Photos Taken by Brian RobinsonThe Leafletters Almost Outnumbered the Audience
Last week I publicised the leafleting/picket of Atzmon’s book launch in London. It was supposed to be a surprise but I didn’t realise! In the event it was probably a wise decision.
Unfortunately, and much to my regret, a family emergency prevented me from attending. This resulted in a hilarious scene of Brian Robinson being confronted by Atzmon and accused of being me! Whether that is slander I shall leave to others to decide!
Instead about a dozen people from Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods and London ISM and other activists attended. Even more interestingly, despite the claim of Atzmon to represent Palestinians, activists and all the other non-Judaic elements in the solidarity movement, in fact the total number of those going in was about 20. With speakers it meant that the numbers of those in the audience were almost the same as those picketting outside. The only ones we recognised were Gill Kaffash and her husband of Camden PSC. Kaffash is someone who is clearly a holocaust denier, and has given consistent support to Paul Eisen, of the defunct Deir Yassin Remembered.
In his January 2008 article ‘My Life as a holocaust denier’ Eisen notes how he was disowned by of his friends and associates. But a few remained loyal.
‘Of course the vast majority of people simply remained silent but there were some who openly and repeatedly demonstrated their solidarity e.g. Dan McGowan, Henry Herskovitz, Gilad Atzmon, Sarah Gillespie, Israel Shamir, Francis Clark-Lowes, Gill Kaffash, Amjad Taha, Randa Hamwi Duwaji, Cambridge PSC, Rosemary Ernshaw,’Below are comments from a number of those attending the leafleting/picket.
‘At one point I said to him, what's he got against the Jews, why doesn't he just get on with being a very distinguished jazz musician and saxophonist -- and he shot back at me, 'Have you read my book?', to which I said, No, but I'd read lots of stuff by him. But he again interrupted to tell me that "Everyone wants to read my book, do you know how well it's selling, even before its launch? Everyone is reading my book ..."
At one point he was arguing with someone else and said that Jews are a race. I interjected that there's no such thing as race, it's a false and discredited construct. He flung out a hand, "I agree with you, yes, but for Jews it's different, Jews ARE a race", to which I, "What? Moroccan Jews, Russian Jews, English Jews? All one 'race'? It's cultural, ethnic ..." No, he wouldn't hear of it.
[in a subsequent e-mail to Brian Robinson, Atzmon has denied making any such reference and I include his comment in the interest of fairness]
'You have obviously misheard me. I argue in my writing and in my book that though there is no such thing as Jewish race, Jewish ideology is inherently racist. I'm very clear about it. I've never referred to Jews as a race nor as ethnicity.' G
He challenged us for a definition of antisemitism. I started to quote Brian Klug's reformulation of the rule of thumb quick definition, the one where he places the word Jews in quotes ("Thinking that Jews are really ‘Jews’ is precisely the core of antisemitism") and gives the neat formulation that antisemitism is precisely the process of turning Jews into 'Jews'.
Probably Klug's thought was far too subtle for Atzmon, but my attempt was certainly interfering with the flow of his 'performance', and he interrupted long before I could finish. He almost shouted that you can't make a new definition out of changing an old definition, and then turned back to haranguing the others. (At this point I couldn't help being reminded of some of the films I've seen of Oswald Mosley -- something of the same haughty arrogance, the assumption of pseudo-aristocratic entitlement maybe.)
At that point, I gave up -- others were doing far better than I could (see the photos!) Atzmon doesn't *listen* (astonishing in a musician, I'd have thought). His whole life is giving a performance, musical or otherwise.
Below is an e-mail from another who attended the picket :
Dear all,
More people than we expected -
I hope others who were there will chip in with any of their own observations.
One little oddity is that the fracas on the pavement came to an end with the appearance of a benign-looking gent saying that he was the facilitator for the evening and was about to start the meeting. He identified himself as Irving Rappaport, a JfJfP signatory, and is described in the publicity for the launch thus:
"Irving Rappaport is a commercial and community mediator and trainer with a special interest in the use of proven peaceful techniques for the prevention and resolution of violent conflicts both internationally and in the UK."
<...>
More people than we expected - almost a dozen pro-Palestinian activists, half J-BIG/JSG, half ISM and friends - turned out this evening to defend the BDS movement against the infiltration of racist ideas peddled by Gilad Atzmon. The occasion was the launch of Atzmon's new book, The Wandering Who.
Despite a Facebook plea at the weekend from the author to his supporters to turn out in force and defend him against the crypto-Zionists he alleged were planning to destroy his meeting, barely 20 people arrived in response. Several of those were on the panel of speakers and a mere handful - 4-5 - had any connection with pro-Palestine campaigning. I will not engage in an Atzmon-style personal vendetta by naming them.
