9 April 2008

Socialism and the Redistribution of Wealth is ‘Robbery’ according to Gilad Atzmon – Why Does the SWP Support this Reactionary?



One of the sites that is happy to carry Gilad Atzmon’s turgid and racist nonsense is Redress. His latest article is entitled Swindler’s List’. No guesses as to who the ‘swindlers’ are. [all quotations from this article unless otherwise specified]

In an article which tries to prove that Zionism and what it has done to the Palestinians is an inherent part of the Old Testament, our old friend cannot forsake attacking the Bund. The Bund, for those who don’t know, was the General Jewish Labour Union of Lithuania, Poland and Russia. Formed in Vilna in 1897 it sought to create a united Jewish socialist party in what was then the Russian Empire. It was staunchly anti-Zionist and held that the place where Jews belonged was where they lived, not Palestine.

For Atzmon, the Zionists were right and the Bund were wrong. As he writes in The Politics of Anti-Semitism: Zionism, the Bund and Jewish Identity Politics’: ‘As sad as it may be and as much pain as it may take to admit it, the Zionist project was there to make a change and it indeed succeeded in doing so.’

For Atzmon, the Zionist movement was ‘there to make a change’. Of course the change was what all colonial movements undertook, viz. the dispossession of the indigenous population and in the case of Zionism, their expulsion from the land itself. It was the change that Cecil Rhodes instituted in Rhodesia, that Jan Smuts brought forward in the Union of South Africa and which Lord Brookborough established in Northern Ireland. It was the change that all settler colonial groups believed in. It was founded on the principle of the Australian colonists, terra nullis, an empty land.

Atzmon calls himself an anti-Zionist. At first sight an attack on the Bund is somewhat strange. Why praise the Zionists and attack the most significant anti-Zionist Jewish party in the past century? The answer is however significant. Atzmon is not an anti-Zionist. True he deplores the predicament and situation of the Palestinians, but he does it from a Zionist paradigm. He accepts the Zionist belief that the Jews living outside Palestine were abnormal. As he writes in his essay on The Politics of the Bund:

‘While both movements were secular, early Zionists were honest enough to admit that on the eve of the 20th century, there was not much in Jewish secular life to be proud of (either culturally or spiritually).’

In fact Atzmon’s attacks on diaspora and non-Zionist Jewry echo that of Zionist ideologues. Zionism was founded on a hatred of the Galut, the Jewish ‘exile’. As Max Nordau, Theodore Herzl’s deputy explained:

‘I have no doubt that I am a Zionist because the Jewish people is a very nasty people and its neighbours hate it and they are right.’ [Shlomo Avineiri, ‘The Making of Modern Zionism - The Intellectual Origins of the Jewish State’ p.162,Weidenfeld & Nicholson, London, 1981.]

And equally significant, Atzmon’s main target today is not Zionism, about which he has next to no analysis that isn’t crudely racist. It is the growing body of Jewish anti-Zionists. These are his main enemy. Although his articles are widely disseminated on the web (though the content is rarely discussed because it is deliberately opaque and obscurantist) they are nonetheless based on an abysmal lack of knowledge of that which he writes about.

Atzmon talks about ‘the very few Bundists who didn’t immigrate to Israel after the war, half a dozen do not agree with Israel, Zionism and the robbery of Palestine.’ In fact of course the Bund, together with the Jews of Eastern Europe, were the victims of the Nazi holocaust, which Atzmon has also cast doubt upon (to put it mildly).

But Atzmon takes his critique further and this should be of note to those in the SWP and socialists who defend him. Atzmon argues that being Jewish the Bund are also believers in robbing non-Jews (Gentiles) however in their case,

'Bundists believe that instead of robbing Palestinians we should all get together and rob whoever is considered to be the rich, the wealthy and the strong in the name of working class revolution.’

And here Atzmon demonstrates that not only is he anti-Semitic, but he is a thorough going and incorrigible reactionary. ‘On the face of it’ he writes, ‘robbing the rich, confiscating their homes and grabbing their wealth is seen as an ethical act within the progressive discourse.’

The redistribution of wealth, the control of the means of production by those who produce the wealth, an end to the naked robbery of the people of the third world by war mongering multi-nationals is, well, ‘robbery.’ The Enrons and Conrad Blacks of this world have earned all they possess and the inhabitants of the shanty towns of Brazil should face up to this fact rather than seeking an equal share (robbery!).

