Antony Loewenstein

Gideon Levy in Haaretz on the real consequences of an Israeli strike against Iran (a message to be given to the litany of neo-cons and Zionist fanatics itching for war):

Even the strongest supporters of an attack – whose numbers, scarily, are increasing – admit there is no chance that Iran will sit idly by, and that an Israeli attack will be countered by a ferocious response. Missiles from the east, the north and perhaps also the south, including against Tel Aviv, will paralyze the country. It could go on for a long time.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak promised a maximum of 500 dead. Perhaps he underestimated, perhaps not, but it is unlikely that Israel is hardened enough to take such a number of casualties in a short time. Blood, bereavement and a stalled economy, all at once. Israelis will be killed, tourists will stay away, the national mood will be one of despair and fear.

But even that is not enough. The Iranians, a people with the memory of Methuselah, will neither forgive nor forget. An Israeli success will be perceived, of course, as much more serious than all the “Satanic Verses” furor. If Salman Rushdie has been living in fear of Iran for almost 25 years, the terror of the fatwah it will issue against Israelis will be greater and persist for much longer. Once again, Hebrew will not be heard beyond the threshold of Ben-Gurion International Airport. Careful, the Iranian avengers are everywhere.

Last night I appeared on ABCTV’s The Drum (video here) discussing both domestic and international affairs.

The key part of the show began when this week’s meeting between Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu was discussed. The New York Times tells the world that, “Israel should not doubt this president’s mettle. Neither should Iran.” Netanyahu, speaking at the Zionist lobby AIPAC conference, used the Holocaust analogy to argue that, “Never again will … the Jewish people be powerless and supplicants for our fate and our very survival. Never again.”

I argued that a military strike against Iran would be illegal, counter-productive and unsuccessful. Most importantly, there’s no hard evidence that Tehran is actually building a nuclear weapon. This is the assessment of America’s intelligence agencies rather than the clueless rantings of neo-conservatives, mad Zionists and the Israelis.

Too much of the public debate around this issue involves arguing when Israel would have the right to attack a sovereign nation such as Iran. It’s vital to re-frame the discussion and question who is seriously threatening whom. Obama apparently wants to avoid direct military contact. For now, anyway. But what a sight, I said, for the mainstream Jewish community to back Israel in yet another military adventure in the Middle East. This is how us Jews are seen; constantly desperate for war.

The debate then shifted to Syria. The humanitarian situation there remains dire, to be sure, but foreign military intervention is a mistake. Too many people are keen to be seen to “do something”. Let’s not forget that Libya, the latest so-called noble war, has turned into a conflict between brutal militias.

Too much talk about foreign affairs ignores the locals directly affected. Leave the Middle East alone for a while, I stated, haven’t we caused enough mayhem over the last decades?

With over one million Iraqis dead and millions displaced since the 2003 invasion, it’s a fascinating question asked in Foreign Policy (though the idea of US military intervention is hardly an answer to anything, as history always shows):

In a tumultuous year that witnessed the fall of Arab tyrants and the U.S. withdrawal from Iraq, proponents of the 2003 invasion, including former Vice President Dick Cheney and conservative academic Fouad Ajami, have sought to portray the decision to topple Saddam Hussein’s regime as the hidden driver of the Arab Spring. But rather than revisit history, why not — on this one-year anniversary of Tunisian strongman Zine el-Abidine Ben Ali’s downfall — try our hand at alternate history: If the United States had never invaded Iraq, would Saddam’s Baathist regime still be standing in today’s Middle East?

This question, of course, is a bedeviling one. It is difficult to imagine the region absent U.S. military intervention in Iraq. The war itself fueled regional dysfunction — particularly in reaffirming and expanding pernicious notions of sectarian identity. Clearly, the specter of enhanced Iranian influence and the spillover effects of Iraq’s brutal 2006-2007 sectarian civil war loom large over the region, most obviously with respect to Syria and Bahrain.