We displayed placards declaring Fight Racism, Fight Zionism, Build the Palestinian BDS campaign, Support the Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, and handed out copies of the attached leaflet. Thanks to J and Tony for putting this together.
Our presence led to almost an hour of lively discussion on the pavement outside the venue, although it was notable that - despite Atzmon's complaints that we are trying to close down debate and interfere with his freedom of speech - many of those coming to listen to him refused to even look at the proffered leaflets. Atzmon emerged from the building himself to join in the fray, perhaps attracted by the presence of a documentary film-making camera crew.
Some of those who were willing to talk seemed lamentably ignorant of the Palestinian struggle.
One conversation went something like this:
Atzmon supporter: He has important and interesting things to say.
BDS supporter: So what is his unique contribution, apart from blaming everything on the Jews and contradicting the policies of the Palestinian Boycott National Committee?
Atzmon supporter: But boycott is only one tiny little part of the Palestinian campaign.
BDS supporter: Not really. It's got the Zionists rattled.
Atzmon supporter: That's nonsense.
BDS supporter: You are aware that the Israeli government has just passed legislation making supporting BDS illegal.
Atzmon supporter: Er, yes of course.
BDS supporter: So how is Atzmon helping, saying Zionism is about Jewishness and nothing to do with colonialism or settlement, directly contradicting what it says here on this leaflet in a statement from the BNC.
Atzmon supporter: What's so important about the BNC? Who are they anyway?
BDS supporter: Have you heard of Omar Barghouti?
Atzmon supporter: Er, yes, but he's only one person.
BDS supporter: Don't you know about the 170+ civil society organisations the BNC represents?
Atzmon supporter: . . . Well anyway you're just here to split the movement. Harry's Place is so happy that you're attacking Gilad.
BDS supporter: Harry's Place is a Zionist site that's happy every time Gilad opens his mouth. (Gives up banging head against brick wall).
I hope others who were there will chip in with any of their own observations.
By the way as soon as he saw me he asked me if I was Tony Greenstein (he pronounced the surname the German way). I said I wasn't, but a guy whom someone said was an Atzmon groupie, tho he looked to me like something of a 'minder' insisted on the likeness and said I must be a brother "or something". I said maybe way back we had a common ancestor, who knows ... (I don't know what he'd had have done next if I'd said, Yeah, that's me guv ...)
I think to him it was just another photo op which he'll twist (as usual) to his advantage ...
Below are a list of the panellists, including one Glenn Bowman from Kent University, who when I challenged him a year ago on his support for a previous Atzmon ‘petition’ against me denied having signed it. Strange man.
I have subsequently e-mail Gilad Atzmon and accepted his challenge to a debate. Atzmon is not a fascist and so the question of 'no platform' does not arise. I do think that it is important not to give the impression that we are afraid to debate with his ideas and him and only seek to 'censor' his views, which we don't. More details will be released as and when it is confirmed.
Tony Greenstein
Panelists on Monday:
Glenn Bowman is a Social Anthropologist who has worked in Jerusalem and the West Bank throughout the past 25 years. He is concerned with religion and identity politics, an interest which also involved him in (now Former) Yugoslavia between 1990 and the present.
Oren Ben Dor is a Reader in the Philosophy of Law at The University of Southampton. He is the author of Constitutional Limits and the Public Sphere (Oxford: Hart Publishing, 2000); Thinking about Law: in Silence with Heidegger (Oxford: Hart Publishing 2007) as well as the editor of Law and Art: Ethics, Aesthetics Justice, (London: Routledge 2011). Oren writes on the uncanny origin of political emergence as well as on originary violence in Palestine. He explores the existential relationship between the Jewish and the Zionist Questions.
Karl Sabbagh is a journalist, television producer and the author of several books including A Rum Affair, Power Into Art, Dr Riemann’s Zeros and Palestine: A Personal History. He is currently the publisher of Hesperus Press
Facilitator: Irving Rappaport is a commercial and community mediator and trainer with a special interest in the use of proven peaceful techniques for the prevention and resolution of violent conflicts both internationally and in the UK.
PS: Members of London ISM took part in the picket/leafletting of Atzmon's book launch as individuals not as part of the group. The group itself has not taken any formal decision re the picket/leafletting.
Why don't you leave him alone ? He has the right to be different.
