The Silence of the Jewish Labour Movement & Labour Friends of Israel over UN Resolution on Settlements

The Hypocrisy of Labour Zionism which only supports 2 States outside Israel!  In Israel they support Occupation!

Jeremy Corbyn, previously a long-standing supporter of the Palestinians and a patron of Palestine Solidarity Campaign, humiliates himself by lending his support to the Labour Friends of Israel and speaking alongside Mark Regev, the Israeli Ambassador (back right) Netanyahu's former PR man who justified the murder of Palestinian civilians in Gaza during Operation Protective Edge, including 4 children killed on the beach 

Despite all the heated rhetoric of Benjamin Netanyahu condemning UN Resolution 2334 on Settlements which passed 14-0 with 1 abstention on 23^rd December and his theatrics – reprimanding the Ambassadors of the Security Council members which voted for it - the resolution is quite mild.

UN Resolution 2334 reaffirms the international law principle of the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force.  It could do no other.  It also reaffirmed its own previous resolutions including Resolution 242, which was passed after the 1967 war, and called for the withdrawal of Israel’s armed forces from the territories it had ‘occupied in the recent conflict’ and Resolution 338 which was passed on 22^nd October 1973 and called for an immediate ceasefire in the Yom Kippur war.

The theatrics of Netanyahu, inviting in Ambassadors for a reprimand and throwing his toys out of the pram belie a purpose - making it clear that 2 states is just a diplomatic fig leaf - not to be taken seriously

Resolution 2334 reaffirms the obligation of Israel to abide by the 4^th Geneva Convention in relation to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War.  Something which one would have assumed was uncontentious, except that Israel doesn’t accept the Geneva Convention applies to the Palestinian Territories since it holds to the fiction that it is ‘returning’ after an absence of around 2,500 years! 

The refusal to abide by the 4th Geneva Convention, which was passed in August 1949, is particularly shameful since the Convention was passed as a result of the treatment of the Jewish population in the countries the Nazis or their satellites occupied.  It is in itself proof that Israel, despite calling itself a Jewish state, has learnt nothing from the crimes of the Nazi state.

Labour Friends of Israel's hypocritical 'peace' campaign which justifies war and occupation

The Resolution also reaffirmed the opinion of the International Court of Justice at The Hague, which found Israel’s Separation Wall, which steals large chunks of Palestinian land in the West Bank, to be illegal.

The Resolution also condemns measures which alter the demographic composition of the Palestinian Territories.  Again this is standard international law.  When the Nazis invaded Poland in 1939 they began settling the Warthegau (Reichsgau Wartheland) which they annexed to the Greater German Reich, with German settlers.  The Nazis expelled the indigenous Polish population, including large numbers of Jews.

Israel doesn’t accept this either since it holds that Brooklyn Bible bashers take precedence over Palestinians who have been living there for hundreds of years.  In particular the resolution expresses ‘grave concern that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines’.

In order to defeat BDS, Labour Friends of Israel pretends to support a 2 State solution

You  might think that Labour Friends of Israel, which has just launched a ‘For Israel, for Palestine, for peace’ campaign, and the Jewish Labour Movement, would be delighted with UN resolution.  After all both organisations support a 2 State Solution in Israel/Palestine and never lose an opportunity to speak about ‘peace’.  However this is  hypocritical cant. In practice neither organisation is prepared to do anything in practice to oppose Israel’s military occupation of the Palestinian territories and the settlement of the territories.

The LFI and JLM only support 2 States as a means of opposing BDS and the Boycott of Israel.  In practice these organisations support Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land.  Their ‘support’ for a 2 States Solution is a cynical tactic designed to negate practical support for the Palestinians.  When not alleging ‘anti-Semitism’ they oppose all practical measures of support for the Palestinians. 

Support  in Britain for 2 States avoids thorny questions such as whether the Jewish State of Israel can also be a Democratic State of all its citizens, given that 20% of the inhabitants of Israel are Palestinians. 

An endearing photograph, probably of an Israeli Jewish child in a Palestinian keffiyeh since there is no mixing between Jewish settler children and Palestinian children.  In Israel nearly all children go to segregated schools

What LFI and JLM don’t support is any active campaign to remove Israel’s occupation, still less any campaign against the military occupation of the West Bank or the repression, the military courts, the arrest, detention and  torture of children, arbitrary imprisonment or theft and confiscation of land.  You won’t find either organisation, or hypocrites like Tom Watson and Ruth Smeeth MP who sponsor them, opposing the violent arrest of a 7 year old boy, as captured on video or the arrest of a 6 year old child, as reported by the Times of Israel, who was held for 8 hours and not allowed to see his parents.