…

With festering grievances, a repressed populace, and growing destitution, it is highly likely that Iraq would have been part of this past year’s regional wave of uprisings. The wave of revolt has illuminated the manner in which transnational solidarity, buoyed by a shared media space and political links, still plays an important role in the collective imagination of Arabs — even though the grandiose promises of pan-Arab nationalism have long ago been discredited. This phenomenon would not have bypassed Iraq. Furthermore, while the pre-invasion efforts of both the external and internal Iraqi opposition ultimately failed, they did represent genuine opposition politics. And the existence of a Kurdish safe haven would have provided physical space to plan and coordinate anti-government activities. Much more so than even in Tunisia, the building blocks for an uprising would have been in place in Iraq.

Had such an uprising broken out, the surest path for Iraqi regime change would have been a U.S.-led military action in support of local actors. Without the bruising legacy of the Iraq debacle, outside intervention, even absent legal authorization, would have been, for better or worse, a serious option for the United States and its allies. As with Muammar al-Qaddafi in Libya, the United States and its partners would have seen an opportunity to remove a longtime nemesis.

As the drumbeat for war against Iran grows louder by the day – cheered by the same neo-conservatives, extreme Zionists and hacks who led us into conflict with Iraq – it’s vital to hold to account the commentators who never take responsibility for their war-mongering. A fine piece in Jadaliyya:

This is not another article about Christopher Hitchens.

This may come as something of a relief, given the spilling of ink occasioned by Hitchens’ untimely death last week, with Neal Pollock’s fine parody hopefully bringing this outpouring to an end. After an initial set of hagiographies, it was encouraging to see a number of pieces reminding readers of Hitchens’ role in forcefully and bloodthirstily advocating for the war on Iraq, and for the “war on terror” more generally, as part of a deeply racist and Islamophobic current in his work over the past decade (or more).

What has struck me in the articles that have followed, both those that praise and those that condemn Hitchens’ work, is the recurring use of a phrase to describe Hitchens’ advocacy on behalf of the invasion and occupation of Iraq: he was, we are told by the most perceptive commentators on his work, “wrong on Iraq.” For Hitchens’ defenders, as Corey Robin notes, this was articulated as “Yes, he was wrong on Iraq, but…” For his detractors, there is no “but”: in Glenn Greenwald’s words, Hitchens was guilty of the crime of endorsing “the generation’s worst political crime, one for which he remained fully unrepentant and even proud.”

It seems likely that this focus on Hitchens’ support for the war would have been part of these pieces in any case, since it became one of the defining aspects of his writing over the past decade. But given that his death came in the same week as the much-reported withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, the connection was inevitable, even for Hitchens’ admirers. For those who accept the fantasy that the withdrawal of US forces marks the “end” of the war, the Iraq War, like the era of Hitchens, could now be given an end date; indeed, on the front page of its website today, the New York Times features a section entitled “Iraq War: 2003-2011.”

This brief re-entry of Iraq into public discourse in the United States—a re-entry that is intended only to clear the way for a final dismissal, since the war is now, according to this narrative of events, “over”—reminds us of the extent to which Iraq has fallen out of the collective consciousness in the US. It must not be allowed to do so, and the notion that the withdrawal of US troops (leaving behind the largest US embassy in the world in Baghdad and consulates in Basra, Erbil, and Kirkuk, along with at least 16,000 Americans employed by the US government—a large percentage of them “security contractors,” that is, armed mercenaries of the sort that have caused so much carnage in Iraq) should be understood as meaning the “end” of the Iraq War must not be allowed to stand unchallenged. It is an opportune moment, in other words, for some remembering, and, if we can make it happen, some accountability.

…

To have been “wrong” on Iraq, if one was a member of the political and/or military establishment that helped to perpetrate the war and occupation, is, simply put, to be a war criminal. If this is not how such figures are currently viewed, this speaks most clearly to the blighted state of international law and institutions, and their inability to hold the perpetrators of the planet’s most horrific acts of violence accountable for their actions.

To have been “wrong” on Iraq, if one was or is a member of the media or the intellectual establishment that argued for, and thus helped to lay the groundwork for, the war, is to be deeply complicit in these war crimes. Again, there has been no attempt to hold any of these individuals accountable for such complicity, although there is a precedent that dates back at least to the Nuremberg Tribunal that would allow for identifying and acting against such media and intellectual complicity in war crimes.

