israel in order for the current vice-president to take his place, and forcefully dictate that the United States‘ policy includes its helping the Jewish state obliterate its enemies,” Adler wrote in a column that appeared in print by not online.

“Yes, you read “three” correctly. Order a hit on a president in order to preserve Israel’s existence. Think about it. If I have thought of this Tom Clancy-type scenario, don’t you think that this almost unfathomable idea has been discussed in Israel’s most inner circles?”

Adler went on to ask: “How far would you go to save a nation comprised of 7 million lives – Jews, Christians and Arabs alike? You have got to believe, like I do, that all options are on the table.”

Adler said he understood why readers might interpret his writing as suggesting that Israel is seriously considering assassinating the US president but that is not what he meant.

“No, no, no. It’s unfathomable, unthinkable,” he said, adding: “I’m definitely pro-Israel to the max.”

The rise and rise of Jewish extremists in Israel – funded, backed, endorsed and often armed by the Zionist state – brings the issue of a Jewish Hizbollah upon us. Mark Perry writes in Foreign Policy:

“I don’t want to exaggerate, but it’s time to call this what it is,” a veteran IDF officer noted in a recent telephone conversation on the Nablus incident. “It might be news in America, but it’s no secret in Israel. This is a very real crisis. What we have here is the birth of a state within a state. The birth of a kind of Jewish Hezbollah.” This former officer went on to speculate that “what is emerging in the West Bank” is “a three-state solution: Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and, standing between them, a radical settler state.” Yehuda Shaul, an organizer of Breaking The Silence — a group of IDF soldiers committed to publicizing the reality of being an Israeli soldier in the West Bank — is unwilling to go that far, though he confirms that the series of escalations between settlers and the IDF has roiled the Israeli military. “The IDF is in the West Bank to control tens of thousands of Palestinians,” he notes, “but they’re having the most trouble controlling the settlers. It’s quite an irony.”

Israeli historian Yehuda Bauer tells Al-Jazeera that a genocidal-minded, minority groups of Jews have the potential to cause havoc:

There are growing signs of collusion between the Zionist lobby, fundamentalists who want the government to tell us what to hear and see and politicians such as Joe Lieberman who never saw a war against Muslims they didn’t like.

Now this. It must be resisted:

Twitter has been threatened with legal action by an Israeli pressure group in an attempt to force it to close accounts run by Hezbollah and other organisations classed as terrorist by the United States.

Shurat HaDin, the Israel Law Centre, demanded in a letter to the microblogging service that it block access to Hezbollah, the East African al-Qaeda affiliate al-Shabaab and other outlawed “Foreign Terrorist Organisations”.

“Please be advised that providing social media and other associated services to terrorist groups is illegal and will expose Twitter, Inc. and its officers to both criminal prosecution and civil liability to American citizens and others victimized by terrorisms carried out by Hezbollah, al-Shabaab or other FTOs,” Shurat HaDin’s letter said.

The lawsuit would target accounts such as @Almanarnews, which is run by a Hezbollah television station in Lebanon.
It adds to pressure on Twitter in the United States over tweeting by militant organisations. Joe Lieberman, chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, called on the firm this week to shut down accounts that support the Taliban.

Twitter reportedly rebuffed his call on grounds that the Taliban is not officially designated as Foreign Terrorist Organisation by the State Department. The firm has previously signalled its commitment to free speech by arguing that “the tweets must flow” and only shutting down accounts following a violation of its terms of service, such as impersonating someone else or harrassing other users.

The mainstream normalisation of anti-Muslim hatred is finding friends in the most predictable of places; Israel. This is something discussed in the new e-book On Utoya.

This piece in Israeli paper Haaretz offers a worrying new development:

Marine Le Pen hit the jackpot. She invited about 100 diplomats to a luncheon last week during a visit to UN Headquarters in New York. Four accepted: There were the envoys from Trinidad and Tobago, Armenia and Uruguay, who obviously are of no concern to her at all. But the entrance of the fourth guest, Israeli UN Ambassador Ron Prosor, made the event a sensation and worth her whole trip.