LFI and the misnamed Jewish Labour Movement only support 2 States because it is an alternative to a democratic, secular, unitary state in the whole of Palestine/Israel.  Labour Zionist support for 2 States only exists outside Israel.  Inside Israel the Israeli Labour Party opposes a Palestinian state and supports ‘segregation’ i.e. a Palestinian Bantustan.  Its main fear is that the 4 million Palestinians under occupation will make a Jewish state impossible. 

This is why there is an embarrassing silence by Labour Friends of Israel and the Jewish Labour Movement.  They are caught between a rock and a hard place.  Neither organisation can oppose a UN resolution which calls for the very thing they apparently support, i.e. 2 States and which is supported by virtually the entire world bar that well known anti-racist, Donald Trump.  But neither can they support it. 

Obama and Netanyahu at a time when the US was resupplying Israel's military attack on Gaza

The JLM describes the Israeli Labour Party as its ‘sister party’.  The Washington Post of 24^th December reported thus:  "I strongly oppose this harsh resolution, which is a strategic defeat for Israel,” opposition leader Isaac Herzog said. Speaking on Israeli television Saturday, he laid the blame for the defeat on Netanyahu’s foreign policy.'

The Jewish Forward (26.12.16) described how Herzog whilst ‘trying to sound a patriotic note while attacking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, condemned the resolution but blamed Netanyahu for pursuing policies that left Israel isolated.’  This is strange language coming from someone who, according to the JLM  and LFI supports a 2 state solution.

“This is a difficult night for Israel,” said opposition leader Isaac Herzog (Zionist Union) in wake of the recent UN Security Council resolution condemning all Israeli settlements, which he opined the United States should have vetoed. Herzog said the resolution “seriously harms our capital Jerusalem, the settlement blocs and Israel’s status and diplomatic achievements accumulated over the years.” –

Herzog and the Israeli Labour Party are portrayed in Britain as supporters of a 2 states solution yet here he is saying the resolution should have been vetoed and that it harms ‘our’ capital Jerusalem.  Herzog also talks about harm to the very settlement blocks which are an obstacle to any meaningful 2 states solution. Israel’s political left also condemns the UN’s anti-settlement resolution

Another Israeli ‘supporter’ of 2 States is the leader of the ‘Centrist’ Yesh Atid party leader Yair Lapid who ‘railed against the UN resolution, telling reporters it was “dangerous, unfair and Israel doesn’t accept it.” ‘

“The resolution yesterday was an act of hypocrisy,” Lapid said Saturday. “When a murderous terrorist group like Hamas praises the decision of the Security Council, it’s clear whom it serves.” He even criticized left-wing politicians who celebrated the UN decision, saying “patriots don’t behave thus,” [Times of Israel, 24.12.16.]

As Gideon Levy noted in an Op Ed in Ha’aretz, ‘opposition leader Isaac Herzog can babble that ‘we need to fight the decision with all means,’” but what is this babble really about, what does it mean about the mainstream Zionist ‘left’, and why is Herzog defending the settlements? – UN Resolution Is a Breath of Hope in Sea of Darkness and Despair –

Thus we note the dilemmas of the hypocrites of the Jewish Labour Movement and Labour Friends of Israel.

Tony Greenstein

Text of Egyptian-drafted resolution 2334 on settlements, approved by the UN Security Council, on December 23, 2016.

