Gilad Atzmon Comes Out - Now an open anti-Semite

I am not a Jew anymore.  I despise the Jew in me. I absolutely detest the Jew in you.

This blog was set up in 2007 to combat the pernicious influence of Gilad Atzmon, who operated on the fringes of the Palestine solidarity campaign.  To me and others anti-Zionist Jews it was clear that Atzmon was, without doubt, anti-Semitic.  Unfortunately this wasn’t at all clear to many others in the movement.

The Socialist Workers Party in particular couldn’t see the light and for a long time defended Atzmon.   See for example Time to say goodbye Why does the SWP not break its links withholocaust-denier Gilad Atzmon? 

The anti-Semitic Jazzman

What was decisive in breaking the influence of Atzmon over many in the Palestine solidarity movement was the joint call by Ali Abunimah, Omar Barghouti, Joseph Massad and other Palestinians for the movement to dissociate itself from Atzmon.  Granting NoQuarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of GiladAtzmon

I had many long arguments with many people who just didn’t seem to get it.  Not just common and garden fools like Roy Ratcliffe of Exeter PSC, who composed lengthy treaties proving that the Eart was flat and Atzmon was an anti-racist  but people who had a much higher intellectual calibre.

For example Richard Falk, the distinguished professor and UN representative in Gaza, provided a  blurb for Atzmon’s book The Wandering Who.  In an email to me of 18 December 2011 Richard wrote ‘I appreciate some of the points and arguments that are made. Nevertheless, having re-read Atzmon's book and his responses to comparable lines of criticism I am not prepared to alter, much less renounce, my endorsement…. Atzmon may have pushed his basic argument too far, but it seems to me a valid inquiry that can lead to debate and discussion, but is not appropriate to denounce, and to go further, and denounce those who endorsed the reading of the book.’  

I found it frustrating that people like Richard Falk could not see what was in front of their eyes, but he was not alone.  The primary reason for the difficulty in persuading people that Atzmon was an anti-Semite was because of the determined efforts of the Zionist movement to equate all support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism as anti-Semitic.  It had indeed blurred the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, such that people could no longer tell the difference between the two.

As I wrote at the height of the controversy in Seamy Side of Solidarity 'Like the boy who cried wolf, the charge of "anti-semitism" has been made so often against critics of Zionism and the Israeli state that people now have difficulty recognising the genuine article.'

Falk had written that Atzmon’s book was "A transformative story told with unflinching integrity that all (especially Jews) who care about real peace, as well as their own identity, should not only read, but reflect upon and discuss widely."

Ramzy Baroud, Editor of the Palestine Chronicle wrote in the blurb of Atzmon's book, The Wandering Who that “Gilad Atzmon decided to open Pandora’s Box, and ignite a debate that has been frustratingly dormant for too long. His experiences are most authentic, views are hard-hitting, and, at times, provocative. It must be read and discussed.”  Ramzy Baroud is not stupid yet he too did not get it.

Professor John J. Mearsheimer of The Israel Lobby saw The Wandering Who as ‘Essential to an understanding of Jewish identity politics and the role they play on the world stage.’

The idiotic Dr. Samir Abed-Rabbo splutterd that Atzmon’s book was "A pioneering work that deserves to be read and Gilad Atzmon is brave to write this book!"

Lauren Booth, Cherie Blair’s brain dead sister-in-law, wrote that “It is more than an academic exercise. It is a revelation!” Booth is clearly easily satisfied!

Eric Walberg of Al Aharam Weekly believed that ‘'In his inimitable deadpan style, Atzmon identifies the abscess in the Jewish wisdom tooth – exilic tribalism – and pulls it out. Ouch!” 

Jeff Blankfort an anti-Semite from the USA who used to be on the left, described Atzmon’s  book as "A brilliant analysis that makes what appear to be contradictions in Jewish identity based political behavior not only comprehensible but predictable."

One suspects Blankfort would have difficulty predicting a restaurant menu.

And Professor James Petras, who believes that the Israeli tail wages the American dog,  wittered on about how "Atzmon has the courage - so profoundly lacking among Western intellectuals"

Karl Sabbagh wrote that ‘Atzmon’s insight into the organism created by the Zionist movement is explosive.’  Quite how a vacuum can be explosive is best left to better minds than Sabbagh.

The unknown and best forgotten academic Dr. Makram Khoury-Machool wrote that  “Having known Gilad for 25 years, I read the book in English, I heard it in Hebrew and reflected on it in Arabic. Gilad Atzmon is astonishingly courageous” Makram Khoury-Machool has the ability to speak and read in 3 languages yet he is incapable of thinking in even one of them.

To the Israeli lecturer Oren Ben Dor, for whom the Holocaust is god's just revenge on the Jews, preordained in the thicket of his academic prose, Atzmon’s book was ‘A fascinating achievement”.

To Kim Petersen of the anti-Semitic Dissident Voice “Gilad Atzmon is someone who encompasses what it means to be an intellectual.” Thus demonstrating above all that she is no intellectual.

For Dr. Kevin Barrett “Gilad Atzmon is the Moses of our time” in other words another false Messiah.

What these and other eulogies to the Atzmon's ego demonstrate is not merely the stupidity of so many academics, whose use of long words and complicated phrases is designed to mask their own superficiality, but how Atzmon managed to pull the wool over peoples’ eyes.

It was that which I found most frustrating.

David Taube of Harry's Place and Mike Ezra excuse Atzmon's anti-SemitismMany Zionists too were fascinated by Atzmon because he was repeating many of their tropes, not least that Zionism and Judaism were inextricably linked.   People like Mikey Ezra and David Taube of Harry’s Place were fascinated.  Taube described a jaunt that he and Mikey Ezra had gone on with Atzmon:

'Last week, Mikey invited me for a drink with Gilad Atzmon.  Mikey’s thoughts on Gilad and his worldview follow, below. 

‘Gilad was, I have to say, utterly charming and a delightful drinking companion....
Is Gilad Atzmon a racist? Not in the narrow sense of being preoccupied by genetic differences between people certainly. He is rather, I think, a ‘cultural essentialist’: if such a term exists.'  

You get that?  A cultural essentialist, not a racist!

But with his latest tweet, there can be no doubt about Atzmon’s anti-Semitism.

‘1.        I am not a Jew anymore.  2.  I indeed despise the Jew in me (whatever is left).  3.  I absolutely detest the Jew in you.’

Arthur Topham - holocaust denier for whom Atzmon gave 'expert' evidence - KKK leader David Duke who wanted to give evidence was refused entry  into Canada

Last November Atzmon gave expert witness testimony (!) on behalf of Arthur Topham, an anti-Semite and holocaust denier, to a Canadian court.   Despite this Topham was convicted of racial hatred and is awaiting sentence.  