No official American representative agreed to meet with France’s extreme-right leader. Neither did any leader of the Jewish community. She failed in her attempt to stage a photo op at the Holocaust Museum, and skipped the visit. The French ambassador to the UN sent a sharp message that she is persona non grata in the United Nations building. But the Israeli envoy? He shook her hand and spoke of the importance that must be accorded to a wide variety of opinions.

“We flourish on the diversity of ideas,” Prosor said. “We talked about Europe, about other issues and I enjoyed the conversation very much,” Prosor was quoted as saying. Even before he went into the hall where the luncheon was being held, he told shocked reporters that he was a “free man.”

The Foreign Ministry now claims there was a misunderstanding; the ambassador “thought he was attending an event hosted by the French UN delegation. When he realized his error, he skipped the meal and left.” User comments on leading French news websites over the weekend were derisive, including all the French equivalents of LOL and ROFL in response to the explanation.

No one believes it was a coincidence. Prosor is a proven professional. He would certainly want to forget the fact that he became the first representative of the Jewish state to meet with a leader of the National Front. He would probably be happy to smash the camera that documented the smiling encounter. But his mistake did not happen in a vacuum. It has the odor of a symptom. The odor of a very unholy alliance being formed between members of the Israeli right-wing and a number of the most nationalistic and anti-Semitic figures in Europe. Over the past year, among visitors to Israel were the populist Dutch leader Geert Wilders, the Belgian racist Filip Dewinter and the Austrian successor to Jorg Haider, Heinz-Christian Strache.

These politicians, like Le Pen, have exchanged the Jewish demon-enemy for the criminal-immigrant Muslim. But they have not really discarded their ideological DNA. The Israeli seal of approval they seek to get is intended to bring them closer to power. Le Pen herself has decided to leave behind the anti-Semitic scandals of her father, Jean-Marie. She wants to make the National Front a popular and legitimate party.

She is already popular (19 percent in the polls). Legitimate? In two interviews she gave to Haaretz in the past, she attacked President Jacques Chirac for his historic 1995 declaration in which he took, in the name of France, responsibility for Vichy war crimes. She adamantly refused to denounce French fascist crimes and showed that she cannot really disengage from her father, his heritage and her party’s Vichy and anti-Semitic hard core.

It is easy to guess what would happen to an Israeli ambassador if he found himself at an event hosted by the “disgraced” Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas – or, perish the thought, at a Hamas or Hezbollah event. The earth would tremble. Even tar and feathers would not be enough under such circumstances. But Le Pen is blonde and she has blue eyes. Oh, and she hates Muslims.

Take some clueless politicians. Show them an Israel that supports colonisation and racism against Arabs as mainstream. Allow them to speak to Israeli-approved Palestinians for a few minutes.

Offer propaganda and receive lashings of lies in return. Mix, conduct such “tours” regularly and guarantee continued pro-Israel sentiment in the Australian parliament:

Five Labor members of Federal Parliament have reported on their recent participation in an AIJAC Rambam Israel Fellowship Program visit to Israel.

Participating were Queensland Senator Mark Furner, Tasmanian Senator Catryna Bilyk, Member for Kingston in South Australia Amanda Rishworth, Member for Wakefield in South Australia Nicholas Champion and Member for Bass in Tasmania Geoffrey Lyons.  Three of the participants Ms Rishworth, Senator Furner and Senator Bilyk shared their impressions at a recent Australia/Israel & Jewish Affairs Council (AIJAC) luncheon.
During the visit the Labor politicians met with a wide array of analysts,politicians and community figures,travelling south to Sderot,to the Lebanon border as well as meeting with senior Palestinian figures including in Bethlehem.

Senator Furner said that he was shocked by the number of rocket attacks into Southern Israel from Gaza and the extensive network of bomb shelters that were required including in children’s playgrounds.  He noted that there had been over 5000 rockets fired into Israel between 2005 and 2009, and that he could not “imagine what sort of stress, what sort of anxiety those residents of Sderot would be going through on a daily basis.”
Amanda Rishworth  was struck by the diversity in Israel and its “vibrant democracy” as illustrated by the peaceful social protest movement, which she witnessed during her time there said the trip was an “amazing experience”.