ReplyDeleteAll this stuff is no help to Palestinians
I don't doubt that Atzmon has the right to be different but as to leaving him alone, he insists on making generalisations and stereotypes and publicising them everywhere. indeed he seeks publicity so why should he remain immune from criticism?
ReplyDeleteThere were at least 3 times as many people in the meeting as you claim. Which raises the question of how much else in this report can be believed.
ReplyDeleteAnd you say that your group only recognised 2 people who went in, then it suggests that you are indeed diverting attention away from "away from Israeli settler-colonialism and its US backers onto Jews as individuals"
A few points, Tony. First, I'll claim credit for the photos, although probably I ought to apologise for their rather poor quality (although given the circumstances ... &c &c)
ReplyDeleteSecond I wrote to Mr Atzmon to clarify what he said because I clearly misheard (not surprising in the mêlée). He replied as follows (I quote without permission, but I can't imagine that he'll mind): "You have obviously misheard me. I argue in my writing and in my book that though there is no such thing as Jewish race, Jewish ideology is inherently racist. I'm very clear about it. I've never referred to Jews as a race nor as ethnicity."
(I have no idea what he means by "Jewish ideology".)
Thirdly, and I hope you don't mind a critical note here, I don't think you should quote from emails without permission, especially in such a way, even if you don't name the original writer, as to make identification easy. Probably in this case no harm has been done, but it does make one wary. Indeed I might write to you privately about this.
Apart from all that, and with some reservations, yes, I think it was a worthwhile demo.
Brian
Why don't you leave him alone ?
ReplyDelete- Yet another novel re-definition of what it means to be part of a "solidarity" campaign from an atzmonite.
At this rate we'll soon have to re-name the Palestinian solidarity campaign, to the Atzmon solidarity campaign.
All this stuff is no help to Palestinians
- Either support this insufferable racist and his vast empty ego's attempts to turn the Palestine solidarity campaign into a solidarity campaign for David Duke and the KKK - or leave this tortured genius in peace.
Be comforted in the knowledge that, to go with his vast ego, anyone who disagrees with Atzmon is automatically part of a vast Jewish conspiracy against him.
That's thing about us anti-racists, we never ever leave racists in peace who try to spread their anti-social racist filth about in public. It's called solidarity. You might have heard of it.
I knew Atzmon as a sax player from two gigs in my small town, before I got involved in Palestine stuff. He's certainly a bit of a show-off (as I would be if I could play two saxophones at once) but the overwhelming impression was that though he is anti-Israel his manner and persona are not so much arrogant as quintessentially Israeli. He's like a stick of rock with "Israel" stamped through and through. If he has any knowledge of this it must be quite unconfortable, so maybe he's to be pitied. I've got his book on order, will read it to see. The inverted comma test was lost on me, I usually leave it to see if my hackles rise up.
ReplyDeleteYes sorry - many thanks to Brian for the photos - will add credit!
ReplyDeleteThis e-mail was circulated widely and given it enables the question of whether Atzmon believes directly that Jews are a race (I have no doubt he does - however he defines it) then it was reasonable to publish it
Brian Robinson wrote:
ReplyDelete"At one point he was arguing with someone else and said that Jews are a race. I interjected that there's no such thing as race, it's a false and discredited construct. He flung out a hand, 'I agree with you, yes, but for Jews it's different, Jews ARE a race'"
Its obvious that the writer of these lines did mishear him, since if he did not, the quote does not make sense. Probably would be clearer if he said "I agree with you, yes, but to Jews it's different, Jews ARE a race"
In other words, he believes that Jews, from his experience, think of themselves as a race - even though he does not believe they are. English is not his first language.
"(I have no idea what he means by 'Jewish ideology'.)"
Probably worth reading his book then. You might actually find out.
Or read my review of it if you are too squeamish to read his interesting but flawed book. My review contains some harsh criticism of Atzmon for some of the Israeli-centred blunders that have led to his current antagonistic relationship with fellow supporters of the Palestinians.
But it is worth criticising him for what he actually believes, not lazy caricatures that imply that he is some kind of Nazi. When he obviously is nothing of the sort and indeed very much to the contrary.
He is misguided in many ways, and often flirts with disaster in his rhetoric, but he is an opponent of the racism of his own state and homeland. Which takes real guts.
I have posted the following comments on the review by redscribe - on his blog and underneath:
ReplyDeleteThis is a serious review but one with which I fundamentally disagree.
1. Unfortunately this review is wide of the mark. Atzmon is distinguishable from most Israeli critics of Zionism precisely because of his anti-Semitism, which is largely ignored in the review. He repeatedly holds Jews responsible for things like the banking and economic crisis, with Wolfowitz being a particular villain. Note his attempt to interpret a naïve Christian capitalist’s suggestion, one John Reynold’s, about introducing a more Christian ethic into the City of London as being the equivalent of ‘spiritual Judaification’ his personal anti-Semitic comments ‘socialist Jewnity’ etc.
