Gilad Atzmon - Rejecting any Rehabilitation

Blake Alcott’s Cut & Paste Defence of the Indefensible

Alcott's article in defence of Atzmon

Despite the fact that this blog was originally set up to combat the influence of Gilad Atzmon, his racism and anti-Semitism, I have ignored him in recent months.  After the issuing of a statement by Ali Abunimah and many other Palestinians and Arabs, and similar statements by activists, it is fair to say that Atzmon’s bubble burst.  The film that had been made of him bombed.  Activists were turned off by his attacks on BDS (very similar to those of the Israeli government which outlawed support for Boycott).

The imagine on the Redress site.  Note the 'subtle' alignment of Ali Abunimah, a key Palestinian activist, with Alan Dershowitz, a virulent Zionist zealot.

Nonetheless there are times when it is useful to go back over some of the arguments.  My attention was brought to a 20 page long apologia for Atzmon by one Blake Alcott, who describes himself as an ‘economical ecologist’ in his article in the anti-Semitic Counterpunch magazine, whose founder Alex Cockburn ended his life as a supporter of the French fascist leader Marine Le Pen.  One thing is certain and that is that Alcott was certainly being economical with the truth.  Just  how ecological it was I shall leave to others to judge.

Atzmon blows his own trumpet

Blake Alcott’s is one more attempt to put a leftist face on Atzmon and to try and provide a rationale for his repeatedly racist statements and assumptions.  It isn’t a question of words, or out of context quotes as Alcott believes.  Atzmon has himself demonstrated that he considers Zionism and Israel to be ‘Jewish’ phenomenon, arising out of a Jewish supremacist ideology, ‘Jewishness’. 

The fact that this article is carried on Counterpunch, which provides space for out and out holocaust deniers such as Israel Shamir speakes volumes.  When Mary Rizzo denounced Jews Against Zionism and myself in particular, Counterpunch not only refused to carry a response but it refused even to acknowledge the response of Roland Rance and myself.  But what does one expect from a web site that a sympathiser with the French National Front and Marine Le Pen, Alex Cockburn, ran?

When an essay begins with a lie then it is pretty clear that it’s going to be all downhill from thereon.  Alcott states that ‘I ignore denunciations of Atzmon by Alan Dershowitz, Tony Greenstein and Jeffrey Goldberg because they consist of associative thinking and are based on often-unreferenced quotations out of context.’

This is a demonstrable lie since anyone who takes the time and trouble to read my Guide to Atzmon’s sayings  will know that everything is sourced back to what Atzmon himself has written.  If Alcott finds that ‘associative thinking’ (I assume that associating Atzmon with his own writings is not unfair) is a problem then that demonstrates the limits of his own analysis.  Neither Goldberg nor Dershowitz are capable of any analysis worthy of the name because both are Zionists who defend Israel and Zionism without question.  I do not.  Hence the intellectual contortions of Alcott as he tries to make a case for Atzmon:

Colonialism

 Alcott tries to square the circle by saying that ‘Atzmon is basically asserting that the settler-colonialist paradigm is not sufficient to explain Zionism:’

That is one way of putting it.  However it is not the way that Atzmon puts it.  Atzmon is a somewhat better guide to Atzmon than Alcott Through Atzmon’s Looking Glass (with a tint of pseudo-left sophistry).  Alcott quotes argues that Atzmon doesn't reject the idea that Israel is a settler colonial entity.  He merely states that it is not the entire explanation.  However in order to sustain this thesis, Alcott only cites the quotation in bold in Atzmon's book.  He deliberately excises all that follows.  Let me remind him of what Atzmon wrote in toto:

‘Zionism is not a colonial movement with an interest in Palestine, as some scholars suggest. Zionism is actually a global movement that is fuelled by a unique tribal solidarity of third category members. To be a Zionist means to accept that, more than anything else, one is primarily a Jew.’ p.15, Wandering Who?.

A global movement fuelled by a ‘unique tribal solidarity’.  Clearly it is not a settler-colonial movement, it is part of a wider conspiracy.  And Atzmon continues in relation to the Organismus that

‘It is more than likely that ‘Jews’ do not have a centre or headquarters. It is more than likely that they aren’t aware of their particular role within the entire system, the way an organ is not aware of its role within the complexity of the organism…. This is probably the Zionist movement’s greatest strength. It transformed the Jewish tribal mode into a collective functioning system.
 
