27 October 2008

Gilad Atzmon on the Financial Crisis - The Jews Are to Blame














It would not be surprising if, with the current economic and financial meltdown, someone didn’t blame the Jews (or Zionists). It is therefore no surprise that our old friend Gilad Atzmon has once again leapt into the breach with his latest article, Credit Crunch or rather Zio Punch?

At a time when even the fascist British National Party no longer plays the Jewish card
it is left to Gilad Atzmon to concoct a weird conspiracy of Zionist imperialist warmongers and financiers who have somehow engineered the vast mountain of credit debt that has all but brought down British, European and American banks:
‘the people who keep the Palestinians starved behind walls, are unfortunately very much the same people who are responsible for a class genocide of millions of disenfranchised Americans who are now on the brink of total dispossession.’

Paul Wolfowitz and Lewis ‘scooter’ Libby are, it would appear, single-handedly responsible for the sub-prime mortgage crisis. It has to be said that although Atzmon is at his normal incoherent, contradictory and long-winded best, the message is crystal clear. We are told in one paragraph that
the current economic disaster endangers the security of millions of Western Jews who have really nothing to do with global economy, banking and global Zionism. It would be devastating to see innocent Jews being implicated collectively by the crimes committed by a very few tribal nationalist enthusiasts.

A few paragraphs previously Atzmon informs us that:
Jews are not necessarily Zionists. They can also be humanists, universalists, ordinary human beings… However, the Zionists amongst the Jews are very easy to trace. They always operate politically as Jews. They run Jewish lobbies, think tanks and pressure groups. For that matter, Jewish American Committee (JAC), AIPAC, Jews For Peace and Anti Zionist Jews are all different forms of Jewish tribal national politics…. they are all rabid Zionists who are set to serve what they regard as Jewish tribal interests.

If one can penetrate this gobbledydook, Jews are ‘racially oriented’, part of a separate tribe, despite the fact that tribes went out of fashion over a thousand years ago in most of the West.’

So whatever their politics, be they anti-Zionist or Zionist, in favour of peace or war, Jews cannot help but serve ‘Jewish tribal interests.’ If anyone is in any doubt as to the genesis of these fantasies, they could do worse than consult the Foreword to Norman Cohn’s ‘Warrant for Genocide – the myth of the Jewish world conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.’ Describing the interrogations of leaders of the SS after the war he wrote that What I kept coming across was, rather, a conviction that Jews – all Jews everywhere in the world – form a conspiratorial body set on ruining and then dominating the rest of mankind.’ As part of this fantasy the Bolsheviks were funded by American Jewish bankers and Lenin was someone ‘who Hitler and Eckart both assumed to be a Jew. (203 Cohn).


Indeed The Protocols outlined much the same conspiracy theory as Atzmon.
‘THIS HATRED WILL BE STILL FURTHER MAGNIFIED BY THE EFFECTS of an ECONOMIC CRISES, which will stop dealing on the exchanges and bring industry to a standstill. We shall create by all the secret subterranean methods open to us and with the aid of gold, which is all in our hands, A UNIVERSAL ECONOMIC CRISES WHEREBY WE SHALL THROW UPON THE STREETS WHOLE MOBS OF WORKERS SIMULTANEOUSLY IN ALL THE COUNTRIES OF EUROPE.’

The irony, which is lost on Atzmon is that the Protocols began life as ‘a brilliant but long-forgotten defence of liberalism’ in the form of an attack on the tyranny of Napoleon III.'(p.81)

Atzmon too is under no doubt. ‘Throughout the centuries, Jewish bankers bought for themselves some real reputations of backers and financers of wars and even one communist revolution.’ Quite why reactionary American Jewish bankers should have financed a revolution directed against their interests is never explained, unless of course it is the racial nexus. But the footnote assures us that

‘Jacob Schiff (the head of Kuhn, Loeb & Company) is credited with giving twenty million dollars to the Bolshevik revolution. A year after his death the Bolsheviks deposited over six hundred million rubles to Schiff’s banking firm Kuhn & Loeb. (New York Journal American 1949. February 3.)’

For Atzmon too ‘Lenin and Trotzky [sic] were Jews.’ Paul Wolfowitz, whose powers were not enough to prevent him being sacked as President of the World Bank, has it would seem almost single-handedly engineered this crisis. Quite why his superior, the non-Jewish Dick Cheney, should have allowed this is unclear, but one suspects that like Lenin there is some Jewish blood there somewhere. After all ‘In 2003, by the time youngster of Zion Wolfowitz was on the verge of becoming a proper elder, America was taken into an illegal war in Iraq.’ Wolfowitz may be an Elder of Zion, as per the Protocols, but it was not long ago that he was in training for the role!

And returning to a familiar theme Atzmon asks ‘How is it that America that had all the ‘necessary warnings’ had found itself just ten years later acting as an Israeli mission force fighting the last pockets of resistance to Jewish national imperialism?’ which is an echo of the same argument in his ‘on anti-Semitism’ essay:

Surprisingly Atzmon’s answer is mundane. ‘Money is probably the answer, it indeed makes the world go round, or at least the ‘American housing market’. So if money, i.e. capitalism is to blame why then the tortuous detours via the Wolfowitz doctrine, Lenin and ‘racially oriented tribal pressure groups.’ We are never told.

But Atzmon asks a series of questions under the title ‘Kosher Snatch or Zion Punch?’ One which seems to particularly disturb him is why ‘the British Empire found itself promising the Zionists a Jewish National home in 1917? Have you ever asked yourself what Balfour received in return?’ In fact the footnote to his own question half gets it right, viz. the hostility of American Jews to an alliance with the pogromists of Czarist Russia against Germany. Leonard Stein’s Balfour Declaration also gives this as a reason. (p.533) But it was never the main reason, which clearly was the strategic situation of Palestine, adjacent to the Suez Canal, and the desirability of a friendly pro-British colonial settlement there. But it’s far better to look for racial conspiracies than obvious facts.

Perhaps the nastiest piece of racism is when Atzmon calls for ‘A Zionist who declares affiliation with foreign national interests should never be appointed by any administration or any other political institution.’ Given his definition of what constitutes a Zionist, it is clear that this is a euphemism for Jews per se. He is quick to assure us, that ‘The issue here is not at all about religious belief, ethnic origin or racial orientation.’ and immediately contradicts himself when he describes a wide variety of Jews – Zionist and anti-Zionist as ‘racially orientated tribal pressure groups.’

And in what is the most dishonest of all his polemics, Atzmon takes aim, once again, at the anti-Zionist Bund, the General Jewish Workers Union of Russia, Lithuania and Poland and a co-founder of the Russian Social Democratic Party. If anyone is in any doubt that when Atzmon says ‘Zionist’ he means ‘Jew’ then his attacks on the Bund prove that. The Bund was resolutely in favour of fighting for socialism and against anti-Semitism where Jews lived, not in emigrating to Palestine. It led the heroic resistance of the Warsaw Ghetto and the sole surviving commander of that fight, Marek Edelman, was a dedicated opponent of Zionism. But to Atzmon:
‘The Bund, on the other hand, was a rabid Zionist setting in spite of the fact that it ‘formally’ opposed Zionism. It was Zionist just because it operated as a tribal political setting. It was Zionist just because it was racially orientated rather than universally motivated’.

Leaving aside his clear and obvious anti-Semitism, the essay is a muddle of innuendo, half-truth and assertion. It is little wonder that when Atzmon asks the obvious question we can be forgiven for having assumed it. ‘You may wonder at this stage whether I regard the credit crunch as a Zionist plot. In fact it is the opposite. It is actually a Zionist accident.’ Which may, to him, be a clever formulation, but is as empty as the rest. If the financial crisis is a ‘Zionist accident’ (as opposed to being deliberate) then clearly the Zionists are responsible.

Perhaps the comments are the most revealing. One argues that ‘In fact, while I agree that Trotsky was not a Zionists, I do think that he operated primarily as a Jew.’ which Atzmon readily accedes to. Another suggests that ‘some solid facts about jewish influence would help?’. These anti-Semites are never strong on facts unfortunately! One informs us that ‘Zionists control the US government and the media. If you have a significant position in the government or are a significant voice in public, the Zionists will destroy.’
The one person to oppose this garbage is informed that ‘you’ve missed the point; jews ARE the ruling class in the US - not less than 30% of the stinking rich, and about 50% of the billionaires. This isn’t a conspiracy theory; … The question is: do they act together in a common jewish, rather than simply capitalist, interest? The answer is: how else could these percentages have come about?’ And there we have it. As Gilad comments ‘As we can see Zionism qualifies one as a Jew… read the JC’. Apparently the Chairman of Lloyds TSB Victor Blank is a Jew!

What is shocking is the response of Ian Donovan of Respect. Although Donovan takes Atzmon to task for some of his stuff, not least Lenin’s Jewish origins, he concedes from the start that ‘This article makes some interesting points, but it really does cross the rubicon to promote some myths that really are anti-semitic. At the very least, it is contradictory about the myth of Jewish capitalists financing the Bolsheviks.’ And when Atzmon responds with his dubious source, a Berkeley Prof. Slezkine, concerning Lenin’s Jewishness, Donovan responds that it is ‘Always a good sign when someone responds to criticism by recommending a book to read.’ Yes Ian. But there are books and books. Quite what someone who was once a socialist is doing debating the merits of the world Jewish conspiracy beggars belief.

But for one person ‘Most shockingly Slezkine describes that Lenin’s return to Russia was funded by American-Jewish soup millionaire Josef Fels & orchistrated by Jewish multi-millionaire Alexander Parvus,…’ In the world of the conspiracy theory there is so much to shock one’s tender conscience and so little time to get the message abroad.

If anyone is in any doubt about Atzmon’s anti-semitic credentials, it is the apology at the end. John Reynolds, writing in The Observer, suggested that one answer to the financial crisis was for there to be more Christians active in the City. A typically naïve liberal belief that the cause of the financial crisis is a lack of moral backbone rather than the operations of the free market and capitalist economics. To Atzmon
Reynolds, the chairman of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group protests against the non-ethical spirit that has been abundant in the City for more than a while…. he may try to suggest to us that our financial world must be spiritually de-Judified.
There is nothing like the threat of a libel action to clarify the mind.
But the real message is that the Palestine Think Tank is as anti-Semitic as Mary Rizzo’s old Peace Palestine blog and Atzmon takes another step into the sewer of political reaction. My only question is why the Socialist Workers Party continues to defend him.
Tony Greenstein

55 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  2. Anti Semitism is the Socialism of the Idiot -

    Think it was Bebel

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  3. It doesn't help that Alan Greenspan, probably the most culpable person (although their will be many) is Jewish. However, Greenspan's fiercest critics, Joesph Stiglitz and Paul Krugman, are also Jewish. So for all those people out there wanting to blame the Jews, you're only looking at one part of the equation.

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  4. Yes it was August Bebel, the leader of the German Social Democratic Party who said that anti-semitism was the 'socialism of idiots.' Those workers, few in number (since support for the Nazis came primarily from the landlowning and middle classes and peasantry) who believed otherwise soon learnt that without basic workers defence organisations like trade unions they were stuffed. Slave labour was the Nazi Party contribution to workers' solidarity.

    Meyrick writes that it doesn't help that Greenspan is Jewish. Actually I don't think it makes a blind bit of difference what the religious or ethnic or whatever affiliation he or other bankers are. The problem is not that Greenspan wasn't Christian but the system itself that allows peoples' savings to be treated as chips in a casino.

    What Atzmon doesn't get is that it is capitalism, with its insatiable greed, its blind accumulation of capital, its unplanned production that is destroying the world in its ceaseless quest for profit that is the problem.

    For sure there are Jewish bankers/capitalists etc. They may well be more numerous than the proportion of Jews in the population given that Jews have been upwardly mobile in comparison with e.g. Black people. But it is irrelevant.

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  5. "Winner of the 2005 National Jewish Book award; Ronald S. Lauder Award in Eastern European Studies, Jewish Book Council; 2005 Wayne S. Vucinich Book Award, American Association for the Advancement of Slavic Studies; 2004 Award for Best Professional/Scholarly Book in Religion, Association of American Publishers."

    That list of honours, some from mainstream Jewish sources, says a lot.

    This article tries to equate Slezkine with Irving or somesuch. A libellous allegation ... and not just against Slezkine but also against anyone who even decides to read his book! Is this supposed to be rational?

    Logically, if you aren't supposed to read Slezkine, then presumably his books should be burned. Didn't the Nazis do things like that?

    And if we aren't supposed to read Slezkine's book on 'The Jewish Century', are his other books such as 'In the Shadow of the Revolution: Life Stories of Russian Women from 1917 to the Second World War, or perhaps 'Arctic Mirrors: Russia and the Small Peoples of the North', or even 'Between Heaven and Hell: The Myth of Siberia in Russian Culture', also out of bounds? Is it the case that anyone who reads these books also by a Russian-Jewish author can be attacked in such an irrational way?

    This blogger has put together his own feeble version of a fatwa against a highly-regarded Jewish author he has evidently never heard of, simply because Gilad Atzmon has read one of his books and recommended it to one of his critics to read!

    This almost makes the Fatwa against Salman Rushdie look rational by comparison.

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  6. Atzmon says of the US,
    ...how did America, once a symbol of freedom, let itself be enslaved by such repulsive ideologies that are associated inherently with some clear foreign tribal interests?
    - According to Atzmon, America was once a land of opportunity and freedom, until these Jews came along and spoiled it for everybody.

    The American Establishment, and the US, is a European settler state (much in the same way Israel is) that carried out a systematic programme of extermination of indigenous 'First Nation' Americans, reducing their population from an estimated size of 10 million people to 200,000.