She emphasised the importance of visiting Israel to understand its complexities.  She was surprised by how small Israel is and how close it was to Lebanon, Hezbollah and Gaza. Her trip enabled her to now understand the vulnerability of Sderot and that “Israel is in a tough neighbourhood”.

Regarding peace efforts, Rishworth expressed that from her perspective peace is only possible through bilateral negotiations and that the Palestinians now needed to come to those negotiations. Senator Furner said that as a former negotiator he believes what is needed in negotiating is “genuine commitment that must be reciprocated by all the parties involved”, and said that he knew that the Israelis were genuine but he had doubts about the commitment on the part of the Palestinians.

Following a meeting with Palestinian Media Watch, Senator Bilyk said that as a mother, a politician and an early childhood educator she was deeply concerned by the brainwashing of Palestinian children by the Palestinian media and the tendency to treat Israelis as dispensable and disposable.  Senator Bilyk said that the concept of brainwashing children from the cradle “planted seeds of war” and was “child abuse”.

They all said that they had a profound educational and moving experience visiting the Israeli Holocaust Museum, Yad Vashem.  Rishworth saidvisiting the museum “provided dimensions that I had no idea of…being in a place where its all brought together gives you a real emotional perspective rather than just a knowledgeable perspective on the suffering that occurred.”

The trip also emphasised the close relationship between Australia and Israel that crosses a broad spectrum of activities, Rishworth noting that the connection “runs deep between our two countries”.

The politicians said the study visit had provided them with a profound experience and a crash course in  Middle East political realities.

Jamie Hyams, Senior Policy Analyst at AIJAC accompanied the Rambam group in Israel and said, “the variety of the program allows participants to experience a broad range of perspectives about Israel and the challenges it faces.”

Dr Colin Rubenstein, Executive Director of AIJAC said, “the perceptive comments made by the politicians indicated that their understanding of Middle East realities had been greatly enhanced by the visit as had their appreciation of the  obstacles on the path towards a viable peace process.”

It seems I’ve upset a man who rather likes Zionist occupation and dislikes my recent ABC piece on the UN Palestine bid and BDS [boycott, divestment and sanctions] against Israel.

In this week’s conservative Spectator magazine, a column by Rowan Dean, headlined, “Three words you’ll never hear from Loewenstein and his BDS pals”, rehashes every Israeli Foreign Ministry talking point of the last 20 years. Terrorism! Hamas! Terrorism! Hizbollah! Iran! Ahmadinejad! Terrorism!

It’s comical to read such pieces, such is their distance from reality. Israel can continue hanging onto the illegally occupied territories, but it will cease to be a Jewish majority state. Soon. Something people who truly believe in democracy should welcome.

Here’s Dean’s piece:

Israel’s biggest newspaper has the story. And what will be the global reaction to this? Silence, because after all, if Israel would have attacked Gaza it would have been seen as “defensive” even if white phosphorus was used, like during Operation Cast Lead. This is the Holocaust excuse, used time and time again, and yet many citizens globally simply no longer accept Israeli violence:

When Defense Minister Ehud Barak arrived at the Defense Ministry Headquarters’ meeting room last Saturday, a thick war book titled “Operation South” was already awaiting his approval on his desk. In those hours, Israel was on the verge of embarking on war in the Gaza Strip.

The book did not pertain to a limited operation. The selected targets would have certainly prompted a major flare-up, including difficult regional implications. Just like in Operation Cast Lead, the political leadership granted immunity to no one in the Strip, regardless of his position or stature.

The detailed plans – the targets, scope, power and timing – would have left Hamas no breathing space and time to debate its response. It would have gone for the jackpot, right away. Indeed, Israel’s war plan included preparations for massive rocket fire from Gaza, including long-range missiles aimed at central Israel in general, and at Tel Aviv in particular.

