- The Middle East is witness to continuous developments
these days, such as Iran's active diplomacy to attract the indispensable
118-member bloc of non-aligned countries to support its nuclear program,
the growing isolation of Israel in European countries and within academic
circles in the U.S., Arabs' fears of losing the power game in the Persian
Gulf region, and the expansion of illegal settlements of Israel in the
West Bank and its unremitting disobedience to United Nations Security Council
resolutions.
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- Such developments have turned the Middle East into the
center of international attention. Iran, as the Persian Gulf region's only
non-Arab nation, Israel, as the world's sole Jewish state, and a host of
fragile Arab countries, who are being immersed in the waves of the West's
economic turmoil, find their destiny intertwined, with each party trying
to surmount the other. All this makes for an interesting, yet worrying,
rivalry in the Middle East.
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- In order to investigate the ongoing Israel-Palestine
conflict and explore the prospect of Iran's nuclear standoff, Foreign Policy
Journal has interviewed Antony Loewenstein, an Australian journalist and
political activist who is a co-founder of Independent Australian Jewish
Voices. Loewenstein's articles on Iran, Israel and Middle East current
affairs have appeared on the Guardian, Washington Post, Sydney Morning
Herald and The Australian. He has also written two books, My Israel Question
and The Blogging Revolution
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- Kourosh Ziabari: The Israeli aggression against the people
of Palestine is going on incessantly. The White House hasn't taken any
serious step to signal its willingness to prevent Israel from expanding
the illegal settlements in the West Bank. What will happen eventually?
Will Israel go on with its expansionistic approach in the occupied lands?
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- Antony Loewenstein: Israeli expansion on Palestinian
land has continued for decades and there is little indication that this
will stop anytime soon. Successive U.S. Presidents have meekly complained
about the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza but continued to fund the
Zionist state. Washington claims to believe in a two-state solution between
Israel and the Palestinians but the occupation has made this viably impossible.
The alternatives are unpleasant for the Zionist mind to consider, not least
a bi-national state or one-state equation, where soon Jews will be outnumbered
by Arabs. But Israeli Jews should not fear this. Like the whites in South
Africa under apartheid, they have to make a choice, either more years of
oppressing another people and facing global isolation or a nation with
equal status for all its citizens.
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- KZ: President Obama has recently threatened Iran with
a possible nuclear strike. Can we trace the footsteps of the Zionist lobby
in the provocative remarks by the U.S. president? Will the U.S. finally
stage a nuclear war in the Middle East to protect its unalienable ally
against an "Iranian threat"?
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- AL: The chance of Washington launching a nuclear strike
against Iran is very slim, though the current concern is President Obama
allowing Israel to use tactical nuclear weapons or simply a military adventure
against the Islamic Republic in a misguided attempt to stop its supposed
nuclear program. There is no doubt that many members of the U.S. Congress
and the Zionist lobby are encouraging a military strike against Iran. But
the real agenda is largely hidden. This isn't about nuclear weapons or
even meddling in Iraq or Afghanistan but regional rivalry to the Jewish
state, something not to be tolerated. Iran, after the disastrous Iraq war,
has risen in stature and power in the Middle East. The country is a brutal
dictatorship that represses its own people, and last year's sham election
for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad only confirmed this trend, but its oil wealth allows
resistance against American and Israeli interests.
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- KZ: As an honorary citizen of Detroit, the late Iraqi
dictator Saddam Hussein was once one of the most cordial friends of White
House during the tenure of Ronald Reagan and Jimmy Carter. He was given
enormous military and political support by the U.S. during the 8-year war
with Iran. Finally, the United States captured and executed him once his
mission was over. Is the same tragedy going to happen for Israel and its
leaders?
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- AL: One of the great challenges for our age is applying
international law equally across the globe, to both Western leaders and
others. Thus far, the Hague's International Court of Justice and other
associated bodies have largely focused on atrocities in places like Rwanda,
Liberia and beyond. These are important cases that should be pursued, but
there is a growing movement, especially in the UK and Europe, to hold Israeli
political and military leaders to account. Witness the valiant attempt
to arrest former Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni in London recently
for her role in the criminal war against Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009.
She canceled her trip before the court order could be executed but more
attempts will be forthcoming.
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- KZ: Keeping in mind the Jewish background of jurist Richard
Goldstone and his affiliation with the Israeli universities and groups,
which exempts him from allegations of being an anti-Semite, why did the
United States denounce his elaborate report in which both sides of the
Gaza conflict were held accountable and called upon to make impartial investigations
into their possible violations of human rights and war crimes?
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- AL: Richard Goldstone's UN Gaza report was an important
document that meticulously outlined the crimes of both Hamas and Israel
in Operation Cast Lead. America and some of her allies, including Australia,
rejected its findings because they feared its recommendations could be
used against their own military adventures in, say, Iraq or Afghanistan.