Atzmon tells us that ‘As a young revolutionary I myself took part in some righteous parades.’ However ‘the inevitable happened: I grew up.’ One somehow doubts whether or not Atzmon grew up so much as the fact that he became a political conservative and reactionary. It is also open to doubt whether Atzmon was ever a revolutionary either! A good example of how Atzmon’s philosophy and that of Nazi anti-Semitism has merged is the following:

‘I realized that such vengeance towards an entire class of wealthy goyim is no more than an extension of Moses’s oratory of Deuteronomy, Chapter 6.’

People should savour this. The Bund’s ‘vengeance’ as he terms it, was not towards the entire class of the bourgeoisie and ruling class, the parasites who preside over the exploitation of the working masses. Good gracious no. It was directed at ‘wealthy goyim’. And here we see encapsulated the key idea of the Nazi theoreticians, including Hitler. The Jewish socialists and the Jewish bourgeoisie were in league. Whilst Isaac Cohen instigated rebellion at the factory gates, Moshe Cohen was clamouring for wage cuts and attacks on the non-Jewish worker. And this Jewish conspiracy had as its aim that of reducing the non-Jewish nations to ruin so the Jews could rule over the lot. Absurd of course, but we have to remember that in his essay ‘On anti-Semitism’ Atzmon wrote that:

‘we must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously.’ (Atzmon subsequently altered ‘Jewish people’ to ‘Zionists’, but the meaning remains the same.

We are told that ‘Robbing involves a categorical dismissal of the other.’ So when oil companies rob the people of the Arab East of their natural resources, bribing corrupt regimes such as the House of Saud and enabling them to suppress their own people, that is acceptable. But when for example the people of Iraq nationalised the Iraq Petroleum Company or the Iranians nationalised the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company, because the oil companies ‘owned’ the oil, that was ‘robbery’. In Atzmon’s turgid gobbledegook such nationalisation ‘must be premised on some inherent self-righteousness.’

To Atzmon, the right of the peoples of the world to an equal share in the world’s wealth rather than the present obscenity whereby the fortune of Bill Gates is larger than the entire gross domestic products of some countries is nothing less than ‘robbery’.

Likewise the revolution in Cuba, which emancipated the wealth of Cuba from the hands of American multinationals like Bacardi and the mafioso, or the election of Allende in Chile and the nationalisation of the assets of ITT and Pepsi again was an example of ‘robbery’.

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.’

What is amazing is that some socialists, including the SWP, still think that there is anything progressive or ‘left’ about Atzmon and his band of anti-Semites. It is little wonder then that in his final parting shot Atzmon rails against Jewish socialists:

‘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.’

Whether Atzmon & his fellow anti-Semites and holocaust deniers are ‘ordinary human beings’ I shall leave to others to judge.

16 comments:

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

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  3. You seem to live and breathe Gilad...
    Gilad .. Gilad...

    It doesn't seem right somehow.

    Perhaps some counselling might help

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  4. These anonymous racist cowards are a hoot!

    Atzmon was a racist bully-boy thug in the IDF, but that isn't held against him, oh no!

    ho ho ho, Ho Chi Minh!

    ps
    the usual health warning applies - these racist cowards could be anybody, just out to stir things up, such is the emptiness of their meaningless existence

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  5. Sorry, I did mean to say that Atzmon was a paid professional killer and assassin of Arabs, and defenceless innocent Palestinians in particular.

    Obviously, to zionists and their antisemitic chums these racist war crimes of atzmon mean nothing, especially when weighed against the crimes of a Jewish anti-zionist such a Tony Greenstein.

    Obvioulsy again, atzmon and co. know exactly whose crimes to highlight in the performance of their role as gatekeeprs for atzmon's former(?) employer, the Tel Aviv regime.


    Speaking of antisemitic, neo-nazi, non-Palestinian gatekeepers not allowing anti-zionists into the discourse on Palestine -
    - here is the messege that now greets me over at mary rizzo's 'peacepalestine' antisemitic sewer when I click on the comments -
    Banned by webmaster. Your comments will not be added

    I have never made any comments on her blog since I parted company with it over a year ago
    (just to jog peoples memories - that was when atzmon was accusing 'Marxist Rabbis ' of trying to 'judify' the PSC, and Rowan Berkeley was accusing Jews of being responsible for WWI, WWII and the forthcoming WWIII)
    - so she has no grounds for banning me whatsoever, except that she has been found out and can't handle reality.

    Welcome to the world of screaming mary's idea of 'discourse' - she is a non-Palestinian gatekeeper if there ever was one.

    If you ask me, blogs such as AZaAS have been far too long in coming along.

    all the best!

    ps
    I have a strange feeling this 'Lafayette Sennachrib' character who I have come across on Lenin's Tomb blog, maybe Rowan Berkeley in disguise - since he reached the newspapers with his little fiasco at his Hebrew learning classes he perhaps has changed his nom de blog .