I have previously posted a compendium of Atzmon’s anti-Semitic sayings.  It can be found at:  A Guide to the Sayings of Gilad Atzmon, the anti-Semitic jazzman.  According to Atzmon, I am a Zionist because he too, like the Zionists, argues that any Jew who is politically active as a Jew must be a Zionist.

It is somewhat ironic that Atzmon is a fierce opponent of BDS.  For him it is a Jewish enterprise.  Atzmon makes a nasty, vicious attack on Omar Barghouti, who is facing the possibility of Israeli reprisals and deportation, despite being a long-standing Israeli resident.  In Omar Accomplished His Job, Omar Is Free To Go Atzmon says that 

'BDS was an Israeli controlled opposition maneuver.  For Israel, BDS presented the ideal front on which to fight. Instead of battling for a Palestinian Right Of Return, that is ethically solid and backed by UN resolutions, the solidarity movement was reduced to an internal Jewish debate over the “Right to BDS.”    

I just hope that Ramzy Baroud, Karl Sabbagh and co. have the honesty to admit that they made a mistake.

Gilad Atzmon Tour Hopes to Divide the BDS Movement in in USA

The Wandering Fool Tries His Hand in the USA

Gilad Atzmon, not content with his destruction and divisiveness in Europe, hopes to create similar divisions between Jewish and non Jewish anti-Zionists and supporters of the Palestinians in the United States. Perhaps having seen his supporters comprehensively defeated in Britain’s Palestine Solidarity Campaign conference in January, he decided that the growing BDS movement in the USA offers greater opportnities.

Whether Atzmon does this, as has been suggested, because he is an Israeli state asset is an open question which we may never know. See my article on how Atzmon and his closest supporter, Mary Rizzo, fell out over his friendship with an Israeli informer, one Morris Herman. http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2011/12/mary-rizzo-gilad-atzmon-falling-out.html What is known is that the Zionists rub their hands in glee and openly welcome his divisiveness.

A welcome statement, although overlong, from the organisers of an ad-hoc alliance against Atzmon’s poison. It is particularly welcome that Arabs such as As'ad AbuKhalil, known as the Angry Arab, heads the list. It is a great pity that Palestinians such as Joseph Massad have chosen to stay silent and it is to be hoped that the idiocy that welcomed Oslo doesn’t persist on the basis that any friend is better than none, although academics in my experience have always needed a shot of steel in their spines from time to time.

Below is a video recording of a meeting that Gilad Atzmon addressed (uninvited) in Stuttgart, Germany a couple of years ago. The following day Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada made it clear that Atzmon’s prescription – that Zionism & Palestinian oppression could be explained by ‘Jewish culture’ was about as helpful as looking to Afrikaaner culture for an explanation of Apartheid.

Tony Greenstein

Not Quite "Ordinary Human Beings" --
Anti-Imperialism & the Anti-Humanist Rhetoric of Gilad Atzmon

Attempting to latch onto the just, vital, and growing movement in support of the Palestinian national liberation struggle, Gilad Atzmon is one of a very small and unrepresentative group of writers who have argued (in agreement with many Zionists) that there is no meaningful distinction to be made between Jews in general and Israeli atrocities. According to Atzmon, the latter are simply a manifestation of Jews' historic relationship to gentiles, an authentic expression of an essentially racist, immoral, and anti-human "Jewish ideology."

Atzmon's statements, besides distorting the history of Jews and constituting a brazen justification for centuries of anti-Jewish behavior and beliefs, also downgrade anti-Zionism to a mere front in the broader (anti-Jewish) struggle. Atzmon has specifically described Zionism not as a form of colonialism or settlerism, but as a uniquely evil ideology unlike anything else in human history. In addition to any ethical problems, this line of argumentation actually strengthens Zionism's grip and claim to be the authentic representative of Jews. It obscures the reality that Zionism is an imperialist and colonialist enemy of Jewish people and Palestinians, as well as the Arab people generally and all those oppressed and exploited by imperialism.

In his online attack on Moshe Machover, an Israeli socialist and founder of the anti-Zionist group Matzpen, Atzmon states:

Machover's reading of Zionism is pretty trivial. "Israel," he says, is a "settler state." For Machover this is a necessary point of departure because it sets Zionism as a colonialist expansionist project. The reasoning behind such a lame intellectual spin is obvious. As long as Zionism is conveyed as a colonial project, Jews, as a people, should be seen as ordinary people. They are no different from the French and the English, they just happen to run their deadly colonial project in a different time.1

For Atzmon, such views are "pretty trivial" and "lame" because he holds that Jews are in fact radically different from the French and the English. Of the many quotes we could provide in this regard, here is a small sampling:2

;In order to understand Israel's unique condition we must ask, "who are the Jews? What is Judaism and what is Jewishness?"3

'Zionism is a continuation of Jewish ideology.4

'The never-ending robbery of Palestine by Israel in the name of the Jewish people establishes a devastating spiritual, ideological, cultural and, obviously, practical continuum between the Judaic Bible and the Zionist project. The crux of the matter is simple yet disturbing: Israel and Zionism are both successful political systems that put into devastating practice the plunder promised by the Judaic God in the Judaic holy scriptures.'5

Sadly, we have to admit that hate-ridden plunder of other people's possessions made it into the Jewish political discourse both on the left and right. The Jewish nationalist would rob Palestine in the name of the right of self-determination, the Jewish progressive is there to rob the ruling class and even international capital in the name of world working class revolution.6

Were Jewish Marxists and cosmopolitans open to the notion of brotherhood, they would have given up on their unique, exclusive banners and become ordinary human beings like the rest of us.7

I do not consider the Jews to be a race, and yet it is obvious that "Jewishness" clearly involves an ethno-centric and racially supremacist, exclusivist point of view that is based on a sense of Jewish "chosen-ness."8

At the most, Israel has managed to mimic some of the appearances of a Western civilisation, but it has clearly failed to internalise the meaning of tolerance and freedom. This should not take us by surprise: Israel defines itself as a Jewish state, and Jewishness is, sadly enough, inherently intolerant; indeed, it may be argued that Jewish intolerance is as old as the Jews themselves.9

'Israel and Zionism then, has proved to be a short lived dream. It was initiated to civilise Jewish life, and to dismantle the Jewish self-destructive mode. It was there to move the Jew into the post-herem phase.10 It vowed to make the Jew into a productive being. But as things turned out, neither the Zionists nor the "anti Zionists" managed to drift away from the disastrous herem culture. It seems that the entire world of Jewish identity politics is a matrix of herems and exclusion strategies. In order to be "a proper Jew," all you have to do is to point out whom you oppose, hate, exclude or boycott.11

