My Israel Question (Revised Edition)

The undeclared war in the Middle East is the abiding conflict of our era, with little apparent hope of resolution despite years of peace talks. On one side of the conflict, in the face of suicide bombings and international criticism over its military aggression, Israel asserts the right of the Jewish state to exist in Palestine. On the other, the Palestinian people struggle, some peacefully, some violently, for survival. Far beyond Israel's disputed borders, the conflict is replayed in passionate public debate by Holocaust survivors, Zionist organisations, Arab advocates, the anti-war movement, newspaper columnists, presidents and prime ministers, and politicians and activists of all shades.

In My Israel Question, a young Australian Jew, Antony Loewenstein, asks how much Zionism – the ideology of Jewish nationalism – is to blame for this intractable conflict. He fearlessly investigates the ways in which the Jewish diaspora in Australia and elsewhere have campaigned on Israel's behalf, in the media and in political and business spheres. He also considers the historical rationale for Zionism – including the centuries of virulent European anti-Semitism from which it grew – and asks how relevant and sustainable 20th-century Zionism is today.

The Blogging Revolution

In many countries, internet censorship has become one of the key human rights issues of the twenty-first century.

Best-selling author Antony Loewenstein conducts a searching examination of the ways the internet is threatening the rule of some of the planet's most repressive governments, including in countries such as Iran, Saudi Arabia, China, Cuba, Egypt and Syria. With first-hand investigative reporting, Loewenstein discovers the ways that Western multinationals are assisting the restriction of information in these countries, how bloggers are leading the charge for change and how, thanks to the web, we in the West now have a unique insight into cultures at once radically different from and yet distinctly similar to our own.

Antony Loewenstein is a Sydney-based journalist and author. He has written for The Sydney Morning Herald, The Sun-Herald, The Australian, The Bulletin, Znet, Crikey, New Matilda, The Big Issue and Counterpunch. He is a board member of Macquarie University's Centre for Middle East and North African Studies.

Readings.com.au: Antony Loewenstein

My Israel Question (Revised Edition)

The Blogging Revolution