Antony Loewenstein (born 1974) is an Australian German freelance investigative journalist, author and film-maker.
Life
Loewenstein has written for ''
The New York Times
''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...
'', ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
'', ''
Haaretz
''Haaretz'' ( , originally ''Ḥadshot Haaretz'' – , ) is an Israeli newspaper. It was founded in 1918, making it the longest running newspaper currently in print in Israel, and is now published in both Hebrew and English in the Berliner f ...
'', ''
The Washington Post
''The Washington Post'' (also known as the ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'') is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C. It is the most widely circulated newspaper within the Washington metropolitan area and has a large nati ...
'',
''
The New York Review of Books
''The New York Review of Books'' (or ''NYREV'' or ''NYRB'') is a semi-monthly magazine with articles on literature, culture, economics, science and current affairs. Published in New York City, it is inspired by the idea that the discussion of i ...
'', ''
Sydney Morning Herald
''The Sydney Morning Herald'' (''SMH'') is a daily compact newspaper published in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and owned by Nine. Founded in 1831 as the ''Sydney Herald'', the ''Herald'' is the oldest continuously published newspaper i ...
'', ''
The Australian
''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatew ...
ZNet
Z Communications is a left-wing activist-oriented media group founded in 1986 by Michael Albert and Lydia Sargent.Max Elbaum''Revolution in the Air: Sixties Radicals Turn to Lenin, Mao and Che'' London, England, UK; New York, New York, US: Verso, ...
'', ''
The Big Issue
''The Big Issue'' is a street newspaper founded by John Bird and Gordon Roddick in September 1991 and published in four continents. ''The Big Issue'' is one of the UK's leading social businesses and exists to offer homeless people, or indivi ...
'', ''
Crikey
Crikey is an Australian electronic magazine comprising a website and email newsletter available to subscribers. Crikey was described by the former Federal Opposition Leader Mark Latham as the "most popular website in Parliament House" in ''The ...
'', ''
CounterPunch
''CounterPunch'' is a left-wing online magazine. Content includes a free section published five days a week as well as a subscriber-only area called CounterPunch+, where original articles are published weekly. ''CounterPunch'' is based in the Unit ...
'', and the online magazine ''
New Matilda
newmatilda.com, commonly known as New Matilda, is a left-wing independent Australian website of news, analysis and satire.
History
The website was established by John Menadue in August 2004. Its founding editor was Natasha Cica. The website is ...
'' among others. He appears regularly on TV, radio, in public and at universities around the world discussing current affairs and politics.
Loewenstein contributed a chapter to '' Not Happy, John'' (2004), a best-seller in Australia which highlighted the growing disenchantment with then-PM
John Howard
John Winston Howard (born 26 July 1939) is an Australian former politician who served as the 25th prime minister of Australia from 1996 to 2007, holding office as leader of the Liberal Party. His eleven-year tenure as prime minister is the s ...
. His book on the Israel-Palestine conflict, ''My Israel Question'', (2006 and in new editions in 2007 and 2009) was described by
Ilan Pappé
Ilan Pappé ( he, אילן פפה, ; born 1954) is an expatriate Israeli historian and socialist activist. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, direc ...
as "one of the best treatises which presents in the most lucid way possible why
anti-Zionism
Anti-Zionism is opposition to Zionism. Although anti-Zionism is a heterogeneous phenomenon, all its proponents agree that the creation of the modern State of Israel, and the movement to create a sovereign Jewish state in the region of Palestin ...
can not be equated with
anti-Semitism
Antisemitism (also spelled anti-semitism or anti-Semitism) is hostility to, prejudice towards, or discrimination against Jews. A person who holds such positions is called an antisemite. Antisemitism is considered to be a form of racism.
Antis ...
". ''
The Weekend Australian
''The Australian'', with its Saturday edition, ''The Weekend Australian'', is a broadsheet newspaper published by News Corp Australia since 14 July 1964.Bruns, Axel. "3.1. The active audience: Transforming journalism from gatekeeping to gatewat ...
'' wrote that it "deserves a strong readership ... because it makes us uncomfortable". It was short-listed for a 2007
New South Wales Premier's Literary Award
The New South Wales Premier's Literary Awards, also known as the NSW Premier's Literary Awards, were first awarded in 1979. They are among the richest literary awards in Australia. Notable prizes include the Christina Stead Prize for Fiction, t ...
. The book was criticised in a review in ''
Australian Jewish News
''The Australian Jewish News'' (''AJN'') is a newspaper published in Darlinghurst, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Since 2019 it has been a local partner of ''The Times of Israel''.
History
The ''AJN'' is descended from ''The Hebrew Stand ...
''.
His next book, ''The Blogging Revolution'' (2008), is about the impact of the internet in countries with repressive regimes. It was updated in 2011 after the
Arab Spring
The Arab Spring ( ar, الربيع العربي) was a series of Nonviolent resistance, anti-government protests, Rebellion, uprisings and Insurgency, armed rebellions that spread across much of the Arab world in the early 2010s. It began in T ...
. ''My Israel Question'' is available in an Arabic translation. He contributed to the
Verso Books
Verso Books (formerly New Left Books) is a left-wing publishing house based in London and New York City, founded in 1970 by the staff of ''New Left Review''.