The conclusion to such views is not difficult to draw:

The endless trail of Jewish collective tragedies is there to teach us that Jews always pay eventually (and heavily) for Jewish power exercises. Yet, surprisingly (and tragically) enough, Jews somehow consistently fail to internalise and learn from that very lesson.12

More precisely, commenting on the climax of State violence directed at Jews in the 1930s, most famously by Germany, but also in most other European nations, Atzmon is clear:

The remarkable fact is they don't understand why the world is beginning to stand against them in the same way they didn't understand why the Europeans stood against them in the 1930s. Instead of asking why we are hated they continue to toss accusations on others.13

Within the discourse of Jewish politics and history there is no room for causality. There is no such a thing as a former and a latter. Within the Jewish tribal discourse every narrative starts to evolve when Jewish pain establishes itself. This obviously explains why Israelis and some Jews around the world can only think as far as "two state solution" within the framework of 1967 borders. It also explains why for most Jews the history of the holocaust starts in the gas chambers or with the rise of the Nazis. I have hardly seen any Israelis or Jews attempt to understand the circumstances that led to the clear resentment of Europeans towards their Jewish neighbors in the 1920's-40's.14

It is, as such, not surprising that Atzmon's work has received enthusiastic reviews by such prominent members of the racist right as former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, Kevin MacDonald of the Occidental Observer, David Icke, and Arthur Topham's the Radical Press. It should not be surprising that Atzmon has distributed articles defending Holocaust deniers and those who write of "the Hitler we loved and why."15 These connections ultimately serve the interests of Zionism, which seeks to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Jewishness. Zionist agents have repeatedly attempted to ensnare and link Palestinian, Arab, and/or Muslim rights advocates to Neo-Nazism, through dirty tricks and outright lies.

It is more surprising and disappointing, then, that a small section of the left has opted to promote Atzmon and his works. In the UK, the Socialist Workers Party promoted Atzmon for several years16 before finally breaking with him; his latest book The Wandering Who? has been published by the left-wing Zero Books (a decision that elicited a letter of protest from several Zero authors).17 In the United States, the widely-read Counterpunch website has repeatedly chosen to run articles by Atzmon. Currently, in February and March 2012, Atzmon is on tour in North America, where several of his speaking engagements are being organized by progressive anti-imperialists whom we would normally like to consider our allies.

While perhaps well-meaning, operating under the assumption that any opposition to Zionism is to be welcomed, progressives who promote the work of Atzmon are in fact surrendering the moral high ground by encouraging a belief-system that simply mirrors that of the most racist section of Israeli society. Anti-racism is not a liability; on the contrary, it is a principle that makes our movements stronger in the long fight for a better tomorrow.

As political activists committed to resisting colonialism and imperialism -- in North America and around the world -- we recognize that there can be different interpretations of history, and we welcome exploring these. Without wishing to debate the question of whether far-right and racist ideologues should be censored, or how, we see no reason for progressive people to organize events to promote their works.

In our struggle against Zionism, racism, and all forms of colonialism and imperialism, there is no place for anti-Semitism or the vilification of Jews, Palestinians, or any people based on their religions, cultures, nationalities, ethnicity, or history. At this historic junction -- when the need to struggle for the liberation of Palestine is more vital than ever and the fault lines of capitalist empire are becoming more widely exposed -- no anti-oppressive revolution can be built with ultra-right allies or upon foundations friendly to creeping fascism.

1 Gilad Atzmon, "Tribal Marxism for Dummies," originally published in June 2009, republished on his Web site on April 24, 2011.

2 Many more quotes like these could be provided, but we assume this is enough to show that these are not out-of-context or out-of-character remarks. If not, readers may wish to peruse the section of Atzmon's website on "Jewishness"

3 Gilad Atzmon, "Tribal Marxism for Dummies," Atlantic Free Press, July 2, 2009.

4 Anayat Durrani, "Exposing Dangerous Myths," Interview with Gilad Atzmon, originally published in Al-Ahram Weekly (May 19-25, 2011), republished on Atzmon's Web site on May 19, 2011.

5 Gilad Atzmon, "Swindler's List: Zionist Plunder and the Judaic Bible," Redress Information & Analysis, April 5, 2008.

6 Ibid.

7 Ibid.

8 Gilad Atzmon, "An Interesting Exchange With A Jewish Anti Zionist," Atzmon's Web site, August 17, 2011.

9 Gilad Atzmon, "The Herem Law in the context of Jewish Past and Present," Atzmon's Web site, July 16, 2011.

10 "Herem" is a Hebrew word that refers to banning or excluding someone; it is also the name of the repressive legislation Israel recently passed to enable punitive lawsuits against those calling for a boycott of the apartheid state. For Atzmon, this law is just one more example of Zionism's Jewish uniqueness (guess he never heard of SLAPPs), as he concludes that "this is what Jews do best: destroying, excluding, excommunicating, silencing, boycotting, sanctioning. After all, Jews have been doing this for centuries."

11 Ibid.

12 Gilad Atzmon, "A Warning From The Past," Atzmon's Web site, May 26, 2011.

13 Quoted in Shabana Syed, "Time for World to Confront Israel: Gilad Atzmon," Arab News, June 14, 2010.

14 Gilad Atzmon, "Jewish Ideology and World Peace," Atzmon's Web site, June 7, 2010.

15 "Gilad Atzmon, the SWP and Holocaust Denial," BobFromBrockley, June 13, 2005.

16 "Gilad Atzmon and the SWP: a Brief Chronology," BobFromBrockley, October 5, 2011.

17 "Zero Authors' Statement on Gilad Atzmon," Lenin's Tomb, September 26, 2011.