2. His open espousal of the Jewish conspiracy theory, complete with Jewish responsibility for Christ killing and his defence of holocaust deniers such as Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir, who is a paid up fascist. Eisen is merely ‘proud’ to be a holocaust denier but nonetheless his holocaust denial text is a ‘great text’ according to an email to me.
3. What the review misses also is his embrace of holocaust denial ‘historians’ as legitimate rather than pseudo historians attempting to rewrite the history of fascism. He openly welcomes the support of white supremacists and neo-Nazis such as David Duke, Kevin MacDonald and treats them as legitimate. He ascribes to them a legitimacy which is wholly lacking for example in ‘Esther to Aipac’ he writes that ‘. ‘Most of the scholars, if not all of them, do not challenge the Zionist narrative, namely Nazi Judeocide, yet, more than a few are critical of the way Jewish and Zionist institutes employ the Holocaust…’
4. You can get the sourcing from my essay in March this year ‘A Quick Guide to Atzmon’ http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2011/03/guide-to-sayings-of-gilad-atzmon-anti.html but the obvious comparison is with differing arguments in astronomy and physics. The origin of the black hole, are there anti-matter galaxies, how does quantum mechanics and relativity co-exist etc. But does anyone seriously argue whether the sun goes round the Earth?
5. You also don’t mention the very focus on identity because if you did you’d find it isn’t fixed, unchanging. This is an essentialist viewpoint consequence on a racist outlook. Jewish identity changed with Zionism and is changing again as increasing layers break from its stranglehold. Whether it is possible to make a successful break I doubt but in calling all but a few Jews like himself or Neturei Kara, ‘3rd category Jews’ and hence lumping in Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews Atzmon is simply reflecting Zionism’s own frame of reference.
6. And if you go to Atzmon’s favourable review of Antony Julius’s attack on anti-Zionist Jews, saying he has a point that we are hypocritical in supporting Palestinian nationalism but not Jewish nationalism (which Zionism is not – since there is no Jewish nation) you begin to understand that whilst Atzmon does indeed condemn Israel’s barbarous behaviour he accepts the logic of an Israeli state, a Jewish state in the fullest Zionist terms and that those of us who are secular Jews but not Zionists are either hypocrites or ‘crypto-Zionists’. Hence our recent disruption of the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra, which Palestinians everywhere welcomed, is condemned as a ‘Jewish campaign’ in an e-mail to me which then goes on to explain why this will only antagonise the Israeli right and create problems for Palestinian performers. The exact mirror of Thatcher’s argument that sanctions hurt the Blacks, whose welfare was her main concern.
7. Indeed Atzmon has begun to make a clear distinction between anti-Zionist, which is Jewish, and being pro-Palestinian. If every this was to become reality it would destroy the Palestinian solidarity movement as you would merely make the Palestinians another human rights cause, whereas one of the reasons for prioritising it is because it is representative and symbolic of the oppression of the Arab peoples. Again a thoroughly reactionary project.
ReplyDelete8. Hence Atzmon also rejects the idea that Israel is a settler-colonial project. It is a Jewish project. It derives from ‘Jewishness’, Jewish ideology and the Jewish spirit. If you can’t see where these derive from try reading a few pre-Nazi race theoreticians. I don’t incidentally argue that Atzmon is a neo-Nazi but he certainly does consort with their ideas.
9. I don’t doubt that the question of Jewish identity is problematic but Atzmon offers no solutions as he looks through the telescope from the wrong end. Instead of asking how Jewish identity has been instrumental in forming the Israeli state (try Balfour and other anti-Semites) one should instead ask how Jewish identity outside Israel has been changed by Zionism and Israel. Not a question that Atzmon even begins to ask because the holocaust is as old as the Jews. (Esther to Aipac) Despite paying tribute to Israel Shahak there is no doubt he would have been instantly disowned by the boyhood survivor of the Warsaw ghetto and Belsen-Bergen.
10. I don’t doubt that Jews are over represented in the US Senate and British houses of parliament but only if one takes Jews as some form of collective, this mysterious ‘Jewish power’ that Atzmon is wedded to. But Jews are not a collective despite the best efforts of Zionists. There are quite rational explanations such as the use of Jews as an ideological cover for western imperialism. That the use of the holocaust as an ideological weapon is of recent origin and the West as much as Israel is guilty of this. Just as ‘democracy’ is another western instrument. So it makes sense that it becomes easy for Jews, who for the most part are Zionists, to climb the political ladder. But it’s a chicken and egg situation. The political complexion of the White House doesn’t depend on the religious affiliation of its members. Power resides in the boardrooms of the main conglomerates not in the Senate.