Looking at Zionism as an organismus would lead to a major shift in our perspective of current world affairs. The Palestinians, for instance, aren’t just the victims of the Israeli occupation, they are actually the victims of a unique global political identity, namely the third category people who transformed the Holy Land into a Jewish bunker.’ p.17.

In fact Atzmon rejects the settler colonial paradigm in its entirety, whilst paying lip-service to it rhetorically. 

‘These events [Mava Marmari & others] have nothing to do with the colonialist nature of the Jewish state as some Marxist ideologists insist. They may have something to do with the racist, supremacist, chauvinist ideology that fuels Zionism.’  Indeed Atzmon agrees with Alan Dershowitz that Israel cannot be a colonial state because it has no mother country. ‘Fair enough, I say, he may be right. I myself do not regard Zionism as a colonial adventure.’

An absurd formulation since Britain was the initial mother country.  It is what settlers do that counts.  The American settlers continued to colonise America after breaking with the British mother country.  Why not Zionism with the sponsorship of Britain.  So Alcott, having accused me of taking quotes out of context, does exactly the same and worse.  He selectively cuts his quote and thus distorts the meaning in order to bolster his case.

When Atzmon draws a straight line from Moses to Netanyahu he is in practice asserting a unique racial continuum, from.  Atzmoncites Moses oration to his people thus:

‘The Judaic God, as portrayed by Moses in the above passage, is an evil deity, who leads his people to plunder, robbery and theft. Yet there are many ways to deal with this negative image of the Almighty…. For more than sixty years, the Biblical call for theft has been put into legal praxis.’ 
What we have here is a Jewish race, a group of people who retain their characteristics, including their inclination to plunder and despoil, over the millenia.   I know that Atzmon denies he ever makes so much as a mention of biological race, but since race is a political construct, it can be based on biology, culture, ideology or a mixture thereof.  It is interesting that in his book (p.16) he writes that

‘In his book, Ostrovsky refers to it as racial solidarity; I call it third category brotherhood and Weizmann calls it Zionism. But it all means the same thing.’ 
Indeed it does all mean the same.  When we penetrate beneath Atzmon’s surface justification we see that he does indeed mean Jewish race and he ascribes to that race, bound together by a supremacist ideology (Jewishness) all that has happened in Palestine.  It is also the only way of justifying his comparison between the anti-Semitism experienced by the Jews of Europe and the dislike of Zionists (Jews to Atzmon) in Israel.  Both made themselves unpopular because of what they did.  The Bundists, who wished to confiscate the wealth of the capitalists [Atzmon singling out ‘Jewish socialism’ and the Bund is itself anti-Semitic – were all other socialists in favour of private property?  We should be told!). 

As for ‘Jewishness’.  How can there be one Jewish ideology?  Is there just one Christian ideology?  Clearly there is more to Jewishness than meets the eye.  It is the ideology of all those who consider themselves Jewish and it is only those who believe in race who succumb to the idea of a homogenous Jewry.  Atzmon ignores simple facts such as the rejection of Zionism from Herzl until 1945 by Jews themselves.  Atzmon has no explanation because for him to be Jewish is to be a Zionist.  [see ‘Not in my name’ for an expansion on this].

Let us be generous.  Alcott has never read my Guide to Atzmon so he is unaware of the passage which was omitted from his book.  Yet Atzmon made his views very clear and demonstrated that he was quite prepared to get into the sewer with the far-right. 

We even have the fascist canard that ‘Throughout the centuries, some Jewish bankers have gathered the reputation of backers and financers of wars’ and even one communist revolution. Though some rich Jews have been happily financing wars using their own assets, Alan Greenspan, the Chairman of the Federal Reserve of the United States, found a far more sophisticated way to facilitate or at least divert the attention from the wars perpetrated by Libby, Wolfowitz and PNAC.’ p.20 

This combines the traditional far-right thesis of the Jews financing the communist revolution with them controlling capitalism.  Alan Greenspan was apparently acting at the beck and call of Aipac in destabilising the American economy, presumably at the Jews behest.  It is what is commonly known as the World Jewish Conspiracy Theory, beloved of fascists and Atzmon.  Presumably the ‘leftist’ ecologist Alcott also has no problems with it either.