An open and frank debate about BDS against Israel in Australia is long overdue. Crikey blog This Blog Harms invited five people to write 1000 words on the issue. This is my contribution:

The logic of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) didn’t appear to me immediately. When my first book, My Israel Question, was released in 2006, the issue was barely raised, despite Palestinian civil society launching its call in 2005 “against Israel until it complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.”

The vast majority of Israeli Jews claimed to be in constant fear of Palestinian terrorism despite living relatively free lives in a society that increasingly made Palestinians invisible. Palestinians under occupation were disillusioned with their leaders and after more than a decade of fruitless negotiations with Israel, the Oslo period, longed to be free.

But now, with Israel a state that even more brazenly boasts a fundamentalist Jewish minority as representing true Zionism, BDS is an essential tool to harm Israel’s economic and moral fibre. In the words of American Jewish dissident Philip Weiss, founder of the website Mondoweiss, “Israel isn’t good for the Jews anymore.” Most importantly, Palestinians under occupation are making this call, not a Diaspora attempting to impose a distorted vision onto them.

BDS is a key weapon to de-normalise the relationship between both the globalised economy and Israel and the constructed emotional ties that allegedly bond Israel and the West. Witness Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard recently tell an event sponsored by National Australia Bank that, “We are two countries separated by distance, but united by values. Liberal democracies that seek freedom and peace.”

An ever-expanding 44-year-old occupation is a strange way to crave freedom and peace.

It is the only the New South Wales Greens who are brave enough, despite a year of intense Murdoch media bullying and Jewish community pressure, to maintain in principle support for BDS and examine ways to “actively support the [Federal] Australian Greens position, including that the Australian government halt military cooperation and military trade with Israel.” This is a proudly BDS position, wherever the Greens call it this or not.

Israel/Palestine is not a balanced conflict, with two equal sides fighting over land, rights and dignity. It is, writes leading Israeli publisher of Haaretz, Amos Schocken, “a strategy of territorial seizure and apartheid. It ignores judicial aspects of territorial ownership and shuns human rights and the guarantees of equality enshrined in Israel’s Declaration of Independence.”

Although he doesn’t mention BDS, it is impossible to undermine daily, creeping oppression with yet more “negotiations” between Israel and the Palestinians while Washington remains Israel’s lawyer.

BDS is the non-violent weapon wielded to show Israel and its global backers that business as usual is unacceptable.

BDS makes many Jews distinctly uncomfortable, with wild claims that this is exactly the same tactics used by Nazis in Germany in the 1930s against Jewish businesses. It is nothing of the sort. Jews are not being targeted but businesses that directly support the Zionist state or receive funding from it. Israeli chocolate shop Max Brenner is a legitimate target because it proudly supports the IDF, an army complicit in daily human rights abuses.

Zionist cheapening of anti-Semitism has become endemic from seeing Nazis in inner Sydney protesting outside Max Brenner to American critics of neo-conservative plans to bomb Iran.

Despite these smears, BDS is growing globally because Israeli actions against Palestinians inside Israel proper and the occupied territories is becoming more repressive and outwardly racist. The litany of exclusionary legislation before the Israeli Knesset, some of which are being pushed by so-called “moderates”, rises weekly. BDS sends a message to these Israelis and Diaspora supporters who either remain silent or simply mouth platitudes about a two-state solution. It is designed to make blind backers uncomfortable and defensive.

It’s being grimly amusing to watch liberal Zionists in Australia and beyond express displeasure with BDS, arguing it is too inflammatory and extreme and ostracises potential allies inside Israel (namely Jews, as Palestinian allies are less important in their worldview). In fact, the opposite is true and BDS forces two-state advocates and fence-sitters to explain how their sclerotic process will do anything to advance peace in the Middle East.