As'ad AbuKhalil, The Angry Arab News Service, Turlock CA
Max Ajl, essayist, rabble-rouser, proprietor of Jewbonics blog site, Ithaca NY
Electa Arenal, professor emerita, CUNY Graduate Center/Hispanic & Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Women's Studies, New York NY
Gabriel Ash, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Geneva, SWITZERLAND
Dan Berger, Wild Poppies Collective, Philadelphia PA
Lenni Brenner, author, Zionism in the Age of the Dictator, New York NY
Susie Day, Monthly Review, New York NY
Todd Eaton, Park Slope Food Coop Members for Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions, Brooklyn NY
S. EtShalom, Registered Nurse, Philadelphia PA
Sherna Berger Gluck, Prof. Emerita, California State University/Israel Divestment Campaign, CA
Andrew Griggs, Café Intifada, Los Angeles CA
Ken Hiebert, activist, Ladysmith, Canada
Elizabeth Horowitz, solidarity activist, New York NY
Karl Kersplebedeb, Left Wing Books, Montreal, CANADA
Mark Klein, activist, Toronto, CANADA
Mark Lance, Georgetown University/Institute for Anarchist Studies, Washington DC
David Landy, author, Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights: Diaspora Jewish Opposition to Israel, Dublin, IRELAND
Bob Lederer, Pacifica/WBAI producer, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, New York NY
Matthew Lyons, Three Way Fight, Philadelphia PA
Karen MacRae, solidarity activist, Toronto, CANADA
Marvin Mandell and Betty Reid Mandell, co-editors, New Politics, West Roxbury MA
Matt Meyer, Resistance in Brooklyn, New York NY
Michael Novick, People Against Racist Terror/Anti-Racist Action, Los Angeles CA
Sylvia Posadas (Jinjirrie), Kadaitcha.com, Don't Play Apartheid Israel, Noosa, AUSTRALIA
Roland Rance, Jews Against Zionism, London, UK
Liz Roberts, War Resisters League, New York NY
Emma Rosenthal, contributor, Shifting Sands: Jewish Women Confront the Israeli Occupation, Los Angeles CA
Ian Saville, performer and lecturer, London, UK
Joel Schwartz, CSEA Local 446, AFSCME, New York NY
Simona Sharoni, SUNY, author, Gender & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Plattsburgh NY
Abraham Weizfeld, author, The End of Zionism and the liberation of the Jewish People, Montreal, CANADA
Laura Whitehorn, former political prisoner, NYS Task Force on Political Prisoners, New York NY
Ben White, author, Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination, and Democracy, Cambridge, UK

http://www.youtube.com/embed/s2bqK9jEDOQ

Gilad Atzmon – BDS is a Jewish Conspiracy

Why Palestine Expo Should Have Boycotted Jewish Anti-Zionists

Prominent Palestinians condemn Atzmon as anti-Semitic

It is some time since I devoted a blog post to Gilad Atzmon – the anti-Semitic jazz player.  For some years he and his supporters posed an increasing threat to the Palestine solidarity movement, polluting it with their overt anti-Semitism and giving comfort to the Zionists and supporters of Israel.  The Zionists said that everything they did was in the name of Jews and Atzmon was perfectly happy to subscribe to that lie.

Gilad Atzmon - the anti-Semitic Jazzman

Even the Socialist Workers Party issued a Statement on Gilad Atzmon and Marxism 2005 (21st June 2005) supporting him.  This was in response to a Jews Against Zionism picket of a meeting the SWP held with Atzmon at Bookmarks.  It stated that 

‘The SWP does not believe that Gilad Atzmon is a Holocaust denier or racist. However, while defending Gilad’s right to play and speak on public platforms that in no way means we endorse all of Gilad’s views.’  

The racist Campaign Against Anti-semitism did their best to have Palestine Expo banned

Unfortunately Atzmon was both a racist and holocaust denier and the title of his talk to the assembled SWP members, John Rose included, was the legacy of Otto Weininger, a reactionary German Jew of whom Hitler allegedly said that there was only one decent Jew and he killed himself!

The SWP statement seems to have disappeared from the SWP’s site!  Presumably it therefore never existed.  There are though still reports of the SWP’s effusive coverage which have not yet been deleted!

Atzmon's take on Palestine Expo 2017

Following the issuing of a statement Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon by Ali Abunimah of Electronic Intifada, Professor Joseph Massad, Omar Barghouti and other leading Arabs and Palestinians in 2012, Atzmon has faded away becoming both more bitter and more overtly anti-Semitic.  In 2011/12 an open holocaust denier, Francis Clarke Lowes was expelled, firstly from Brighton and Hove PSC and then from the national PSC.  As a result of these events Atzmon and his baleful influence has become a thing of the past, much to the annoyance of the Zionists.

Despite this I still come across the occasional supporter of the Palestinians, although more rarely now than before, who still believe that Atzmon is a supporter of the Palestinian struggle rather than a washed up ex-Israeli whose anti-Semitism is a reflection of the racism of his Revisionist Zionist father.

Atzmon - blowing his own trumpet

It’s now six years ago since I issued A Guide to the Sayings of Gilad Atzmon, the anti-Semitic jazzman.  I confess that I haven’t followed much of what he has written since then although by all accounts it has gotten worse.  In 2012: Atzmon joined the far-Right conspiracy site, Veterans Today.  In 2014: Atzmon praised David Duke of the KKK and also gave open support to Holocaust Revisionists.  In 2015: Atzmon described the Paris shootings as a false flag, i.e. that it was perpetrated by Jews.

The SWP's original statement exonerating Atzmon

Atzmon’s primary theme is that the dispossession of the Palestinians is all the fault of the Jews and that to be Jewish and Zionist are one and the same thing.  Indeed Jewish anti-Zionists are the worst of all because they are using their anti-Zionism in order to subvert the Palestine solidarity movement.  Because they are 'ethnically' Jewish they are irredeemably Zionist.  Ali Abunima dealt with this nonsense in their statement:

Atzmon’s politics rest on one main overriding assertion that serves as springboard for vicious attacks on anyone who disagrees with his obsession with “Jewishness”. He claims that all Jewish politics is “tribal,” and essentially, Zionist. Zionism, to Atzmon, is not a settler-colonial project, but a trans-historical “Jewish” one, part and parcel of defining one’s self as a Jew. Therefore, he claims, one cannot self-describe as a Jew and also do work in solidarity with Palestine, because to identify as a Jew is to be a Zionist. We could not disagree more. Indeed, we believe Atzmon’s argument is itself Zionist because it agrees with the ideology of Zionism and Israel that the only way to be a Jew is to be a Zionist.

Atzmon has flirted with Holocaust denial for some years and openly works with fellow holocaust deniers such as Horst Mahler, a neo-Nazi and former member of the Red Army faction who was sentenced to 6 years in Germany for Holocaust revisionism. [see Gilad Atzmon – Now an Open Holocaust Denier]

Mahler, a member of the National Democratic Party wrote a book ‘'The End of Wanderings – Thoughts on Gilad Atzmon and the Jewish people'.  Mahler escaped from prison in Germany and fled to Hungary to escape prison before being deported back to Germany.  [see German Nazis fail to save terrorist Horst Mahler from prison ]

In June as Al Aqsa and others were involved in organising Palestine Expo 2017, the largest cultural and political Palestinian event in Europe, the Zionists stepped up their campaign against it calling it a ‘Jewish hate fest’ and alleging that its main purpose was anti-Semitic.  Groups like the misnamed Campaign Against Anti-Semitism and the so-called Jewish Human Rights Group were to the fore in trying to get the event banned.  [Zionist 'Jewish Human Rights Watch' are Attempting to Destroy Expo 2017 the Biggest Palestinian Cultural Event ever in Europe]

In the face of these false allegations of anti-Semitism and support for ‘terrorism’, Jewish anti-Zionist groups and individuals mobilised to ensure that the Tory government did not cancel the event.  At the same time Gilad Atzmon was doing his best to try and persuade people that Palestine Solidarity and anti-Semitism were inextricably linked.

