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Peter Hodge on not being children of a lesser god.

Article Excerpt
Antony Loewenstein, My Israel Question, Melbourne University Press, 2006

Chatting with a colleague several days after the 9/11 tragedy, I broached the issue of searching not merely for the perpetrators of the crime, but also for the root causes. As raw as emotions were in the days after the event that did little to change the world, but much to alter how we perceive it, the 'good versus evil' dialectic seemed too simplistic, even then. Yet, my passionately 'left-wing' friend would have none of it. 'Don't even go there, Peter,' he warned. A symptom of this mood, that continues to influence mainstream thinking on foreign policy, has been a distinct swing of the PR pendulum towards the Israelis in their ongoing conflict with the Palestinians.

The realities of Israel's repressive occupation are submerged beneath a barrage of claims that, for example: Israel's very existence is under threat; Israel has always been the victim and must retain the right to defend itself; Israel has no partner with whom to make peace. 'Now you understand that we are fighting the same enemy, didn't we always tell you they were like this?'

Palestinian voices are rare and, in both politics and the media, usually located near the margins of the debate. This has made My Israel Question one of the more important books published in recent times. This is not because Antony Loewenstein is a Jewish whistleblower. Indeed, much of the information in his book is freely available to anyone who...

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