Holocaust Denial

In ‘Truth, History & Integrity’  Atzmon writes that:

‘I am left puzzled here, if the Nazis ran a death factory in Auschwitz-Birkenau, why would the Jewish prisoners join them at the end of the war? Why didn’t the Jews wait for their Red liberators?’

I think that 65 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we must be entitled to start asking questions… We should strip the Holocaust of its Judeo-centric exceptional status and treat it as an historical chapter that belongs to a certain time and place. The Holocaust, like every other historical narrative, must be analysed properly… Why were the Jews hated? Why did European people stand up against their neighbours? Why are the Jews hated in the Middle East, surely they had a chance to open a new page in their troubled history? If they genuinely planned to do so, as the early Zionists claimed, why did they fail? (pp 175-176)

Atzmon conveniently misses out the first paragraph of the essay in the chapter of his book of the same name.  Alcott also doesn’t mention it.  Perhaps he is unaware of it or more likely it didn't fit his thesis.  He clearly decided that it would be impossible to maintain the pretence that Atzmon doesn’t deny or query the factual aspect of the holocaust, i.e. that millions of Jews (& others too of course) were deliberately exterminated.  I can now understand Alcott’s objection to associative thinking.  Far better to stick with Atzmon’s denials and ignore the substance of his argument.

Instead Alcott cites with approval Atzmon’s trite and ludicrous observation that

‘People who place such questions out of bounds “are doomed to think that anti-Semitism is an ‘irrational social phenomenon that ‘erupts out of nowhere’. Accordingly they must believe that the Goyim are potentially mad.” (p 182) Alcott comments that ‘It is a matter of simple logic that to ask why Jews were hated in Europe is not to presuppose that there were good reasons.’ 

It is also a matter of simple logic to ask whether Atzmon’s statement is true or not.  This is, however, something Alcott is incapable of.  In fact it is quite possible to offer a rationale explanation for anti-Semitism which doesn’t assume that they were hated by everyone.  Anti-Semitism was for example a means by which aspiring and indebted rulers could scapegoat Jews for the ills that the peasants faced.  This however runs counter to Atzmon’s conspiracy theory of a straight line from Moses to present-day Israel.  In fact it is Atzmon’s explanation which is irrational.  Someone with a bit more intellectual depth would have asked who did the hating, why did they hate, what was the context in which they hated, always assuming they did hate.

And then one gets a far more nuanced understanding.  Incidentally the rolling up of ‘anti-Semitism’ as one long unchanging constant is itself an acceptance of a Zionist/Atzmon thesis.  In Germany the irony is that when Hitler came to power anti-Semitism was waning.  In many countries non-Jews did their best to protect Jews.  We all know that Ann Frank was hidden with her family by non-Jews, but this was not exceptional.  In Italy, the fact that 85% of Jews survived was on account of people, not least the much reviled Catholic Church, being willing to shelter them.

Alcott’s superficial apologia leads him to accept Atzmon’s nonsense.  Denmark’s whole Jewish community was rescued and taken by fishermen to Sweden.  There were large protest movements in Bulgaria, led by those wicked communists, which prevented the government deporting even one Jew (apart from the annex territories of Thrace and Macedonia).  In Amsterdam there was a general strike against the attacks on the Jewish community.  Atzmon speaks about the need to research the ‘historical narrative’ whilst pronouncing on something he has no knowledge.  He himself has made no attempt to acquaint himself with any research.  Instead he flatters the historical revisionists with their ‘research’ activities.  Alcott is his apologist.  The fact that the openly anti-Semitic Redress site, which Atzmon has a large influence over, has posted Alcott's article suggests that Alcott is nothing more than Atzmon's willing foot servant.

Other Observations

Alcott seeks to acquit Atzmon of the charge of racism by comparing him with Benny Morris, whose statements today are those of an overt Jewish racist, with Nazi overtones.  Morris defends his sweeping assertions about Arab culture by saying he is speaking of a dominant political culture.  So dominant that he regrets not expelling every single Palestinian in 1948.  Sorry Mr Alcott but comparing Atzmon to Benny Morris doesn’t excuse him.  If anything it compounds the case I and others have made.