    So when Atzmon repeats self-serving corporate US propaganda about how free America is, he isn't exactly choosing the best universalist, humanist role model for racially oriented Jews to adopt in order to help de-judify themselves.

    According to Atzmon,
    Michael Howard, the ex-Tory leader, though being a Jew, never had come across as a Zionist or a Jewish tribal operator.
    - Atzmon approves of the fact Howard never spoke up for the human rights of Palestinians.
    If Howard did speak up for Palestinians then he'd be guilty of being a zionist and would be no better than either Wolfwitz or Greenspan.

    Atzmon approves of the fact that major British mainstream politicans don't speak out against the UK government's support for the current racist Israeli regime. If the likes of Howard did speak out against the UK government's support for the Israeli regime then he would be deemed by Atzmon of, in effect, giving it his support!

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  7. I have no idea whether or not Slezkine is Jewish or not. The clutch of awards don't particularly impress either, especially their American antecedents, given that Joan Peter's forgery From Time Immemorial picked up even more! (it suggested there were no Palestinian refugees because they had all immigrated after the Zionists came).

    Nor have I ever equated Slezkine with David Irving, although he is noted as a right-wing neo con nor have I suggested book burning or not reading Slezkine. That is another Atzmonite caricature. If you criticise him or the odd book he reads then you must want to burn it.

    I just doubt whether, given the efforts of anti-semites over the years to portray Lenin as Jewish, he is descended from Jews. But, let us suppose, that the maternal grandmother of Lenin was Jewish. So what?

    Slezkine is however a relatively minor bit player, albeit he provides the academic baggage for Atzmon's prejudice. What is more relevant is that Atzmon sees the Jewish hand in the financial crisis. Which suggests that he, not me, has most in common with the book burners!

    Incidentally the last time Atzmon accused anyone of 'book burning' was when he attacked the academic boycott. Talk about Zionists!!!

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  8. To me, Alan Greenspan's religion is of no consequence. My point is, unfortunately, that some people will make an issue of it.

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  9. "Nor have I ever equated Slezkine with David Irving, although he is noted as a right-wing neo con"

    Is he really? Well, I haven't read any of his books (yet), but according to one reviewer:

    "On page 327, Slezkine avers that Israel today represents the last vestige of 1930's European fascism."

    Assuming this is remotely factually accurate, this doesn't sound like the neocon view, which is vehemently pro-Israel on the grounds that it is 'the only democracy in the Middle East'.

    That doesn't exclude him being any other kind of right-winger, of course, but he can't be a neocon if he says that.

    Its perfectly obvious that this blogger does not know Slezkine from Adam, and has made an irrational accusation against both Slezkine and anyone who reads his books, just because Atzmon recommended it to someone to read.

    The accusation would be libellous if it was not so obviously irrational and weird.

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  10. This article by Atzmon on the credit crunch and the American Government's more hands-on approach to controlling access to oil reserves in the Middle East is just ridiculous and illogical from start to finish.

    To claim that the trajectory of US foreign policy and US fiscal policy, since at least World War II if not before, has been blown off course by a few manipulative Jews for their own benefit, is quite fantastic.



    Blair, on the other hand, is not a Jew, but he consciously sacrificed the interests of Britain...
    - Only Jews are capable of stabbing Britian in back, apparantly.
    The Jews are so powerful, they can easily manipulate non-Jewish politicians to carry out their every whim.

    Atzmon doesn't say what 'interests of Britian' are being sacrificed for the benefit of 'Jewish tribal operators'.
    John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt claim much the same thing about the US -
    The Israel Lobby
    LRB
    23 Mar 2006

    They claim the US-Israeli lobby has a deleterious effect on American interests. Although, they diverge slightly from Atzmon's view and don't say it's the fault of a few manipulative Jews.

    The quaint notion that western states would behave otherwise if it wasn't for the nefarious influence of a few Jews here and there is screamingly funny.

    For 500 years, the western establishment has been doing nothing but attacking, plundering and enslaving the Global South. They also attack and marginalise their own domestic population, their real enemy, if and when they get in the way of their plans.



    It would be devastating to see innocent Jews being implicated collectively by the crimes committed by a very few tribal nationalist enthusiasts.
    - Supporters of Israel express similar sentiments regarding Palestinians, claiming their leaders don't deal properly with the few terrorist extremists in their midst.

    If only Jews would police themselves properly, then they wouldn't be faced with unfounded accusations against them and suffer collective punishment. They only have themselves to blame.


    It is about time Jews took their emancipation seriously....Loving your neighbour and turning the other cheek is no doubt a good place to start
    - Yes, this is something western powers themselves have been famous for down the ages isn't it, putting their own christian ethics into practice. If only these tribal Jews would follow the example of the West, then there wouldn't be so much pain and suffering in the world!


    As much as America and Britain wouldn’t let a Chinese or German nationalist take care of their strategic planning, it should ban Zionists or those who are suspected of being ones from any proximity to their policy making.
    - We shouldn't be allowing anyone in government to organise, plan and commit crimes against anyone else, at home or abroad.
    What's so different about supporting the crimes committed by the Israeli Government, in contrast to supporting the crimes committed by other western backed regimes, I've no idea.

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  11. Trotsky, Trotzky (sic)...

    When has anyone ever seen you give it the correct spelling.

    Бронштейн or even Trockij to be more precise.

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  12. Atzmon seems to be rowing back from his trademark blanket assertions about Jews, such as them being responsible for the crimes committed against them by the Nazis.

    We seem to be seeing a more nuanced approach by him to what he claims are crimes committed by Jews, if you can call using such Nazi antisemitic terms as 'de-judify' nuanced.

    Seemingly, not all Jews are culpable. Only the ones who are 'Jewish' are the culprits. Being 'Jewish' to Atzmon seems to be just another name for racist imperialism.

    You can be British without being racist. Just because the likes of the BNP see 'Britishness' in racist terms doesn't mean to say their definition has to be adopted. Just because there are racist Jews doesn't mean to say that being 'Jewish' is racist.


    Atzmon congratulates Tory politican Michael Howard for the abscence of any overt display of 'Jewishness' on his part, especially when he is in the public arena. Atzmon thinks Howard is to be praised for passively standing by while the UK Government actively engages in supporting the Israeli state carry out its racist war crimes against Palestinians and the Lebanese.

    Yet Atzmon critices Palestinian Solidarity in the west for its seeming ineffectiveness and apathy in the face of western war crimes committed against Palestinians, as well as other victims of the Middle East.

    Atzmon approves of Michael Howard for his seeming apathy towards, and tolerance of, UK and Israeli racist war crimes - but critcises Palestinian solidarity supporters and friends for not being able to stop the UK and Israeli governments.

    Palestinian solidarity is guilty of apathy apparantly, the very quality Atzmon praises in a figurehead of the British and western establishment.

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  13. "Atzmon seems to be rowing back from his trademark blanket assertions about Jews, such as them being responsible for the crimes committed against them by the Nazis."

    "Seemingly, not all Jews are culpable. Only the ones who are 'Jewish' are the culprits. Being 'Jewish' to Atzmon seems to be just another name for racist imperialism."

    Of course, his ideas are evolving, but I dont detect a major change in his thinking at the moment.

    "Just because there are racist Jews doesn't mean to say that being 'Jewish' is racist."

    That's true of course, but it is also looking at things from a diaspora perspective.

    If you were born in Israel, with no experience whatsoever of being persecuted - not even a hint! -- but all your experience being that of part of an oppressor nation, you might think like Atzmon too.

    Atzmon is wrong, he sees things from the point of view of an Israeli who is revolted at Israel and everything it stands for, and has no sympathy for the diaspora experience of persecution. He just sees that as propaganda that justifies the oppression of the Palestinians in the here and now.

    Being wrong does not make you motivated by racism, however. Its perfectly possible for someone motivated by anti-racism, but with a faulty or one-sided understanding of reality, to end up rubbing shoulders with people who have very different motives.

    Its tragic that someone like GA, who has progressive underlying motives, ends up rubbing shoulders with people who are hostile to Jews per se.

    But Israeli crimes made Atzmon what he is, and Israeli crimes will undoubtedly create more Atzmons.

    You can't deal with this problem by treating him as a Nazi, because he simply isn't one. He, Mary and co need to be debated with rationally, not abused as Nazis or proto-Nazis.

    Unfortunately, their confusion means there are some genuinely dodgy characters in the comments boxes of their blogs. Like Jock McTrousers/Lafayette Sennacherib, who seems to be the same person and really does appear to hate Jews.

    Incidentally, I doubt GA approves of Michael Howard's silence about the Palestinians. He just approves that Howard regards himself as British first, not Jewish first. That British capital (and therefore Howard), for its own reasons of 'national interest', is also complicit in Israel's crimes, is not what he is driving at, though its a valid point in a slightly different context, which I'm sure he would also endorse.

    Fundamentally, GA is hostile not to Jews per se, but to Jews who define themselves as Jewish in some political sense. He sees that as ineluctably racist ... from his own Israeli experience. From his own experience, that appears(relatively) right, but from a wider experience he is wrong, and looking at the world in a one-sided way. But he ain't motivated by racism ... just the opposite.

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  14. Former Tory leader and UK politican, John Howard, is praised by Atzmon because he doesn't operate as a Zionist or a Jewish tribal operator.

    Just to recall, that Atzmon regards 'Jewishness' as part of a racist ideology and he uses the term in the same way he uses the term zionism. They are interchangeable.

    Obvioulsy then, Atzmon doesn't mind Jews becoming involved in politics, as long as it's 'non-Jewish politics' they stick to and don't start meddleing in 'Jewish politics'.

    Let's remind ourselves that former Tory Leader John Howard, by saying nothing and opposing nothing, with regards to the UK Government's support for the Israeli regime and its war crimes against its neighbours, is actually supporting them. John Howard supports the status quo, so he supports the anti-Palestinian policies of the British Government.

    That is what Atzmon's idea of 'non-Jewish politics' means in practice. As it turns out though, it is no different from his own definitions about Jewish tribal activism, 'Jewish politics' and zionism.

    Atzmon praises British politicians, who are Jews, for not drawing any attention to the fact that they are actually acquiescent and tolerant of crimes committed against Palestinians. In other words, Atzmon appreciates and supports the hidden, clandestine, underground nature of the likes of Howard in his very real support for Israel and its crimes.

    Atzmon has nothing but praise for Jewish conspirators working inside structures of power in order to advance zionism and Jewish tribal goals.

    And yet, those involved in the hard work of solidarity and activism, and are open and genuine about what they do, and are up front about it, are criticised by Atzmon for their apathy.

    Mind you, Atzmon does forget to write-off as book-burning, the Palestine-BDS campaign - which is supported and endorsed by a whole raft of bona fide Palestinian organisations, institutions and notables.
    Which is more than can be said for Rizzo and Atzmon.

    Although, I am forgetting that Rizzo especially spent a lot of time, effort and energy on a petition that named her and Atzmon as 'outstanding personalities'. No slouch when it comes to cultivating her own publicity and popularity. If only the both of them would take a leaf out of Michael Howard's book on apathy.

    all the best azvas

    ps
    Here's a strange coincidence.
    A Dylan lyric quoted only the other day by Tony Greenstein 0 and Rizzo's favourite Palestinian historian.

    Palin's Idiot Wind
    Smearing Rashid Khalidi
    By VIJAY PRASHAD
    VounterPunch.org
    30 Oct 2008

    Idiot wind, blowing every
    time you move your mouth,
    Blowing down the backroads,
    headin' south

    -- Bob Dylan, "Idiot Wind." (1974).

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  15. [my apologies if my comment seems convoluted, but it is Atzmon's writings I am commenting on, so spare a thought for me too. I had to wade through his bilge to try and make some sense of what it is he's on about]

    Of course, his ideas are evolving, but I dont detect a major change in his thinking at the moment.
    - You can say that again.
    Getting ever more convoluted and harder to follow as he tries to find loopholes, or re-invents defintions, in order to justify his antisemitism.

    Just for instance, in his turgid article,
    The 3rd CategoryThe 3rd Category and the Palestinian Solidarity Movement
    Gilad Atzmon
    30.6.05

    In 3rd category, Atzmon doesn't use 'Jewish' the same way he uses it in his article on Jews and the financial crisis. For instance in the 3rd Category he states -
    This is indeed the essence of Zionism, The Zionist is first and foremost a Jew.
    - Clearly Atzmon is saying that to be a 'Jew' comes first, not 'Jewishness'.
    As everybody knows, you don't have to be a Jew to be a zionist. There are many Christian zionist in America for instance, determined to drive Israel to destruction out of their religious convictions.
    So zionists aren't first and foremost Jews.

    And again -
    According to Weizmann, a prominent Zionist figure, Jewishness is a primary quality. You may be a Jew who dwells in England, a Jew who plays the violin or even a Jew against Zionism. But above all else you are a Jew. And this is exactly the idea conveyed by the 3rd category. It is all about viewing Jewishness as the key element in one’s being. Any other quality is secondary.
    - Atzmon doesn't differentiate 'Jewishness' from 'Jew'. The one is as important as the other. Or so it seems. Who knows?

    A Jew is someone who regards themselves as a Jew, according to the philospher-clown Atzmon. Or, at least, that's what I think he's saying in 3rd Category, which really isn't that enlightening.

    He is either guilty of sloppy writing, sloppy thinking or since it was written, he's had to come up with ways to get him out of the difficulty of the fact he's an obvious antisemite.

    In his
    Tractatus Logico Palestinicus
    however, Atzmon claims -
    Zionism (ideology), Judaism (religion), Jewishness (identity) and the Jews (people) are closely related, confusing terms.
    - Here we can see Atzmon desperately trying to untangle his plate of word spaghetti.

