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Reaction to Pilger award reveals Zionist lobby’s fear of dissent
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In 2003, Palestinian politician and human rights activist Hanan Ashrawi won the Sydney Peace Prize. The Zionist establishment reacted with outrage, accused her of extremism and pressured then New South Wales Premier Bob Carr to not present the award. The campaign was a disaster and convinced large swathes of the Australian public that many Jews were intolerant of debate. I investigated the saga in my book, My Israel Question, and found a startling lack of awareness by Jewish leaders of their actions were perceived by the wider public. Six years on, little has changed. This year, the Sydney Peace Foundation awarded its annual prize to journalist, author and documentary maker John Pilger for “enabling the voices of the powerless to be heard”. He will receive the award in November, presented by New South Wales Governor Marie Bashir. Last year Kevin Rudd did the honours for Aboriginal leader Pat Dodson. Jewish leaders again are on the offensive. President of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry (ECAJ), Robert Goot, said that, “Pilger does not promote peace, but is a polemicist, a distorter of facts and history and he promotes an extreme Palestinian narrative at the expense of Israel’s narrative and objective analysis.” Leadership strategist Ernie Schwartz told the Australian Jewish News (AJN) this week that he would urge the Jewish establishment to present a “unified view … [and] be realistic about the fact that we’ll always come across as myopic. That’s just the way we’re going to be cast.” But bullying organisers of the award and threatening them isn’t a perception problem; it’s how the Zionist lobby does business. Director of the Sydney Peace Foundation Stuart Rees tells Crikey that he has received huge amounts of supportive mail from across the world in appreciation of this year’s choice. “He [Pilger] has a broad body of work that covers a wide range of countries,” Rees says, including Cambodia, Burma, Australia, America, Bangladesh, Iraq and Afghanistan. “He isn’t just about Israel/Palestine.” Rees dismisses comments by Zionist lobbyist Colin Rubenstein that the prize is discredited and says that “we don’t think that derision is an appropriate form of commentary. When people have lost, they resort to character assassination.” Rees says he has not yet heard of any pressure on Sydney University management to threaten funding, as happened during the Ashrawi affair, but accusatory letters have started. The level of Zionist anger towards Pilger was displayed at last Friday’s Politics in the Pub event in Sydney. A Jewish man approached Rees after the talk and asked if the “next winner would be Hitler”. Curiously, this week’s AJN features a letter that asks whether Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah or yours truly should win next year. Rees argues that the reason so many Zionist leaders react as they do is because “they’re tribal. They have to repeat a certain mantra, otherwise they would be disloyal to this image.” Former Zionist Federation of Australia president Dr Ron Weiser proved this point recently by writing, in support of illegal West Bank settlements and against Barack Obama, that the Australian Government’s position would remain blindly pro-Israel if unthinking “consensus” was maintained. Profound fear of dissent was palpable. The question of academic freedom is central to a healthy democracy. Attempts by any lobby group to stifle it should be challenged. Witness the current moves in Israel and America against Ben Gurion University academic Neve Gordon for daring to write in the LA Times in support of a boycott against “apartheid” Israel. President Professor Rivka Carmi condemned the article and said: “Academics who entertain such resentment toward their country are welcome to consider another professional and personal home”. In fact, academic freedom is specifically designed to allow individuals to express views without fear of retribution. Closer to home, Associate Professor Jake Lynch, director of Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS), tells Crikey that he rejects any accusations of bias against him or the centre for taking a strong stand against Israeli violations and Sri Lanka’s war against the Tamils. He currently receives full university backing for his work, despite the steadily increasing number of complaints from the Singhalese and Jewish community to the institution, insisting on spurious grounds of “balance”. The obligation of a peace centre, Lynch argues, is to get out the “voices of the subjugated”. The university’s former vice-chancellor, Gavin Brown, told Lynch during a 2008 visit by Uighur activist Rebiya Kadeer that “you shouldn’t give the critics [looking for balance] any indication that they’re having an effect”. Lynch called in May for an academic boycott against Israeli institutions due to their complicity in the occupation of Palestine. The university’s vice-chancellor rejected his overture, supported by many Sydney University academics, but he tells me he’s determined to find a way to pursue the action another way. Lynch is keen to counter the perception that, “if you criticise Israel you’re anti-Semitic or anti-American if you damn America. The Pilger award should widen this debate. The aim of his British ITV documentary producers is to provide a perspective that is rarely heard; Palestinians are marginalised.” Stuart Rees commented during last week’s Politics in the Pub that Pilger won the award because he was simply “doing his job [as a reporter]”. Antony Loewenstein is an independent journalist and the author of My Israel Question and The Blogging Revolution |
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15 Comments
Hi Antony
I read your book and I thought it was brilliant. It is an admirabley courageous thing to do to keep making the points that you do. I was wondering how a group of deeply (and justifiably) traumatised people find a way ahead and allow dissent without fearing destruction of their faith, beliefs and feeling that they have betrayed the past? Is it just a matter of time?