Last weekend, the General Staff Headquarters looked like on the eve of war. Officials were working around the clock and sleeping in their offices. While formulating the plans, top officials recalled the curse of arrogance of the Second Lebanon War. Back then, the decision to launch a war was taken without sufficient preparation. The military and political leadership decided to deliver a blow, immediately, without taking into account the implications, the enemy’s response, the home front’s condition and the ability to counter rocket barrages. This time around, a full, detailed plan was drafted; it also included the IDF Home Front Command’s deployment. Only then was the scheme presented to the political echelon.

Another lesson learned from the miserable confrontation vis-à-vis Hezbollah is to start such assaults with great fire power, in order to minimize as much as is possible the home front’s suffering. This lesson was already implemented in Operation Cast Lead; in other words, the power utilized during Cast Lead was to constitute the starting point of the next operation.

Most of Israel’s regular army was to be enlisted, at one point or another, for the operation. Hence, last Saturday all regular army units were placed on alert. Air Force squadrons undertook their final preparations. The time given to the army for preparations also gave international parties – namely the United States and Egypt– time to examine alternatives to the war.

Thursday afternoon, a few hours after the terror offensive on the road leading to Eilat, officials started to formulate the operational doctrine. At that point, the targets were only Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC.) Hamas was not yet a clear target, with the exception of several symbolic hits meant to signal to the group that it holds the responsibility to prevent attacks from the Strip.

A short while after the PRC’s top brass was eliminated by the IDF in a surgical strike, Hamas’ entire leadership, both military and political, disappeared to various hideouts. They quickly realized where Israel’s response was headed to; hence, junior spokesmen were sent to address the cameras.

The next phase of Israel’s operation included the extension of the assault to Hamas as well. The assumption was that Hamas’ chiefs must have been aware of the PRC terror cell that headed to the Sinai to carry out attacks from there. A week before the Eilat offensive, PRC terrorists fired Grad Missiles at Kiryat Gat, and Hamas proceeded to detain the shooters, further demonstrating that it is deeply familiar with what goes on among “rogue groups” in Gaza.

In retrospect it turned out that not everything works by the book: To the great amazement of Israel’s experts, Hamas was truly surprised by the Eilat-area attacks.

Zero hour for the large, comprehensive facet of the operation was set. The countdown began. The manpower numbers at some units were complemented with reservists. Less than 24 hours remained before a war broke out. Yet then, Saturday night, a diplomatic opportunity to end the escalation emerged. Hamas initiated a ceasefire.

Officials quickly discovered that Hamas was embarrassed and confused by the fact that someone in the organization assumed responsibility for ending the lull and firing rockets at Ofakim and Beersheba that caused casualties. As it turned out, Hamas did not fire the rockets, and even sent police officers in an attempt to curb the shooters. Hamas heads directly approached the Americans and Egyptians and sought a ceasefire. Israel was aware of these inquiries virtually in real time.

Hamas chiefs did not plan or want this confrontation; not now. They were concerned about being blamed that they are pulling the rug from under Mahmoud Abbas ahead of the September independence bid. Moreover, the economic situation in Gaza is worsening. The government is having trouble paying salaries, with the amount of money pouring into the Strip at this time being a fraction of past fund transfers.

At this time, officials in the Strip need calm and support from Cairo in the contacts on the Gilad Shalitswap. Hamas also fears that Egypt would close the Rafah Crossing. Furthermore, Hamas leaders in Gaza realized that what Israel characterized as a “disproportional response” to the rocket fire was merely the groundwork for a large-scale operation.

Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh dared leave his hideout only on Tuesday, some 24 hours after the ceasefire. Top Hamas and Islamic Jihad leaders are still huddled in bomb shelters, for good reason apparently. On Wednesday, an Islamic Jihad member was killed. Another one was assassinated early Thursday. This pattern will continue. The message in the wake of the Eilat-area offensive is unequivocal: Pinpoint eliminations are back, even if the price of each surgical strike is a night of mortar shells and Grad rockets aimed at southern Israel.