The Security Council,

Reaffirming its relevant resolutions, including resolutions 242 (1967), 338 (1973), 446 (1979), 452 (1979), 465 (1980), 476 (1980), 478 (1980), 1397 (2002), 1515 (2003), and 1850 (2008),

Guided by the purposes and principles of the Charter of the United Nations, and reaffirming, inter alia, the inadmissibility of the acquisition of territory by force,

Reaffirming the obligation of Israel, the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War, of 12 August 1949, and recalling the advisory opinion rendered on 9 July 2004 by the International Court of Justice,

Condemning all measures aimed at altering the demographic composition, character and status of the Palestinian Territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, including, inter alia, the construction and expansion of settlements, transfer of Israeli settlers, confiscation of land, demolition of homes and displacement of Palestinian civilians, in violation of international humanitarian law and relevant resolutions,

Expressing grave concern that continuing Israeli settlement activities are dangerously imperilling the viability of the two-State solution based on the 1967 lines,

Recalling the obligation under the Quartet Roadmap, endorsed by its resolution 1515 (2003), for a freeze by Israel of all settlement activity, including “natural growth”, and the dismantlement of all settlement outposts erected since March 2001,

Recalling also the obligation under the Quartet roadmap for the Palestinian Authority Security Forces to maintain effective operations aimed at confronting all those engaged in terror and dismantling terrorist capabilities, including the confiscation of illegal weapons,

Condemning all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation, incitement and destruction,

Reiterating its vision of a region where two democratic States, Israel and Palestine, live side by side in peace within secure and recognized borders,

Stressing that the status quo is not sustainable and that significant steps, consistent with the transition contemplated by prior agreements, are urgently needed in order to (i) stabilize the situation and to reverse negative trends on the ground, which are steadily eroding the two-State solution and entrenching a one-State reality, and (ii) to create the conditions for successful final status negotiations and for advancing the two-State solution through those negotiations and on the ground.

Racism and Christmas Cheer From the Zionists - Happy Yuletide to our Readers

Israel's Military Occupation Celebrate Xmas by Tear Gassing Demonstration in Bethlehem

I must confess that despite being a confirmed atheist, I enjoy having a Xmas tree in my living room each year.  I particularly enjoy seeing the lights as it provides a kind of warm glow.  It doesn’t make me believe in the Resurrection though!  For most people in Britain, the Xmas tree, like Xmas itself, is a secular symbol of a secular festival.  But in Israel it is entirely different.

Even Santa gets tear gassed Bi'ilin 2011 -  Popular Committee Against the Wall via europalestine.com

In a State where religion defines who belongs to the herren volk and who doesn’t, then of course Rabbi Elad Dokow of Israel’s Technion University is right when he says that “This is not about freedom of worship,,, This is the world’s only Jewish state. And it has a role to be a ‘light unto the nations’ and not to uncritically embrace every idea.”

Of course there are very few religious states in the world and even fewer where nationality is based, not on residence but on religion.   Most religious states either use the religion to oppress adherents of that religion (Saudi Arabia, Iran) or it is a constitutional adornment without any significance (UK).  Only in Israel does belonging to the state religion confer significant advantages.

Therefore the display of a Xmas tree does indeed strike a blow at the heart of Israel’s ‘national identity’ in a way it wouldn’t in say Ireland, which is also nominally a Christian country.

The article mentions Shimon Gapso, the notoriously racist Mayor of Upper Nazareth (built as a Jewish town to contain the Arab Nazareth beneath it but which has seen a steady ‘encroachment’ of Arabs because of the usual restrictions on any expansion of an Arab town.  Christmas Trees Are Still Banned in Nazareth Illit and Forbidden to celebrate: Israel’s war on Christmas continues despite Netanyahu’s claim of tolerance.

see also The Israeli War on Christmas…and Christianity

Ezz Al-Zanoon APA images

Israeli rabbis launch war on the Xmas tree

23 December 2016

In Bethlehem the Israeli Army Tear Gas a Demonstration Calling for Free Movement

Israeli soldiers fired tear gas, pepper spray and stun grenades at Palestinians calling for free movement between Bethlehem and Jerusalem on Friday.

The Christmas-themed protest was held in front of Checkpoint 300, where Israeli soldiers control Palestinian movement between the occupied West Bank cities.

Approximately 100 protesters, some of them dressed in Santa Claus suits, chanted against Israel’s military occupation and for Palestinian freedom.

“Jesus came with a message of peace, his city suffers oppression,” one demonstrator’s sign read.
“Santa Claus stands with the Palestinian people,” stated another.

Half a dozen people were injured, including journalists, during the protest.

Palestinians and their supporters highlight around Christmastime that if Joseph and Mary were to make their journey from Nazareth today, Israel’s military checkpoints and massive concrete wall would prevent them from accessing the Bethlehem manger where tradition holds Jesus Christ was born.

Israel’s wall completely encircles Bethlehem, as do its settlement colonies, turning a once vibrant Palestinian cultural center and international tourist destination into a shuttered ghetto.