Where is “the Zionist establishment” and how can I join it Antony? Does it cost anything to join? And do you need the correct anatomical surgery or is it open to any prick?
More signs of rightardation, off with the foreskin and out with the brains!
Well said Antony. In fact the Zionist experiment in Israel gets a remarkably free ride from the Australian press and the Australian government. It is all the more remarkable then that they nearly always react with such extreme views and a desire to suppress alternative voices. Could it be that deep in their dark minds they know that the behaviour of the Israeli government is unconscionable and an affront to civilised people everywhere?
A further irony in Mr Pilger’s award is that his columns are almost never quoted let alone reproduced in the metropolitan dailies. It is not just the Zionist lobby it would seem that is afraid to hear his voice. Instead we are fed a relentless barrage of right-wing perspectives from Devine, Albrechtson, Henderson et al. Even the left gatekeepers masquerading as liberals, such as Adams, do not have the courage to address the topics that Pilger does.
It will be interesting to see the extent of the coverage in the press and tv of Mr Pilger’s visit in November.
The Israeli-Palestinian battle becomes more tribal every year that passes. When people accuse you of not being balanced like this, they always mean you are not biassed in favour of their point of view, which is what they want.
The best we can hope for is that someone (like Obama perhaps) can bang their heads together and force them to come to a deal. The rest of us have to weigh in on the side of peace and truth, not in favour of one tribe over the other. But we should perhaps give more attention to the tribe that is suffering most, and that has historically not been given a fair go in public debate in the past - the Palestinians - while recognising that they have a famous propensity to shoot themselves in the foot, politically.
Regretably this miserable conflict is the world’s business given the nuclear weapon dimensions and the fuel for terrorism.
Also Israel as a polity is clearly fractured including in the IDF on imperial expansion with apartheid well and truly established according to the John Lyons colour mag feature in The Australian last week. As if Yigal Amir didn’t already prove that.
One extremist militant squatter - settler is a bullsh*t PR tag - is mentioned in the story that The West should just “shut up” given the Holocaust 64 years ago.
Re read first sentence I guess.
I loved the quote from a settler/activist in the W/E OZ - ‘we were here four thousands years ago, we left for two thousand and now we are back..” WTF? So Palestinians, by this deranged definition resaident for the last two millenia, cannot have Right of Return after 40 years? BTW, how does one ‘return’ whence no ancestor has been for millenia, if ever - viz Koestler’s “13th Tribe”?
You are of course right (and probably know much better than most) about the awful harm done by so many Jewish and Zionist spokespeople who don’t seem to have a clue about the reactions they arouse. It is Catch 22 of course when it comes to condoning a malicious liar like David Irving being admitted to the country or saying he should be kept out. The Jewish community, a great upholder of human rights amongst which free speech ranks high, can’t win on issues like that.
That said, I have long supposed that Pilgered and Pilgering refer justly to Pilger’s making up his facts and have tried to avoid reading him or knowing anything about him for at least 30 years.
Anybody wanting to educate themself on these issues and see that the rightards in Israel are just as evil as anywhere else in the world, check this guy out. Were the good do nothing rightardation will surely spread. http://www.abc.net.au/tv/fora/stories/2009/03/27/2526790.htm
Antony, thank you for your article - I admire the level headed and honest approach you bring to this sad and shameful situaion. I’ve been a follower of John Pilger for many years now. I recall one of his first documentaries that was on the horror of Pol Pot. I was a naive woman who wasn’t involved politically at that time, but I certainly changed that position. John Pilger is a fearless journalist, who does amazing amount of research prior to his works being published, and I’m very pleased, that at last he’s going to be acknowledged for his integrity, his honesty, his passion and his compassion. If it wasn’t for him I wouldn’t know about Diego Garcia, and recall his documentaries re the horrors of US interventions in Latin America, that is still going on at this time - the most recent being Honduras.
I’ll probably not be able to attend the ceremony at the Opera House in November, but I’m hoping that Radio National will once again broadcast it live or after the event. I feel for the Palestinian people, and I find it very sad, that those who were oppressed and worse by Hitler, are now the oppressors against a people who are starving and brutalized at this time, and have been for over 60 years. I’m ashamed of the role taken by the Rudd govt, in fact for too many national governments in this country. It’s sobering to realize, that having phospohorous bombs(and using them on innocents in Lebanon and Gaza) other bombs, tanks, automatic weapons is OK with the US and its allies, as long as you’re a mate? Israel has nuclear weapons; doesn’t even have to admit to it let alone have inspectors in the country, but others like Iran(a member of the NPT, and entitled to enrich uranium) is treated like war a criminal. (I’m not a fan of Iran either, I just think that there should be accountability for all.) Hypocrisy is alive and well. Some people are just ‘un-people’ it seems?