Alcott says ‘Abunimah’s position is of course untenable’ referring to the blaming of Jewish ‘culture’ for Zionism.  Of course Alcott is unable to say why it is untenable.  Abunimah’s logic, that it is like blaming Afrikaaner ‘culture’ for Apartheid or British ‘culture’ for the crimes of British imperialism is meaningless is anything but untenable.

Alcott also confuses (or maybe doesn’t understand) Omar Barghouti’s position.  It is perfectly acceptable to cite, as Israel Shahak did, aspects of the Talmud which provide justification for the most barbaric practices of the religious Zionists.  The Talmud (compilation of Oral Law – there are 2 versions but the Iraqi version is more authoritative) is indeed as a form of legitimation but it is not the cause of Zionism.  It is only because Atzmon not only ignores Jewish opposition to Zionism but positively attacks Jewish anti-Zionists today, that he can maintain his thesis.

Alcott betrays his own motivation and beliefs when he talks of Atzmon’s ‘Exhibit A’ which is the ‘relatively large number of Jews in the UK Parliament (all hard or soft Zionists).’  Alcott writes pompously that ‘To declare out of bounds the subject of Jewish, as opposed to merely Zionist, influence in politics, finance and media is to claim that support for Zionism by many powerful people has nothing at all to do with the fact that they are Jewish, or rather, that they politically identify as Jews.’ 

Of course most Jews identify as Zionists.  That is the main basis of their being Jewish today.  There is no other socio-economic reason.  It is a trite observation.  But I am interested in the description of Jews in the UK Parliament as ‘hard or soft Zionists’ whatever that means.  Until the last general election the Jewish MP Harry Cohen identified himself as anti-Zionist.  The MP who made the most powerful speech denouncing Operation Cast Lead was none other than someone who is hated today by Zionism – regardless of whether he still calls himself a Zionist.  I refer to Gerald Kaufmann, who stated that his grandmother hadn’t died at the hands of Nazi butchers in order that Israeli butchers could murder Palestinian grandmothers.  No doubt this was a great aid to Olmert and Livni.

Alcott says that ‘Wandering does not demonstrate to my satisfaction that Jewish-ness is supremacist.’  Again he accepts the assumption that there is such a thing as ‘Jewishness’.  As such he goes down the road with Atzmon despite his protestations.  Alcott refers to the British Jewish Socialists.  Presumably he means the Jewish Socialists Group.

Alcott believes that ‘Atzmon is here too severe in his critique’ when he attacks Jewish anti-Zionists for merely trying to rehabilitate the idea of being Jewish.  If that were true then the next question would be so what?  Isn’t that another way of saying that there are some people who wish to assert a secular Jewish identity apart from Zionism.  Is that wrong?  In fact those of us who are Jewish and anti-Zionist face the most bitter attacks of the Zionists, as ‘traitors’ as Rabbi Shochet tried to do on BBC1’s Big Questions today when I disagreed with him.  The reason for their vitriol is that we are the living proof that there is nothing ‘Jewish’ about what Israel does.  Further that supporting the Palestinians is anti-Semitic.  The fact that Atzmon reserves most of his bile, not for Dershowitz but us shows where he is really coming from.

Alcott realises how difficult it is to defend Atzmon when he says of these attacks on Jewish anti-Zionists that he ‘overstates his case. It also seems merely polemical to claim that “when it comes to ‘action’ against the so-called ‘enemies of the Jewish people’, Zionists and ‘Jewish anti-Zionists’ act as one people – because they are one people.” (p 102)

It is not Jewish anti-Zionists who proclaim their opposition to BDS as a Jewish-organised campaign to take the heat off any focus on Jewish racial solidarity.  It is Atzmon who opposes BDS!  Unfortunately, in eschewing my very-well researched essay on Atzmon’s writings, Alcott is left scrabbling around reconciling opposites.  Take BDS, which let us not forget was a call from Palestinians and is universally accepted now by Palestine solidarity groups as the way ahead.  Atzmon does his best to pour scorn on it.  He has not a word to say in its favour.  To me has been explicit privately.  It is a Jewish con.