    Atzmon goes on,
    The issue here is not at all about religious belief, ethnic origin or racial orientation.
    So, according to Atzmon none of these 3 characteristics is about 'Jewishness'. Someone who is a Jew, and is any or all the above, isn't necessarily 'Jewish'.
    Clear as mud!


    Incidentally, in 3rd Category Atzmon refers to himself as being subjected to 'book burning' -
    I am fully aware of the fact that crucifying me and burning my books is no doubt a proper 3rd category practice, ...
    - brings a tear to the eye!
    He also defends his zionist chums against Palestinian book-burners and their friends.
    Who knows, soon Atzmon will be talking about 3rd category Palestinians.

    Also in 3rd Category Atzmon quotes, quite favourably, the notorious neo-nazi Rowan Berkeley, whom I think is also this 'Lafayette Sennacherib' character, viz -
    I read a brilliant insight by Rowan Berkeley on Peacepalestine website

    It remids me of the favourable references Atzmon gives to an advocate of of paedophilia, the antisemitic Israel Shamir, in his article with the jew-baiting title of,
    The Protocols of the Elders Of London - a document compiled by Gilad Atzmon
    (which doesn't seem to be listed on Atzmon's own website)


    All that said, Atzmon is very easy to follow when it comes to his use of Jew-baiting tactics such a refering to Jewish people as 'Elders';
    derogatory use of the word 'Jew' ie Jew-nited states, Socialist Jew-nity, even 'Jew are you?';
    or blaming Jews for capitalism and its problems;
    holding Jewish people collectively responsible for the crimes committed by the Israeli government; claiming Jews control the US government;
    etc etc ad nauseum.




    You can't deal with this problem by treating him as a Nazi, because he simply isn't one. He, Mary and co need to be debated with rationally, not abused as Nazis or proto-Nazis.
    - This isn't a problem at all. It's quite a straightforward matter of a few moronic racists trying to infiltrate the Palestine solidarity movement. It couldn't be simpler.

    I don't abuse anybody as nazis or neo-nazis. If people want to justify Nazi crimes then it makes them supporters of the Nazis. Its quite simple. I don't know anybody else who would go about justifying Nazi horrors except Nazi sympathisers and supporters.


    Incidentally, I doubt GA approves of Michael Howard's silence about the Palestinians.
    - Of course Atzmon approves, otherwise, everything he has ever written about Jews and their involvement in former Mandate Palestine goes out the window.
    If Howard did get involved in Palestinian issues this would mean he would be operating as a 'Jewish tribal activist' regardless of wether Howard approves or dis-approves of the Israeli government and its racist regime and racist crimes.

    He just approves that Howard regards himself as British first, not Jewish first. That British capital (and therefore Howard), for its own reasons of 'national interest', is also complicit in Israel's crimes, is not what he is driving at, though its a valid point in a slightly different context, which I'm sure he would also endorse.
    - This is garbage. I've no idea what this is trying to say.
    Atzmon approves of the fact that Howard isn't 'Jewish' full stop. It is clear as daylight. Atzmon has forgotten that these 'Jewish Jews' operate behind the scenes as well as up fornt and in the public eye. You can't trust them especially when it comes to one's own 'national interests'.

    You obviously don't bother to read Atzmon's bilge, and who can blame you, or you don't understand what Atzmon is saying about Jews-Judaism-Jewishness, and again, who can blame you for getting lost in Atzmon's alphabet soup of racist meaningless gibberish.


    Fundamentally, GA is hostile not to Jews per se, but to Jews who define themselves as Jewish in some political sense. He sees that as ineluctably racist ...
    - What?
    Explain to me why it's not racist to hate Jews for being Jewish.

    We can like Jews, as long as they aren't being Jewish in some political sense.
    So how different is that from anybody else doing exactly what Jews do, and why pick on them especially for doing something other people indulge in?


    The only people that are confused round here are the numbskulls who think Atzmon is some kind of great philospher and a true friend of Palestinians.
    The man and his ideas are worthless. They are worse than worthless because they damage the struggle for peace, justice and equality for all in fomer Mandate Palestine.

    ReplyDelete
  16. John Howard used to be the prime minister of Australia. Not the same person. Still a bastard tho'

    "Atzmon has nothing but praise for Jewish conspirators working inside structures of power in order to advance zionism and Jewish tribal goals."

    Well, there's no accounting for the contradictions in people's understanding of reality. GA also praised the Israeli Labour leader Amir Peretz at one point in a manner that expressed similar illusions that particular foibles made him a different to the other Zionists.

    These are reasonable criticisms, worth raising that might actually illuminate the debate. But they aren't really compatible with waging a campaign alleging that GA is a Jew-hater, are they?

    GA doesn't hate Jews, he hates 'Jewishness' as an ideology, which he thinks is a racist ideology and something closely related to, if not identical to, Zionism. Sometimes his analysis of who exactly upholds this ideology can be a bit subjective and erratic.

    But so what? Anyone can be mistaken in particular cases. What counts more than individual cases are the real principles involved - and it appears now that Joe90 has conceded that GA is not motivated by racism, but rather by a mistaken belief that in fighting 'Jewishness' per se he is fighting racism.

    Sounds like, after all the heat this stuff has generated in the last period, we have finally begun to generate a little light!

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thanks for that analysis, Joe. GA's antisemitic Protocols of the Elders of London can certainly be found on his own website; it is just not, for some reason, listed in the index.

    He does not simply hate "Jewishness", whatever that is. He regularly makes clear his disdain for all of us who call ourselves Jews. Just read his attacks on the Jewish Socialists Julia Bard, David Rosenberg and Michael Rosen in Between the Shtetl and the Big City: One Hundred Years of Jewish Solitude. He writes there "If we take the necessary step and re-define Zionism as a modern form of Jewish activism which aims at halting assimilation, we can then re-asses the entire Jewish tribal political activity as an internal debate within a diverse Zionist political movement. We should then regard the colonizing of Palestine as not more than just one single face of Zionism. In fact, Jewish Socialism fits very nicely into the Zionist project. Being an integral part of the Zionist network, it is concerned with the future of the Jewish secular tribe, it is there to collect the lost souls amongst the Jewish leftists and it brings them back to Blooms". In effect, he is arguing that anti-Zionism, if expressed by a Jew, should be understood as a form of Zionism!

    In other writings, he constructs a logical trap, in which Jews are damned if we do and damned if we don't. In On Antisemitism he writes "If Israel is the state of the Jewish people and the Jewish people themselves do not stand up collectively against the crimes that are committed on their behalf, then every Jewish person, Jewish symbol and Jewish object becomes an Israeli interest and a potential terrorist target. It is up to the Jewish people to take a stand against their Jewish state and to disassociate themselves from their zealous national movement". On the other hand, in a letter to Tony Greenstein he writes "to act as a Jew against Zionism is just a silly mistake that leads nowhere. . . You are basically asking Jews to act as Jews under the Jewish banner, whether you mean racially or ethnically Jew is a question you should address to yourself"

    This is more than mere verbal sleight of hand. He justifies attacks on Jewish (not Israeli or Zionist) targets on the grounds that Jews collectively support Israeli and Zionist crimes. But when Jews condemn these crimes, he uses this as evidence of how devious and clever these Jews/Zionists are, not as evidence of the collective dissociation he calls for.

    Bur for the most egregious examples of his obnoxious Jew-baiting and racist bile, just check out -- if you have the stomach for it -- his tirades (under the pseudonym Yocheved) against Michael Rosen and others in a discussion on the Socialist Unity (charmingly renamed by Atzmon "Socialist Jewnity") site.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Sometimes his analysis of who exactly upholds this ideology can be a bit subjective and erratic.
    - Right, so why not criticise him rather than me for taking him at his word?
    I look forward to reading your criticism of him, rather than your criticism of someone who takes Atzmon's bilge at face value, which is no criticism at all.

    I am not responsible for Atzmon's alleged failures and alleged mistakes, he is.

    Well, there's no accounting for the contradictions in people's understanding of reality.
    - Yes there is, especially when we are talking about the horrors committed by the current racist war crimes regimes of Israel, the US and UK against the innocent and defenceless people of Palestine and beyond.

    Being intellectually honest and responsible is our moral duty, especially by those of us in the west whose taxes and notional democratic consent is the real reason behind the pain and suffering of Palestinians.

    It is our duty to our victims to be clear about the reasons why they are forced to suffer and do something to stop it.


    A doesn't hate Jews, he hates 'Jewishness' as an ideology, which he thinks is a racist ideology and something closely related to, if not identical to, Zionism.
    - 'Jewishness' is whatever Atzmon decides it is. How rational.

    Atzmon doesn't hate Jews he only hates 'Jewish Jews' - this is complete and utter paranoid racist twaddle from start to finish.

    For instance -
    I don't hate blacks I only hate 'Blackish blacks' - I don't hate Muslims, I only hate 'Muslimish Muslims'.

    Whenever Atzmon does try to put his incoherent racist garbage into practice he ends up a total public laughing stock.
    He presents his idea of a good Jew as Michael Howard, but by doing so he has immediately contradicted his own paranoid racist bullshit by not taking into account Howard is actually supporting the racist regime of Israel, albiet behind the scenes
    ie part of the hidden world Jewish conspiracy.

    So when Atzmon does put his own criteria of what a good Jew and a bad Jew is, he gets it completely wrong.

    When he puts his own criteria into practice of what it means to de-judify western organisations and institutions he is forced to back down and into issuing a humiliating and abject public apology.
    Or to put it differently, the great champion of of 'de-judification' is publicly humiliated by the very Jewish forces he claims are in charge of British interests.

    That's thing about coming up with seemingly novel ideas, as Atzmon likes to preen his ego into thinking (although they are just re-heated nazi dross and hidden behind a Palestinian facade), that when they are put into practice and found wanting it usually means they are completely crap.


    ...it appears now that Joe90 has conceded that GA is not motivated by racism, but rather by a mistaken belief that in fighting 'Jewishness' per se he is fighting racism.
    - I have no idea where you get this notion from.
    You've presented no evidence to prove this assertion.
    Atzmon is an antisemite who exploits the pain and suffering of Palestinians in order to disseminate neo-nazi propaganda.

    This assertion of yours is much like the rest of your incoherent defence of Atzmon, which relies mainly on stating Atzmon makes lots of mistkes, or having to rely on Atzmon's life history, which is irrelevent to the arguments.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Atzmon's praise of Amir Peretz show how little he understands the nature of the Israeli state or Zionism. That is why he has repeatedly said that to most Israelis Zionism is a foreign word, out there, with no meaning for their current daily life.

    In fact this is not true because the privileges that are taken for granted by Israeli Jews are a product of Zionism.

    Undoubtedly there are many contradictions in the things Atzmon says, not least his 'I never mention race' before he attacks the 'racial orientation' etc. of that very same non-race!

    But his focus on 'Jewishness' is a sign of his racism. He attributes an essence of being Jewish, though he only hints at what this might be - gatekeeping, oppression of others etc. - to all Jews who don't convert or become ex-Jews like himself. He doesn't explicitly define being Jewish in terms of biological racism but then there's no need. It has long been understood that like the French fascist paper Grece, fascism takes different forms such as cultural fascism (Pim de Fortyn) as well as biological. Arguably today the mainstream racism is cultural not biological (the clash of civilisations etc.).

    I don't think there's any doubt that one of Atzmon's primary motivations is indeed racism. He is an Israeli who became disgusted with what Israel was doing (if we can believe him). But he accepted the Zionist framework that to be Jewish is to be Zionist and therefore the more you oppose Zionism as a Jew the more Zionist you are!! If you don't believe me read his 'not in my name' article.

    This is pure Zionist (& anti-Semitic!) drivel and his attack on people like Mike Rosen and Roland, using Jewish symbolism, demonstrates that Jew hatred is indeed close to the surface with him.

    Tony

    ReplyDelete
  20. Thanks Roland. It's great to hear from you!

    Tony is right about,
    Not in My Name
    it's a real corker.

    In Not In My Name Atzmon accepts Chaim Weizman's defininition of what a 'Jew' is and that's it, as far as Jews are concerned.
    According to Aztmon -
    To talk as a Jew is to surrender to Weizman’s Zionist philosophy. According to Weizman, ‘There are no English Jews’ but rather ‘Jews who live in England’. In other words, you are first and foremost a Jew by race and nation; every other label is secondary.

    So the last word on what it means to be a 'Jew' is given to a zionist.
    Atzmon and Rizzo don't believe the lies and propaganda spouted by zionists and the Israeli government about Palestinians, but they do believe what they say about Jews.


    In case anyone is interested, I thought I'd dissect some Atzmon-speak in his appallingly awful Not In My Name, as follows -

    From Not In My Name,
    Atzmon here talks about something he claims he never talks about, race -
    ...we have never come across a German dove who defines himself as an ‘Aryan for peace’; neither do we know of Russians who define themselves as ‘Slavs for human rights’. We do not know too many ‘Celtic Marxists’...Somehow political or humanist titles seem misplaced when they precede or follow racial labels.
    - Atzmon claims Aryan, Slavic and Celtic are racial labels, but they aren't. They merely express shared cultural and ethnic characteristics which happen not to comply with the borders of modern states.

    I said before, but if the likes of the BNP wishes to define 'Britishness' in racial terms, that's their buisness. People aren't obliged to believe the unproven assertions of bigots and racists.