11. It is somewhat unfortunate that Mearsheimer has just blown his cover. His essay and book highlighted the Christian Zionists and that was right in so far as most American Jews
12. So now Atzmon is not a Jewish heretic, battling against an establishment as per Spinoza. He is a Jewish reactionary. Hence his embarrassingly laudatory comments re Obama and his illusions in Amir Peretz, the Israeli Labour Leader prior to his role in launching the invasion of Lebanon in 2006!
13. Yes it is Atzmon’s attack on Jewish secularism which stands out because ANY Jewish secularism, be it of left or right, Zionist or anti-Zionist is one and the same, governed by the same ‘Jewishness’. Racist? Perish the thought. Hence his repeated attacks on the Jewish Bund, who are a bunch of thieves and swindlers for coveting and ‘robbing’ the rich. Familiar? Hence why he aligns historically with the Zionist opposition to the Bund. A Jewish secular identity is quite possible as the Bund demonstrated and which Atzmon hates. For many, opposition to Zionism also constitutes a major part of their Jewish identity, but we too are Zionists! I happen to think that a non-Zionist Jewish identity is quite possible, for a long period of time and would possibly flourish in the absence of a Zionist state but that is for the future. Atzmon’s conception though is totally racist and essentialist.
14. And the quote incidentally is from ‘on anti-Semitism’ not Learned Elders of London.
15. You say that ‘Atzmon is self-evidently not motivated by racism.’ Why self-evidently? The description of himself as a ‘proud, self-hating Jew’ is in itself an inverted form of racism. Why? Because the term ‘self-hater’ which the Nazis used against German anti-fascists presupposes that all Jews (except for this psychologically crippled anti-national minority) is itself racist, a concept that Atzmon adopts, he doesn’t fight against it. You say that ‘If he were a racist/essentialist, he would not believe in the possibility of renouncing Jewishness.’ Not so. Take Ayaan Hirsi Ali, the Black woman who has become one of the foremost racists in the Netherlands. To hold to the concept of race doesn’t mean you can’t leave that race (or join it). I won’t go into the Nazi debates about the Mishlinge (mixed races) but they indeed held just that, hence all the dispensations Hitler granted to functionaries and others who were first or second degree Jews. Or honorary whites in S Africa and indeed Nazi Germany too.
ReplyDelete16. There is nothing ‘telling’ in his description of the circumcision of their children by 2 left-wingers David Rosenberg and Julia Bard. It reflects more than anything else the conflict between generations. Circumcision is indeed a religious sign of being Jewish but one increasingly rejected. Anti-Semitism unfortunately did force Jews together and these ancient rituals have taken longer to die out. I have 3 boys, one of whom was circumcised and the other two weren’t. The eldest circumcision was justified on health grounds – cervical cancer etc. – and it was carried out by a trained surgeon. Just as Muslims and indeed members of the British Royal Family and many other non-Jews and non-Muslims have carried it out. In fact Dave and Julia regret this now and this was a brave attempt to raise a taboo amongst the organised Jewish community but Atzmon once again fails to understand such subtleties.
17. In essence Atzmon’s holocaust denial views are ascribed to ‘Israel centredness’. I disagree. Most Israeli anti-Zionists feel no need to question the holocaust but rather the Zionist misuse of it. I have written a number of essays on this and Norman Finkelstein and Lenni Brenner have done both this and document the actual Zionist record during the holocaust. Atzmon goes further and this is nothing to do with the Palestinian struggle and played right into the hands of the worst Israeli propagandists by associating the Palestinian struggle (and he supports the most backward Islamist elements) with holocaust denial. It owes nothing to the horrors of Zionism and everything to do with people like Eisen and Shamir.
18. I don’t accept the equivalence between Palestinians who deny the holocaust (and who are on the right of Palestinian/Arab politics) and this alleged ‘minority of alientated, radicalised Israeli Jews’. In fact its major proponents aren’t Israeli – Dan McGowan, Paul Eisen, Jeff Blankfort, Israel Shamir etc. If anything it is a section of diaspora Jews who have become so ashamed of being Jewish that they have given a free pass to Nazism.