In his interview with Silvia Cattori  he says explicitly that ‘If anything, it has led to further intensified radicalisation within the right in Israel.’  Precisely the argument of apartheid supporters and apologists, like Thatcher.  It would only strengthen the Right.  Leaving aside that Atzmon believes there is a ‘right-wing’ Zionism as opposed to a ‘left’ – which in the past he has associated with the Israeli Labour Party) why is Atzmon opposed to describing Zionism and its fruit, the State of Israel, as colonial? Because it ‘locates Zionism nicely within their ideology… we first equate Israel with South Africa, and then we implement a counter-colonial strategy, such as the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions).’  Far better to concentrate on Jews as Jews with useful idiots, to use August Bebel’s famous phrase, seeking to pretend that Atzmon is just a bit confused and clear.  In fact, despite the attempts of Alcott to raise a smokescreen, Atzmon’s statements are very explicit and clear.

Alcott finds it impossible to defend the singling out by Atzmon of Alan Greenspan, who has not identified (to the best of my knowledge) as a Zionist, certainly is not prominent in so doing, but apparently was wrecking the US economy on behalf of Jewish interests.  If this is not an example of what Atzmon’s real motivation is then words are useless.  Yet Alcott  merely says that ‘Atzmon’s digression on Greenspan is harmful or at least pointless in the battle for justice for Palestinians.’  In fact all his digressions are harmful.  This is but one of many.  His singling out of Wolfowitz, as if all the neo-cons were Jewish is another example. 

Alcott’s essay is an exercise in exorcising the demons created by the Palestinians who signed the ‘Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon’.  The reason why he therefore ignores what Atzmon actually says and writes, and why the work which I’ve done is disparaged by association to Dershowitz, is that it is impossible to reconcile the anti-Semitism of his writings with his professed support for the Palestinians. 

Although I have vowed not to spend much time any longer on Atzmon, because his whole intention, to divide the Palestine solidarity movement, is ultimately aided by focussing on him, it is sometimes necessary to rebut those who try to pretend that Atzmon is a jolly anti-racist type.

The primary fault of both Atzmon and Alcott is that they operate ideologically within the parameters set by Zionism.  Alcott cites, presumably with approval, Atzmon’s own citation of Chaim Weizmann to the effect that there are no British or French Jews, merely Jews who are French.  Atzmon’s whole argument is based on an acceptance is this quite crucial aspect of Zionist argument.  However it is one which any self-respecting anti-Zionist would reject.  Jews living in Britain are British, unlike what the most inveterate anti-Semites, Atzmon and presumably Alcott argue.  It’s not a good idea to take one’s cue from the Zionist’s politically but that is Atzmon’s cardinal mistake, from which all the others – including his anti-Semitism follow.

Tony Greenstein

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's attack on Judeo-Marxism and Israeli anti-Zionist Moshe Machover

Atzmon's Racist Attack on Israeli anti-Zionist Moshe Machover

As Gilad Atzmon moves further and further down the road of anti-Semitism and away from any anti-Zionist critique, he focuses what passes for his ‘analysis’ on Professor Moshe Machover, an Israeli anti-Zionist living in London.

For those who don’t know, Machover founded Matzpen, the Socialist Organisation in Israel which he helped found in 1962. Machover has been an inspiration in his conviction and articulation of anti-Zionist politics. As such, he is an obvious target for the bile of Atzmon, who prefers the analysis and company of outright Zionists to that of Jewish anti-Zionists.

In his ‘Tribal Marxism for Dummies’ Atzmon achieves what many of us thought impossible. A new low. He informs us that with Israel’s war crimes now proven to the world ‘No one needs the odd kosher ‘righteous Jew’ to approve that this is indeed the case.’ Quite.

Moshe Machover is a secular Marxist as well as being Jewish, yet this doesn’t stop Atzmon from attacking his ‘tribally orientated pseudo-analytical vision of reality.’ After all ‘Jewish Marxism is very different from Marxism or socialism in general.’ An interesting thesis. Even Hitler might have had trouble with that one! The erudite Atzmon informs us 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.’

The fact that Marxism is, above all, predicated on rationalism whereas religion, in all its manifestations is based on received wisdom and faith in the irrational is passed over. There is Marxism and Jewish Marxism. Leave aside that many of the founders of the Marxist and Communist tradition were themselves of Jewish origin, including Marx himself, what Atzmon is peddling is no more than an updated version of the idea that Marxism is a Jewish conspiracy to enslave the non-Jew.