    Here's a very clear and lucid account of what 'Celtic' means. It is applicable to any 'pan-nationalist' grouping such as Jewish People -
    Relax - we're all Anglo-Saxon anyway!
    Peter Berresford Ellis
    Irish Democrat
    23 Nov 2006

    Just in passing, the author Peter Berresfor Ellis is very much a Celtic democratic humanist pacifist etc - just to contradict Atzmon's assertion that such people don't exist.

    Atzmon continues
    ...defining oneself as a ‘Marxist Jew’ or a ‘Jew for peace’ should sound peculiar.
    - This is so because, according to Atzmon, if Celtic, Slavic or Aryan Marxists don't exist then neither can Jewish Marxists.
    So, therefore, being a 'Jew' must mean having a national identity in contrast to 'Jew' being a racial identity.
    In Atzmon's world you either belong to a race or to a nationality, apparantly, or at least that is the only criteria he seems to be allowing for describing someone's ethnicity and cultural identity.


    According to Atzmon, these clever Jews exploit the fuzziness inherent in their identity -
    ...as far as Jews are concerned, the demarcation between racial identity and nationalist identity is very ambiguous.

    Atzmon rejects the idea of Jews being a race, because there is no such thing as Slavic Marxism or Celtic Anarchism, and the like.
    So, if somoene says they are are a Marxist Jew -
    ...we must leave aside the racist interpretation and re-examine those titles as nationalistic labels
    - Hence, it all becomes clear to the mind of Atzmon.
    If Jews aren't a race, they must be a nation, and the nationalism of Jews is called zionism, so then anything they do politically must be zionist.

    Of course, Atzmon keeps refering to Jews (who get involved in politics as 'Jews') as belonging to a tribe, rather than a nation. Terminological exactitude is not one of his strengths either I'm afraid.

    all the best!

    ReplyDelete
  21. Earlier i wrote:

    ...it appears now that Joe90 has conceded that GA is not motivated by racism, but rather by a mistaken belief that in fighting 'Jewishness' per se he is fighting racism.

    Joe replied:
    - I have no idea where you get this notion from.
    You've presented no evidence to prove this assertion.
    Atzmon is an antisemite who exploits the pain and suffering of Palestinians in order to disseminate neo-nazi propaganda.


    Joe90 asks where I got my evidence for this assertion from:

    How about here? This is what Joe wrote earlier:

    "Atzmon seems to be rowing back from his trademark blanket assertions about Jews, such as them being responsible for the crimes committed against them by the Nazis.

    We seem to be seeing a more nuanced approach by him to what he claims are crimes committed by Jews, if you can call using such Nazi antisemitic terms as 'de-judify' nuanced.

    Seemingly, not all Jews are culpable. Only the ones who are 'Jewish' are the culprits. Being 'Jewish' to Atzmon seems to be just another name for racist imperialism."


    So in other words, Joe says that Atzmon is motivated by hatred for 'racist imperialism'.

    Now he says he is a neo-Nazi.

    He can't be both. Unless you think that neo-Nazis are motivated by opposition to 'racist imperialism'..

    They aren't. Think about it. A little rationality seeped into Joe's analysis, just for a moment there.

    Unfortunately, it appears to have been stamped on. Oh well...

    ReplyDelete
  22. Thanks for the bold script but it's not really necessary. I can read fine.

    Joe says that Atzmon is motivated by hatred for 'racist imperialism'.
    - Er, no.
    Atzmon defines 'Jewish Jews' or 'Jewishness', or whatever bizarre formulation he wants to dream up, as something inherently racist and imperialist.

    Hitler also gave the same reasons for his hatred of Jews.

    These attributes, such as racist imperialism and aggridisement, Atzmon claims are characteristic and inherently part of the identity of what it means to be a 'Jewish Jews'. Very similarly, Hitler claimed these attributes as intrinsically part of Jews, Judaism, Jewishness.

    So we have the situation where Atzmon-Rizzo are in agreement with their fellow neo-Nazis, when they both claim the victims of the Nazis deserved the crimes carried out against them by Hitler.
    No nuance here, just straightforward unvarnished neo-nazi holocaust justification from Atzmon and Rizzo -
    ...the Jewish state and the sons of Israel are at least as unpopular in the Middle East as their grandparents were in Europe just six decades ago.
    Saying NO to the Hunters of Goliath

    If Atzmon dislikes racist imperialism so much why doesn't he entitle his articles as such, and why pick on Jews if racist imperialism isn't something peculiar to Jews?

    Why entitle articles with the word 'Jew' in them, or 'the J word', 'Elders of London', etc etc ad nauseum?

    Might not the 'Z' word be more appropriate, as in Z for zionism, or RI for 'Racist Imperialism'?

    And why would anyone want to de-judify financial institutions if its racist imperialism they are bothered about and 'non-Jewish Jews' aren't a threat?

    Atzmon claims that its 'Jewish Jews' and 'Jewishness' he is criticing, so
    why de-judifying anything if Jews aren't the problem? Isn't this a form of collective punishment which is a characteristic of being a racist?


    Unfortunately for Atzmon, he's already burned his bridges. His constant references to 'Jews' is loud and clear in his already published turgid jew-baiting, jew-hating articles.

    Of course, to be Juden rein means getting rid of Jews.

    Atzmon claims Jews should be kept as they are, but that they should have their 'Jewishness' removed.
    Jewishness being whatever Atzmon says it is. Even then he can't seem to be able to identify it himself in the likes of Michael Howard.

    Heaven forbid if anything should happen to 'non-Jewish Jews' just because of the crimes committed by a few 'Jewish Jews' in all their horrible 'Jewishness'!

    I'm sure even some of Atzmon's best friends are Jews, 'non-Jewish Jews' of course.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Nice try Joe90 to elide your original comment and reconcile it with your subsequent recantation. Pity it makes no logical sense.

    "Hitler also gave the same reasons [their 'racist imperialism'] for his hatred of Jews."

    Dishonest crap. Hitler had no objection to colonialism in the Middle East, including Zionist colonialism. Some of his smarter underlings saw real fascist potential in Zionism, precisely because of its racism and proto-imperialism. They were only overruled because the Nazi top bananas considered Jewish 'race-mixing' crimes outweighed that fascist potential.

    Hitler hated Jews because he hated 'race-mixing', and sought to maintain Aryan racial 'purity'.

    So Hitler hated 'racist imperialism', did he? What nonsense! This is what happens if you try to pretend you meant the opposite of what you actually said, and to atone for 'impure' thoughts. You end up spouting nonsense.

    Of course, you may be able to find some fragment of a quote where Hitler accuses Jews of 'racism' or 'imperialism' or such, but again, what he considered to be 'racism' or 'imperialism' was assimilation or 'race-mixing', i.e. dilution of the Aryan 'race'.

    Since Atzmon applauds Michael Howard for his assimilation, it is obvious he means the opposite of this.

    This is what happens when you swear that black is white. You come very close to prettifying Hitler as an anti-racist. Priceless!

    Incidentally, Joe90 has said nothing about TG's fatwa that no-one should read the award-winning Russian-Jewish Professor Yuri Slezkine's book 'The Jewish Century'. Can Joe explain why this book is to be declared verboten? Or is he too embarassed by this piece of irrationality also?

    ReplyDelete
  24. Incidentally, there's a very good commentary in today's Guardian's, which some on this blog could learn from:

    http://tinyurl.com/6nn3wc

    Its arguments are just as salient as a critique of the demonisation of the small number of Israeli/Jews who have taken a parallel path to the Arab 'anti-semites' analysed it it.

    The equation of these Jewish 'anti-semites' with Nazis advocated here would be recognised for what it is if it was extended to Arabs with similar views: a form of Jewish chauvinism.

    It certainly is strange that those of Jewish origin who even flirt with such views are demonised as Nazis, whereas Arabs who do the same get off scot-free. Or when is this blog going to run an article attacking the 'Neo-Nazi' Hamas with the snippet from the Protocols in its Charter?

    Some might even suspect this is about enforcing a form of communal discipline ... on Jews only. Which itself would be a form of racism, wouldn't it?

    ReplyDelete
  25. I wouldn't want to pretend to understand Atzmon's gibberish. But I think it's possible to discern a point. If I surmise correctly, one of the things he finds objectionable is that Jews who have nothing to do with the religion, Judaism, insist on identifying as Jews. Now if you acknowledge that Jewishness - Jewish ethnic identity - is fundamentally a response to antisemitism's essentialising of Jews as a race, them you might want to join him in excoriating 'Jewish Jews' as a racist phenomenon. It is of course the same for any racial group, i.e. any group targeted as such by racists, who are the ones who define the group as a race. One of the places I think Atzmon departs from the rails is in asserting that it's racist to acknowledge the existence of racism and racial categories. In reality, it is important for Jews to organise explicitly as Jews in combating Zionism. When a non Jew claims that Israel and Zionism do not represent all Jews, it's an opinion, however plausible and well founded. When a Jew makes the same claim, it is incontrovertible counterevidence. That's why I identify as a Jew, anyway.

    ReplyDelete
  26. To FP:

    Some Nazis saw in Zionism the creation of a new Jew etc., people such as Eichmann and Heydrich, to say nothing of former incumbents of the Jewish desk of the Gestapo like Mildenstein, but I don't think there was ever any illusion in the fascist potential of Zionism.

    It's not true that Hitler hated Jews as race-mixers. Why? couldn't they have been part of the race? race is only a political construct. No Hitler saw in Jews the old international conspiracy and the author and creator of Bolshevism. That was their real crime.

    I have issued no fatwas over a book I have not read! I can only therefore judge it from what I have read and if Atzmon finds it a basis for his views then that is a good sign but no, I wouldn't dream of inciting people not to read a book. I wouldn't say that people shouldn't read Mein Kampf. On the contrary one should study the enemy but I don't doubt that this book, despite the plaudits you mention, is a book to delight the right.

    And no. I don't intend to read it in the near future simply because I have a long list of books, piled up on my bookshelves, awaiting my attention!

    It is not the purpose of this blog to attack Hamas's 'neo-Nazism'. The primary reason for this is that Hamas, an Israeli creation if anything was, is not a neo-Nazi group. Sometimes my dear Fartypants, you have to look at the content and substance of a movement, not its superficial emanations.

    You could judge Zionism as a democratic movement if you simply examined its charters, hasbarah or indeed the Declaration of independence (never of course incorporated into law).

    Hamas started off as a sectarian anti-secular movement. To some extent it has taken on the form of a national movement, albeit with a distorted and reactionary ideology. Indeed it is politically incoherent and its use of the Protocols in its Charter is a good example of this.

    The fact is that what marks this Islamist group is its complete lack of any political coherence or direction. Islamic ideology traps it and in practice it is politically reactionary but nonetheless a mass movement. It is not neo-Nazi. Jews have spoken at their meetings, they have drawn distinctions between Jews and Zionists and there are those who might be described as Hamas intellectuals who have criticised these absurdities such as paying homage to the Protools.

    The Protocols only had significance because of their social setting. Where they came from. Anti-semitism has no social roots in the Palestinian movement and there are individual Jews who live in palestinian communities. Of course when Israeli soldiers do what they do and it is in the name of 'Yahuda' then of course some people will, superficially, seem like anti-Semites, but I don't accept that modern European anti-Semitism was a reaction to any genuine Jewish persecution of them.

    Re the points which have been made by Ernie. Atzmon does indeed excoriate all those who are not Orthodox jews. In this he is clearly racist in advocating an essence of 'Jewishness' as their binding glue.

    Despite contradicting himself at times, Atzmon is quite clear. Any Jewish identity apart from religious, is Zionist. So anti-Zionist Jews are also Zionists! it is a nonsense that reflects BOTH anti-Semitism and Zionism. In fact many Jews do identify as such for reasons of anti-racism and anti-Zionism. That does not make them Zionists it merely means that their minority identity is not only valid but also progressive, albeit it is a minority.

    Atzmon departs from the rails in all sorts of ways. In reality, his reaction against any notion of a Jewish anti-racist history or part in fighting Zionism is evidence of his anti-Semitism but also evidence of the limited reach of his analysis.

    I don't accept that there is any such thing as Jewishness. This really is a racist concept suggesting some inherent quality that Jews share which non-Jews do not. What is this quality? Atzmon only hints at it with his railing against Jewish financial corruption and scandals.

    Not therefore do I accept that there is Jewish ethnic identity. In itself 'Jewish' Jews, whatever that may be, presumably schmaltz and latkes, is not racist. It is the context in which this kind of culture exists.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Dishonest crap. Hitler had no objection to colonialism in the Middle East, including Zionist colonialism.
    - Jewish capitalaism and Jewish Bolshevism were over-running the world according to Hitler in Mein Kampf.
    That, in other words, is racist imperialism.


    So Hitler hated 'racist imperialism', did he? What nonsense!
    - Like the rest of the Atzmonite acolytes, you aren't the sharpest tool in box.
    I didn't say Hitler wasn't a racist imperialist or that he didn't see politics and international relations in those terms. He did, which was why he claimed and believed the Jews represented a threat to civilisation
    ie they were racist imperialists out to racially dominate the world.


    Since Atzmon applauds Michael Howard for his assimilation, it is obvious he means the opposite of this.
    - But the whole point is Michael Howard hasn't assimilated so therefore Atzmon is completely wrong.
    Howard, in Atzmon-speak, is part of world Jewish conspiracy only he's working behind the scenes rather than out in open.
    How clever of these 'Jewish Jews' to pretend in public they've assimilated, when all the time they support zionism, and are stabbing British people in the back!


    Can Joe explain why this book is to be declared verboten? Or is he too embarassed by this piece of irrationality also?
    - No I can't explain as I know nothing about it whatsoever.
    You can ask Tony Greenstein himself which would be the rational course of action.