Israel’s regime of movement restrictions imposed on Palestinians living under its military rule prevents the free access to places of worship, including the al-Aqsa mosque and Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem.


Even the Holy Fire of Easter must pass through an Israeli checkpoint during the ancient ritual observed by Orthodox Christians in Palestine.

Jerusalem hotels receive warning letter noting that Jewish religious law forbids Christmas trees and new year’s parties

Al-Jazeera – 23 December 2016

As tens of thousands of Christian pilgrims converge on the Holy Land this week to celebrate the birth of Jesus, senior Israeli rabbis have announced a war on the Christmas tree.

Christmas Trees Banned in Nazareth Illit

In Jerusalem, the rabbinate has issued a letter warning dozens of hotels in the city that it is “forbidden” by Jewish religious law to erect a tree or stage New Year’s parties.

Many hotel owners have taken the warning to heart, fearful that the rabbis may carry out previous threats to damage their businesses by denying them certificates declaring their premises to be “kosher”.

In the coastal city of Haifa, in northern Israel, the rabbi of Israel’s premier technology university has taken a similarly strict line. Elad Dokow, the Technion’s rabbi, ordered that Jewish students boycott their students’ union, after it installed for the first time a modest Christmas tree.

He called the tree “idolatry”, warning that it was a “pagan” symbol that violated the kosher status of the building, including its food hall.

About a fifth of the Technion’s students belong to Israel’s large Palestinian minority.

The Technion’s Christmas tree (copyright Firas Espanioly)

While most of Israel’s Palestinian citizens are Muslim, there are some 130,000 Christians, most of them living in Galilee. Other Palestinian Christians live under occupation in East Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed in violation of international law.

“This is not about freedom of worship,” Dokow told the Technion’s students. “This is the world’s only Jewish state. And it has a role to be a ‘light unto the nations’ and not to uncritically embrace every idea.”

Rabea Mahajni, a 24-year-old electrical engineering student, said that placing the tree in the union was backed by Palestinian students but had strongly divided opinion among Jewish students and staff. The majority, he said, were against the decision.

“One professor upset [Palestinian] students by taking to Facebook to say that the tree made him uncomfortable, and that those who wanted it should either put one up in their own home or go to Europe,” he told Al Jazeera.

Mahajni added: “This is not really about a Christmas tree. It is about who the tree represents. It is a test of whether Jewish society is willing to accept an Arab minority and our symbols.”

He pointed out that Palestinian students had not objected to the students’ union also marking Hanukkah, referring to the Jewish winter “festival of lights” that this year coincides with Christmas.

Interest in Santa hats

For most of Israel’s history, the festive fir tree was rarely seen outside a handful of communities in Israel with significant Christian populations. But in recent years, the appeal of Christmas celebrations has spread among secular Israeli Jews.

Interest took off two decades ago, after one million Russian-speaking Jews immigrated following the fall of the Soviet Union, said David Bogomolny, a spokesman for Hiddush, which lobbies for religious freedom in Israel.

Many, he told Al Jazeera, had little connection to Jewish religious practice and had adopted local customs in their countries of origin instead.

“The tree [in the former Soviet Union] was very popular but it had nothing to do with Christmas,” he said. “Each home had one as a way to welcome in the new year.”

Nazareth, which claims to host the tallest Christmas tree in the Middle East, has recently become a magnet for many domestic tourists, including Jews, Christians and Muslims. They come to visit the Christmas market, hear carols and buy a Santa hat.

Haifa and Jaffa, two largely Jewish cities with significant Palestinian Christian populations, have recently started competing. Jaffa, next to Tel Aviv, staged its first Christmas market last year.

Meanwhile, hotels are keen to erect a tree in their lobbies as a way to boost tourism revenue from Christian pilgrims, who comprise the bulk of overseas visitors.

‘No danger’ to Judaism

But the growing popularity of Christmas has upset many Orthodox rabbis, who have significant powers over public space. Bogomolny said that some rabbis were driven by a desire to make the state “as Jewish as possible” to avert it losing its identity.

Others may fear that the proliferation of Christmas trees could lure Israeli Jews towards Christianity.

Wadie Abu Nassar, a spokesman for the Latin Patriarch in Jerusalem, said that he had noticed an increasing interest from Israeli Jews in Christian festivals, including in some cases requests to attend Christmas mass.