19. I agree that ‘The identification of Jews with revolution and later communism- which was the basis for the classic racist anti-semitism that characterised the 19th and early 20th centuries – has long since ceased to have any even tenuous connection with reality.’ But I suggest you tell that to Atzmon who does indeed believe that Jews were behind and indeed financed the Bolshevik revolution and that Lenin was also Jewish, as the racists and anti-Semites argued. As his Credit Crunch or Zio Punch argues: ‘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.
why do they have to forge my words? Why do they have to operate in such a fraudulent manner? Why can’t they simply quote me in context and prove their point? Can’t they see that spin, deceit, and fraud don’t buy them the necessary support ? Are Jewish ‘anti’ Zionists familiar at all with the notion of intellectual integrity? Do they really believe for a second that the list of the most profound thinkers in our movement that already supported and endorsed my book would support a book that states the above? The tragic truth is that we are dealing with a bunch of compulsive liars. As far as I am concerned and as I mention in my book, It is actually the AZZ who are providing us with an authentic image of the tribal collective psychosis.
ReplyDeleteThe document is a big LIE.
prove that its not... you don't have any as you are the master of LIARS
Talk about “played right into the hands of the worst Israeli propagandists by associating the Palestinian struggle (and he supports the most backward Islamist elements) with holocaust denial”, Richard Millett is at it again by trying to associate a lone and clearly disturbed woman (‘Janet Green’) and Holocaust denier/minimiser with the PSC.
ReplyDeleteI reasonably assume that the Anon above is indeed Gilad Atzmon himself. Gilad, I’ve fostered some doubts about the verdict that’s been passed with regards to your own antisemitism in the past but having read too much of your stuff I can only conclude you belong to that small minority of antisemitic pro-Palestinians, in your case a Jewish one, not that it matters. How’s anyone to interpret:
ReplyDelete”As far as I am concerned and as I mention in my book, It is actually the AZZ who are providing us with an authentic image of the tribal collective psychosis.”
… other than Classic Antisemitic Trope ™, huh?
You are a L-I-A-B-I-L-I-T-Y to the just Palestinian Cause.
If Carlsberg did zionists...
ReplyDeleteThanks Gert.
I'm glad Richard Millet provided the context for his lovingly written down transcript, otherwise I might have mistaken it for a job interview with a candidate applying for the position of shop assistant at Ahava beauty products, fine purveyors of cosmetics and stolen goods.
Does Hoffman and Millet deny Ahava employ antisemites who blame the Jews for the death of Jesus Christ?
If Carlsberg did zionist idiots...
It's interesting that a PSC statement denouncing racism brings out the same reaction from zionists as it does Atzmon and his adoring ego fan club. It is actually evidence of some kind of hidden conspiracy going on behind the scenes at the PSC.
I see Atzmon has even started using the same tactic beloved of zionists, who accuse anti-racist anti-zionists of antisemitism. He is accusing anti-racist anti-zionists of being racist zionists ie "anti-zionist zionists" - which is as about as stupid and klunky a label of abuse as I've heard in a long while.
Atzmon's nothing if not totally unoriginal.
If Carlsberg did thick musicians...
Hey Joe,
ReplyDelete‘If Carlsberg did Zionism’, indeed! Millett remains the guy who maintains he’s ‘not a Zionist’ (I kid you not!) and an ‘independent journalist’ (he got something published in ‘The Jewish News’ - readership 20,000 ? - apparently)!
And yes, it was famously Millett who defended Ahava’s ‘you killed Christ!’ employee against rightful charges of antisemitism. Millett is stuff you couldn’t make up if they paid you for it. He’s right up there with Mad Mel, Elder of Ziyon or his new best friend Jonafun. Or Charlie ‘lapel badge’ Wolf. And yet you get commenters there complimenting him on being ‘fair and balanced’! Mind you, some claim that about Faux Noise too…
Roberta Moore [spelling?], head mistress of the Jewish wing of the EDL, hangs out at Carlsberg, I mean Millett.
Atzmon appears to be a gifted musician but for one won't be spending good money on seeing him play...
mmm the The Sunday Times is selling “The Wandering Who”.
ReplyDeleteWhat's you going to do AZZ.
Boycott the paper.........
I've been boycotting the Murdoch Press ever since they destroyed the unions when they moved to Wapping and after the Sun's vile comments following Hillborough when they swallowed the line of the shitty police force that fans urinated over dead bodies when it was the police idiots who were responsible for the death of the fans.
ReplyDeleteIt is of course no surprise that the right-wing press, pro-Zionist, should nonetheless sell an anti-semitic book
One of the world's best known Islamophobes and zionists, Rupert Murdoch, is helping Atzmon flog his antisemitic drivel.