Renaming, new brand and logo
Verso Books was originally known as New Left Books. The ...
collection, ''A Time to Speak Out'' (2008), on the rise of global Jewish dissent.
He is the co-editor with Ahmed Moor of the 2012 book ''After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine'' which includes essays by
Omar Barghouti
Omar Barghouti ( ar, عمر البرغوثي, born 1964) is a founding committee member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) and a co-founder of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. ...
,
John Mearsheimer
John Joseph Mearsheimer (; born December 14, 1947) is an American political scientist and international relations scholar, who belongs to the realist school of thought. He is the R. Wendell Harrison Distinguished Service Professor at the Univers ...
,
Ilan Pappé
Ilan Pappé ( he, אילן פפה, ; born 1954) is an expatriate Israeli historian and socialist activist. He is a professor with the College of Social Sciences and International Studies at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, direc ...
,
Sara Roy
Sara M. Roy is an American political economist and scholar. She is a Senior Research Scholar at the Center for Middle Eastern Studies at Harvard University.
Roy's research and over 100 publications focus on the economy of Gaza and more recently o ...
, and
Jonathan Cook
Jonathan Cook (born 1965) is a British writer and a freelance journalist based in Nazareth, Israel, who writes about the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. He writes a regular column for '' The National'' of Abu Dhabi and Middle East Eye.
Backgro ...
, among others. In 2012 he also published ''Left Turn'' about failures of capitalism.
Loewenstein's book on
vulture capitalism
Vulture capitalists are investors that acquire distressed firms in the hopes of making them more profitable so as to ultimately sell them for a profit. Due to their aggressive investing nature, and the methods they use to make firms more profitabl ...
, ''Profits of Doom'' was published in 2013 (a new edition followed in 2014) and a book on religion, faith and politics, ''For God's Sake''. Verso Books published his ''Disaster Capitalism: Making A Killing Out of Catastrophe'' (2015), and he's the writer/co-producer of the documentary, ''Disaster Capitalism'', released in 2018. His book on the global "war on drugs", ''Pills, Powder and Smoke: Inside the Bloody War on Drugs'', was published in 2019 in the US, Australia and India and 2020 in the UK.
With South African film-maker Naashon Zalk, Loewenstein was co-director of a 2019
Al Jazeera English
Al Jazeera English (AJE; ar, الجزيرة, translit=al-jazīrah, , literally "The Peninsula", referring to the Qatar Peninsula) is an international 24-hour English-language news channel owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network, which is own ...
documentary on abuse of the opioid drug tramadol in Nigeria, ''West Africa's Opioid Crisis''. He appears in the 2019 documentary, ''This Is Not A Movie'', about ''
The Independent
''The Independent'' is a British online newspaper. It was established in 1986 as a national morning printed paper. Nicknamed the ''Indy'', it began as a broadsheet and changed to tabloid format in 2003. The last printed edition was publis ...
''s Middle East correspondent,
Robert Fisk
Robert Fisk (12 July 194630 October 2020) was a writer and journalist who held British and Irish citizenship. He was critical of United States foreign policy in the Middle East, and the Israeli government's treatment of Palestinians. His stanc ...
The Jerusalem Post
''The Jerusalem Post'' is a broadsheet newspaper based in Jerusalem, founded in 1932 during the British Mandate of Palestine by Gershon Agron as ''The Palestine Post''. In 1950, it changed its name to ''The Jerusalem Post''. In 2004, the paper w ...
, ''accessed'' 15 September 2012. He won the 2019 Jerusalem (Al Quds) Peace Prize, one of Australia's leading peace awards, for his work on Israel/Palestine.
He’s a contributor to the 2020 book, ''A Secret Australia: Revealed by the Wikileaks Exposes''. He co-produced and co-wrote the podcast series, ''The Conspiracy Virus'', on Covid-19, vaccines and climate change, with journalist Olivia Rosenman.
In 2021, he made the
Al Jazeera English
Al Jazeera English (AJE; ar, الجزيرة, translit=al-jazīrah, , literally "The Peninsula", referring to the Qatar Peninsula) is an international 24-hour English-language news channel owned by the Al Jazeera Media Network, which is own ...
documentary with UK film-maker Dan Davies, ''Under the Cover of Covid'', about threats to free speech and privacy during a global pandemic.
He’s the co-creator of ''Twenty Years'', an artistic and journalistic project on the legacy of the post 9/11 Afghan war, with Melbourne-based artist Tia Kass and Afghans around the world. Launched in 2021, it’ll take place in 2021 and 2022.
He co-founded ''Declassified Australia'' in 2021 with journalist Peter Cronau, an investigative website aiming to uncover Australia's often secretive, strategic relationship with the world.
His book, ''The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World'', is on how Israel's occupation has gone global and out in 2023. He's currently developing a range of documentary films.
Penguin Books
Penguin Books is a British publishing, publishing house. It was co-founded in 1935 by Allen Lane with his brothers Richard and John, as a line of the publishers The Bodley Head, only becoming a separate company the following year.Ahmed Moor, eds. ''After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine'', Saqi, (2012),
*