He told Al Jazeera this was not a threat to Judaism, but healthy curiosity. “If we want to live together in peace, we have to understand each other and learn to trust,” he said.

Tree-free Knesset

The controversial status of Christmas in Israel was underscored four years ago when Yair Netanyahu, the 21-year-old son of Israel’s prime minister, caused a minor scandal by being photographed wearing a Santa hat next to a Christmas tree.

The office of Benjamin Netanyahu hurriedly issued a statement saying that Yair had posed as a joke while attending a party hosted by “Christian Zionists who love Israel, and whose children served in the [Israeli army]”.

Two years earlier, Shimon Gapso, the mayor of Upper Nazareth, originally founded for Jews on Nazareth’s land, banned all signs of Christmas in the city’s public places. He has been a vociferous opponent of an influx of Christians from overcrowded Nazareth.

The Israeli parliament, the Knesset, has also been declared a Christmas tree-free zone.

In 2013, its speaker rejected a request from Hanna Swaid, then a Palestinian Christian legislator, to erect a tree in the building. Yuli Edelstein said it would evoke “painful memories” of Jewish persecution in Europe and chip away at the state’s Jewish character.

Attack on religious freedoms

Swaid pointed to the prominence of Jewish symbols in public spaces in the United States, including an annual Hanukkah party at the White House, during which the president lights menorah candles.

“Israeli leaders expect the US to be religiously inclusive, but then they refuse to practise the same at home,” he told Al Jazeera.

He also noted that the religious freedoms of the Palestinian minority were under ever greater attack, most notably with the recent drafting of a so-called “muezzin bill”, which would crack down on mosques’ use of loudspeakers for the call to prayer.

“Given this hostile political climate, the battle to gain legitimacy for our religious symbols becomes all the more important,” he said. “Otherwise we face a dark future.”

Threat to kosher status

Nonetheless, there has been a backlash, especially from secular Jews, against the rigid control exercised by Orthodox rabbis.

Haifa’s mayor, Yona Yahav, overruled the city’s rabbi in 2012 when he tried to ban Christmas trees and new year’s parties. The Jewish new year occurs several months before the Christian one.

And last year, in the face of a legal challenge from Hiddush, the chief rabbinate backed down on threats to revoke the kosher status of businesses that celebrate Christmas.

But while the ban on Christmas trees has been formally lifted, in practice it is still widely enforced, according to Bogomolny.

“The problem is that the chief rabbinate actually has no authority over city rabbis, who can disregard its rulings, as we have seen with the letter issued by the Jerusalem rabbis,” he said.

Most hotels wanted to ignore the prohibition on Christmas trees because it was bad for business, but feared being punished.

“It is a problem throughout the country,” he said. “The hotels are afraid to take a stand. If they try to fight it through the courts, it will be costly and could take years to get a ruling.”

One hotel manager in West Jerusalem to whom Al Jazeera spoke on condition of anonymity said he feared “retaliation” from the rabbis.

“The letter was clearly intended to intimidate us,” he said. “The Christian tourists are here to celebrate Christmas and we want to help them do it, but not if it costs us our certificate.” 

Guardian Cowardice as it abandons Antony Loewenstein to Israel's Ministry of Information

Antony Loewenstein's profile on Guardian website which lists over a 100 articles he has written

The article below by Jonathan Cook, a freelance journalist who used to work for The Guardian is self-explanatory.  A journalist, Antony Loewenstein, who has contributed 90 articles to the Guardian over the past 3 years as a freelance journalist, had the temerity to ask a difficult question of Israel’s uber-racist politician Yair Lapid, the head of Yesh Atid.  Lapid masquerades as a Zionist centrist but he is virtually indistinguishable from Netanyahu. 

Antony Loewenstein - his crime was asking an uncomfortable question of Israeli MK and leader of Yesh Atid, Yair Lapid, a notorious racist opposed to 'mixed-race' i.e. Jewish-Arab liaisons

Loewenstein dared ask whether Israel’s treatment of the millions of Palestinians under military rule merited the accolade of it being an Apartheid state.   Nothing makes the defenders of ‘Israeli democracy’ bristle more than the word ‘Apartheid’ though quite how you describe a situation where 4 million Palestinians are held under military rule for nigh on 50 years at the very same time as Jewish settlers are subject to normal civil law, defies me.  Jimmy Carter, the former US President, was given similar treatment when he made this obvious comparison too.