    The equation of these Jewish 'anti-semites' with Nazis advocated here...
    - If you mean Atzmon-Rizzo disseminating neo-Nazi propaganda under cover of Palestinian solidarity, this has been proven.

    I say proven because you have done nothing to dis-prove it. You have merely confined yourself to using Atzmon's biography as a defence, or generic boilerplate such as people make mistakes etc etc. Although interestingly, you don't say where Atzmon is wrong.

    Anyway, if I read your illiterate sentence correctly you describe Atzmon as 'Jewish'.
    How can he be 'Jewish'?
    After all the guff Atzmon has produced on the strength of this one epithet you still don't understand what Atzmon is about.

    Who can blame you for not believing or understanding Atzmon's racist twaddle. If you did you'd be able to argue about Atzmon's 'ideas' instead of arguing about TG's book recommendations, or what Hitler thought, or about Hamas.

    ReplyDelete
  28. I did mean to say that,
    in Atzmon's view of culture and identity where Jews are concerned, there seems to be only 2 modes of existence - assimilation or Jewishness.
    There is no other way for a person who is a Jew to live in a human community, as far as Atzmon is concerned.

    Well, there's lots of ways of coming to a modus vivendi with one's own community.

    It is significant that Atzmon's view is very stereotyped one, of a dominating society in relation to its minorities. You are either one of us or you're not, according to our criteria not your's.
    It's all very BNP-ish.

    I am a firm believer in left-wing progressive politics, and love the idea of civic nationalism and also the idea of acculturation, as advocated and put into practice by the Scottish National Party.

    I also prefer the idea of poly-culturalism' to 'multi-culturalism'.
    I don't think it is easy to separate different groups of people, who have their own idenity, from the social matrix. I don't think there are any hard edges to these things. There is a fuzziness at the edges and communal identities and attributes have a tendency to blend, if given the chance.

    Wonderful stuff!

    ReplyDelete
  29. Joe90

    [Referring to TG's denunciation of Yuri Slezkine and anyone who reads his books as anti-semitic by implication]

    "No I can't explain as I know nothing about it whatsoever.
    You can ask Tony Greenstein himself which would be the rational course of action."


    Funny, I thought this was his blog.

    Tony Greenstein

    "I have issued no fatwas over a book I have not read! I can only therefore judge it from what I have read and if Atzmon finds it a basis for his views then that is a good sign but no, I wouldn't dream of inciting people not to read a book. I wouldn't say that people shouldn't read Mein Kampf. On the contrary one should study the enemy but I don't doubt that this book, despite the plaudits you mention, is a book to delight the right."

    So, he hasn't read it, but he doesn't doubt that it is a book to 'delight the right'. Despite producing no evidence that it is in any way right-wing politically.

    Anyway, this wriggling contradicts the text at the top of this posting, where those who read Slezkine's book are quite clearly condemned implicitly as anti-semitic just for reading it! This blogger is evidently somewhat embarassed by his previous words and incapable of defending them.

    Greenstein shows he understands nothing about racism or Nazism when he writes:

    "It's not true that Hitler hated Jews as race-mixers. Why? couldn't they have been part of the race? race is only a political construct. No Hitler saw in Jews the old international conspiracy and the author and creator of Bolshevism. That was their real crime."

    Race is, objectively, a social construct. But not to Hitler and his followers. They didn't believe that it was a social construct at all. They believed in a biological hierarchy of races, with a division between 'Higher' and 'Lower' races - and that the higher must be kept 'pure'. That is the whole point of Nazi racial ideology. Indeed, when the Nazis denounced Jewish 'racism' they were denouncing this tendency to dilute the purity of the Aryan race and take positions, social status etc. that should belong to 'pure' Aryans.

    "Why couldn't Jews have been part of [Hitler's] race?" Greenstein
    asks. Answer: because Hitler believed in separation of 'races' and that 'Aryans' were superior to 'inferior' Jews, that's why!!

    Joe90

    "How can he be 'Jewish'?
    After all the guff Atzmon has produced on the strength of this one epithet you still don't understand what Atzmon is about."


    On the contrary. I understand that ethnicity is a social, not an individual contruct, and while is it possible for someone to renounce the Jewish religion and cease to be Jewish in that sense, it is not possible for someone to renounce their ethnic origin and erase it completely. In ethnic terms, Atzmon is Jewish - it is not possible to be an 'ex-Jew' unless the rest of humanity is prepared to accept that. And there is no sign of that, I'm afraid.

    By the way, that is one concrete criticism I have made of Atzmon. He is so fervently for assimilation he overestimates the possiblities. He thinks that an individual who renounces his Jewish identity can instantly be regarded by the rest of humanity as non-Jewish. He is mistaken about this - but this mistake hardly points to a belief in racial 'essentialism', does it? Rather the opposite.

    "I didn't say Hitler wasn't a racist imperialist or that he didn't see politics and international relations in those terms. He did, which was why he claimed and believed the Jews represented a threat to civilisation
    ie they were racist imperialists out to racially dominate the world."


    Since his project was that his 'Aryan' race should indeed dominate the world, then you would have us all believe that Hitler believed that the Jewish project was the same as his, only the 'race' was different. Nonsense.
    His idea of 'Jewish domination' was precisely about race mixing and assimilation.

    Hitler was opposed to Jewish assimilation and went to great lengths to search out assimilated Jews and sent them to the gas chambers. That was the point of forcing people to wear the yellow star of David, to force Jews to de-assimilate so they became identifiable targets for persecution.

    Atzmon is so fervently for assimilation that he can express praise for Micheal Howard for his assimilation. If he were a Neo-Nazi he would be denouncing Howard as a Jewish conspirator.

    But unfortunately, as anyone who reads this thread can see, the only person here who has so denounced Howard is Joe90. He thinks he is being clever, polemicising against Atzmon in this way. In fact, he is (no doubt inadvertenly) dabbling in the same kind of anti-Jewish crap he accuses Atzmon of engaging in.

    Priceless again!

    ReplyDelete
  30. I've made it clear that I haven't read a book that repeats the old anti-Semitic canard that Lenin was Jewish, that Jewish capitalists financed the Bolshevik revolution and much else besides. Nor do I have any intention to do so in the next 2 years.

    You don't have to read a book to reject its central thrust, as interpreted by anti-Semites like Atzmon. There are millions of books and one obviously has to select by some criteria. However if people like FP get enjoyment or intellectual sustenance from so doing, then fine.

    The problem with FP is that he takes Hitler and the Nazis at face value. If they said something it must be true. But that's not how things work.

    It is clear, not least from Mein Kampf, that it was Hitler's hatred of Marxism and Bolshevism, the international betrayers of the Germans in the trenches of WWI, that led him to see the Jews as the creators of Bolshevism and parasitic finance capitalism.

    From this followed all the race-mixing nonsense. But even then, as Himmler said in his 1943 speech to the SS at Posen, although Germans will say that the Jews are swine, they except this one who is a food fellow. And even Hitler was reputed to have one or 2 few favourites who he spared. Indeed his favourite Jew is also the subject of Atzmon's devotions - Otto Weininger - of whom Hitler said that the only decent Jew had gone and killed himself!

    In fact, in Poland and elsewhere the Nazis did in fact select some members of the untermenschen who had Aryan characteristics for inclusion in the racial pool. This idea that the Nazis were solely devoted to racial purity is wide of the mark. They exterminated the disabled, yet their own Nazi disabled were spared.

    The whole point about this is that 'race' was and always has been a malleable construct in the hands of both the Nazis and other racists, e.g. Apartheid South Africa. In both countries the Japanese were 'honorary' whites or Aryans.

    Hitler's belief in the Aryan race was a projection of the desire for German imperialism to dominate Europe and the world. It wasn't an ideology for its own sake. So just as there were racial hierarchies, so within the Aryan race there were similar hierarchies between workers and capitalists, the elite and the riff raff.

    The Nazis were also realists so when the non-Jewish wives of privileged and mischlinge males protested at Rosenstrasse in 1943, the Nazis backed down and not only freed some 2-3 thousand Jews but even returned some who had been deported to Auschwitz, absolutely unprecedented.

    Atzmon is no great thinker. Like a dog returning to his vomit he churns out much the same nonsense about 'racially oriented tribal politics' but he is right that one can abandon one's ethnicity, especially if it is primarily ideologically based. The irony is that Atzmon founds it very difficult to do so himself!


    >>

    Priceless again!

    ReplyDelete
  31. "Atzmon is no great thinker. Like a dog returning to his vomit he churns out much the same nonsense about 'racially oriented tribal politics' but he is right that one can abandon one's ethnicity, especially if it is primarily ideologically based. The irony is that Atzmon founds it very difficult to do so himself!"

    So the end result of this discussion is that Tony Greenstein agrees with Gilad Atzmon that Jewish ethnic identity is 'primarily ideologically based' - TG's words!!!

    If Jewish identity is merely ideological, how it is in any way racist to denounce it, however one-sidedly (and GA is certainly one-sided in his denunciations)?

    TG and GA are both profoundly wrong here, but in some ways it is TG who is in the more invidious position. GA considers he is denouncing a racist ideology - and goes for the jugular.

    TG it turns out, is getting all bent out of shape defending an ethnic identity that he considers to be 'primarily ideologically based' and possible to simply renounce. Not a fundamental part of his or anyone else's make up, in his view!

    In a sense, of course, you can say that all ethnic identities are ideological, but they also represent something much deeper than mere surface ideology - they are related to the entire psychological make-up and sense of self-worth of considerable chunks of humanity, are imbibed at a very early age and are never completely overcome even with individuals who undergo profound changes of consciousness such as becoming a Marxist.

    It is also the case, of course, that your ethnic identity is social, that is, it depends on how the rest of humanity see you, which cannot be changed by someone merely asserting 'I am no longer a Jew', 'I am no longer English', etc. etc. The world doesn't work like that.

    It is profoundly foolish to equate someone's ethnic identity with a mere ideology on a similar level as their political beliefs, but it appears that is what TG is doing.

    He is getting very exercised because his ideology (according to his concept), not any more than that, is being dissed by GA, who however shares the same concept of identity as something fairly superficial that can easily be renounced.

    That is what is getting TG so upset - his ideas and beliefs are being dissed by a fellow Jew and he's getting very angry about that. Nothing to do with racism - except that GA mistakenly thinks he is disrespecting racism. But the disrespect is unfortunately being misdirected, and what we have here is a confused mess, plenty of heat, but not a great deal of light unfortunately.

    I'll come back on some of TG's other points, about Hitler etc, later, when I've got more time, but there is plenty to say about that also.

    ReplyDelete
  32. fp I know it's difficult for you to understand this, but I'm discussing Atzmon's views not yours.

    I couldn't really care less what your views about 'race' are, and much else besides.

    Hitler was a racist and saw people and politics in racist terms. Those are Hitler's views, not those of his victims.

    It seems to be your one and only defence is to pretend you can't read what people clearly write. It isn't my problem if you're half-illiterate or you are unable to understand simple facts of history.


    The objective facts about Michael Howard, wether you and your glorious leader Atzmon wish to admit them or not, is that Howard supports the Israeli state and its racist war crimes.

    You and Atzmon have no idea about where the real threats to Palestinians come from. If you don't know that then your are a hindrance not a help.

    With friends like you and Atzmon, Palestinians don't need enemies.

    For instance
    ...the only person here who has so denounced Howard is Joe90.
    - So there we have it.
    I am accused of criticising a leading British politician and statesman for supporting Israeli racist war crimes against Palestine.

    This intellectual non-entity and Atzmon worshipper comes from the same bunch of morons as chairman goch who denounced me for supporting the official Palestinian position on a 2-state solution. According to chairman goch I am a zionist for doing so, and part of a mossad cell.

    So just to reprise,
    according to the antisemitic balloons that follow Rizzo-Atzmon,
    I am guilty of supporting the official Palestinian position on 2-states, and I am also guilty of critising pro-Israeli zionist supporters of racist war crimes against Palestinians such as Michael Howard.

    Thanks for that potted-version of the development Hitler's political views TG.

    ReplyDelete
  33. Very briefly. I don't believe that Jews constitute a separate 'ethnic' group, however that is defined. And ethnicity is an extremely woolly and vague concept.

    But are the Jews a nation? No. In what way are they an ethnic minority? Culture, language, territory? Doubtful in most if not all cases. And there is no shared ethnicity across borders, even if one were to concede the question of ethnicity.

    The real question is what defines Jews today? In previous years it was their social occupation, which the religion reflected. Today Jews do not perform specific social and economic tasks within capitalism. That is part of the reason there is 50% intermarriage. Jews are assimilating and disappearing outside Israel and in Israel a separate settler people is being created in Palestine which will, in time divorce from Jews left outside.

    And so yes, Jews are defined to a large extent ideologically, e.g. by political support for Zionism. Or by identifying with the common struggle against racism.

    Atzmon however sees Jews and Zionists as synonymous. For him it is a 'tribal' i.e. racial matter and unsurprisingly he sees the hand of Jewish conspiracies in the stock market crashes and so on.

    There really is no similarity between mine and his position.

    ReplyDelete
  34. Atzmon however sees Jews and Zionists as synonymous. For him it is a 'tribal' i.e. racial matter and unsurprisingly he sees the hand of Jewish conspiracies in the stock market crashes and so on.
    - I would just like to make an observation here TG, about the champion of humanist universalism himself, Atzmon.

    Atzmon in the jew-baiting entitled Jew Are You? cricises Jewish people who see themselves as Jews because antisemites, such as Hitler, saw them as such.