Western allies have for years killed scores of civilians in the "war
on terror" and never been held accountable. The Goldstone report,
when directed towards Israel and Hamas, rightly argued that international
law demands that civilians are protected during war. Israel used disproportionate
force against the Palestinian population in an attempt to collectively
punish them for both resisting and backing Hamas.
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- KZ: Referring to the 1995 assassination of Israeli Prime
Minister Yitzhak Rabin by a fellow Israeli member of the Likud party, the
American journalist Jeff Gates has metaphorically suggested that the American
President Barack Obama may be assassinated by Israel one day. Is it actually
possible that Israel will finally betray its long-time benefactor, akin
to what happened to Iran's former U.S.-backed Shah?
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- AL: Although there is profound anger within Israel towards
Barack Obama because of his very mild comments against Zionist expansion
in the West Bank, I don't think Israel will be assassinating the American
President anytime soon or leaving its warming embrace. Without Washington's
support, diplomatically, militarily, and politically, Israel wouldn't last
a few weeks.
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- KZ: Hitherto, Israel has refused to adhere to the U.N.
Security Council resolutions that hold it accountable to its international
obligations, including Resolution 487 in which Israel was urgently called
upon to "place its nuclear facilities under IAEA safeguards".
How is it possible to hold Israel accountable for what it's doing in the
Middle East while the unconditional support of the U.S. doesn't seem to
be diminishing?
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- AL: Aside from using international law for what it is
intended, the growing BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement
is encouraging. Witness the recent great debates at leading American universities,
including Berkeley, on boycotting multinationals that back the Israeli
occupation of Palestine. Palestine is becoming one of the key issues in
the activist community and beyond and is bringing disparate groups together
to fight for a better future for all the citizens of Israel and Palestine.
Furthermore, there is a growing debate within the American military establishment
that Washington's blind support for Israel is harming American interests
in the Middle East. The Zionist lobby furiously rejects this charge but
spend any time in the Arab or Persian world and Israel's criminality is
a rallying cry for anti-Western sentiment. It's hardly surprising.
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- KZ: The White House is seemingly designing the whole
framework of its foreign policy based on the interests of Israel. Its active
lobbying in the Persian Gulf region to persuade Saudi Arabia, the UAE,
and Kuwait to sell their oil to China at lower prices so as to discourage
Beijing from purchasing oil from Iran and thus, dragging China into the
implementation of new sanctions against Tehran and weakening Iran and preparing
it to be attacked by Israel is one of these examples. What's your take
on that?
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- AL: The great energy game in the Middle East is certainly
focused these days on supposedly isolating Iran, though it seems highly
unlikely that Russia or China would support crippling sanctions against
Tehran in the U.N. Washington and Israel are working together to secure
their own energy interests by appealing to the Arab states' supposed fear
of Iran, which is real, though not because of human rights but a loss of
regional supremacy. One should never forget that the U.S.-backed Arab states
are dictatorships largely doing the bidding of another country. They aren't
independent. Sadly, a military strike against Iran would be quietly cheered
across the Arab world. Not by the people, but by the political elites.
It's vital that journalists and policy makers do not make the same mistakes
as before the 2003 Iraq war, when bogus claims and lies were told about
Saddam Hussein and his supposed WMD. Saddam was a brutal autocrat but he
led a weak nation. Iran is an entirely different story. During my time
there and conversations with many Iranians since, the moment a military
strike occurs or sanctions that harm the average people are implemented,
support for the regime will increase. People in Iraq always say that the
West never realize that the post-1991 sanctions, which suffocated the country,
were never forgotten when Washington came to bring "democracy"
in 2003.
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- - Kourosh Ziabari is an Iranian freelance journalist.
He has interviewed political commentator and linguist Noam Chomsky, member
of New Zealand parliament Keith Locke, Australian politician Ian Cohen,
member of German Parliament Ruprecht Polenz, former Mexican President Vicente
Fox, former U.S. National Security Council advisor Peter D. Feaver, Nobel
Prize laureate in Physics Wolfgang Ketterle, Nobel Prize laureate in Chemistry
Kurt Wüthrich, Nobel Prize laureate in biology Robin Warren, famous
German political prisoner Ernst Zündel, Brazilian cartoonist Carlos
Latuff, American author Stephen Kinzer, syndicated journalist Eric Margolis,
former assistant of the U.S. Department of the Treasury Paul Craig Roberts,
American-Palestinian journalist Ramzy Baroud, former President of the American
Motion Picture Arts and Sciences Sid Ganis, American international relations
scholar Stephen Zunes, American singer and songwriter David Rovics, American
political scientist and anthropologist William Beeman, British journalist
Andy Worthington, Australian author and blogger Antony Loewenstein, Iranian
geopolitics expert Pirouz Mojtahedzadeh, American historian and author
Michael A. Hoffman II and Israeli musician Gilad Atzmon.
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