HonestReporting is one of the many Israeli funded groups which dedicated themselves to combating unsympathetic coverage of Israeli and Zionist repression and racism

Either way a nasty little campaign has arisen, during which it has been falsely claimed that Loewenstein claimed to work for the Guardian as a permanent correspondent.  Loewenstein has been made the target of the so-called HonestReporting group, one of these Israeli funded groups whose main purpose in life is to intimidate journalists who are not singing from Israel’s hymn sheet.  When they contacted the Guardian to ask whether in fact Loewenstein works for them, rather than being told he is a freelance journalist who contributes copy, the Guardian distanced themselves from him. 

A cursory visit to Lowenstein’s profile on the Guardian website shows just how many articles he’s contributed in the past few.  The total is about 105. For the Guardian to now distance himself from the Israeli government and its Zionist chorus who wish to expel inconvenient journalists is despicable.

Tony Greenstein

Guardian newspaper fails to support colleague facing deportation threat from Israeli government

23 December 2016

Mondoweiss – 23 December 2016

Harriet Sherwood, former Guardian Israel correspondent, now their religious affairs correspondent.  Perhaps appropriate since her behaviour towards Loewenstein resembleds that of Judas towards Jesus

Israel is reported to be ready to expel an award-winning Australian journalist and writer, Antony Loewenstein, after he asked a too-probing question of an Israeli politician at a media event last week. Government officials have said they are investigating how they can deny him his work visa when it comes up for renewal in March.

It is unsurprising to learn that Israel has no serious regard for press freedom. But more depressing has been the lack of solidarity shown by journalistic colleagues, most especially the Guardian newspaper, for which he has regularly worked as a freelancer since 2013. Not only has the paper failed to offer him any support, but its management and staff reporters have hurried to distance themselves from him.

Sherwood on Twitter demonstrating that when it comes to solidarity with journalists under attack, the Guardian's journalists retreat by example

A deferential foreign press

Loewenstein has been under fire since he attended the event in Jerusalem, hosted by the Foreign Press Association (FPA), on December 12. According to the Israeli media, he asked former government minister Yair Lapid: “Is there not a deluded idea here that many Israeli politicians, including yourself, continue to believe that one can talk to the world about democracy, freedom and human rights while denying that to millions of Palestinians, and will there not come a time soon, in a year, five years, 10 years, when you and other politicians will be treated like South African politicians during Apartheid?”

Peter Beaumont - Guardian's Jerusalem correspondent in the normal act of solidarity one expects of Guardian journalists denied all knowledge of Loewenstein 

Israeli politicians are not used to hearing such difficult questions from members of the FPA, a professional association for journalists working in Israel. The reason for their deference to Israeli officials was explained to me a few years ago by an FPA insider. He revealed that not only are most of these correspondents Jewish – as Loewenstein himself is – but, unlike Loewenstein, they deeply identify with Israel. They live in Israel, not the occupied territories, they speak Hebrew, send their children to Israeli schools and expect them to serve in the Israeli army. Some of the reporters have served in the army themselves.

Perhaps most famously, former New York Times bureau chief Ethan Bronner was embarrassed in 2010 by the disclosure that he and the NYT had not divulged that his son was serving in the Israeli army while Bronner reported from the region. There was nothing exceptional about Bronner’s professional conflict of interest. My confidant told me: “I can think of a dozen foreign bureau chiefs, responsible for covering both Israel and the Palestinians, who have served in the Israeli army, and another dozen who like Bronner have kids in the Israeli army.”

He added: “The degree to which Bronner’s personal life, like that of most lead journalists here, is integrated into Israeli society, makes him an excellent candidate to cover Israeli political life, cultural shifts and intellectual life. The problem is that Bronner is also expected to be his paper’s lead voice on Palestinian political life, cultural shifts and intellectual life, all in a society he has almost no connection to, deep knowledge of or even the ability to directly communicate with.”

Most publications appear to believe that the benefits of employing openly partisan reporters – and all of them partisan towards the same party in the conflict – outweighs any potential damage to claims that they are neutral and impartial. The outlets hope their partisanship will offer them an advantage: gaining unfettered access to the corridors of power, whether in the Israeli government or army.

