A critical examination of the Israel/Palestine conflict from an Australian perspective. How is the conflict reported in Australia? What is the position of successive Australian governments and why? What is the role of the Jewish and Arab communities in the debate? Loewenstein will also discuss the current direction of the conflict itself, not least the growth of a fundamentalist Jewish minority who threaten peace far more than Palestinian militants. What does this mean for the future direction of the Jewish state? With the declining power of the US in world affairs, where does this leave Israel and its supporters?

About Antony Loewenstein
Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based freelance journalist, author and blogger. He has written for the Sydney Morning Herald, The Australian, The Guardian, Washington Post, Haaretz, The Nation, Sydney’s Sun-Herald, Melbourne’s Age, Brisbane’s Courier Mail, ABC Unleashed, Amnesty International Australia, Adelaide’s Advertiser, The Bulletin, Znet, The Big Issue, Counterpunch and many others. Antony contributed a major chapter to 2004’s best-seller, Not Happy, John! on the Hanan Ashrawi affair. His best-selling book on the Israel/Palestine conflict, My Israel Question, was released by Melbourne University Publishing in 2006. A new, updated edition was released in 2007 (and reprinted again in 2008). The book was short-listed for the 2007 NSW Premier’s Literary Award. He was a contributor to the 2008 Verso Books release, A Time to Speak Out: On Israel, Zionism and Jewish Identity. His second book, The Blogging Revolution, on the internet in repressive regimes, was released in 2008 by Melbourne University Publishing.

He writes regularly for online magazines New Matilda and Crikey and is a board member of Macquarie University’s Centre for Middle East and North African Studies. He is an Honorary Associate at Macquarie University’s Department of Politics and International Relations. He is the co-founder of advocacy group Independent Australian Jewish Voices and contributed to Amnesty International Australia’s 2008 campaign about Chinese internet repression and the Beijing Olympic Games. Antony appears regularly on radio, TV, in public and at universities discussing current affairs and politics.

For more information about Antony Loewenstein, please visit:
http://antonyloewenstein.com/