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  6. One suspects that Atzmon has, shall we say, larded his account of his service in the IDF. There is no record of him being active in anti-Zionist politics in Israel and it would appear that being 'pro-Palestinian' has been a good way of getting a niche audience. As to his IDF service, I suspect that differentiating myth and fact would be interesting, given that according to Atzmon all one has to do is change the 'narrative' and hey presto, the reality changes. Which is his attitude to holocaust 'narratives'.

    I think we can be fairly clear that the poster I've deleted was Atzmon in disguise, posting via his frothing and foaming friend in South America, one Edna Spennato of the Geo Thermic Harmonic Analysis or some such crap (aka 'knuckles'!).

    So Mary's banned you Joe. No matter, I won't post on principle in the sewer anyway.

    But what is interesting is that this anti-socialist clown is still 'supported' by the SWP because these days, after the Respect debacle, there aren't many 'celebrities' who will appear alongside them now.

    Tony

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  7. It's no great shakes being banned from commenting on pro-zionist blogs like screaming lord mary's.

    I only visited her blog to see if she would be honest enough to let her millions of adoring fans know of the existence of the comments thread, on this very blog, where she gets shown up for the ignoramus she really is -
    Atzmon & Rizzo's Petition - Signatories are Forged

    I think its important to be clear what mary rizzo has done - she has banned me without any justification whatsoever.
    I have only visited her blog 2-3 times since the thread I refered to above has been running.
    Maybe 3-4 times in the past year have I bothered my arse to visit her blog.
    And never have I left a comment.

    So the next time rizzo spouts on about 'Jews controlling discourse' or 'Jewish gatekeepers' and other such mumbo-jumbo she's famous for, you'll understand how genuine she is when she accuses anybody of censorship, for whatever reason.
    She is hypocritical anti-democratic fraud.


    Anyway, speaking of atzmon's sparkling cv -
    - I'm sure his Arab followers would be interested to find out what atzmon is doing hanging out with British zionists and getting one of them, the dire Mike Ezra, to dig up dirt on one of the UK's leading anti-zionist intellectuals and activists, namely your good self Tony.

    These British zionists which atzmon is happy to be actively involved with, also happen to run one of the worst anti-Muslim Islamophobic blogs in Britian, called 'Harry's Place'. Maybe atzmon's Arab followers would more than interested to find out about his connections to British Arab-hating Islamophobic zionists?

    I don't see atzmon boasting about his active involvement in undermining the British PSC, using zionists to do his dirty work for him, against leading British anti-zionists.

    I don't see atzmon boasting about his boycott of the the Palestine-BDS Academic boycott.

    I wonder how many of his musician colleagues would want to continue to share a stage with him, if they knew he openly endorsed the writings of an advocate of child molestation and paedophilia?

    How many musicians would want to continue to want to share a stage with him, if they knew he has openly stated that Hitler's victims had it coming to them because they didn't do enough to make the Nazis happy?

    The leading lights of the Academic Boycott in Britian have been refered to as academic second-rate by atzmon - yet atzmon thinks someone who proposes child abuse is an 'advanced thinker'.

    Care to share a stage with atzmon?

    Care to sign a petition affirming his 'outstanding personality?

    Anyway Tony - this is a great blog, the articles are first-class!

    all the best

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  8. Well I would take it as a compliment to be banned from the Rizzo sewer. Yes of course all her and Atzmon's comments about 'gatekeeping' 'censorship' 'Jewish discourse' etc. is just so much hogwash. What she and Atzmon really mean is that we can write what nonsense we want to, we can be as anti-Semitic as we dare and drop as many codewords as necessary to show that we align ourselves with holocaust deniers (or in Atzmon's case have crossed the borders entirely) but if you dare to criticise what we write then we will howl and cry 'censorship' 'the jews are trying to monopolise discussion' etc. (though we are not anti-Semitic it's just that Jews get everywhere, not least in the Palestine solidarity movement!).

    A good example is the one article I submitted to The Peoples Voice which they printed (most of these sites don't even acknowledge a response - yet they are all in favour of 'free speech'). Rizzo was most annoyed that they carried my response to her article on Indymedia 'Gatekeepers Lose another One' http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/voices.php/2007/11/08/p20912

    She wrote indignantly:

    "And TPV, take some kind of public position on this. If you allow that he calls my blog right wing and conspiracist, if you allow that smearing takes place rather than argumentation and rebuttal, which I would actually like to see, then say so. If this is the case, thanks for the nice work with me in the past, but surely, I would not like to be affiliated with positions of the sort, and therefore, despite the dozens of my past contributions here, to which I am grateful for your hard work, I hope you never print another one. It would make me ashamed."