But having told us that ‘Jewish Marxism’ is merely a ‘Judeo-centric pseudo intellectual setting which aims at political power.’ Atzmon informs us that Marxism in all its guises is irrelevant because there is ‘little in common’ between Gaza and Nablus today with 19th century Europe.' Atzmon in this phrase demonstrate his intellectual and philosophical prowess. The whole point of Marxism is that it is a tool of analysis and understanding that isn’t confined to one particular geographical area or era. Hence why it’s understanding of capitalism has laid bare the vacuity of New Labour with its ‘end to boom and bust’. Capitalism is nothing if not crisis ridden.

But I digress. ‘Jewish Marxists had a far more adventurous plan for Palestinians, Arab people and the region in general.’ They wanted all Arabs to become ‘cosmopolitan atheists’ and “drop ‘reactionary Islam’”. Of course Atzmon doesn’t deign to source or footnote his assertions, because that is all they are, the assertions of a conspiracy theorist who has all but lost touch with reality.

Atzmon takes particular exception to Machover’s unremarkable statement that Islamic anti-imperialism is ‘backward looking’. Of course any Marxist worth their salt would share the position that not only Islam, but all religion is backward looking and when it comes part of the ideology of an oppressed people it cannot but become a hindrance in terms of being able to appeal to a wider audience.

Hamas, which Atzmon flatters to deceive, is a good case in point. The attraction of Hamas to Palestinians was not because of their fundamentalist ideology but they represented an opposition to Zionism and the Israeli occupation which, unlike Fatah, had dined so long at the table of the ‘peace process’ that all they could look forward to was a few crumbs of comfort. Of course Hamas too is not without original sin. As Avi Shlaim and others have pointed out, Hamas was all but the creation of Israel’s secret police, Shin Bet, in the 1980’s as a counter-weight to secular Palestinian groups.

As is well known, Atzmon detests Moshe Machover because he represents everything he is not. Machoer never felt the need to swap one form of racism for another coming from a long tradition of Jewish opposition to racism. Atzmon comes from the tradition of Zionist racism, except that he has transferred that racism in the direction of other Jews, in particular anti-Zionist Jews. Hence his nonsensical statements that ‘Jewish Marxism is there to… stop scrutiny of Jewish power and Jewish lobbying.’ Note ‘Jewish Power’ not Zionist power or lobbying even. What Atzmon doesn’t tell us that this comes from someone who has swapped Jewish fundamentalism for Christian fundamentalism!

Unlike the good Atzmon ‘Machover’s reading of Zionism is pretty trivial.’ And what is the triviality that this genius of Jewish power detects? “ ‘Israel’, he says, is a ‘settler state’. For Machover this is a necessary point of departure because it defines Zionism as a colonialist expansionist project.”

And therein lies the rub. Atzmon being a plain vanilla anti-Semite rejects the idea that Israel is a product of the colonial era and is the only surviving example of a settler-colonial state. The idea that Zionist settlers came to dispossess, with the might of the British army to protect them, is anathema to Atzmon. It all happened because they were Jews! No doubt the oppression of the Irish was on account of the peculiar racial qualities of the British. But this is important to Atzmon because ‘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.’

Leaving aside Atzmon’s conflation of Jews and Zionists, this is the heart of Atzmon’s reactionary rejection of the colonial explanation. If it were all a matter of imperialism and colonialism then Jews might be seen as ‘ordinary people’ when we all know that they are the devil’s spawn.

But unfortunately Machover, when putting forward his tribal thesis forgot to take account of the Atzmon genius. ‘His entire premise can be demolished in a one simple move.’ And here is the killer punch. ‘If Israel is a ‘settler state’ as he says, one may wonder, what exactly is its ‘motherland? In British and French colonial eras, the settler states maintained a very apparent tie with their ‘motherland’. In some cases in history, the settler state broke from its motherland…. However, as far as we are aware, there is no ‘Jewish motherland’ that is intrinsically linked to the alleged ‘Jewish settler state…. The lack of material Jewish motherland leads to the immediate collapse of Machover’s colonial argument.’

