Loewenstein shows his Sensitive Side

It's hard not to be moved by Antony Loewenstein's tribute to freed terrorist hostage, Gilad Shalit. He writes:

"There’s so much blather in the mainstream press about the Gilad Shalit deal this week. Mostly written by the Israeli Foreign Ministry."

The Foreign Ministry must have been very busy churning out each of those tens of thousands of articles (in the mainstream media alone). Antony found time in his busy media schedule to offer his expert opinion:

I was invited onto current affairs show The Wire yesterday to offer a different perspective and argue that the press humanises one man, Shalit, while Arabs are largely invisible and faceless

You can be invisible with a face?

Loewenstein insists he doesn't condone or approve of what happened, before doing precisely that. At 1m40s (if you could bear to listen) Loewenstein insists Shalit wasn't kidnapped but was a legitimate prisoner of war. He reluctantly concedes that Shalit shouldn't have been kept in a basement.

In case you're not familiar with "The Wire", according to the website:

The Wire is a daily current affairs program broadcast exclusively on Community and Indigenous radio stations around Australia.

More than 5 million people across Australia can tune into

"Can", but don't, actually. I'd be surprised if even Loewenstein's parents tuned in.

Now that any schmuck can create a podcast, community radio faces irrelevancy and chooses to tackle the problem head-on by inviting Loewenstein on-air.

Update: There is plenty of coverage of Arab views. Neither faceless nor (ahem) invisible:

A failed Palestinian suicide bomber released in a prisoner swap with Israel has promised to sacrifice her own life.

Wafa al-Biss, 26, said that her people must continue 'on the path of struggle and resistance' despite being one of the 477 people freed in exchange for Sergeant Gilad Schalit.

al-Biss is another example of what happens when Israel tries to do the Palestinians a favour:

She had a permit given to her by Israel allowing her to leave Gaza for treatment for burns she sustained in an accident at her home in Gaza's Jebaliya refugee camp.

Translation: She could come to an Israeli hospital for world-class medical care, instead of the third-world treatment she'd receive in any Arab country.

Click on the article to see more "invisible" Palestinians, lounging around hotel swimming pools overlooking a beach. These people are murderers. Schapelle Corby, rotting in a Balinese prison cell must wish she'd killed a few Jews rather than schlepp a bag of marijuana.