Thursday, August 25, 2005
DISSENT AGAINST DISSENTER
Ex-SMH employee Antony Loewenstein:
As many of you know, I’m currently writing a book on Israel/Palestine for Melbourne University Publishing, due in May 2006.
By “many”, Antony means the 180 or so people who bother dropping by his terrible site each day. Antony is currently upset about the dissenting views of a Jewish Australian MP:
The following letter appears in this week’s Australian Jewish News. It’s written by Federal Labor MP, Michael Danby. Its agenda is clear. Why is a member of parliament trying to stop the publication of my book? What is he afraid of? History doesn’t look kindly on such attitudes. And we all know what other historical individuals favoured this behaviour.
Yes, we do: Nazis! (Interestingly, the Holocaust revisionists at the Adelaide Institute are quite fond of Antony.) Following are extracts from Danby’s letter:
In preparation for writing his book, Loewenstein sent me a number of questions, based on assumptions, which made his views so blatantly obvious that I refused to answer them or participate in his book.
I will have no part in his and [publisher Louise Adler’s] propaganda tract scheduled for publication in 2006, which will be an attack on the mainstream Australian Jewish community.
MUP should drop this whole disgusting project. If they proceed, I urge the Australian Jewish community, and particularly the Australian Jewish News, to treat it with dignified silence. That is our best response. If, God forbid, it is published, don’t give them a dollar. Don’t buy the book.
Why might Antony’s views have so alarmed Danby? Let’s examine them for any clues:
As a Jew who doesn’t believe in the concept of a Jewish state - a fundamentally undemocratic and colonialist idea from a bygone era - reception to such ideas within the Jewish community is usually vitriolic, bigoted, racist and downright pathetic. Australian Jews, generally speaking, are incapable of hearing the true reality of their beloved homeland and its barbaric actions.
Can’t imagine why Danby wouldn’t support Antony’s book. Which promises to be beautifully written:
There comes a point, and we reached this point years ago, that the Jewish community as a whole must take responsiblity for blinding supporting every move that Israel moves, despite the outrageous policies in the West Bank and Gaza, for example.
My book will have MUCH more on all this, so hold tight til early 2006!
There is SO much to say on all this. In the West, it is virtually impossible to discuss Israel honesty without being called an anti-Semite, and I know and believe that such moral blindness is leading to increased Jew hatred. It’s the same twisted logic as suggesting that Western actions have no relation to Islamic fundamentalism. Puuuulease.
At least Antony’s got the support of girlfriend Liz Wise:
Of course, I’m not as well-published as the Dreamboat on this issue, so I tend to escape wide public condemnation and calls for burning at the stake (though I’m told it does come up at illustrious Easter Suburbs Jewish dinner parties from time to time). No, I get hammered in other, more personal ways.
Lucky Liz! (By the way, it’s Eastern suburbs. Ahem.) Antony—er, the Dreamboat—next responds to reader complaints that he’s a hypocrite:
I’m not stopping the publication of anything, nor trying to do so. I believe in the free market of ideas. Danby is actively trying to get a work he disagrees with censored. It’s pretty clear. To most people.
It’s pretty clear, to most people, that Antony doesn’t believe in the “free market of ideas”. And that the free market of ideas isn’t much interested in Antony.