Or so Atzmon hopes. Unfortunately his one semi-argument is itself built on sand. The essential feature of settler colonialism, except in its earliest phase, is not the tie to the motherland. Anyone in the least acquainted with the history of the white British colonies – Australia, Canada, the USA, South Africa – will be aware of one thing. As soon as the settlers have achieved critical mass and are able to go on to the offensive against the natives, then they begin to turn their minds to rebellion and revolt, or at the very least to loosening if not breaking those very same ties with the mother country. Hence why, by the beginning of the 20th Century, most of the white colonies had achieved a form of semi-independence, i.e. Dominion Status. This was in fact the demand until 1945 of Ghandi and Congress. In return for control over things like foreign and military affairs with ultimate constitutional power residing in the British Crown, the white settler states achieved home rule and de facto independence. Even the Irish Free State (Eire) was given Dominion status and therefore a place within the British Empire until 1945.

In fact Israel too had a mother country, in terms of a sponsor. It’s just that Atzmon knows nothing about the history of Zionism. That sponsor was Britain, which in 1917 issued the Balfour Declaration. Although the Zionists went to war with the British after 1945 this was not at all unique. In South Africa there was the Boer War. In the USA there was a War of Independence. In Rhodesia there was UDI under Ian Smith. And in South Africa a majority of the settlers didn’t even see Britain as a mother country and in the American colonies this also was true. And from 1945 onwards Israel replaced Britain with the United States as its sponsoring power.

But to Atzmon ‘it may be true that Zionism carries some colonial elements and yet, it is not a colonial project per se, for no one can present a material correspondence between Jewish ‘motherland’ and a Jewish ‘settler state’. The Jewish national project is unique in history and as it seems it doesn’t fit into any Marxist materialist explanation.’ Of course there is an obvious and gaping hole in what passes for Atzmon’s logic. Whether a state is a settler colonial state is not dependent on whether the colonists look towards a motherland. After all South Africa declared itself a republic in 1961. Australia is likely to do the same within the next decade. The American colonies did just that but in none of these cases did that prevent them from being settler-colonial states. Settler-colonialism is nothing more than settlers creating their own distorted class structures, including a settler working class, who colonised the land and either drove the indigenous population out, exterminated them or exploited them. The question of a motherland is in fact largely irrelevant.

But to the Jewish conspiracist Atzmon “Machover’s ‘settler state’ is just another Judeo Marxist spin that is there to divert the attention from the clear fact that Israel is the Jewish state.’ But of course. What is unique about Israel is not that it is the product of western imperialism but the fact that it is Jewish , even though what is being created is a Hebrew-speaking people whose primary difference from other peoples is their language. There is no other specificity.

Atzmon takes especial except to Machover’s claim that “Islam “is backward looking and inherently unable to deliver progress.” He sees it ‘important to make sure that every Muslim on this planet grasps that an Elder Jew Marxist from London is convinced that they should throw away their Qur’an.’ Note ‘Elder Jew’. Atzmon just loves paraphrasing the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Hitler loved the book and it was a source of inspiration to the Nazis. It is likewise a source of metaphor and understanding to Atzmon. The fact that it is a forgery, something The Times discovered in 1921 is irrelevant.

One might have thought that Atzmon would pause to take on board the actions of the Islamic state of Iran and draw some conclusions from how it is doing to its own people what Israel is doing to the Palestinians. But no doubt Atzmon, like his mentor Israel Shamir, is fully supportive of Ahmedinajad’s open rigging of the elections, his attack on workers and students and his anti-gay (& anti-Arab) politics. To Atzmon, the most reactionary aspect of Hamas’s politics, its anti-working class practices, its elitism and patronage, is what appeals most. An anti-socialist organisation in the forefront of the resistance.

Now all socialists support the oppressed and when Hamas is under attack from Israel one defends it unconditionally. But when Hamas attacks fellow Palestinian trade unionists, women and democrats one opposes them. Such subtleties are too much for Atzmon to take in.

Indeed Atzmon gives every appearance of having got lost amidst the conspiracies. He praises Nick Griffin of the BNP, a good Zionist incidentally, for being ‘kind enough to offer ‘foreigners’ £50,000 to go back to their ‘homeland’,” whereas ‘our Kosher Marxist Machover is set to rob the indigenous of his belief on his land.’

Note the sleight of hand. The BNP merely want to expel the foreigner but at least he offers them some compensation! Machover is far worse. He wants to take away their belief in Islam, because in his fevered mind, all Palestinians are Islamicsts. Of course Palestinians are not the monolithic ideological bag carriers that Atzmon imagines them to be in a typically racist view of colonial peoples. Palestinians have many views about religion, as is appropriate to a people who have emulated the Jews of the diaspora in their devotion to education.