In Palestinian Expo 2017: The UK Government and The Lobby Atzmon wrote complaining that

‘Over the last decade, Palestinian solidarity has been hijacked by many Jewish organisations - JVP, IJAN, J-BIG – and also by other insipid left-leaning groups that in practice, have reduced Palestinian solidarity into a paradigm that is lame, meaningless and leads absolutely nowhere. This loose collective of tribal and Identitarian merchants has managed to reduce the magisterial Palestinian call for Right of Return into a squalid and self-serving Jewish internal debate about the ‘Right to BDS.’ The discourse of the oppressed is now defined by the sensitivities of the oppressor.’

You may find Atzmon’s incoherent ramblings difficult to understand.  Leave aside that the JVP – Jewish Voices for Peace is an American group that had little nor nothing to do with Palestine Expo. It is true that Jewish anti-Zionists in this country, unlike Atzmon, did their best to rally to defend Palestine Expo.  And what’s more we were successful and it went ahead. 

Atzmon though attempted to counterpose the Right of Return, which all Jewish anti-Zionist groups support to BDS.  He describes BDS as a ‘squalid and self-serving Jewish internal debate’  In fact BDS is something that originated in 2005, not from a Jewish internal debate but from Palestinian civil society groups in Palestine.  It was a call for solidarity and was immediately taken up in this country  by university lecturers in the Association of University Teachers union (later the University College Union) in 2005 when the AUT voted to support an academic boycott of Israeli universities.

Given that Netanyahu and the Israeli government has deemed BDS enemy number one and are spending $50m in the Gilad Erdan's Ministry of Strategic Affairs, the fact that Atzmon openly attacks it says everything one needs to know about his politics.

Atzmon complained that Palestine Expo 2017 , ‘could have been an attempt to re-instate the meaning of Palestine: its culture, its politics and its call for liberation.’  Perhaps if Atzmon had gone to the event he would have found out that that is exactly what it did.  What Atzmon meant by ‘the meaning of Palestine’ was, however, different from what most people mean.  He complained that it ‘Featur(ed) Jewish anti-Zionist voices, and endorsed by various Jewish organisations, it instead attempts to give voice to the most politically-correct and Jewish-friendly vision of solidarity available. And guess what, it didn’t work. Instead of welcoming this Zio-friendly approach, British Jews, utilising all their lobbies and employing every trick in the Hasbara playbook, have act institutionally and aggressively to cancel the event.’

Atzmon finds it hard to understand that Jewish anti-Zionist groups are in a minority and therefore not likely to be heeded by the majority Zionist groups in the Jewish community, although it is interesting that the Zionist calls for the banning of Palestine Expo were only from the far-Right of the Zionist movement in this country - the CAA and the so-called Jewish Human Rights Watch (which in practice is solicitor Robert Fenstenstein and a couple of mates).  The Board of Deputies, which is normally so voluble, realised that there were no conceivable grounds to ban Palestine Expo other than the explicitly racist one of deeming anything Palestinian as automatically anti-Jewish.

The fact that prominent Jewish speakers such as Miko Peled, the son of dissident Israeli General Matiyahu Peled, or Ilan Pappe as well as people like John Pilger spoke gave the lie to Zionist accusations that support for the Palestinians is anti-Semitic.  Many hundreds of British Jews attended this so-called 'hate fest'.  This however is what Atzmon dislikes most of all.  To him the ‘meaning of Palestine’ is an anti-Semitic meaning in which Zionist racism towards Palestinians is replaced by hatred of Jews.

It is because hatred of Jews is his most important priority that Atzmon rejects BDS.  He sees the prominent role of Jews in it as being evidence of it being a Zionist conspiracy.  In Gilad Atzmon Interview: Tangling with the Oppressor - What really matters is what Palestinians Do he attacked the academic boycott, because it was led by socialists and those on the left, Jewish and non-Jewish:

‘interfering with academic freedom isn’t exactly something I can blindly advocate. … I am against any form of gatekeeping or book burning. But it goes further, I actually want to hear what Israelis and Zionists have to say. I want to read their books. I want to confront their academics.’ ‘to impose a boycott is to employ a boycotter. ... the boycott is led by some minor academics with very little to say about ethics and even less to say about the specific conflict…. It has a lot to do with maintenance of some particular decaying old-school socialists within the fading progressive Western discourse. … When it comes to the current boycott we are unfortunately operating within a political mode rather than an ethical one. … Shouldn’t we ban as well any form of racially orientated activity? … I believe that the best way around it is to support freedom of speech categorically…’

For Atzmon ‘freedom of speech’ for the colonist trumps the freedom of the oppressed and that is why those who have illusions in him should think again.

Zero Books Authors Distance Themselves from the Decision to Publish Gilad Atzmon’s New Book ‘The Wandering Who?’

Richard ‘Lenin’ Seymour makes it clear that the SWP owes no-one an apology for its previous relationship with Atzmon [or indeed for anything!]

I received a message earlier today regarding Atzmon’s new book The Wandering Who? It informed me and others that ‘a group of authors published by Zero Books have criticized the publisher & distanced themselves from the decision to publish Atzmon’s conspiracy text.’

In response to criticism (see below) Richard Seymour of the Leninology blog and the SWP, made it clear that the ‘revolutionary party’ that the SWP claims to be is not answerable to anyone – and this much is true. The membership has no control, the leadership has no accountability and it can therefore lurch from one appalling mistake and piece of opportunism (John Rees accepting £10,000 cheque from a union busting capitalist in the Middle East for a trade union conference) to Martin Smith, its Secretary, promoting Gilad Atzmon despite his overt and acknowledged anti-Semitism and dabbling in holocaust denial.. At the time Jews Against Zionism and other anti-racists held a picket of the SWP’s meeting (June 17 2005)

In fact the only admission obtained from Seymour was in passing and related to what Seymour termed ‘The SWP's long-since aborted relationship with Atzmon’ and anyway ‘nor do I owe you any explanation for it.’ It is true I’m not personally owed an explanation, but perhaps the Palestine solidarity and anti-racist movements might be owed one?