I think that those people from the Jewish community should face up to the fact, that Israel has lost a lot of support around the world via their last invasion of Gaza, and the willingness to treat people, including the aged, the ill and children in Palestine with such brutality. With technology these days, I can read the stories of many of the oppressed, not only in Gaza but other countries. The Internet offers such a wide variety of articles, newspapers, documentaries etc, that we are being made aware of the facts. The time has long gone, when politicians or others spinning their own version of reality can just repeat their mantra without question - now we can find out the truth, and then disgust is how we feel. I’m no longer put off by being called anti-semetic, as it’s used to cover the ‘sins’ of those who won’t take any criticism for their brutality and oppression. They don’t bother me any more, and thankfully, they’ve never intimidated John Pilger.
It’s a blight on the so-called ‘free press’ of this country, that most journalists automatically take the position on these issues from those who are in favour with the government, or corporate power or the US or a combination of all?? We need more journalist like John Pilger!
According to Liz45 “I’m no longer put off by being called anti-semetic, as it’s used to cover the ‘sins’ of those who won’t take any criticism for their brutality and oppression. They don’t bother me any more…”
That’s good Liz. I’m no longer put off by being called a defender of the rights of all people to live without terrorism, as it’s used to cover the ‘ignorance’ of those who get their world view from the Internet. They don’t bother me as I’ve seen what Hamas has done - the execution of dozens of Fatah leaders, the exploitation of children and women with intellectual disabilities as suicide bombers, the banning of women to vote or hold office, the suppression of a free press and the murder of trade union leaders. Me, I like a free tarde union, opposition parties and a liberal press. Won’t find that in most mid-east countries.
I always get my daily gaffaw from folk who read a few polemics on the web and then claim they ‘know’ what goes on. Trust me, you wouldn’t enjoy a holiday in Gaza Liz-o.
PS - Didn’t we try to find out if Iran had WMDs and they refused access? isn’t that how Gulf War II started? Try Google if you’re not sure
I am getting more and more confused. According to Oxford Dictionary: ‘Semite’ is a member of any of the group of races that includes the Hebrews and Arabs and formerly the Phoenicians and Assyrians. Semitic - of the Semites or their languages: a Semitic race’.
So, if I don’t like Arabs or Palestinians, does it make me antisemitic?
Does that mean then, that the conflict in the Middle East is nothing less than inter-tribal fighting?
We are told that the God chosen people got the land from God. I do agree with it. And I do believe in what God had said.
But I also believe that that Sabbath is a sacred day for praying and worship. And I also believe that God has forbidden any work during Sabbath.
And this is the difference between religious Jews and Zionists. No work during Sabbath. Many Jewish believe that one mustn’t even drive a car on a sacred Day of Sabbath - unless it is a tank or bomber.
How come that on a Sabbath Day (Saturday , Dec. 27, 2008) Israeli commanders, well paid for their job on Saturday, invaded Gaza? This is what many religious Jews are afraid of: God’s wrath.
WALTER SLURRY - If you re-read what I said, I intimated that there’s many different avenues for people to gain information and insight into certain issues. I don’t just rely on the Internet, you deliberately misinterpreted what I said. I’ve only had a computer since 2003(thanks to my eldest son) but I was politically aware long before then. I also know, that the US has either invaded or interfered with over 40 countries since the end of WW2. I also am aware, that because Howard was infatuated with being one of the main players, he gave a decision to invade Iraq without first having the debate in the Parliament - he was the first PM to do so!
WHAT ABOUT STATE SPONSORED TERORISM? OK is it? How many deaths before you ask why? What did the kids in Iraq do to you, or their parents or grandparents either for that matter? Neither of the countries we’ve recently invaded were any threat to us. Thanks to Howard, we’re now hated in the Middle East! If you wish to look through a very narrow window pane that’s your privilege, but that doesn’t remove the fact, that Israel is a brutal oppressor!