ReplyDeleteYou couldn't make it up.
I'm sure they'll both make a lot of money together.
No wonder the Atzmon Solidarity Campaign attacks and minimises the importance of the Palestine BDS, or knows nothing much about it.
- Somebody please hold me back from boycotting Murdoch's Sunday Times and Fox news channel, or his News of the World even.
Tesco sells the book.
ReplyDeleteSo why don't you start a boycot campain out side their stores.
No... I don't think you will do it, as an hypocrite, you will not get any publicity, nor any credit from your Zio-Palestinian crowd....
So there are measures for hypocracy, Ahava - Israeli product.
Tesco Promoting antisemites.....
Lets see the Sympathy you get from the British crowd once you try to fight your antisemite tribal religion.
Actually the last anonymous idiot got it right, for the wrong reasons.
ReplyDeletewe regularly do boycott pickets outside Tesco and for the last few months we moved from Ahava at 1 pm to Tesco's about 1/2 mile away.
But then the idiot Atzmonite wouldn't know that would he?
What’s amazing (or perhaps not) is how little the anti-BDSers actually knows about BDS. Hence the self-serving and null and void comparisons between Nazi boycotts and shutdowns of Jewish shops and businesses and our campaign.
ReplyDeleteTesco and Murdoch's empire - it's like a who's who of Palestine BDS targets to boycott in Britain.
ReplyDeleteYet the brainless stooges of the Atzmon solidarity campaign are openly boasting of being proud collaborators of the enemies of the Palestinian People and Palestinian solidarity.
I can't wait until Atzmon boycotts the BBC, or shows any support or sympathy whatsoever for his fellow musicians in the London Philharmonic Orchestra who have been suspended for wanting a concert involving Israeli musicians to be cancelled. He even seems to consider it might be illegal to interrupt a concert by Israeli musicians in Britain -
Regardless of the legitimacy of such a non-violent act, which I do not doubt...I hope that their action will lead Israelis towards self-reflection, but I actually doubt it very much.
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2011/09/atzmon-congratulates-crypto-zionists.html
Palestine solidarity in the UK shouldn't boycott Murdoch, Tesco, Ahava, the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra - according to Atzmon, he doubts it will have any effect (except on his bank balance) and is probably illegitimate anyway.
For your information, as promised a substantial article has been published on RedScribblings blog relating to this thread.
ReplyDeletehttp://redscribblings.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/from-atzmon-to-dreyfus-a-reply-to-communalists-and-stalinists/
Fraternally
I have done a very partial response to this reply to my review! http://redscribblings.wordpress.com/2011/10/29/from-atzmon-to-dreyfus-a-reply-to-communalists-and-stalinists/#comment-28
ReplyDeleteNot only do you appear to have delusions of grandeur Tony Greenstein, you actually believe that your little diatribe against Gilad Atzmon is going to stop Gentiles from buying the book. Well, it has had the opposite effect. I just went and bought a copy from Play.com
ReplyDeleteJews are and have been a damaging influence in our societies and if one ex-Jew is prepared (as Israel Shahak, Samuel Roth, Jack Bernstein and Harold Rosenthal were)to outline why this is, then I for one am eager to read what he has to say.
Finally, every single encounter I have ever had in my life with a Jewish person has been a negative one, and also highly damaging. This has happened with NO OTHER other race, creed, ethnicity or religion. Many other Gentiles I have spoken with has told of similar experiences (but are so scared of a backlash from Jews that they remain silent) and no - none of us are BNP, National Front, KKK members which is the usual label assigned to people who choose (from EXPERIENCES) not to be philosemitic.
But what strikes me is that a Jew will never think to ask him or herself why they create so much discord as the problem to them is always without and never within. Dislike or fear of a Jew is always regarded as "irrational" an interesting choice of words which also serves to curtail debate - after all "You must be mentally unbalanced if you do not like Jews - mustn't you!)
A Jew can never see him/herself as the problem as they are far too busy assigning themselves the mantle of victim despite the fact that there is little strength to be found in victim hood, neither is this something to aspire to.
Finally, you appear obsessed with Gilad Atzmon - pathologically obsessed. I find this rather bizarre to say the least!
I once said to a Jew who was quite like yourself in his beliefs, that no matter what you say on paper on even on the internet, you cannot dictate or control what people feel and the more you try to do so is the more indoctrinated peoples' alternative beliefs become.
You may be on a mission to stop the world from disliking Jews or to stop the world from denying the holocaust but it is NEVER going to happen as we are autonomous human beings who can essentially think what we want, even though I am sure that many Jews would love to criminalise thoughts if the option was open to them!