It’s also untrue to talk about the SWP’s ‘long aborted’ relationship with Atzmon. I defy Richard Seymour to point to one article, one word, one syllable even, in Socialist Worker or their site, which states unequivocally that they have terminated their relationship and why. Instead they hope that people forget and like good Stalinists are intent on pretending it never happened or was a very long time ago (in fact about a year).

The statement they reproduced on their site (now gone!), is a rebuttal of the idea that Atzmon was either an anti-semite or a holocaust denier. The reasons? Firstly he was an Israeli born Jew who served in the IOF and now lives in Britain and secondly he was a good jazz player!

It is interesting that one of the reasons why Seymour and fellow authors have distanced themselves from Atzmon was on account of his essay ‘On anti-Semitism’ which was published in March 2003. It contains all you need to know about someone who believes Jews control the White House and that it doesn’t matter if the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion are true or not. ‘American Jewry makes any debate on whether the 'Protocols of the elder of Zion' are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews (in fact Zionists) do control the world.’ The bracketed ‘in fact Zionists’ was added at a later stage after the essay came in for much criticism. However the meaning is unchanged.

It was on June 17, 2005, over 2 years later that the SWP hosted Atzmon at Bookmarks to talk about Otto Weininger, about whom Hitler is alleged to have said that there was only one good Jew, and he killed himself. The idea of Atzmon giving a favourable lecture to the SWP faithful on Hitler’s favourite Jew, a misogynist to put it mildly, is beyond parody.

In fact another of Atzmon’s gems (‘The Learned Elders of Zion’) a parody on the infamous anti-Semitic forgery the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which is aimed at anti-Zionist Jews) is dated 9.11.06. showing that they took it straight from Atzmon’s site. In fact it was printed on the Truth Seeker conspiracy site, which regularly publishes holocaust denial articles, on June 12th 2005. And I have a file with the article dated 5.6.05. In other words the article was published nearly 2 weeks before the said meeting yet it didn’t ring any bells with the SWP.

It’s understandable that Richard ‘Lenin’ Seymour doesn’t want to answer for the SWP. Quite frankly, who can blame him? Nonetheless this rank piece of opportunism refuses to go away.

And having conducted a search of the Internet it would seem that Seymour has a habit of acting as the SWP's loyal subversive as when he closed down all discussion on his blog over the SWP's debacle in Respect and more serious charges that he acted as an apologist for the Serbian state and denied the appalling genocide in Srebenika (along with Spiked Magazine). It was a 'mere' massacre.

Tony Greenstein

Disappeared Statement by SWP 21 June 2005

Gilad Atzmon and Marxism 2005

There has been some controversy surrounding our invitation for the musician Gilad Atzmon to perform at Marxism 2005.

One or two small groups are claiming that Gilad is an anti-Semite and Holocaust denier. We would like to state the following:

Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli born Jew who served in the Israeli Defence Force and who now lives in “self-exile” in Britain. He is an internationally acclaimed jazz musician whose album Exile won BBC Best Jazz Album of 2003.

The SWP would also like to make it clear, that we would never give a platform to a racist or fascist. Our entire history has been one of fierce opposition to fascist organisations like the National Front and the British National Party. We played a prominent role in setting up the Anti Nazi League in the mid-1970s and Unite Against Fascism two years ago. One of our members, Blair Peach, was killed on an anti-fascist demonstration in west London in 1979.

Our founding member, Tony Cliff, was Jewish and, like many of his generation, lost many members of his family in the Holocaust. Nazis in the British National Party and National Front have targeted our members for attack. In the last three weeks we have helped initiate two vigils in response to anti-Semitic attacks on Jewish cemeteries in Manchester and east London. Across the country our members are involved in campaigns to defend asylum seekers, oppose police brutality and defend communities from scapegoating. We have a record of opposing fascism, anti-Semitism and all forms of racism, that is second to none.

The SWP does not believe that Gilad Atzmon is a Holocaust denier or racist. However, while defending Gilad’s right to play and speak on public platforms that in no way means we endorse all of Gilad’s views. We think that some of the formulations on his website might encourage his readers to feel that he is blurring the distinction between anti-Semitism and anti Zionism.

In fact we have publicly challenged and argued against those of his ideas we disagree with. We do not believe that Gilad should be “banned” from performing or speaking. “No Platform” is a principle that the left has always reserved for fascists and organised racists. Where other disagreements occur, the left, with the same vigour, has defended the right to freedom of speech, debate and the clash of ideas.

Statement from Gilad Atzmon carried by the SWP
Gilad Atzmon has made the following statement refuting the allegations:

This is to confirm that I am not a Holocaust denier, I have never denied the Nazi Judeocide and I do not have any intentions to do so. For me racism and Nazism are categorically wrong and it is that very realisation that made me into a devoted opponent of Israel and Zionism.

For me, Zionism, being a racist expansionist movement, is no different from Nazi ideology. In my writings, I try to suggest some alternative philosophical and ethical realisation of historical narratives and current world affairs. This of course applies to the Holocaust. I would argue that atrocities should be realised in ideological terms rather than in measurable positive terms.

Occasionally I question the impact of the Holocaust as a “means of justification”. I try to scrutinise its role within western politics and discourse. In fact, I am not interested in the debate concerning the scale of Jewish casualties. As we all know, it wasn’t only Jews who died in that bloody war and it isn’t the number that makes the difference.

For me the Holocaust isn’t a question of quantity but rather a moral lesson, it is search into the essence of being amongst others. These ideas make me very unpopular among Zionists and their supporters.

I may mention as well that I am a jazz musician and a novelist. I am not a politician; I have never been a member in any political party. I am acting independently. I am not associated with any political body and I do not intend to be associated with one in the foreseen future. I deeply believe in an open intellectual exchange in which people with many different and opposing views can hear and be heard. I do believe that we must learn to listen to our opponents. Unless we do that we will never win. I would argue that any form of discourse is acceptable as long as it doesn’t bridge the elementary ethical barrier i.e. endorsing violence and discrimination.

Those who try to stop me from appearing in Marxism 2005 next month and Bookmarks later this week are in fact reactionary forces who aim to shatter the most intrinsic notion of intellectual life. They fight against freedom of speech, freedom of interpretation and ideological diversity. They are trying to forcefully implant their obscure views in the very core of British left discourse.

It is devastating to find out that those calls are expressed under the banner of British Jewish left (Anti Zionist Jews, JPUK etc). I would rather prefer to believe that, after such a long history of Jewish suffering, left Jews would position themselves at the forefront of the battle against discrimination and defamation. No doubt many Jews do and I am very thankful for that.

I use this opportunity to call my opponents to attend the coming events and to engage themselves in a fruitful dialogue with me and everybody else.