And continuing his ludicrous attempt to find a stick to beat Machover and ‘Jewish Marxism’ with he criticises the statement that equal rights are a precondition for resolving the conflict in Palestine. Apparently ‘Machover somehow failed to realise that the Jewish state is not going to willingly approve any form of equality, for Jewish political ideology does not succumb to the belief in human equality.’ I have a strong suspicion that Moshe Machover is all too aware that Israel is not going to concede equal rights without a fight! Name me a settler-colonial state which did!

As far as I know, Atzmon still rejects the idea that he is a racist. However it is clear beyond any doubt now that Atzmon is not only a reactionary politically but a racist as well. It is not, of course ‘Jewish political ideology’ that rejects human equality. This is the touchstone of all settler-colonial ideologies, be it Protestant Supremacy in Ireland, Afrikaaner and White nationalism in South Africa or the Jim Crow laws and segregation in the USA. In other words supremacism has nothing whatsoever to do with the inherent nature of any particular religious ideology. Religion may justify racism but it doesn’t cause it.

Atzmon takes particular exception to Machover’s call for the de-Zionisation of Israel. He informs us that ‘Machover, who doesn’t even live in Israel, believes that he can tell the Israelis in what kind of country they should live in.’ So applying this logic Atzmon too should shut up! Noone should have any view of anything outside their own anthill. No one is entitled to express any opinion about anything outside of their own lebensraum.

Atzmon also doesn’t like the call for a single state to be democratic and therefore secular. ‘Once again the Elder Jew Marxist… is telling the Palestinians and the Israelis that if they want to live together they better be secular. One should admit by now, it indeed takes some chutzpah to be a Judeo Marxist.’ Note the Nazi phrase ‘Judeo Marxist’ or as they preferred it ‘Judeo-Bolshevik’. Despite his protestations, Atzmon has moved another step down the road to becoming a fully fledged and open anti-Semite and neo-Nazi supporter. I don’t say he has reached that destination yet but ideologically that is the direction he is moving in. Quite why there is anything ‘Jewish’ in advocating secularism and seeing it as a pre-condition for the resolution of the Israeli Jewish-Palestinian conflict within the borders of one state is never explained. That the removal of religion from the confines of the state to the privacy of one’s home is an essential prerequisite for the liberation of all within Palestine doesn’t seem to have occurred to Atzmon, for whom the more ‘Islamic’ as opposed to ‘Jewish’ a state is the better.

For Atzmon ‘Islam is the rising force, whether our four Judeo Marxists like it or not, Hamas scored astunning win in the first Palestinian parliamentary election which it has taken part in.’ err yes. But why did they win? Anything to do with the quisling administration in Ramallah? Perish the thought. Atzmon supports them too!

And posing now as the potential saviour of the socialist movement, Atzmon intones that ‘the time may be ripe for Socialists and Marxists to save themselves from the Judeo political grip.’

What is interesting about this otherwise deadly dull and racist article, with its homage not only to religioud obscurantism, but the most backward elements within those religions, is that even on the Palestinian Sink Tank’s own pages, Atzmon has been criticised. His racist rant has been seen as completely over the top even by the Sink Tank’s usual Palestinian supporters. Even Mary Rizzo has come out with criticisms of Atzmon citing, in the comments section, the criticism of one Hussein Ibish of the colonial analysis. Ibish is an Arab American commentator who calls for the recognition of Israel, opposition to the Boycott and of course opposition to the idea that Israel might be a colonial entity. In other words in his search for allies Atzmon is forced to seek comfort from the most reactionary, quisling elements in Arab society.

This article is only interesting in that it pinpoints the trajectory that Atzmon is taking as he consorts openly with holocaust deniers such as Michelle Renouf, the only person to keep David Irving company through his libel trial battle with Penguin Books some years ago.

Almost unbelievable is the fact that the Socialist Workers Party, who are reputed to have dropped Atzmon, nonetheless still carry a statement by him Gilad Atzmon and Marxism 2005 denying that he is a holocaust denier or an anti-Semite. accessed 5.7.09.

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.