As September approaches, the IDF is being stretched beyond its means, and there will apparently be no escaping the need to call up reservists. Our leadership is navigating through a minefield. Just like we were on the verge of war Saturday night, with most of the public being completely oblivious to the unfolding drama, it can happen again tomorrow morning. The war book is ready.

2008:

Yadlin replied that the Palestinians are only Israel’s number four threat in the IDI’s assessment, following Iran, Syria, and Hizballah. Although the Palestinians are not the IDI’s top concern, Yadlin said he would answer the question by noting that it will take time to marry Netanyahu’s approach to Fayyad’s. If the parties attempt to move straight to resolving the conflict, the attempt will collapse and result in violence as in the start of the Second Intifada after the 2000 Camp David summit. The key question is how can the Palestinian Authority control terrorism. Yadlin said the USSC General Dayton is doing “a very good job” of training the PA Security Forces, but Yadlin quoted Dayton as saying that the PASF will need three to five years to build its counter-terrorist capabilities, including a functioning justice system.

Yadlin said the IDF is out of the Jenin area unless it receives reports of a “ticking bomb.” The PA, however, is ignoring Gaza and Fayyad insists on paying salaries in Gaza, which helps Hamas. Yadlin said this is a “big mistake.” Yadlin noted that the Palestinians have created two entities. President Abbas and Fayyad condemn terrorism and stress that Palestinian national goals can be achieved through negotiations. They rule in the West Bank with Israel’s assistance. In Gaza, a terrorist organization is in power and Hamas preaches that Palestinian aspirations can be achieved through terrorism. This division provides Israel with a “historic opportunity” to prove that Hamas’ approach will fail.

2004:

In terms of the U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship, the Israeli media overwhelmingly agreed that the first Bush administration had been a good friend to Israel. “Conventional wisdom in Israel,” wrote a senior columnist from pluralist Yediot Aharonot on November 1, “is that Bush was and will be the ideal American president from Israel’s perspective. The best there is. Israel has no interest in seeing him replaced, and it has every interest in seeing him reelected.” Most commentators agreed, however, that both candidates shared a political record of support for Israel – for better or for worse. A senior columnist for left-wing Ha’aretz observed on October 18 that “regardless of whether Bush is reelected or John Kerry takes his place, there will be no `pressure’ from America” in terms of U.S.-Israel relations.

So I wrote an article for the ABC last week on the murder of Osama Bin Laden. I asked questions about his death, the significance of his assassination, the role of Al-Qaeda in making the US an insanely paranoid security state post 9/11 and the terror leader’s relevance (or otherwise) during the Arab Spring.

But the cultural police are out in force. Rupert Murdoch’s duly appointed “leftists” won’t have a bar of questioning “war on terror” doctrine. Not allowed, you see. May cause anti-Semitism. Or love of Iran. Or something.

Here’s the almost incomprehensibly embarrassing Nick Dyrenfurth in today’s Australian (and yes, the man has form demanding obedience to a Zionist agenda with no questions. He’s an intellectual, you understand):

No self-respecting social democrat mourned his death. And yet, had one’s daily reading habits been confined to sections of so-called “progressive” opinion, bin Laden’s death was a matter of profound regret. The extra-judicial killing was a denial of due process, celebrity lawyer Geoffrey Robertson protested, oblivious to the impossibility of capturing or trying bin Laden. “[It's] hard to celebrate one more corpse,” opined Jeff Sparrow, a devotee of the violent Bolshevik thug, Leon Trotsky, on ABC’s The Drum. Not to be outdone, Crikey’s Hunter S Thompson-wannabe, Guy Rundle, downplayed bin Laden’s crimes claiming that: “Morally speaking, 9/11 was no worse than a B-52 run over Vietnam.”

You don’t have to believe that American engagement in Indochina during the 1960s and 70s was foolhardy or that the 2003 invasion of Iraq was likewise ill-judged, as the present writer does, to find Rundle’s commentary nonsensical. Then again this is a man who has penned such thoughtful treatises as “Zionists and Nazis Connected. Discuss.”