    Hitler Won After All
    Rather often when asking a ‘secular’ ‘cosmopolitan’ Jew what it is that makes him into a Jew, a shallow overwhelmingly chewed answer would be thrown back at you: “It is Hitler who made me into a Jew”. Though the ‘cosmopolitan’ Jew, being an internationalist, would dismiss other people’s national inclinations, he insists upon maintaining his own right to ‘self determination’.... ....Apparently, the cosmopolitan Jew celebrates his nationalist entitlement as long as Hitler is there to be blamed.

    Jew Are You?
    02 Sept 2008

    It's perfectly rational for Jewish people to see themselves as Jewish, as long as others do who persecute them. For the purproses of self-defence and self-preservation, belonging to a human collective is a far better survival strategy than standing out as a lone individual. Individuals are the perfect target for committed racists.

    Indeed, the formation of many cultural identities and ethnic groupings have came about in the modern period of history precisely because they have come under attack by western racist colonialists and imperialists. A good exmple being the Palestinians themselves (of which Rizzo understands nothing, as we have seen in other comments on this very blog).

    The irony is, of course, that the self-proclaimed humanist and universalist, Atzmon, takes at face value the pronouncements of racists, zionists and the likes of the Israeli government whenever it comes to claims about Jewish people, their identity and origin and so forth.

    Consistency is not one of Atzmon's strong points either.

    all the best!

    ps
    Incidently, in the same paragraph I quoted from above from Jew Are You? you'll find Atzmon accusing Jews of being genocidists and claiming they aren't much different from Nazis -

    It is indeed pretty puzzling that the only people who managed to maintain and sustain a racially orientated, expansionist and genocidal national identity that is not at all different from Nazi ethnic ideology are the Jews who were, amongst others, the leading targeted victims of the Nazi ideology and practice.

    This is the universalist, humanist Atzmon who critices others for using the Nazis to smear and scapegoat victims.

    The final section of Jew Are You? is classic Atzmon ascending into the Hegelian world spirit of zionist prussianism - or is it 'post-zionism'?

    ReplyDelete
  35. Joe90

    "I know it's difficult for you to understand this, but I'm discussing Atzmon's views not yours."

    followed by

    "wether you and your glorious leader Atzmon wish to admit them or not..."

    There's a bit of a contradiction there, isn't there? If Atzmon was my 'great leader', then my views and his would be (more or less) the same. But Joe90 denounces me for expecting my (different) views to be discussed instead of Atzmon's. Thus acknowledging that I am not one of Atzmon's co-thinkers.

    I am an anti-Zionist ... and I am also opposed to anti-semitism (and all other kinds of racism). But it appears that my different view of what this actually means are causing Joe some frustration. Well, that's life ... people have different experiences and angles on questions like this. The idea that one persons view, on these questions is legitimate and allowed to be discussed is hardly a very democratic spirit, is it?

    TG may deny that there is a 'Jewish' ethnicity, but unfortunately large numbers of Jews do not agree with him. Not to mention members of other ethnic groups who come into contact with Jews. Ethnic identities are multi-layered, dynamic things and are continually made and remade. They are a social construct -- all
    of them.

    There are no races, but there are ethnic groups as social categories that are constructed and are in most cases deeply rooted. Religious identity is also a key part of the identity of quite a few ethnic groups, think of the difference between Serbs and Croats for instance.

    Jews are in a different position from many due to the lack of a territory - indeed this problem gave rise to the reactionary solution of Zionism, but I don't see how Zionism itself could have emerged without the existence of a Jewish ethnic identity of some sort. I think most Jews would
    take it for granted that they are some kind of ethnic group or perhaps an overlapping array of such groups, tending to merge into one, with religious background as a key element of shared identity.

    The real point that does not make sense is that if Jewish identity is as shallowly ideological as TG says, then why get so upset about GA's attacks on Jewish identity?

    You don't need a seperate Jewish identity to fight against racism, but there is nothing inherently wrong with fighting against racism in the name of such an identity ... many do just that. As others do despite bearing other identities of different kinds. Identities are pretty malleable. In this regard Atzmon is wrong. I doubt that Jews who have a secure sense of their own identity have much difficulty seeing through the one-sided critique put forward by Atzmon ... without the kind of hysterical characterisations of GA as a Nazi that frankly only make the tiny grouping that propagates them look like hysterical bullies.

    TG doth protest too much. He regards Jewish identity as only superficial and ideological, and yet adopts that identity as a badge of honour and sounds off about racism when that identity - which remember he regards as voluntary and easily discarded - is disrespected and made out to be sinister. This makes no sense from even the point of view of formal logic, let alone a Marxist approach to questions of oppression based on identity. Atzmon's attacks on Jewish identity do indeed play into the hands of those who have a racist agenda regarding Jewish identity, but his actual motives are transparently different from that. Why does TG care so much about this, since he doesn't place much value on this identity in any case?!!

    The other point I would make is about TG's approach to Nazi ideology as simply a reflection of the interests of German imperialism and thus not to be taken seriously in its own proclaimed beliefs. This is a determinist caricature of Marxism. Ideas may in the last analysis be expressions of material interests,
    but they often are manifested in highly distorted ways that bear little resemblance to the original material factors that gave rise to them. They also develop through their own autonomous logic. TG is not able to contradict anything I say about the actual ideology of Nazism, but merely opines that you
    really should not take that stuff seriously because what matters is that Nazism was an expression of imperialist interests.

    Not every form of bourgeois politics is a rational expression of bourgeois class interests. Hitlers attack on the USSR in 1941, without having secured his
    Western flank by conquering Britain, meant fighting on two fronts and exposing German imperialism to fighting both the US and the USSR at the same time. This was ruinous from the standpoint of German imperialism and was a product of the fanaticism of the Nazi leadership.

    Irrational forms of racism and religious fanaticism have their own logic of development in bourgeois politics, they do not simply reflect the rationallly considered interests of particular ruling classes, but operate autonomously.

    This observation also has relevance, by the way, when considering the debate about Mearsheimer and Walt and the Israel lobby in US politics. Subjective consderations, moralism and religious fanaticism can play autonomous roles in politics and contradict the policies that are probably most rational from a
    bourgeois point of view.

    ReplyDelete
  36. The fact that many people are under all sorts of delusions doesn't mean that they are correct. Many Germans believed in an Aryan state. Many Jews believe that they are part of a Jewish nation or indeed race. They are simply wrong.

    'TG may deny that there is
    'Jewish' ethnicity, but unfortunately large numbers of Jews do not agree with him.'

    I'm not disputing that there are 'ethnic groups' but I don't see how a relatively prosperous middle class minority, whose primary difference with other whites is either some political attachment to Zionism or religious ritual qualifies as an ethnic minority. Does a shared mythology count? Certainly there are no language differences.

    'There are no races, but there are ethnic groups as social categories that are constructed and are in most cases deeply rooted.'

    Without knowing a great deal about Serbs or Croats my understanding is that they are different nationalities, not ethnicities. Religion might indeed be a component of such an ethnicity and in the Pale of Settlement then that was certainly the case, since it was the badge for experiencing racist attacks and pogroms but we do not live in such conditions.

    'Religious identity is also a key part of the identity of quite a few ethnic groups, think of the difference between Serbs and Croats for instance.'

    Uuh? They have the territory they live on. It wasn't this that gave rise to Zionism but pogroms and the economic and political changes in Eastern Europe which gave rise to a collapse in the hope for the Hebrew Enlightenment (Haskalah).

    'Jews are in a different position from many due to the lack of a territory - indeed this problem gave rise to the reactionary solution of Zionism,'

    Well ethnic minorities can be created, but there is little doubt that the Jews of the Pale did constitute a national minority, complete with its own language and territorial continguity. This is entirely different from white European or American Jews today.

    'I don't see how Zionism itself could have emerged without the existence of a Jewish ethnic identity of some sort.'

    FP makes the mistake of assuming that my response to Atzmon is dictated by my affront at his attack on Jewish identity. It isn't. Of course I disagree with what passes for his analysis and tortured logic but that isn't the reason. As Engage and others have noted, my objections to Atzmon are not because of any danger he poses to Jews but the danger he poses to those he purports to support - the Palestinians. Anti-semitic or racist discourse is fatal to solidarity with the Palestinians. You cannot, at one and the same time, oppose the racism of Zionism and then make an exception for anti-semitism.

    'The real point that does not mak'e sense is that if Jewish identity is as shallowly ideological as TG says, then why get so upset about GA's attacks on Jewish identity?'

    Agreed

    'You don't need a seperate Jewish identity to fight against racism, but there is nothing inherently wrong with fighting against racism in the name of such an identity ... many do just that. As others do despite bearing other identities of different kinds. Identities are pretty malleable.'

    This allegation, that I have characterised Atzmon as a Nazi is repeated ad nauseum, but never documented! When one of Atzmon's minor acolytes, one Paul de Rooij, made such an accusation I likewise asked him to back it up. The best he could come up with was that my good friend, Sue Blackwell, had featured him on her 'Nazi alert' page! I have in fact never said he was a Nazi, or a fascist, because he is neither. However he clearly consorts with those who are, and that in itself is worrying. Israel Shamir is a fascist and it was in his defence that I first came into contact with Atzmon.

    'In this regard Atzmon is wrong. I doubt that Jews who have a secure sense of their own identity have much difficulty seeing through the one-sided critique put forward by Atzmon ... without the kind of hysterical characterisations of GA as a Nazi that frankly only make the tiny grouping that propagates them look like hysterical bullies.'

    Undoubtedly! There is more than one Jewish identity - a Zionist and racist one, ultra-orthodox, Zionist, assimilationist liberal etc. I define myself in my own way simply because that is often the first question Zionists ask me at meetings, 'why do you say you are a Jew?'.

    The identity I'm referring to is the mainstream one.

    'TG doth protest too much. He regards Jewish identity as only superficial and ideological, and yet adopts that identity as a badge of honour and sounds off about racism...'

    I'm not sure what if any are his motives. I suspect Atzmon doesn't either, though there is a nagging suspicion that he is a holocaust denier not ready yet to openly come out and he is testing the water. But see my response above as to why I have taken up the battle.

    'Atzmon's attacks on Jewish identity do indeed play into the hands of those who have a racist agenda regarding Jewish identity, but his actual motives are transparently different from that.'

    No this is not true. I am not making a 1-1 reduction between Nazi ideology and German imperial interests. Nazism was, BY ITS OWN ADMISSION, first and foremost concerned with Empire and conquest - lebensraum. But unlike Kaiser Wilhelm and the Junkers Hitler wasn't interested in bits and bobs of an African empire but Eastern Europe. There lay the basis of German settlement and that was therefore defined racially - who was and wasn't defined as German. But even the Nazis were quite flexible and instructions were given that Polish and other Slav children who looked Aryan were to be kidnapped and brought up as Aryans. The Sinti were held by Himmler to be Aryans, although others disagreed and by and large they were still exterminated.

    I agree that ideology can have an autonomy from the material in certain circumstances and it is arguable that this applied especially to the Nazis, e.g. the deportations to Auschwitz when war needs took priority, not least in terms of scarce labour. But also the way the 'anti-capitalism' of the Nazis worked its way out in a personalisation of this targetted at individual rich people and industrialists e.g. Thyssen ended up in a concentration camp. Likewise the blood vendetta against the German High Command after July 1944 certainly would support this but however one looks at it, Nazism was primarily an imperialist war machine.

    'The other point I would make is about TG's approach to Nazi ideology as simply a reflection of the interests of German imperialism and thus not to be taken seriously in its own proclaimed beliefs. This is a determinist caricature of Marxism. Ideas may in the last analysis be expressions of material interests,
    but they often are manifested in highly distorted ways that bear little resemblance to the original material factors that gave rise to them. They also develop through their own autonomous logic. TG is not able to contradict anything I say about the actual ideology of Nazism, but merely opines that you
    really should not take that stuff seriously because what matters is that Nazism was an expression of imperialist interests.'

    I think this is conflating 2 separate phenomenon. Nazism was used by the capitalists to smash their working class enemy but at a heavy price, viz. their own political control of the German state. War was in their interest but not necessarily the total war that resulted.

    The fact is that Hitler made a whole series of monumental military blunders, most centering around Operation Barbarossa e.g. the march on both Leningrad and the Centre and the South. Starting the campaign a month late resulting in being caught by the Russian winter. I'm not sure this is any more an expression of a lack of rational expression of class interests. One could equally say the same about the invasion of Iraq.

    The real point is how Hitler gradually supplanted the existing German state with his Nazi state within a state. How in 1939 the SS formally took over the German police in the RSHA. How the SS units were essentially a counterbalance to the army. Shirer is good in his 'Rise & Fall of the Third Reich' at showing how the Generals were thwarted in killing Hitler on his visit to the troops in Russia by his heavy SS guard. He appointed Generals for their subservience to him and if they didn't do what he wanted replaced them.

    I agree that the attack on Russia, from a Nazi/German point of view was a catastrophic mistake but of course that is with hindsight. HItler was in no position to conquer Britain, having lost the Battle of Britain and not having a viable navy force to do it. But also it was a reflection of the fundamental anti-Bolshevik nature of Nazism.

    'Not every form of bourgeois politics is a rational expression of bourgeois class interests. Hitlers attack on the USSR in 1941, without having secured his
    Western flank by conquering Britain, meant fighting on two fronts and exposing German imperialism to fighting both the US and the USSR at the same time. This was ruinous from the standpoint of German imperialism and was a product of the fanaticism of the Nazi leadership.'

    Agreed - to a large extent.

    'Irrational forms of racism and religious fanaticism have their own logic of development in bourgeois politics, they do not simply reflect the rationallly considered interests of particular ruling classes, but operate autonomously.'