    Such a sacrifice, such a punishment. Never being allowed to publish another Rizzo article again!

    Problem was that whereas my response garnered over 40 comments her turgid, unreadable stuff didn't merit one single reply. Not surprisingly because Mary Rizzo doesn't know how to write a good article, has nothing to fill it and has gone more and more loopy. Despite being called PeacePalestine it could better be termed the 'anti-TG' blog!

    For the last 9 days it has featured as its main article 'Anti-Zionist = Zionist (if you are Tony Greenstein!)'. And what is this based upon? Did I mount a picket of Windsor Castle IN SUPPORT of the JNF? Maybe my article on the Guardian's CIF was an apology for them? Perhaps I attacked the Academic Boycott as 'book burning' because my political enemies were running it and personal venom is more important than support for the Palestinians?

    Good gracious no, I expressed an opinion, on a closed e-list, that Palestinian national formation occurred as a result of Zionist colonisation. This absurd distortion of what I said (yes I know Palestinians exist Mary!) is typical of these people.

    But here below is one of the comments on this article by someone called 'natural science'. Another of the many holocaust deniers who frequent the site, most of his stuff is impenetrable (this seems to be a stylistic device of the anti-Semites) but the pointer is the reference to our old friend Fred Leuchter.

    And thanks for the kind comments Joe about the blog. It is a specialist blog, mainly devoted to analysing the nonsense of the anti-Semites and racists on the fringes of the Palestine Solidarity movement, but since I've no time to set my own blog up at the moment, I am just contributing to this one, which really came out of the Indymedia controversy when Atzmon was slighted (i.e. people questioned him!).

    I run it with another person, but I won't divulge their identity!

    Tony

    Morris intersperses Shapiro's and Tabasky's denigrating commentary among what should properly be a scientific discussion.
    At one point, for example, Shapiro appears on screen and abruptly declares, "The man is an anti-Semite.
    There are hate-mongers in this country, and he's one of them.
    " Nothing in Leuchter's manner, tone, or utterances lends any credence to that charge.

    Not until some time later does Morris give Leuchter the chance to say:

    Of course I'm not an anti-Semite.
    I have a lot of friends that are Jewish.
    I've lost Jewish friends, too, because of what's happened.
    http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v18/ v18n5...5p62_Raven.html

    Ms. Rizzo, To explain the analysis of "The Leuchter Report", I am not putting it.

    I want to insist on Morris Shapiro Tabasky and Greenstein having differences nothing.

    I am recognizing that Mr. Atzmon and Mr. Shamir lost almost all Israeli's acquaintances.

    I am recognizing that Mr. Eisen lost almost all UK Jewish's acquaintances.

    I am recognizing that Ms. Rizzo lost almost all Italian Jewish's acquaintances.
    Natural science | 04.02.08 - 4:08 pm | #

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  9. Thanks for that Tony!

    As it was someone else who brought up the matter of cv's -
    - I was also wondering about atzmon's relationship with the Jewish-Zionsist infested BBC, and how come he never critices this notorious Palestine-hating organisation?

    After all, the BBC is an an organistaion that was instrumental in getting one of his music albums voted an 'album of the year award' which was obviously a big boost to his career.

    I mean, come on - a notorious zionist controlled outfit like the BBC promoting an ex-IDF thug like atzmon!

    This was roughly about the same time atzmon starting surfacing and issuing racist screeds, such as his Jewish Elders in London rubbish.

    So, all of a sudden -
    - an ex-IDF goon, atzmon, comes out of nowhere and starts a campaign to undermine the fabric of the UK Palestine Solidarity Campaign

    - someone who fraternises with some of the most notorious descraters of Islam in the UK, gets an music award from an important zionist-loving Palestine-hating media organisation which he accepts. The least atzmon could have done, if he was honest, was turn it down in protest at the BBC propaganda on Middle East. Obviously with atzmon, ego and career comes first, Palestinian Human Rights are secondary except, of course, if they assist in his two main immediate priorities.

    Yes, someone mentioned careers paths - such people are usually quite suspicious of anything Jewish but not when it comes to atzmon.

    all the best AZaAS!

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  10. Good point Joe. When Mike Rosen took part in the Jewish Book Fair he was accused of being a Zionist by Atzmon & co. because it was also sponsored by the Israeli Embassy. But when Atzmon gets feted by the BBC, who I complained to only this week about their coverage of things Palestinian, we don't get a peep out of him.