Perhaps the most disturbing local contribution came from another Drum regular, anti-Israel activist Antony Loewenstein, who announced that “the West has much to learn”. Bin Laden’s “[terrorist] tactics were abhorrent and failed to attract huge numbers of followers” Loewenstein surmised, nonetheless the West’s subjugation of Muslims meant that the “arguments for his organisation’s force have only strengthened since 9/11″.

In other words, Osama was a nasty piece of work but fighting the good fight against imperialist crusaders. (Never mind that the majority of al-Qa’ida’s victims have been Muslim.) Loewenstein concluded by offering a paean of praise: “Bin Laden died a man who profoundly changed the landscape of the world.”

Well, yes, he certainly changed Lower Manhattan’s landscape.

If any further evidence were required to show that a segment of the 21st century Western Left has completely lost the plot and plumbed the deepest, darkest depths of moral nihilism and cultural relativism, the contributions of these so-called “progressive” thinkers is conclusive proof.

…

Today, however, noisy elements on the far Left – think Noam Chomsky, John Pilger and our local scribblers – seem to believe that Western-style democracy is in fact the real enemy.

With monotonous regularity they excuse bin Laden and his fellow Jihadis’ death-cult or rationalise Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s vile anti-Semitism, instead preferring to blame the US and Israel for all the woes of the world, including partial responsibility for the September 11 atrocities.

…

It is high time these values-free misfits received a new appellation.

Practically speaking, they oppose mainstream Left thinking on virtually every subject. Amazingly they can see no tangible difference between a theocracy and a democracy nor denounce Islamic fundamentalism in unequivocal terms. To my mind, they should be known for what they are: nihilists.

So let them rail against liberal democracy and chant: “We are all Hezbollah” from the rooftops but do not besmirch the good name of others by deeming themselves Left. No, let them stand with like-minded nihilists, Jew-haters and other enemies of social democracy, including a recently deceased jihadist unlikely to be enjoying a judenrein paradise of virgins. On behalf of the sane Left, good riddance to the lot of them.

I have been duly chastised and will no longer ask any questions about anything.

My following article appears in today’s ABC’s The Drum:

The triumphalism after the American targeted assassination of Osama bin Laden is a sure sign that the US is incapable of understanding the significance of the painful years since September 11. We suffered and now you must, too.

“I’ve never been so excited to see the photo of a corpse with a gunshot wound through the head”, tweeted Emily Miller of The Washington Times.

Most in the mainstream press have simply regurgitated White House propaganda without question, including key details of bin Laden’s death and lifestyle.

The glee with which many in the American public, political and media elites have celebrated the murder of bin Laden may be unsurprising but it provides a welcome insight into an infantile and violence-obsessed culture. He used mayhem against Us and We must unleash overwhelming firepower against Him and His followers.

9/11 was slaughter on a huge scale and American hurt, confusion and anger was understandable. Finding the perpetrators of the crime was essential but it is difficult to cheer when a man receives bullets to the head unless, of course, we want to marinate in the juices of a John Wayne fantasy.

“We responded [to 9/11] exactly as these terrorist organizations wanted us to respond”, says former New York Times Middle East correspondent Chris Hedges. “They wanted us to speak the language of violence”.

The corporate media is filled with undeniably fascinating stories of how the US tracked bin Laden to his Pakistani hideout. The potential complicity of forces within the Pakistani intelligence services will be investigated but is unlikely to lead to a serious reduction in US funding for the corrupt elites there. The ongoing US-led war in Afghanistan guarantees Washington is joined at the hip to the Pakistani military. And once again, the Pakistani people will be killed without mercy.

But largely missing from the mountains of coverage in the last days are the profound changes 9/11 brought to the world, and the pyrrhic victories scored by bin Laden and his group of murderous thugs.

The militarisation of America and the engagements in Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, Yemen, Palestine, Egypt, Jordan, Indonesia and elsewhere has not made the US homeland any safer. In fact, the opposite is true. The thought that an old man sitting in an expensive compound in Pakistan with no internet or phone access is truly the most dangerous and wanted man in the world shows the skewed priorities of a brutal super-power hell-bent on revenge.