BDS is the enemy of the status-quo and liberal Zionists in Australia, including Monash University’s Mark Baker and Philip Mendes, are paralysed in wishfully thinking the Israeli government will suddenly believe the Palestinians are worthy of being given a state. They recoil at BDS because they despise one part of an outcome that aims to bring true democracy for all citizens inside Israel and Palestine – the one-state solution – something a two-state result can never achieve. If not BDS to tell Israel that its Western-backed racism and occupation is illegal under international law, then what tactic? They have no answers, and desperately cling to an emotional claim as post-Holocaust children. This is no way to ensure rights in the 21^st century, if it ever was.

BDS isn’t the answer to all the Palestinian needs. It is one part of a bigger struggle currently underway inside Palestine itself and the Palestinian Diaspora; a worldwide campaign that doesn’t rely on leaders to beg Israel for scraps or a state or rights. Popular, non-violent resistance, BDS and readdress for Palestinian refugees are key initiatives that must be supported to liberate both Palestinians and Israelis.

BDS is causing economic and sociological harm to the Zionist state, and this is something to celebrate. Were enlightened citizens of the world during South African apartheid asked to feel sorry for whites that ruled the blacks with an iron fist? Of course not, and BDS doesn’t aim to comfort the jarred nerves of Israelis or Diaspora Zionists.

It is about addressing a decades-old matrix of control that has only survived because of Diaspora Jewry funding and morally arming the Zionist state.

Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based independent journalist and author who has written for The Guardian, Haaretz, The Nation, Sydney Morning Herald and many others. His two best-selling books are My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution. He is currently working on many projects, including a book about vulture capitalism, a book on the Left in contemporary politics and another title on Israel/Palestine.

Jonathan Cook in Al-Akhbar English:

Last February Britain’s then defense minister Liam Fox attended a dinner in Tel Aviv with a group described as senior Israelis. Alongside him sat Adam Werritty, a lobbyist whose “improper relations” with the minister would lead eight months later to Fox’s hurried resignation.

According to several reports in the British media the Israelis in attendance at the dinner were representatives of the Mossad, Israel’s spy agency, while Fox and Werritty were accompanied by Matthew Gould, Britain’s ambassador to Israel. A former British diplomat has now claimed that the topic of discussion that evening was a secret plot to attack Iran.

The official inquiry castigating the UK’s former defence secretary for what has come to be known as a “cash-for-access” scandal appears to have only scratched the surface of what Fox and accomplice Adam Werritty may have been up to when they met for dinner in Tel Aviv.

Little was made of the dinner in the 10-page inquiry report published last month by Gus O’Donnell, the cabinet’s top civil servant.

Instead O’Donnell concentrated on other aspects of Werritty’s behaviour: the 33-year-old friend of Fox’s had presented himself as the minister’s official adviser and jetted around the world with him arranging meetings with businessmen.

The former minister’s allies, seeking to dismiss the gravity of the case against him, have described Werritty as a harmless dreamer. Following his resignation, Fox himself claimed O’Donnell’s report had exonerated him of putting national security at risk.

However, a spate of new concerns raised in the wake of the inquiry challenge both of these assumptions. These include questions about the transparency of the O’Donnell investigation, the extent of Fox and Werritty’s ties to Israel and the unexplained role of Gould.

Craig Murray, Britain’s former ambassador to Uzbekistan until 2004, when he turned whistle blower on British and US collusion on torture, said senior British government officials were profoundly disturbed by the O’Donnell inquiry, seeing it as a “white wash.”

Murray himself accused O’Donnell of being “at the most charitable interpretation, economical with the truth.”

Two well-placed contacts alerted Murray to Gould’s central – though largely ignored – role in the Fox-Werritty relationship, he said.

Murray has pieced together evidence that Fox, Werritty and Gould met on at least six occasions over the past two years or so, despite the O’Donnell inquiry claiming they had met only twice. Gould is the only ambassador Fox and Werritty are known to have met together.

In an inexplicable break with British diplomatic and governmental protocol, officials were not present at a single one of the six meetings between the three men. No record was taken of any of the discussions.

Murray, who first made public his concerns on his personal blog, said a source familiar with the O’Donnell inquiry told him the parameters of the investigation were designed to divert attention away from the more damaging aspects of Fox and Werritty’s behaviour.

Subsequently, the foreign office has refused to respond to questions, including from an MP, about the Tel Aviv dinner. Officials will not say who the Israelis were, what was discussed or even who paid for the evening, though under Whitehall rules all hospitality should be declared.