    Can't imagine why!

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  13. (sorry for deleting my comments - I've had some probs with formatting links properly, so I've left them unformatted)

    One other item about CVs,
    is atzmon's relationship with some of the most notorious Islamophobes and defilers of Islamic Holy Scripture in Britian today, ie the scumbags at 'Harry's Place' blog.

    Well, rizzo and atzmon berate and criticise some British Jewish folk for not properly getting behind the will of the occupied Palestinian People when they voted for the Islamist Hamas political party in recent elections to the Palestinian Authority.

    According to rizzo and atzmon, this is a sign that you can't trust the Jews within a solidarity movement. These Jews, who say they are in solidarity with Palestinian People, actually want to tell Palestinians who they should and shouldn't support. More especially, these Jews don't want Palestinians supporting Islamic political parties because they are religiously different from Judaism. However, so the rizzo and atzmon half-baked tosh goes, the Jews use Judaism in their politics but object to Palestinians using their religion in their politics.

    Now, we can all argue the toss about the relevance of religion in politics and how much of an influence it does have and should have. Most decent folk agree that having avowedly Jewish People within the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign if for the only reason of the 'Jewishness' is a must and a winner, and I totally agree.

    However, this is an atzmon, unlike any British Jewish person I know who cares about the plight of Palestinians, who openly associates himself not just with zionists but with British Islamophobes who hate and despise Hamas like nothing else imaginable. The vitriol against Islam, the Ummah and Islamic politics is non-stop from these HP types.

    Strange standards indeed, to be seen on one's cv. I suppose atzmon imagines he's 'transgressing the boundaries' in true woolly-headed post-modernist fashion.

    Imaginary failings of British Jewish People in solidarity with Palestinians is to be held against them - but atzmon's real and concrete associations with British Hamas haters isn't. He has some strange ideas about solidarity.

    (sorry if this has been a bit long-winded but I think it's an important point worth teasing out - British Jewish folk I know wouldn't be seen dead with HP saucers)

    all the best!

    ps
    Michael Rosen - you couldn't meet a more decent honest personality on the web.
    Michael did say that he asked around for advice about whether he should attend that Jewish book fair. What seems to have decided him to go, I believe, was that there were Palestinians also officially in attendance.

    pps
    Tony, you mention correspondence with the BBC over their dismal coverage of the Middle East.

    Here is the blog of John Hilley, who lives up my way somewhere
    'Zenpolitics' blog
    http://johnhilley.blogspot.com/

    John is also a member of the 'Media Lens Messege Board' (like your good self) and is indefatiguable in humane and civilised efforts to point out to the BBC its obvious failings. On John's blog, down the right-hand side bar, is a list of all his correspondence with the BBC, which he has also copied to the 'media lens messege board'.
    In fact, here is John's latest posting to Medialens -
    'Latest "pp Boaden" line on 'neutral' use of language'
    MLMB
    11 Apr 2008
    http://members5.boardhost.com/medialens/thread/1207909952.html

    Post you correspondence to the Media Lens Messege Board if you've the time(!) - its what the MediaLens Ediotors are all about and correspondence with corporate journalism is their very life's blood.

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  14. A recent addition to the thread begun by John Hilley -
    Re: Latest "pp Boaden" line on 'neutral' use of language
    Media Lens Messege Board

    See entry for 14th April 2008 9.09 pm.

    all the best AZaAS!

    ps
    In my comment above I said -
    British Jewish folk I know wouldn't be seen dead with HP saucers
    - whereas, what I realy meant to say was -
    British anti-zionist Jewish folk I know wouldn't be seen dead with HP saucers

    Scotland for Justice for Palestine

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  15. Mind you, the Editors at Media Lens have a definite view on non-confrontation with corporate news journalists, for all sorts of very good and obvious reasons.
    At the end of each of their Media Alerts is this rubric, which goes -
    SUGGESTED ACTION
    The goal of Media Lens is to promote rationality, compassion and respect for others. If you do write to journalists, we strongly urge you to maintain a polite, non-aggressive and non-abusive tone.


    I suggest to TG, that although this is gloriously to be applauded, viz
    ..IN SHORT YOU ARE ALL SCUM AND NEW LABOUR SYCOPHANTS
    - it won't get any plaudits from the denizens at MediaLens.

    all the best!

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  16. Yes I know Joe but you must allow me some foibles. Anyway the BBC is particularly reprehensible precisely because people think it is more neutral than the newspapers.

    But you are right!

    Tony

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