The murder of bin Laden wasn’t justice, as claimed by Obama and a range of commentators. It was a targeted assassination, an art perfected by Israel, and an illegal tool that has not made the Zionist nation any less likely to face attack from designated enemies. America will be no different.

The post 9/11 security state is now well and truly entrenched in our lives. The arrival of President Barack Obama did nothing to change that; it was merely accelerated with a nicer, kinder face. Privatised killing is now ubiquitous in Iraq and Afghanistan as an out-of-control and multi-trillion dollar industry finds ways to kill and make new foes in the process.

The US and its allies have provided over the last years an overwhelming range of weapons to murderers (former opponents now known as “allies”) in nations where conventional US forces have been unable to subdue a legitimate insurgency.

It’s grimly ironic that the Australian media obsesses over every word of supposed terrorism expert Australian David Kilcullen – described on Monday night’s ABC TV Lateline as “one of the world’s top counter-insurgency specialists” – without asking whether his skills have actually succeeded and at what cost.

An insurgency still rages in Iraq and has never been stronger in Afghanistan, and the methods by which US forces tried to destroy resistance movements involved arming former enemies and unleashing horrific violence against those who wouldn’t accept US rule. That’s some victory that plays directly into the narrative articulated by bin Laden from the 1990s: Western forces only want to occupy and subjugate Muslims.

Besides, Kilcullen is closely associated with the likely next CIA director David Petraeus, whose military tactics against insurgents have been vicious and counter-productive. He will certainly bring a far more militarised mindset to America’s intelligence community.

But resistance to Western domination of the Arab world wasn’t achieved by Al-Qaeda. Their murder of countless Muslims and quasi-death cult ideology failed to connect with enough people looking for something more than just opposition to sclerotic Western-backed dictatorships across the region.

Hamas, Hizbollah head Hassan Nasrallah and Iranian leader Mahmoud Ahmadinejad have succeeded where Al-Qaeda failed; they spent years cementing themselves in the fabric of societies that were being ignored by the state. These nationalist movements, with various degrees of aggression and repression, have far more successfully captured the spirit of the post 9/11 times than bin Laden’s superficially appealing dogma. And most Muslims worldwide haven’t bought the hardline Islamist line for years.

This year’s Arab revolutions have shown the almost irrelevance of Al-Qaeda. Millions of Arabs in Egypt, Tunisia, Palestine, Libya, Saudi Arabia and beyond have found ways to challenge despots and US-backed autocrats in ways unimagined and impossible for bin Laden. Freedom movements, partly religious and partly secular, have fundamentally transformed a region that most of its largely young population only associated with social and political stagnation. Al-Qaeda has been almost silent in the last while, a force that had no way to harness, let alone lead, grievances of the oppressed masses.

None of us will feel safer with the death of bin Laden and why should we? The arguments for his organisation’s force have only strengthened since 9/11, even if his tactics were abhorrent and failed to attract huge numbers of followers. America and its allies are now far widely engaged across the Muslim world, militarising lands in the name of “fighting terrorism”. Wikileaks has shown the futility of such actions, detailing US officials attempts to pressure autocratic nations to crack down on unwanted elements while stirring up hatred of citizens under the path of ever-increasing drone attacks (in Yemen, Pakistan and now Libya).

The West will never feel more secure with the murder of a terrorist leader. Almost nowhere in the media orgy of celebration (including, disappointingly, Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show) was anything discussed about occupation. It didn’t exist, seemingly completely separate to the rise and once high popularity of bin Laden. Pakistan’s apparent protection of the Al-Qaeda leader will only deepen America’s desire to further occupy that nation’s mind. Obama is a war President, a badge he wears with pride, such is his escalation of covert missions in numerous nations in the last years.