Peace, Gilad Atzmon

Correspondence Below:

E-mail 1: TG to RS and others

Yes but it's not before time. This has been known for 3 months. [in fact 2 months]

It seems to have taken Andy Newman's Guardian CIF piece to stir them into action.

I was originally informed of this by one David Taube of Harry's Place back at the beginning of August. I knew nothing of zero books but he made

The book itself is just a rehash of the old themes. It is so undialectical that I am surprised that anyone takes it seriously. As it is, those like Prof. Mersheimer who have contributed a blurb stand to discredit themselves as as result. It is really a shame that otherwise intelligent people are taken for fools like this.

Tony

This was more than Richard Seymour, who was on a list of about 20 people could take. He responded with a mixture of vitriol and denial, coupled with righteous indignation that anyone should try to hold him or his organisation, the SWP, to account for having promoted an open anti-Semite and holocaust denier. His response to political criticism? Shut your mouth!

E-mail 2: RS to TG and others

Sent: Tuesday, 27 September 2011, 18:00
Subject: Re: Gilad Atzmon, antisemitism and the left | Andy Newman | Comment is free | The Guardian

The completion and timing of this statement has nothing to do with Andy Newman's piece. It has been in the works for some time, pending further information from Zero. Get your facts right, Tony. Or, as I would prefer, keep it shut.

Richard

E-mail 3: TG to RS and others

Richard Seymour,

Yes I'm sure you would prefer that I get my mouth shut. That way you can avoid being tempted into providing explanations as to what happened to the statement from Atzmon on the SWP website and why, to this day, you have not explained why the SWP maintained a relationship with Atzmon for some 3-4 years. It is a serious matter when an organisation that calls itself Marxist and revolutionary socialist deliberately promotes someone who is nakedly anti-Semitic. What kind of bloody Marxist organisation is that?

Martin Smith should be expelled. Instead he is or was your National Secretary and is still a Central Committee member.

I remember challenging Sabby Sagall outside the founding meeting of Independent Jewish Voices as to why he was giving out leaflets advertising an Atzmon give, in February 2007. He looked bemused and kept quiet.

Honesty comrade, being able to own up to mistakes and admit you got it wrong, rather than pretend nothing has happened.

Your explanation below is not good enough. If you are saying it is a coincidence that the article from Andy appeared yesterday and the statement today, which I doubt, then that begs some questions. Why did it take you so long to get your act together, when Atzmon's book has been widely publicised for nearly 2 months? What further information did you require from Zero that required you to keep quiet? You may have written the statement and collected the statements before but the timing of its release? Was that a coincidence?

Why also did David Taube, not exactly a political bedfellow, write to me and no doubt others on August 6th, i.e. nearly 2 months ago, to inform me of the fact that a left-wing publisher Zero books, was printing Atzmon. When did you learn of this yourself? Recently or before then? If so why did u keep silent. What is the organisational relationship of the SWP with Zero? Is it similar to what Pluto Books used to be?

It would seem that you have very good reason for wanting me to keep silent, but sorry comrade, socialists believe in free and open discussion. Or had you forgot?

fraternally

Tony Greenstein

E-mail 4: RS to TG and others

Tony, Listen, you poor, pompous sap. The SWP has nothing to do with Zero Books, which is an imprint of John Hunt Publishing (all of which is very easy to find out with a quick Google search). The impresario behind Zero, Tariq Godard, would be highly amused to be accused of having any association with the SWP. The SWP's long-since aborted relationship with Atzmon has nothing to do with this, and nor do I owe you any explanation for it.

Nor, while I'm at it, do I owe you an explanation for why Zero authors released our statement when we did. We do not answer to you. No one answers to you, unless you happen to own a pet dog. You may wish to reflect on the fact that it is this sort of self-important bluster on your part that has been responsible for such calamities as the humiliation of Jews Against Zionism at the PSC annual conference and its subsequent disintegration. I have nothing else to say to you, buffoon, on this or any related matter. All future missives will be deleted on arrival.

Yours etc., Richard


Gilad Atzmon, antisemitism and the left
Andy Newman
Andy Newman Guardian 25th September 2011

The Palestinian cause is hindered, not helped, when the left fails to notice or confront anti-semitism

Gilad Atzmon is a world renowned jazz musician, and a former soldier in the Israeli army, so his advocacy of the Palestinian cause is guaranteed to draw attention. Indeed, a small leftwing publisher, Zero Books, has commissioned Atzmon to write a book on the Jews as part of an otherwise entirely credible series by respected left figures such as Richard Seymour, Nina Power and Laurie Penny.

The trouble is that Atzmon has often argued that the Zionist oppression of the Palestinians is attributable not to the bellicose politics of the Israeli state, but to Jewish lobbies and Jewish power. Atzmon's antisemitic writings include, for example, a 2009 article – Tribal Marxism for Dummies – in which he explains that while "Marxism is a universal paradigm, its Jewish version is very different. It is there to mould Marxist dialectic into a Jewish subservient precept". Atzmon argues that it is merely a "Judeo-centric pseudo intellectual setting which aims at political power" and that "Jewish Marxism is there to … stop scrutiny of Jewish power and Jewish lobbying".

This is a wild conspiracy argument, dripping with contempt for Jews. Sadly, Atzmon's status as a celebrity advocate of the Palestinian cause means that he has been feted by some on the left. The Socialist Workers party, for example, used to invite him to attend their public events, and Indymedia has robustly defended Atzmon, even banning people who object to him.

Sadly, the left does not have an unblemished record on opposing antisemitism. In 2009, for example, the respected American leftist publication Counterpunch published an article by Alison Weir of the organisation If Americans Knew defending the unsubstantiated and implausible claims made by the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet about Israeli soldiers murdering Palestinians in Gaza to harvest their organs.

Weir implied, with no evidence, that Israel is at the centre of international organ smuggling. She then explicitly argued that the medieval "blood libel" – that Jews kill Christian children – has a basis in fact. Elsewhere, more than 3 million people have watched on YouTube the antisemitic film Zeitgeist: the Movie, despite its recycling of paranoia about a Jewish plot for world domination.

Sometimes well-meaning people fail to recognise antisemitism when they encounter it, because they are not attuned to the linguistic codes in which it is expressed, or are unaware of the cultural themes of anti-Judaic prejudice being drawn upon. Anti-Judaic bigotry predates modern racism, and is embedded in our culture. In pre-capitalist Europe Christians were prohibited from usury – lending money for interest. Medieval Jewry thus played a social role as financiers. The enduring negative stereotype of Jews as "greedy" therefore derived from medieval opposition to finance capital. As Martin Luther wrote in 1543: "[The Jews] let us work in the sweat of our brow to earn money and property while they sit behind the stove, idle away the time, fart, and roast pears … with their accursed usury they hold us and our property captive. … Thus they are our masters and we are their servants, with our property, our sweat, and our labour."