    Again I agree to a large extent but not to the extent that the US ruling class, in supporting Israel, is actually acting against its interests. Mersheimer/Walt do not prove this. If there was no Israel and nothing to use to threaten the Arab masses with and if there was nothing for the Arab ruling classes to use as a pretext to explain their own impotence, then we might have seen a much more unified and solid Arab Middle East. Support of Israel is cheap $3+ billion a year, mainly armaments, which benefit US arms industry to a great extent, is pretty cheap for what Kissinger described as an unsinkable aircraft carrier.

    'This observation also has relevance, by the way, when considering the debate about Mearsheimer and Walt and the Israel lobby in US politics. Subjective consderations, moralism and religious fanaticism can play autonomous roles in politics and contradict the policies that are probably most rational from a
    bourgeois point of view.'

    ReplyDelete
  37. I would like to make a correction to the title of an article I refered to as Jew are You?.
    It is actually called -
    The Wandering Who
    02 09 2008
    - I have no idea how I made that mistake.
    My apologies.

    fp says -
    There's a bit of a contradiction there, isn't there? If Atzmon was my 'great leader', then my views and his would be (more or less) the same.
    - More or less the same, or just the same?

    Thus acknowledging that I am not one of Atzmon's co-thinkers.
    - Er, no.
    You might or might not be, but given the fact you are unable to read clear and simple comments by others, I can't be bothered to wade through your half-illiterate garbage to find out.
    If you can't be honest enough to repeat my arguments and statements truthfully then I'm not going to spend time trying unpick your views from Atzmons. I'll take it as read, for the sake of time-wasting, you and you're glorious leader are much the same as makes no difference.

    Atzmon's attacks on Jewish identity do indeed play into the hands of those who have a racist agenda regarding Jewish identity, but his actual motives are transparently different from that.
    - Atzmon attacks Jews you mean.
    Sometimes he is refeing to Jewish identity, sometimes he doesn't. It all depends which of his turgid articles you happen to be reading at any point in time, or even which sentence.

    For instance, as I have already pointed out in -
    The Wandering Who
    - Atzmon claims Jews are no better than Nazis -
    It is indeed pretty puzzling that the only people who managed to maintain and sustain a racially orientated, expansionist and genocidal national identity that is not at all different from Nazi ethnic ideology are the Jews who were, amongst others, the leading targeted victims of the Nazi ideology and practice.

    According to Atzmon's acolytes calling anybody a 'Nazi' is the worst sort of tactic. Speaks volumes when even Atzmon's acolytes think this is bad practice.
    Yet they denounce Tony Greenstein for calling Atzmon a 'Nazi' when he hasn't (and neither have I) but don't denounce Atzmon when he does it, especially a whole group of people!

    However in -
    Credit Crunch or rather Zio Punch?
    30 09 2008
    - Atzmon claims, with tears in his eyes no doubt that,
    It would be devastating to see innocent Jews being implicated collectively by the crimes committed by a very few tribal nationalist enthusiasts.
    - We're back to the
    good Jew / bad Jew
    and
    Jewish Jew / non-Jewish Jew
    binary opposition Atzmon loves so much.
    However, Atzmon spoils the effect in the very next sentences by refering only to Jews, collectively -
    But I do believe that as far as Jews are concerned there may be a way out of it. It is about time Jews took their emancipation seriously. Rather than celebrating their symptoms collectively and publicly, they would be better off working hard individually in searching for the meaning of universal ethical thinking in order to adopt it.
    Universal ethical thinking as practiced by Atzmon no doubt.
    The same universal ethical thinking that compel him to use racist zionist definitions and doctrine whenever he discusses Jewish people perhaps?

    The same universalism that compel him to blame the crimes of the Nazis on their victims?

    Lessons on ethics from Atzmon anyone, or logic even?


    Hitlers attack on the USSR in 1941, without having secured his
    Western flank by conquering Britain, meant fighting on two fronts and exposing German imperialism to fighting both the US and the USSR at the same time. This was ruinous from the standpoint of German imperialism and was a product of the fanaticism of the Nazi leadership.

    - It was ruinous only in hndsight.
    Who says this wasn't a rational course of action at the time?
    This is a vacuous empty unhistorical statement.

    As far as reason was concerned at the time, you couldn't have predicted a greater certainty than Nazi Germany attacking the oriental Bolshevik hordes of the east!


    It is worth nothing fp is finding it heavy going trying to defend his glorious leader Atzmon - hence the wide diversions into Hitler and Nazi ideaology -
    - what came first, Nazi anti-Bolshevism or Nazi-racism?
    - Nazi strategy on the western and eastern fronts
    - how racist were the Nazis compared to their anti-Bolshevism
    etc.

    All very interesting of course....

    ReplyDelete
  38. "FP makes the mistake of assuming that my response to Atzmon is dictated by my affront at his attack on Jewish identity. It isn't. Of course I disagree with what passes for his analysis and tortured logic but that isn't the reason. As Engage and others have noted, my objections to Atzmon are not because of any danger he poses to Jews but the danger he poses to those he purports to support - the Palestinians. Anti-semitic or racist discourse is fatal to solidarity with the Palestinians. You cannot, at one and the same time, oppose the racism of Zionism and then make an exception for anti-semitism."

    Actually TG does, of course, make an exception for anti-semtism - the anti-semitism of Hamas. And rightly so, since that anti-semitism, which includes the explicit positive citation of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in their charter - is a regrettable reaction to Zionist racism by a representatives of an oppressed people. It is right to oppose that anti-semitism, to polemicise against it, and to seek to defeat it by convincing Hamas militants that it is both wrong and injurious to the Palestinian cause.

    It is utterly wrong, however, to equate Hamas with Nazism and to polemicise against them as if they were neo-Nazis.

    TG agrees with this, as is obvious from reading up this thread.

    However, he applies a different logic to GA and his co-thinkers, a small current of Israeli/Jewish origin who have come to (partially) share some of the same conceptions as Hamas, and to identify as Palestinians (Atzmon calls himself a Hebrew-speaking Palestinian).

    My view is that Atzmon and co should be treated in the same way as Hamas on this. That is, they should be debated with as part of the solidarity movement, and we should try to convince them that they are wrong on those aspects of their conceptions that give comfort to anti-semites. Without treating them as neo-nazis, which is just as wrong as saying the same thing about Hamas.

    TG says he has never called Atzmon a Nazi. Unfortunately, Joe90, who seems to be politically influenced by TG, repeatedly calls Atzmon a Nazi and/or a neo-Nazi. Just read upwards from here. TG has also written articles called GA an 'Open Holocaust Denier' (see
    www.socialistunity.com/?p=1559), and yet he speculates here that:

    I'm not sure what if any are his motives. I suspect Atzmon doesn't either, though there is a nagging suspicion that he is a holocaust denier not ready yet to openly come out and he is testing the water.

    If GA was an 'Open Holocaust Denier' then there would be no need for any 'nagging suspicions' about what GA really thinks, would there? TG's 'suspicions' amount to an admission that his earlier attack on Atzmon misfired badly.

    This won't convince anyone of anything, it just sounds like blowing hot and cold. As does
    Joe90's increasingly desperate attempts to deny things that he said earlier in this thread. He can repeat till he is blue in the fact that I am an Atzmon follower and thereby in his eyes a 'neo-Nazi' (!!!!), but it won't make it true. All it will do it discredit Joe90 and make him look crazed and irrational.

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  39. It's not that I make an exception for Hamas's 'anti-Semitism', rather I don't believe that they are anti-Semitic. They are certainly reactionary and therefore racist and anti-semitic arguments will not sit ill with their other beliefs, but they are the victims of racism, not its perpetrators.

    Anti-semitism doesn't and never has had the same social roots in the Arab East. Not because Arabs are biologically or genetically different from Europeans but because their societies were in different stages of formation and Maxime Rodinson would argue (& did!) that Jews performed different social and economic roles there (of which I'm not convinced, see debate in Nathan Weinstock's Zionism a False Messiah).

    To call them neo-Nazis is absurd since the Nazis weren't cultural freaks but possessed the immense power of the German state.

    If for example Hamas had said to those who broke the blockade of the sea that Jews can get straight back into the boats then I would have to revise my opinion but the only Israeli on the first boats, Jeff Halper, was detained by the Israelis not Hamas. Likewise Israeli and other Jews have spoken at Hamas meetings in Gaza.

    Indeed intellectual members of Hamas decry the Protocols in their Charter and most of their spokesmen will make the distinction between Jews and Zionists. The reality is that the Protocols mean very little to them because they come from a different era in a different part of the world. Their political illiteracy lead them to such rubbish.

    But of course when someone shoots your kids, demolishes your house and tortures your friends, all in the name of 'the Jews' then it is understandable that they will say 'the Jews did this' etc.

    I do not say Atzmon is a neo-Nazi because he isn't. His support for holocaust denial, and if you read the article I wrote I don't think there's a great deal of argument on this, doesn't mean he is a neo-Nazi but someone who is operating on the fringes with those who are keeping company with neo-Nazis, Paul Eisen etc.

    It is indeed a curious phenomenon that a small group of Jews and Israelis are, because of their double alienation, adopting the arguments of historical revisionists and other anti-Semitic tropes. I don't pretend to understand what goes on in their mind.

    If Joe believes Atzmon is a neo-Nazi then fine. We can disagree! Even the closest of comrades sometimes disagree.

    But I don't believe there is a similarity between Hamas, who represent, in however a distorted fashion, the oppressed of the oppressed. Atzmon is not oppressed though he gives a good imitation of so being. If anything he is tortured by his problem of identity.

    No I don't believe Atzmon, Eisen etc. should be treated as part of the solidarity movement. They should be excluded from the solidarity movement because they can only distract and damage it. Nothing he does or says is helpful to the fight to build support for the Palestinians.

    The reason I speak of 'nagging suspicions' is that it is difficult to know what, if anything Atzmon actually believes since life seems to be different sets of competing narratives for him. But I'm not opposed to debating with him or his type. Indeed I offered to debate with Paul Eisen when I met him once but being a mouse like creature he took fright!

    Tony

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  40. It certainly is true that anti-semitism is not indigenous to the Arab East. It has even less roots among Jews (!!!) - whether in Israel or the diaspora.

    It may have no native roots in the Arab East, but nevertheless it has been imported there and now exists and to some extent flourishes there.

    Both secular and Islamist regimes in the Arab world (and its non-Arab environs, such as Iran) use anti-semitic demagogy with considerable abandon.

    Of course, this is an impotent and in some ways pathetic enraged response to Israel's power as a racist state. But it is true nevertheless. It's still anti-semitism when the Protocols are explictly cited as an authority in the main document of Hamas, and linked with citations from Hadith about "killing a Jew".

    Atzmon has problems with identity? Hardly very surprising. I suspect there will be many more Israeli Jews with similar problems when the Zionist project really begins to unwind. Since Israel bears a strong resemblance to South Africa under apartheid and the dilemmas of those brought up as part of it will be pretty traumatic.

    The combination of the tragic history of the Jews with a present-day reality reminiscent in many ways of Afrikanerdom is pretty excruciating, and likely to cause a lot of people to become bent out of shape.

    Anyway, whether or not you treat Atzmon as part of the Solidarity movement, others, including quite a number of Palestinians, do so. His music, and the political aspect of that, gives him a mass audience in this regard. I doubt that people with illusions in Hamas will be easily persuaded that Atzmon is to be shunned for saying things that sound a bit like things that some of their leaders say (and say a good deal more forcefully than GA!).

    So I don't think either you TG, or for that matter even I (if I were to agree with your approach, which I don't) are remotely capable of excluding GA from the solidarity movement. Better to debate the issues raised by this current in a rational manner, and refute those aspects of what they say that give comfort to real racists that way.

    Anyway, all the best in terms of the things you say I agree with, and hopefully this exchange will provoke some thought about the best way of arguing about things like this.

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  41. I don't have any major disagreements with FP's last post. I don't consider that Atzmon is a part of the solidarity movement but he clearly relates to it in his own fashion.

    Yes I'm sure some Palestinians do work with him but that to my mind is a problem of the politics of the Palestinians.

    I see Hamas's anti-semitism, if such it is, as being reflective. As incidentally was Zionism's anti-semitism (until it gained state power).

    The tragedy of Atzmon is that he could, given his clear musical talent and his position as an ex-Israeli, be a force for change and good. According to his absurd positions, the letter that the Guardian published from me earlier this week was a Zionist one! Fortunately the Zionists don't accept that.

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  42. As your name implies fp,
    you're nothing but a bag of wind.

    You've already tried that tactic of accusing me of calling people Nazis or neo-Nazis. You had no evidence then and you have no evidence now.
    I quoted you're accusation -
    You can't deal with this problem by treating him as a Nazi, because he simply isn't one. He, Mary and co need to be debated with rationally, not abused as Nazis or proto-Nazis.
    - This isn't a problem at all. It's quite a straightforward matter of a few moronic racists trying to infiltrate the Palestine solidarity movement. It couldn't be simpler.


    To which I replied -
    I don't abuse anybody as nazis or neo-nazis. If people want to justify Nazi crimes then it makes them supporters of the Nazis. Its quite simple. I don't know anybody else who would go about justifying Nazi horrors except Nazi sympathisers and supporters.
    01 November 2008 10:26


    Obviously you have the same problem as your glorious leader Atzmon. You can't actually remember what you say from one comment to the next (or one article to the next, or even one sentence to the next). A process you refer to as some kind of evolutionary thought process. Others like me prosiacally referred to it as psuedo-intellectual pretentiousness and time-wasting bullshit.

    He is an antisemite and a racist - at least you agree with me on that. Your silence speaks volumes that you aren't able to defend him against such charges but you are willing to continue to defend Atzmon against charges I haven't made.