There has been a deliberate conflation by a litany of politicians, corporate journalists and think-tankers in the last decade to frame every resistance to Western policy as terrorism. It is not. Take Afghanistan, where the Taliban has virtually no relationship with Al-Qaeda anymore and will continue to fight for the liquidation of foreign forces, whether we like or not. They’ll have no concern with Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd mouthing platitudes about staying the course in Afghanistan with a warlord infested, Kabul government.

bin Laden died a man who had profoundly changed the landscape of the world. He failed to rally Muslims to his brutal cause but his shadow will continue to hover over Western policy towards the Islamic world. We have been sold a lie, one pushed by the Israelis for decades, that the killing of countless terrorists will bring peace. Colonising Muslim lands is seemingly irrelevant, or locking up innocent men in Guantanamo Bay or escalating a drone war in Pakistan.

The West has much to learn.

Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist and author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution.

Lebanon is a fractured society partly controlled by Hizbollah. Many in the public back this reality and yet:

Lebanon’s prime minister-designate Najib Mikati describes the powerful Hezbollah, whose backing was key to his nomination, as a “tumour,” in a 2008 US diplomatic cable revealed by a Lebanese daily on Tuesday.

The billionaire businessman, who was appointed premier in January, is quoted as telling US officials that the Iranian- and Syrian-backed militant party was a “tumor that must be removed”, according to the Arabic-language Al-Jumhuriya.

The newspaper was citing a WikiLeaks cable filed by the US embassy in Lebanon on January 12, 2008.

“Mikati, speaking as a ‘statesman’, argued Lebanon could not survive with a Hezbollah mini-state,” according to the cable.

“Regardless of his personal views on the group, Mikati said he was expecting Hezbollah to bring Lebanon to a ‘sad ending,’” it added.

“He assessed that Hezbollah was just like a tumour that, whether benign or malignant, must be removed.”

Mikati’s office released a statement saying the comments did not “reflect his convictions” and had political motives, without specifying.

“The prime minister will not get involved in debates with any party, especially over … words and positions that are in part untrue, in part inaccurate and most of which go back years,” read the statement.

Mikati’s criticism of Hezbollah surfaces at a sensitive time as he struggles to form a government amid bitter rivalry between opposing camps in Lebanon.

Hezbollah toppled the Western-backed government of caretaker premier Saad Hariri in January over his refusal to disavow a UN-backed court probing the 2005 assassination of his father, ex-premier Rafiq Hariri.

The Netherlands-based tribunal is expected to indict members of the Shiite group in the case.

I appeared tonight on ABCTV News’ The Drum (video here) talking about Osama Bin Laden’s murder and its ramifications, alongside Australian Financial Review journalist David Crowe, US Studies Centre Dr Pete Hatemi (formerly in the US military post 9/11) and former CNN correspondent Michael Ware (here’s partial video of the show, mainly featuring the intrepid Ware).

My main theme was highlighting the significance of Bin Laden’s death, and both his importance and irrelevance in 2011. The attacks on September 11 quickly ushered in a Western world obsessed with beefing up intelligence, military spending and foreign wars. The result? None of us are any safer, millions of people are dead and Western forces remain in many Muslim countries. The “war on terror” has been an unmitigated disaster that many in our political and media elites still embrace.

Bin Laden’s failures include a brutal methodology that understandably turned off most people (he killed scores of Muslims, after all). Today the strongest Islamic resistance movements are Hamas, Hizbollah and within the Islamic Republic, all with various roots in political and social sections of societies. Furthermore, the recent Arab uprisings have shown how unappealing was the ideology of Al-Qaeda. Millions of Arabs embraced change, some secular and some religious, and this was achieved despite Western wishes to maintain the status-quo and Bin Laden becoming almost irrelevant in this newfound and necessary resistance.

The celebration of Bin Laden’s death across America shows the infantile nature of mainstream US culture. We are good and They are Evil. I wish I was convinced this death will do anything to change this childish narrative.

I concluded on the program asking what kind of super-power (and its media courtiers) views a man, living in a luxury compound in Pakistan without phone or internet, as the most dangerous figure in the world?

Incidentally, after the show I was talking to Ware about his current projects. He has seen a number of Al-Qaeda videos, some of which have appeared on CNN, and he says they show the terrorist group is “more bureaucratic than the Nazis or the Khmer Rouge”, individuals obsessed with sending memos and following a strict code.