Incidentally, you call yourself an anti-racist - (much like the anti defamation league "existing" to protect all minority rights but only focusing on Jewish anti defamation) - but how much of your blog do you ever dedicate to any form of racism other than Jewish "antisemitism"?
ReplyDeleteSome how it feels as if Atzmon is one of the few that is saynig it as it really is. Of course this get's the hackles up of those whose hackles are rising - but only because it is hard to honestly be open to such criticsm. It kind of hurts to look in a mirror. The Israeli state is overtly racist, what with its apartheid wall. The state is supported by millions of people, and argueably - by association those people reflect the cause they support. What Atzmon says hurts some people too much, and we all know when that kind of thign happens - aggression sets in. Sorry folks Israel and its supporters is in a process of ethnic cleansing. Admit it now before its too late. You didn't like it when it happenned to you - so stop doing it to others - now!
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that Atzmon isn't saying it like it is. He is describing it as it ain't. He attacks anti-Zionist Jews more fervently than Zionists, and gets plaudits from Zionists for it.
ReplyDeleteNo one disputes that Israel is a racist state. Find anything on this blog which says otherwise. on the contrary I compare Israel, in certain respects, to Nazism, for which I was banned from writing articles for the Guardian CIF.
But why do you think I am pained by criticism of Israel? I've been an anti-Zionist before you were born and it takes a little more courage to break with a Zionist family than to be a Johny come lately supporter of the Palestinians who cannot even be honest enough to post under his own name.
What I disagree with, in case u didn't get it, is that I oppose a racist critique which is in fact a Zionist one. Because if you read the most recent post on the Bund you will realise that Atzmon attacks the Bund as having been Jewish chauvinists and praises the Zionists of the time for getting it right.
You are a real muddlehead anon.
Some how it feels as if Atzmon is one of the few that is saynig it as it really is. Of course this get's the hackles up of those whose hackles are rising - but only because it is hard to honestly be open to such criticsm. It kind of hurts to look in a mirror. The Israeli state is overtly racist, what with its apartheid wall. The state is supported by millions of people, and argueably - by association those people reflect the cause they support. What Atzmon says hurts some people too much, and we all know when that kind of thign happens - aggression sets in. Sorry folks Israel and its supporters is in a process of ethnic cleansing. Admit it now before its too late. You didn't like it when it happenned to you - so stop doing it to others - now!
The problem is that Atzmon isn't saying it like it is. He is describing it as it ain't. He attacks anti-Zionist Jews more fervently than Zionists, and gets plaudits from Zionists for it.
ReplyDeleteNo one disputes that Israel is a racist state. Find anything on this blog which says otherwise. on the contrary I compare Israel, in certain respects, to Nazism, for which I was banned from writing articles for the Guardian CIF.
But why do you think I am pained by criticism of Israel? I've been an anti-Zionist before you were born and it takes a little more courage to break with a Zionist family than to be a Johny come lately supporter of the Palestinians who cannot even be honest enough to post under his own name.
What I disagree with, in case u didn't get it, is that I oppose a racist critique which is in fact a Zionist one. Because if you read the most recent post on the Bund you will realise that Atzmon attacks the Bund as having been Jewish chauvinists and praises the Zionists of the time for getting it right.
You are a real muddlehead anon.
Some how it feels as if Atzmon is one of the few that is saynig it as it really is. Of course this get's the hackles up of those whose hackles are rising - but only because it is hard to honestly be open to such criticsm. It kind of hurts to look in a mirror. The Israeli state is overtly racist, what with its apartheid wall. The state is supported by millions of people, and argueably - by association those people reflect the cause they support. What Atzmon says hurts some people too much, and we all know when that kind of thign happens - aggression sets in. Sorry folks Israel and its supporters is in a process of ethnic cleansing. Admit it now before its too late. You didn't like it when it happenned to you - so stop doing it to others - now!
Yes, thanks I'm a self confessed muddlehead. That is cleared up now.
ReplyDelete"Before I was born" ?? How old are you?
However, your response was kind of explanatory and kind.
Sorry if I've got it wrong (in your eyes), but we can't all be right.
I'm kind of impressed you were banned from writing for the Guardian CIF.
1.Atzmon is Holocaust denier
ReplyDelete2. Atzmon blames the jews collectively for all shit what nonjews did - wars,revolutions.
communism and capitalism (at the same time)
etc etc
http://www.ucimc.org/content/gilad-atzmon-i-am-happy-i-circulated-holocaust-denial-propaganda
Let us call a spade a spade -
Atzmon IS a JewHater.