    Incidentally, what do you call people like Rizzo and Atzmon who justify the Holocaust or say Jews are no better than Nazis, or who want Jews de-judified, or who refer to Palestine solidarity in the UK as being judified by Marxist rabbis, ad nauseum?

    How ironic, in a movement devoted to anti-racism peace and justice that such tolerance should be allowed to people to spew out the most unbelieveable racist filth imagineable, but don't ever dare call such extremists either Nazis or neo-Nazis - racists and antisemites is ok though.


    fp, if you want to debate with anyone go ahead and knock yourself out - I don't need amatuers like you to tell me what I'm about or what Palestine solidarity is about.

    I look forward to reading your dazzling debates with holocaust justifiers and antisemites such as Rizzo, Atzmon et al.
    Where can I find such debates you have been engaged in up to now, or even in the future?


    The only people who take the supposed antisemitism of Hamas, and Arab people in general, seriously are their enemies such as the US, UK, EU and US and Israeli state.
    Atzmon-Rizzo identify with the very racism used to justify the destruction of Palestine and Palestinians. In exactly the same way Atzmon uses racist zionist definitions in order to carry out racist attacks against Jews.

    Like much else these two racists get up to, a more self-destructive self-defeating course of action would be hard to imagine with regards to trying to help Palestinians and their friends, in contrast to helping their enemies.

    Fighting against racists like Rizzo-Atzmon is no different from fighting against the enemies of solidarity, equality, peace and justice for all.

    True friends don't blindly follow and agree with everything their companions do, such as Hamas and its alleged antisemitism. They offer independent help and advice and let them know when they think they are wrong. That is true humanity and solidarity.

    Because some elements of Hamas are a bit politically backwards is no excuse for others to follow them. I wouldn't follow some of the current PLO leadership and Hamas is no different. A suffering People who can hardly think straight for themselves, deserve better than hollow empty flattery especially from well-fed parasitic westerners seeking personal popularity and cheap publicity.

    Exploiting such weak and suffering people in order to disseminate neo-nazi propaganda and racially abuse others is the lowest of the low.


    all the best azvas!

    ps
    As fp is incapable of presenting evidence for his repeated charge that I've called Rizzo-Atzmon Nazis or neo-Nazis (heaven forbid!) so I'll do it myself.

    Here's 2 comments I've made in the above thread, which is about as close as its gets really -

    So we have the situation where Atzmon-Rizzo are in agreement with their fellow neo-Nazis, when they both claim the victims of the Nazis deserved the crimes carried out against them by Hitler.
    03 November 2008 11:22


    It is significant that Atzmon's view is very stereotyped one, of a dominating society in relation to its minorities. You are either one of us or you're not, according to our criteria not your's. It's all very BNP-ish.
    05 November 2008 11:17

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  43. Joe, I am quite willing to let others judge on the questions in dispute between us. I note that the exchange between myself and TG ended reasonably fraternally, despite no doubt continued disagreements on some questions. That's the way on-line discussions should be conducted.

    Chill man. You are quite welcome to take the piss out of my silly name by the way - that's what its there for! It would be better in many internet discussions if everyone used silly names, that way there wouldn't be so many personalised flame wars. Fartypants flaming Droopyknickers would tend to be self-disarming n'est-ce pas?

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  44. Joe, I am quite willing to let others judge on the questions in dispute between us.
    - Yes sure fp, whatever.

    Now you're trying to re-invent yourself as the voice of reason. You've completely steered away from defending the indefensible, namely an
    antisemitic racist disseminator of neo-nazi propaganda. Someone who exploits the weakness, pain and suffering of Palestinians. A racist parasite if there ever was one.


    And lets not forget who it was who was very willing to call other people, Nazis and book burners, all on the strength of a single comment by TG -
    Logically,if you aren't supposed to read Slezkine, then presumably his books should be burned. Didn't the Nazis do things like that?
    27 October 2008 20:48

    But yet, the standards required and the amount of evidence needed, to convict Saint Gilad of Atzmon of the same crime seem to be stratospheric. Indeed, I doubt there is anything antisemites such as Rizzo and Atzmon could do which would satisfy your criteria for calling them what they really are.


    I asked you a simple question which you seem unable to answer -
    - what do you call people like Rizzo and Atzmon who justify the Holocaust or say Jews are no better than Nazis, or who want Jews de-judified, or who refer to Palestine solidarity in the UK as being judified by Marxist rabbis, ad nauseum?

    Some dispute!

    However, you're more than willing to engage in the hilarious public spectacle of trying to formulate Atzmon's ideal definition of 'jewishness'!


    I also look forward to you letting us all know where and when you're going to be holding these great debates of yours, with these two vile antisemitic scumbags.


    Bag of wind by name, bag of wind by nature.

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  45. what do you call people like Rizzo and Atzmon who justify the Holocaust or say Jews are no better than Nazis, or who want Jews de-judified, or who refer to Palestine solidarity in the UK as being judified by Marxist rabbis, ad nauseum?

    Well, I know what you call them. Neo-Nazis. Despite your denials.

    Subtlety, nuance, causality, or even analysis itself, is simply outside of your frame of reference. If Atzmon is a Neo-Nazi, then Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who inspired the Hamas charter, must have been neo-Nazi plus. Deny it all you like, but that is the logic of this argument. You sound like David T when you say things like this.

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  46. "how did America, once a symbol of freedom"

    Oh dear. The man reveals himself as either a ethno-historical idiot or a cheerleader for 'revisionism' (again).

    Let's see a country founded on genocide (possibly tens of millions), ethnic cleansing and slavery, indentured servitude; which still runs several active concentration camps ("reservations") and an extrajudicial torture camp for Muslims (Gitmo) is associated with "freedom"... WHO makes that link? NeoCons and arms dealers???

    Why anyone would ask this man the time and expect a credible answer is beyond, let alone take him seriously as an intellectual.

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  47. Well, I know what you call them. Neo-Nazis. Despite your denials.
    - Pathetic.

    Subtlety, nuance, causality, or even analysis itself, is simply outside of your frame of reference
    - Nah nah nah-nah nah.

    ...is simply outside of your frame of reference
    - So according to fp,
    Palestinians and Hamas are antismites, which makes it ok if we are antisemites as well. Maybe even neo-Nazis too, who knows.
    What unbelievable tosh.

    Speaking of -
    frame of reference
    - Rizzo and Atzmon and their communities are not being slowly starved to death, being shot up, blown up and demolished every day of the week.

    It's quite understandable if the victims of the Israeli racist regime take that regime at its word and blame their pain and suffering on Jews. After all, the Israeli establishment and the likes of the BBC claim Israel is a 'Jewish state', whatever that means.

    Nobody is obliged to believe western propaganda but the victims can be forgiven, rather than blamed, if they do.

    Well-off, comfortable westerners have no such luxury as they aren't under attack by anybody and have all the time and resources available to come to reasobable conclusions as to the plight of the victims of their own governments.

    Antisemitism only hurt Palestinians which is why zionists are so eager to use it all the time.


    I asked you what would you call Rizzo and Atzmon?

    I only ask you this as you seem quite eager to indulge in the most turgid racist bullshit imaginable such as discussing and defining 'Jewishness' - but you seem at a loss when it comes to the obvious.

    On a related note, where are these discussions you are having with Atzmon and Rizzo on these very subjects?

    By the way
    who are you really,
    Rowan Berekely, Edna Spanner etc?

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  48. "By the way
    who are you really,
    Rowan Berekely, Edna Spanner etc?"

    Just because you're paranoid, doesn't mean they aren't out to get you, you know!

    Joe90 has given up any attempt at political argument, as any reader can see. Which is a shame, because this exchange has at time had some real political content - at least with my exchange with TG. If Joe90 is really unable to discern the political difference between my arguments and those of GA (let alone those others mentioned - whoever they really are), then that is his problem alone.

    You can't win any argument by the sheer subjective intensity of wild and irrational accusations. You have to prove them, to show what you are saying to be objectively true. As Marx said, 'facts are stubborn things'. Indeed they are.

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  49. You sound like David T when you say things like this.
    - I am not the one who collaborates with racist anti-Hamas Palestinian- hating scum such David T and Mike Ezra. Atzmon is.

    Atzmon, Rizzo and the dross that follow them have no arguments to support their racist left-baiting crap. Hence their need to use the likes of Mike Ezra (of David T and 'Harry's Place' blog fame) to dig up personal dirt on their critics in order to silence them.

    fp accuses others of crimes that Atzmon is undoubtedly guilty of. No more eloquent argument is needed in order to show how muddle-headed and hypocritical these atzmon worshippers are

    It seems you have quite a lot of talking to do with Atzmon.
    Let us all know how you get on.

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  50. fp,
    Just to remind you of what you said, way back in October on this very thread -
    You can't deal with this problem by treating him as a Nazi, because he simply isn't one. He, Mary and co need to be debated with rationally, not abused as Nazis or proto-Nazis.
    30 October 2008 11:48
    - It's now nearly December.

    You seem to spend more time and energy telling me what a disreputable character I have, rather than you getting on with the more intellectually honest and responsible task of confronting Atzmon with your differences of opinion.

    Obviously, character assassination has greater priority, than you doing what you criticise others for not doing.


    I look forward to discovering the differences between your arguments and Atzmons -
    - so, for the umpteenth time, where are these discussions and debates taking place?

    After all
    you criticise others for not debating with him, yet you seem to be guilty of the same crime.


    Asking someone who they are isn't paranoia - especially Atzmon's acolytes who have a tendency to hide under various disguises because they're too ashamed to show themselves in public, just like you. The same goes for their master as well.

    In fact, it looks very much like fp is the one who is paranoid - otherwise, what's the problem with them telling us all what their usual internet name is that they go by?

    I've never heard of this 'fartypants' except on this blog. So it seems specially made-up for this blog alone and no other. FP also seems to know a lot about Atzmon and the turgid and bloated byzantine-esue labyrinth of illogical gibberish that he spouts. No mean achievenment. You should be proud of such a unique accomplishment.
    So why all the coyness?

    Atzmon's worshippers, like edna spanner and gillian spoon, also abuse internet privileges in quite childish anti-social ways.

    Here's an example -
    You can't win any argument by the sheer subjective intensity of wild and irrational accusations.
    - And neither can you 'win' arguments by making false allegations against the characters of others. This is a sure sugn you have no arguments yourself.

    If you do have any arguments then please tell me where you will be using them to debate with Atzmon?

    Otherwise, you calling yourself after a bag of wind, is quite an accurate statemnt of fact.

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  51. "You seem to spend more time and energy telling me what a disreputable character I have."

    No I don't. I said nothing about Joe's character since I know nothing about it except from reading what he writes. I only commented on what he writes.

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  52. No I don't. I said nothing about Joe's character since I know nothing about it except from reading what he writes. I only commented on what he writes.
    - Eh?

    What has reality got to do with mud-slinging, personalised comments and character assassination?

    I thought that was the whole point of you calling me things like emotional, irrational and wild - as well as comparing me to the likes of the scum at 'Harry's Place' blog - your descriptions of me haven't anything to do with reality, as such (as they lack supporting proof anyway), but are evidence of your own lack of arguments, as I pointed out.

    In fact, your standards are the one most like those practiced at 'Harry's Place' blog - you haven't any arguments so you throw mud and hope to silence your critics, much like Atzmon and Rizzo do.


    Further to this -
    - why not go along and criticise Atzmon for exactly the crimes I am not guilty of but he is, but which you don't mind accusing me of?

    It's obvious you're a hypocrite who refuses to live by standards which you hold others to.


    I notice you prefer to continue with never-ending mealy-mouthed excuses instead of letting us all know where this debate between you and Atzmon is to be found.
    Or is this another crime only other people can be guilty of but not you?

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  53. "I thought that was the whole point of you calling me things like emotional, irrational and wild"

    These are Joe's words, not mine - those words do not appear in my contributions. Mind you, Joe is not doing very well at refuting this idea - whoever's it may be.

    Chill man. If you get so het up because someone might think you "emotional, irrational and wild", doesn't that tend to confirm the thought?

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  54. Anyway, more to the point is that there was a decent political discussion on this thread, even if at times a little heated, between myself and TG. It ended reasonably fraternally.

    Joe seems to want to finish with a flame war instead. I'm not playing that game. That's me signing off.

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  55. Joe seems to want to finish with a flame war instead. I'm not playing that game. That's me signing off.
    - More mis-direction I'm afraid.
    Unless, of course, that's been your game all along.
    A 'flame war' certainly hasn't been mine and I've no idea what you're on about.

    I have collected evidence and marshalled them into sound logical arguments - and because you have no answer to them, you have resorted to anti-intellectual abuse which you seem unable to bring under control.


    So for the umpteenth time,
    where is this debate you are having with Atzmon?


    After all, you accuse others with not engaging with Atzmon and his worshippers - but seemingly asking an obvious gas-bag like you, to live up to the standards you demand of others is characterised by you as a 'flame war' and as not being fraternal.

    Boo hoo hoo!

    I suppose it's your obvious fraternity and intellectual honesty and responsibilty which prevents you from telling anyone what your normal blog name is, or where your discussions with Atzmon can be found?


    ps
    "I thought that was the whole point of you calling me things like emotional, irrational and wild"

    These are Joe's words, not mine - those words do not appear in my contributions

    - Oh gosh. You've got me there!

    You didn't actually use some or all of these words - but I never claimed you did.
    I was using an intellectual device called 'paraphrasing'. Maybe you've heard of it?
    Otherwise, if I was using your actual words, I would have used quote marks to distiguish them from my own, etc etc.

    I mean, if there was any real difference from my paraphrasing and characterisation, and the actual drivel you spout, I'm sure even you have the wits to point it out.

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