Luther may have little direct influence on modern antisemitism, but the identification of Jews as trying to control the world through money still has widespread currency, and informs the idea of a "Jewish lobby" that dictates American support for Israel.

The 19th century saw anti-Judaic feeling given a gloss of pseudo-science, with the birth of modern racialised antisemitism. This made an important difference because it created a racial category for the Jews. Whereas medieval anti-Judaism had regarded Jewishness as a question of faith, and therefore believed that Jews stopped being Jews if they accepted Christ, in the 19th century Jews came to be seen as aliens in Europe.

The Jews have always regarded themselves as a nation without a home, and it should come as no surprise that in response to such antisemitism Jewish political nationalism arose across Europe in the 19th century, or that Zionism then gave expression to the aspiration for a Jewish nation state. The actually existing Israel is founded upon displacement of another people, and there will never be peace and security until the Palestinians achieve justice. However, the cause of the Palestinians is hindered, not helped, by association with antisemitism.

It is incumbent upon the left and the Palestinian solidarity movement to both be aware of the conscious effort of far-right antisemites to infiltrate the movement, and to vigorously oppose and exclude antisemites. We would not hesitate to condemn racists, homophobes or sexists, and must be equally robust in opposing anti-Jewish hate-speech.

See also my own article ‘The Seamy Side of Solidarity’ in CIF in February 2007

Zero Authors' Statement on Gilad Atzmon

posted by Lenin

We are writing to express our concern that Zero Books, a vibrant, radical publisher, has made a terrible error of judgment in publishing a manuscript by the Jazz musician Gilad Atzmon. The book, entitled The Wandering Who?, is a discussion of ‘Jewish identity’ in the light of global issues such as Israel-Palestine, and the financial crisis. But the nature of Atzmon’s political engagement on ‘Jewish identity’ makes him at best a dubious authority on such matters. His central concern is to describe and oppose “Jewish power”, as he sees it. Thus, in one piece complaining about the presence of Jews in the Clinton and Bush administrations, he argues:

“Zionists complain that Jews continue to be associated with a conspiracy to rule the world via political lobbies, media and money. Is the suggestion of conspiracy really an empty accusation? ... we must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously … American Jewry makes any debate on whether the 'Protocols of the elder of Zion' are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews do try to control the world, by proxy.”[1]

This ‘control’ is, Atzmon argues, quite extensive. “Jewish power” is such that legitimate research into the Nazi judeocide (by which he means Holocaust denial) is impossible. The established history of the Holocaust is a “religion” that “doesn’t make any historical sense”. But Jewish power has “managed to prevent the West from accessing one of the most devastating chapters of Western history”.[2] Moreover, he blames the global economic crisis on Zionism and Jewish bankers:

“Throughout the centuries, Jewish bankers bought for themselves some real reputations of backers and financers of wars [2] and even one communist revolution [3]. Though rich Jews had been happily financing wars using their assets, Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States, found a far more sophisticated way to finance the wars perpetrated by his ideological brothers Libby and Wolfowitz...”[3]

Elsewhere, he relates that Marxism is merely an expression of Jewish tribal interests, “a form of supremacy that adopts the Judaic binary template”.[4] Thus, Jews are held responsible by Atzmon for war, financial capitalism and communism. Being born to an Israeli Jewish family, he does not identify the problem, as he sees it, in terms of blood or DNA. Rather, he identifies a “Jewish tribal mindset”, a “Jewish ideology”, as the animus behind Jewish attempts “to control the world”. Yet, racist ideology has never been reducible to its ‘biological’ variants. It has often taken a ‘cultural’ form, predicated on an essentialist reading of its object (Islam, ‘Jewishness’) which is held to represent a powerful, threatening Other.

Atzmon’s assertions are underpinned by a further claim, which is that antisemitism doesn't exist, and hasn’t existed since 1948. There is only “political reaction” to “Jewish power”, sometimes legitimate, sometimes not. For example, the smashing up of Jewish graves may be “in no way legitimate”, but nor are they “’irrational’ hate crimes”. They are solely “political responses”.[5] Given this, it would be impossible for anything that Atzmon writes, or for anyone he associates with, to be anti-Semitic. This shows, not only in his writing, but in his political alliances. He sees nothing problematic, for example, in his championing of the white supremacist ‘Israel Shamir’ (“the sharpest critical voice of ‘Jewish power’ and Zionist ideology”[6]), whose writings reproduce the most vicious anti-Semitic myths including the ‘blood libel’, and for whom even the BNP are insufficiently racist.[7]

The thrust of Atzmon’s work is to normalise and legitimise anti-Semitism. We do not believe that Zero’s decision to publish this book is malicious. Atzmon’s ability to solicit endorsements from respectable figures such as Richard Falk and John Mearsheimer shows that he is adept at muddying the waters both on his own views and on the question of anti-Semitism. But at a time when dangerous forces are attempting to racialise political antagonisms, we think the decision is grossly mistaken. We call on Zero to distance itself from Atzmon’s views which, we know, are not representative of the publisher or its critical engagement with contemporary culture.

Robin Carmody, Dominic Fox, Owen Hatherley, Douglas Murphy, Alex Niven, Laurie Penny, Nina Power, Richard Seymour & Kit Withnail. (Others to follow).
[1] Gilad Atzmon, ‘On Antisemitism’, Gilad.co.uk, 20th March 2003

[2] Gilad Atzmon, ‘Zionism and other Marginal Thoughts’, Gilad.co.uk, 4th October 2009; Gilad Atzmon, ‘Truth, History and Integrity’, Gilad.co.uk, 13th March 2010

[3] Gilad Atzmon, ‘Credit Crunch or rather Zio Punch?’, Gilad.co.uk, 16th November 2009

[4] Gilad Atzmon, ‘Self-Hatred vs. Self-Love- An Interview with Eric Walberg by Gilad Atzmon’, Gilad.co.uk, 5th August 2011

[5] Gilad Atzmon, ‘On Antisemitism’, Gilad.co.uk, 20th March 2003

[6] Gilad Atzmon, ‘The Protocols of the Elders Of London’, Gilad.co.uk, 9th November 2006

[7] See Israel Shamir, ‘Bloodcurdling Libel (a Summer Story)’, IsraelShamir.net; and Israel Shamir, ‘British Far Right and Saddam : responses of Robert Edwards and LJ Barnes of BNP’, IsraelShamir.net, January 2007