With this background in mind, it is possible to understand why Loewenstein described the tenor of the FPA event in the following terms: “With a few notable exceptions, the vast majority of journalists in attendance were deferential to Lapid and asked him bland questions.”

No support from the FPA

Loewenstein’s failure to follow the standard FPA rules of politesse when addressing an Israeli politician triggered a campaign against him by Honest Reporting. The group is one of several US-based media lobby organizations whose job is to intimidate foreign media organizations on behalf of the Israeli government. In this way, they have been successful in limiting critical coverage of Israel even further. Staff reporters tend to self-censor, while freelance journalists are pressured to leave the region.

In a transparent maneuver, Honest Reporting sought to paint Loewenstein as politically extreme for his past support for BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions), and as an activist rather than a journalist. That is no easy task. In addition to the Guardian, he has written for many leading publications in Europe, Australia and the US, including the New York Times, the Washington Post, Newsweek, the Nation, Le Monde diplomatique, the Huffington Post, the Sydney Morning Herald, the Age, and many more.

He has also written several books covering a diverse range of topics, including his best-seller My Israel Question, in which he considers his own Jewish identity and relates it to issues of the Israel-Palestinian conflict. (Full disclosure: I contributed a chapter to a 2012 volume, After Zionism, he edited with Ahmed Moor.) He is currently working on a documentary based on his book Disaster Capitalism.

In other words, Loewenstein is not only a journalist; he is the gold-standard for serious independent, critical-thinking journalists. Which, of course, is precisely the reason Israel would want him gone.

Ignoring the deep, but entirely acceptable partisanship of the vast majority of reporters in Jerusalem, Honest Reporting has accused Loewenstein of partiality: “Loewenstein is clearly incapable of reporting on Israel in a fair and objective manner. Yet Honest Reporting has learned that he happens to be a paid up associate member of Israel’s Foreign Press Association.”

It is the traditional and self-defined responsibility of journalists to hold power to account, yet, sadly, the FPA has failed to come to Loewenstein’s defense. In response to Honest Reporting, it said it had accepted him as a non-voting associate member “based on his career as a freelance journalist”. But then added only: “While we do not endorse his views, we also do not screen our members for their opinions.”

So no words of support from the FPA for Loewenstein as he faces being stripped of the right to report from the region (and not just from Israel, as Honest Reporting dishonestly claims, but also from the occupied territories, since Israel controls all access to Palestinian areas). Not a word of condemnation of Israel from the FPA for crushing press freedom. Just a shrug of the shoulders.

Loewenstein should not be surprised. The FPA has barely bothered to raise its voice in solidarity with journalistic colleagues in the region whose rights are being trampled on a systematic basis. 

Palestinian journalists have been regularly killed, wounded, beaten up or jailed, earning Israel a ranking of 101 out of 180 countries this year in the Reporters without Borders index. That places it below Liberia, Bhutan, East Timor and Gabon, and a nudge ahead of Uganda, Kuwait, and Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Honest Reporting saw its chance to set a trap for Loewenstein to get him out of the region. More than a decade ago, Israel’s Government Press Office (GPO) introduced new rules that tightly controlled coverage in its favor. In a non-transparent procedure, independent journalists have to persuade the GPO that they deserve to be issued with a work visa.

In February, the Committee to Protect Journalists’ executive director, Robert Mahoney, criticised Israel for this patronage system. “It is virtually impossible to work as a reporter in Israel and the occupied territories without a press card,” he said. “The threat of withdrawing accreditation is a heavy handed approach at stifling unwelcome coverage.”

The Guardian distances itself

Honest Reporting has created a phony controversy about how Loewenstein received his work visa in a bid to discredit him. In fact, Loewenstein should easily meet the formal requirements for a freelance visa, as he has written far more than seven articles for major publications in the last year. But Honest Reporting is seeking to confect a row to justify the GPO refusing to renew his visa in March.

It did so by questioning the Guardian about his connection to the paper, hoping that it could get the paper to dissociate itself from him. Without a shred of evidence, it suggested that Loewenstein might have lied to the GPO, claiming he was a Guardian accredited journalist, to get his visa.