Also unexplained is why Fox rejected requests by his own staff to attend the dinner, and why Werritty was privy to such a high-level meeting when he had no security clearance.

Nonetheless, O’Donnell appeared inadvertently to confirm that Mossad representatives were present at the dinner during questioning from an MP at a meeting of the House of Commons’ Public Administration Committee this week.

Responding to a question about the dinner from opposition MP Paul Flynn, O’Donnell said: “The important point here was that, when the Secretary of State [Fox] had that meeting, he had an official with him—namely, in this case, the ambassador [Gould]. That is very important, and I should stress that I would expect our ambassador in Israel to have contact with Mossad. That will be part of his job.”

The real concern among government officials, Murray said, is that Fox, Werritty and Gould were conspiring in a “rogue” foreign policy – opposed to the British government’s stated aims – that was authored by Mossad and Israel’s neoconservative allies in Washington.

Brian Brady in the Sunday Independent:

They were the Odd Couple: the men with identical morning suits, matching jackets and jeans but from radically different generations. They commanded more column inches than any X Factor wannabe. The Mysterious Case of the Defence Secretary and the Strange Bloke with the Cheap Business Card gripped us all, until it culminated in Liam Fox’s resignation.

What on earth had they been up to, the nation wondered. The plot thickened somewhat when an official inquiry confirmed that the curious duo was in fact, at times, a trio. They had had two meetings with Matthew Gould, Britain’s ambassador to Israel, adding to claims that they were running a pirate (pro-Israel, or anti-Iranian?) foreign policy. Then, before we had got to know Adam Werritty properly, it all went quiet.

He has not been seen in the UK or abroad for several months; no neighbour has reported his presence at any of the various addresses unearthed when he was being sought by every news outlet in the country.

However, the trail has not gone cold because it emerges that Liam Fox and his adviser met Britain’s ambassador at least four times more than was previously admitted. So why were we not told this before? Isn’t this yet more evidence that they were operating outside the control of the Foreign Office?

The fog seems to extend even to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, whose report into the affair, which sealed Dr Fox’s fate, identified just the two meetings between the former minister, Mr Werritty and Mr Gould.

The three men met in Tel Aviv at “a private dinner with senior Israelis” and, before Mr Gould took up the ambassador’s post in Tel Aviv, for “a general discussion of international defence and security matters”. Sir Gus observed that Mr Werritty was invited “as an individual with some experience in these matters”.

Even this was a bit unsatisfactory, said Sir Gus. His report highlighted the September 2010 meeting in the UK with Mr Gould, then the UK ambassador-designate to Israel, ruling that “as a private citizen, with no official locus, it was not appropriate for Mr Werritty to have attended this meeting”.

Yet it has been left to the former UK ambassador Craig Murray to uncover four more similar meetings – although Sir Gus claimed last week that “some of those … took place before the election”.

The suspicion of even more secret meetings, an inquiry which did not cover all the ground and the spectre of a favourite bogeyman is a gift to conspiracy theorists. However there are legitimate questions to be answered. The IoS revealed last month that Mr Werritty had visited Iran on several occasions and was so highly regarded by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad that he was able to arrange meetings at the highest levels of the Israeli government.

The Independent on Sunday:

Adam Werritty, the man at the centre of the Liam Fox cash-for-access scandal, has been involved in an audacious plot to topple Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, it was claimed last night.

The self-styled adviser to Mr Fox, whose close personal friendship with the former defence secretary led to Mr Fox’s downfall, has visited Iran on several occasions and met Iranian opposition groups in Washington and London over the past few years, The Independent on Sunday has learnt.

Mr Werritty, 33, has been debriefed by MI6 about his travels and is so highly regarded by the Israeli intelligence service Mossad – who thought he was Mr Fox’s chief of staff – that he was able to arrange meetings at the highest levels of the Israeli government, multiple sources have told The IoS.

London Observer:

David Cameron has been accused of allowing a secret rightwing agenda to flourish at the heart of the Conservative party, as fallout from the resignation of Liam Fox exposed its close links with a US network of lobbyists, climate change deniers and defence hawks.