The West has been involved in the Middle East in a negative fashion for decades and beyond, in fact Britain invaded Iraq for the first time prior to WW1 I believe. The West has been causing terror in the region, and supplying questionable people with money and weapons (like Osama bin Laden) and Saddam Hussein for decades. As long as they were complicit with “UN interests” they were safe from ‘negative responses-read invasion/s) but when they were no longer useful, or were not permissive to “US interests” an excuse was made to get rid of them. We’ve all seen the photos of Rumsfeld etc being wooed by Saddam, as were members of the Thatcher govt. Any weapons Saddam used to have were supplied by the United States - I’ve seen the invoice! The US also keeps Israel well equipped with all the weapons they need or want.
Nowhere in my comment did I condone the use of violence - by anyone! I just think that the rockets that the Palestinians use are a long way from Phosphorous bombs, tanks, automatic rifles etc, not to mention Israel’s nuclear arsenal. I don’t condone what HAMAS or FATAH or Israelis do to innocent people, particularly kids. You of course don’t mention the kids that are in jails in Israel, or how they’re intimidated with rifle butts on their way to school, or the injuries of kids and others that clearly indicate that they’ve lost eyes etc via sniper bullets - intentional attempts at assassinations!
The West is good at condemning the Palestinians, and decrying that they haven’t followed UN instructions, but conveniently omit to castigate Israel for flaunting the UN Resolutions of many decades - 100? to date, maybe more? Didn’t the excuse to invade Iraq come about because Saddam didn’t comply with US Resolution 1443?Didn’t Kofi Annan state, that the invasion of Iraq was illegal? Didn’t the Judges at Nuremberg have something to say about the illegal invasion of sovereign nations that were no threat to the invaders? I think you’ll find if you bother to read the Judgement, or the Geneva Conventions, that this was indeed a war crime. Therefore, I don’t believe that the invaders have the right to take the high moral ground, and if you support them, neither do you.
If you believe, that the killing of 1 million 300,000 innocent Iraqis was OK, then I don’t want to embrace your sense of justice. They weren’t responsible for 9/11, nor were the people of Afghanistan. 9/11 was a tragedy, but it was not like Pearl Harbour, and was used by Bush and his crazies to instigate a program of domination for “US interests” and empire building.
If we condone the US going around the world, setting up puppet govts run by dictators that are sympathetic to “US intersts” (read oil or gas or ???) then we shouldn’t complain when the people in those countries defend themselves and their interests. Even Mick Keelty let slip, that the reason behind the bombs in Spain was due to our invasion of Iraq. Of course, Howard made him see that his “comments were taken out of context”? Of course they were! I’ve had my hearing aid attended to also!
There’s plenty of information, either via reading material or documentaries, that indeed involve interviews, comments and opinions by people with up to 30 years experience in US administrations about the Bush Administration’s machinations re the conservatives long term plan to invade Iraq(Read, Project for a New American Century); people who worked in- CIA, Pentagon, FBI, Military, and many other security bodies attached to the White House - this also includes past weapons inspectors and people who worked in the White House early in George W’s administration - Richard Clark for instance. So incensed were many of these people by Bush and Cheney’s war mongering and contempt for the Constitution and accountability, that they started a group that was determined to publicly query the Bush Administration and its behaviours.
Even the majority of the US population don’t swallow the ‘fighting against terrorism BS’ any more. The rest of the world had less trust in the US than any other country at the end of Bush’s reign! I don’t support terrorism or terrorists, and that includes state sponsored terrorism, renditions, torture prisons; using other countries air space to transport detainees to prisons in Egypt of Europe for ‘interrogation’ prior to sending them to Guantanamo Bay!
The Rudd Government’s blanket support for the murderous, far right Israeli Government is a national disgrace.
Anyone wanting to run on a vote splitting Middle East policy ticket in either the PM’s or GAZA Gillard’s seats will have my personal & financial support.
Welcome back Kevin. How we’ve missed your sentiments. Of course, you are so right - those pesky Israeli’s keep crossing into Gaza and then firing missiles at civilians. Damn, they’re a sneaky bunch. Jews, you know. World domination and all that.
And hey, you’re right too - I’d vote for a political party who supports Sharia Law. My goodness Kevin Charles, imagine letting women vote, or hold office, or be edumacated, as Travis Bickel would say? I’m sure big Kevin (as opposed to…) will be changing his foreign policy hencewith.
But why stop at Gaza and Hamas - why not Fatah. Oops, I forgot. Hamas executed 35 Fatah members during the recent Gaza conflict. Never mind, let’s not dwell on the beheadings of a few moderates. Probably deserved it. Same with Palestinian trade union members - they tend to get shot a fair bit in Gaza; but given your views on Rudd & Gillard, it’s probably a good thing to wipe out a few of them along the way. Can’t have organised unions in the Middle East, what.
Are there any other peoples we should exterminate while we’re at it Kevin? Homose*uals? Gypsies? Communists? Steve Fielding? Andrew Strauss?