How did the Guardian respond? According to Honest Reporting, its head of international news, Jamie Wilson, told them that “Loewenstein was contracted to write comment pieces for Guardian Australia and remains an occasional comment contributor but he ‘is not a news correspondent for the Guardian in Israel’. It was also relayed to us that Loewenstein has now been told to in future make sure he does not reference The Guardian at press conferences unless he is working on a direct commission."

Further, their Jerusalem correspondent Peter Beaumont emailed the group to deny any knowledge of Loewenstein. And its former Jerusalem correspondent and now religious affairs reporter Harriet Sherwood entered the fray on Facebook: “Why is this guy claiming to be a Guardian writer when all I can find in our archive is occasional opinion pieces and nothing since August?” For the record, Loewenstein has written more than 90 articles for the Guardian since 2013.

One might wonder how it is that neither Beaumont nor Sherwood appear to have heard of Loewenstein when he has written several books on Israel and Palestine, and writes for their own paper and other leading publications on a range of issues, including Israel and Palestine. But then I suspect they may have a rather narrow range of reference points for their coverage – most of them doubtless FPA regulars.

But what is more significant is that none of the relevant actors at the Guardian has shown an ounce of solidarity with Loewenstein, as the Israeli lobby seeks to get him kicked out of the country for doing proper journalism. They have also inadvertently conspired with Honesty Reporting in misrepresenting him.

Despite Honest Reporting’s accusations, Loewenstein says he stated clearly in his GPO application that he was a freelance journalist. And it is simply inconceivable that he could have professed to be a Guardian reporter to the GPO without being found out. The GPO knows precisely who represents all the big media outlets in Jerusalem.

Further, according to a source at the FPA event, Loewenstein was clear about his status when he addressed Lapid. He said he was freelance journalist who had contributed to various publications including the Guardian.

Predictably, Honest Reporting’s managing editor, Simon Plosker, was delighted by the Guardian’s response: “The Guardian’s distancing itself from Loewenstein is a welcome development.”

So far the Guardian appears to have issued no criticism of Honest Reporting for its deceptions in this matter, or retracted its own misguided comments.

The Guardian — far from the fearless watchdog

Loewenstein may have hoped that the Guardian would stand by him. But my own early experiences in Israel with the paper suggest this is part of a pattern of cowardly behavior when it is under attack from Israeli officials or the Israel lobby.

I had an established relationship with the Guardian when I arrived in Israel as a freelancer early in the second intifada, in September 2001. I had previously worked on staff in its foreign department in London for several years. I used those contacts to begin pitching stories, and a few of the less controversial ones were commissioned by the paper.

It is standard journalistic practice when writing articles to give parties that come in for criticism a chance to respond. Therefore, in a piece on the Israeli army, I called the army spokesperson’s office for a comment. As is also standard practice, I introduced myself and cited where the piece would be published.

Less than an hour after the conversation, I was surprised to receive a furious phone call from the Guardian foreign desk in London. The Israeli army spokesperson had called the paper’s then-correspondent, Suzanne Goldenberg, to ask who I was and why I was writing for the paper. Goldenberg called the desk and threw a tantrum about my referring to the Guardian.

Then I had the most bizarre exchange in my journalistic career – and I have had a few. The foreign desk banned me from mentioning the Guardian in calls to any Israeli officials.

“But if I am commissioned by the Guardian to write a piece, like this one, and an official asks me who I am writing for, what am I supposed to say?” I asked incredulous.

I was told: “We don’t care – just don’t mention the Guardian. Things are difficult for us and Suzanne right now, and we don’t need you making more trouble for us.”

It was a revealing moment. Far from the fearless watchdog of popular imagination, the Guardian showed its true colors. It was petrified of actually doing its self-professed job of monitoring the centers of power. And the Guardian is one of the most critical publications on Israel. Imagine how much more feeble the rest are, if Guardian staff are so fearful of incurring the wrath of Israeli officials.

Time for the Guardian to step up

The Guardian now needs to make amends to Loewenstein, rather than allowing itself to be implicated in Israel’s ugly McCarthyism. It could stand in journalistic solidarity with him. It would not take much, just a simple act of journalistic courage and refusal to allow Israel to control who gets to report on the region.

The Guardian could do it by giving Loewenstein official accreditation. That would remove the GPO’s pretext for expelling him. It would not mean he was the paper’s Jerusalem correspondent. It would simply be a declaration by the paper that it believes in a free press and does not wants to see him silenced. Or is that too much to expect from the Guardian?