In a sign that Fox’s decision to fall on his sword will not mark the end of the furore engulfing the Tories, both Liberal Democrat and Labour politicians stepped up their demands for the prime minister to explain why several senior members of his cabinet were involved in an Anglo-American organisation apparently at odds with his party’s environmental commitments and pledge to defend free healthcare.

At the heart of the complex web linking Fox and his friend Adam Werritty to a raft of businessmen, lobbyists and US neocons is the former defence secretary’s defunct charity, Atlantic Bridge, which was set up with the purported aim of “strengthening the special relationship” but is now mired in controversy.

An Observer investigation reveals that many of those who sat on the Anglo-American charity’s board and its executive council, or were employed on its staff, were lobbyists or lawyers with connections to the defence industry and energy interests. Others included powerful businessmen with defence investments and representatives of the gambling industry.

Can you feel it, fellow Jews? The new Green Nazis are in town, talking all about Palestinian rights, as if those Arabs are under Israeli occupation. The shame of it all.

Yesterday’s Murdoch Australian continued its brave expose of a party that challenges individuals who accuse them of extremism and anti-Semitism:

Labor in NSW has accused the Greens of a “revenge attack” on a Jewish doctor who is being prosecuted by police because his anti-Greens posters did not include the name and address of the printer.

Luke Foley, Labor leader in the state’s upper house, yesterday called on the Greens to “drop their pursuit” of John Nemesh, who on Tuesday pleaded not guilty in Sydney’s Newtown Local Court to charges of distributing electoral matter “without particulars”.

Dr Nemesh, 55, distributed propaganda in the inner-western Sydney seat of Marrickville during the state election campaign in March, attacking the Greens candidate Fiona Byrne for her anti-Israel comments.

“This is simply a revenge attack by the Greens Party, given they lost Marrickville because of their extreme campaign against the Jewish state of Israel,” Mr Foley said.

“This was a minor technical oversight by Dr Nemesh, who is new to political activism.”

Dr Nemesh, the son of Hungarian Holocaust survivors, fears his career as a medical specialist will be threatened if he is convicted.

More evidence emerged yesterday to support his claims the Greens are involved in his prosecution — claims senior figures in the party, including Ms Byrne, did not deny.

The police fact sheet in Dr Nemesh’s case, obtained by The Australian, says the charges originated when “members of the public who witnessed the signs being placed on the telegraph poles took photographs” of the ute Dr Nemesh and his supporters had rented.

“Copies of these photographs have been given to police,” it says.

Ms Byrne ceased to be mayor of Marrickville on Tuesday evening, deciding not to recontest after a rocky year in office dominated by the issue of a council boycott of Israel.

Even the day’s editorial chimed in, asking for leniency for a decent man who simply wanted to publicly challenge the new Nazis:

Rules is rules and society functions best when they are honoured. But every now and then there is such a clear case for the application of common sense it is hard to believe it has not taken precedence.

Exhibit one: the prosecution by NSW police of Jewish doctor John Nemesh for a minor breach of electoral rules — failing to put the name and address of the printer on an anti-Greens poster during the last NSW election campaign. Are the Greens behind this court action? They’re not saying, but common sense suggests that if they are not, they should come out and deny it. Fiona Byrne, the mayor of Marrickville at the time who was supporting a “boycotts, divestment and sanctions” campaign while also standing for the NSW parliament, clearly had cause not to like Dr Nemesh’s poster, which accused the Greens of racism and homophobia. Certainly, her support for BDS was a turn-off for voters in the March poll in which she was narrowly beaten. Did the posters make a difference? Who knows? But common sense would suggest that the absence of the printer’s name on those posters did not determine Ms Byrne’s fate. The integrity of our voting system depends on clear laws around transparency and accountability, but we ought not lose sight of the need for discretion and a balanced application of those rules.

Murdoch’s rag cheapens the meaning of real anti-Semitism by continuing to accuse backers of BDS of Jew hatred. It may sound appealing in the paranoid mind of neo-conservatives who really wish there were more wars launched against Muslims in the Arab world, but BDS is growing globally, for the very reason the paper largely ignores; occupation.

Yesterday I received the following email from Daniel Pipes:

Please join me on a visit to Israel on March 7-15, 2012. Heritage Study Programs, a leading tour company, has asked me to lead a one -time only informative, enjoyable, and inexpensive week.

Our focus will be on my special interest – the nearly 20 percent of Israel’s population who are Muslim, often called Israeli Arabs. The trip will offer special insight into current problems: Are Israeli Arabs integrating or isolating themselves? Are they Palestinians? What is the role of Arab immigration to Israel? How does this growing population affect the long-term welfare and survival of the Jewish state?

Shin Bet calls the Israeli Arab population a “genuine long-range danger to the Jewish character and very existence of the State of Israel.” Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman questions its citizenship. I have called it Israel’s “existential danger.”

With current attention on other matters (Middle Eastern upheavals, Palestinian statehood, Turkish bellicosity, the Iranian nuclear buildup), this topic tends to get brushed aside. But when the other problems have been resolved, Israel must deal with its Muslim community.

Khaled Abu Toameh, the Jerusalem Post’s distinguished West Bank and Gaza correspondent, will co-lead with me an unprecedented first-hand exploration of this and related subjects.

The trip will include travels to key locations, informative meetings, and lively discussions. You will meet with Israeli-Arab leaders, academics and researchers, with intelligence, police, military officers, high government officials, policy makers and counterterrorism experts. We will participate in a conference at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center on Muslim attitudes toward Jerusalem.

I hope you will come with me to Tel Aviv, Haifa, the Galilee, and Jerusalem. You will visit some of Israel’s most renowned sites, including the Golan Heights, the Sea of Galilee, the Western Wall, and areas around the Temple Mount.

Neither tour nor mission, this intimate fact-finding expedition will challenge and change your understanding of Israel.

Let’s be clear. Here we have a fusion between a Zionist fundamentalist, Pipes, and a Palestinian journalist with the pro-settler Jerusalem Post, Abu Toameh, helping to “expose” the supposedly existential threat of Arabs inside Israel.

Abu Toameh was recently in Australia as a guest of the Zionist lobby.

From the new book by American Jew Jack Ross:

The writer Irving Howe, who came to bitterly regret his alliance with the neoconservatives in his final years, gave a speech in 1989 foreseeing that “because the religion of most American Jews is not serious, it has become almost totally defined by Israel, and a major crisis will erupt as Israel’s actions become less and less defensible.”

Peter Van Buren, an American diplomat just back from a year running a Provincial Reconstruction Team in Iraq, writes about the talking heads that appear daily in our media praising the glorious US army:

I’m neither a soldier nor a journalist. I’m a diplomat, just back from 12 months as a Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT) leader, embedded with the military in Iraq, and let me tell you that nobody laughed harder at the turgid prose reporters used to describe their lives than the soldiers themselves. They knew they were trading hours of boredom for maybe minutes of craziness that only in retrospect seemed “exciting,” as opposed to scary, confusing, and chaotic. That said, the laziest private knew from growing up watching TV exactly what flavor to feed a visiting reporter.

In trying to figure out why journalists and assorted militarized intellectuals from inside the Beltway lose it around the military, I remembered a long afternoon spent with a gaggle of “fellows” from a prominent national security think tank who had flown into Iraq. These scholars wrote serious articles and books that important people read; they appeared on important Sunday morning talk shows; and they served as consultants to even more important people who made decisions about the Iraq War and assumedly other conflicts to come.

One of them had been on the staff of a general whose name he dropped more often than Jesus’s at a Southern Baptist A.A. meeting. He was a real live neocon. A quick Google search showed he had strongly supported going to war in Iraq, wrote apology pieces after no one could find any weapons of mass destruction there (“It was still the right thing to do”), and was now back to check out just how well democracy was working out for a paper he was writing to further justify the war. He liked military high-tech, wielded words like “awesome,” “superb,” and “extraordinary” (pronounced EXTRA-ordinary) without irony to describe tanks and guns, and said in reference to the Israeli Army, “They give me a hard-on.”