Mary Rizzo & Gilad Atzmon - the Falling Out

Mary Rizzo on Gilad Atzmon

There has been much speculation as to why the alliance between Gilad Atzmon and Mary Rizzo broke up. The truth appears to now be out, it was entirely person!

Well they say the political is personal but I’ve yet to see any major political differences emerge although clearly there is one crucial distinction. Despite the fact that she ends up in a political marriage with racists like Israel Shamir and Gilad Atzmon, Mary Rizzo – who used to run the PeacePalestine site and then the Palestine Think Tank, undoubtedly supports the Palestinians. With Gilad Atzmon, everything takes second place to his ego.

For example, following an exchange with Atzmon on 30th July this year I wrote at one stage:
‘yes you're more popular than the Palestinians. Who knows. Maybe that's the way to victory! Quite what they've done to deserve your 'support' is another question.’ to which Atzmon replied, without a trace of his normal ‘humour’ that ‘It is indeed a matter of concern i agree,,, ‘

Mary Rizzo went to the lengths of the earth to court Atzmon. There was nothing she wouldn’t do for him. However it couldn’t last. Atzmon’s ego was too big even for Mary and it would appear that Atzmon took full advantage of her hero worship and bullied her until she finally upped and left.

The piece below is interesting for the light it shines on Atzmon’s behaviour to his followers behind the scenes: It also suggests that Atzmon is keeping company with an Israeli ‘informant’. As well as casting a not very favourable light on Atzmon’s ‘borrowings’ – such as that rumoured from Mahmoud Darwish, to whom he was allegedly haggling over royalties. The Tony Ms Rizzo is replying to is not myself!

Tony Greenstein


Author: Mary Rizzo
Comment:

Tony, there is so much JUNK in your comment, I wouldn't know where to begin. I will state a couple of things though that might help you out of your confusion. I used to be very close to Atzmon, but our friendship ended due to personality conflicts (I hate bossy people who at 9 am tell you one thing and at 9.30 are bitching at you because you haven't done the opposite of what they wanted... I can't keep up with that kind of personality. He was once a very funny and amiable person, but when he gets irritable, he is too unpleasant and life is short enough without people bossing you around. I wanted out and I especially wanted to be far away from a person who hung out with a person who was a known informant, though he insisted it could not be true, but I'd trust a Palestinian from Palestine before I would an Israeli from Israel any day of the week.) I also have avoided writing about him entirely, though folks have asked and asked and a lot of interesting stories have arisen out of people's speculation! However, I have read about 3 pieces by him in the past year, so I don't know what he's saying or writing these days. I can't imagine it's that much different! I can only say one thing; I ran accidentally into a comment of his that made me laugh out loud at how he views his "departure" from this site, and sooner or later, hope he will come to terms with the truth and facts, though it seems all of that is a variable in a lot of activists' worlds.

1) I don't think Gilad is Hungarian. He may or may not be related to the Atzmon you name, but he IS related to Tzipi Livni, which he openly states. He also is NO refugee (!!!!) in London. He went there for his career, liked it and stayed, like many Israelis do. He owns a lot of property there, is doing very well, so refugee is seriously the most mistaken word you can choose. I doubt he has anything at all to do with too many persons who will not benefit his career which is his priority. He also is very interested in his image as "a radical figure", so he does tend to repeat the same points he has for many years, as he can add on a handful at a time of new fans who had not yet heard the message in the first place. As to burning down synagogues, that one is an old line that actually has been placed firmly in context I don't know HOW many times in the past... he is no threat to Jews whatsoever. Indeed, he is judeocentric and always keeps Jews in the centre of the discourse as if they are the most interesting and important people on the planet. It gets tired quick, it just took me longer to get bored with the focus on them, since I realise they are not as important as he wishes to make them out (this is part of the whole "I am special" thing... it would take a shrink to really define it all correctly, or someone with a lot of time on their hands. To the rest of us, it gets a bit redundant!)

2) I don't think he writes for Veteran's Today. Like all the sites that publish him, he sends out a copy to everyone on his mailing list and some insert them all and also credit him as editor or contributor. He only puts stuff (or has someone put it for him) on his personal site. He was at one time an extremely close friend and also a co-founder of this site and editor/contributor. This means, after discussing his ideas and the news for a while each day on the phone with me, he'd then write a version of it which I would clean up and edit. If my changes were acceptable, he'd say, good. I'd find artwork, fact check, link test, etc., format it, give it a title, set it up, circulate it, get it sent for translation, then it would go elsewhere. He does not ever like to credit things that people give to him, (he thinks he deserves it, I suppose) and I even saw him once claim credit for the name of his spoof band, The Promised Band, which I thought of, and he did not even blush when people were complimenting him at how clever that was. It seems he tends to take a lot of stuff and then assimilate it and believe it actually is his own invention. He's a good musician, at times can be funny, but let's say, sometimes his best lines come from other people....

At a certain point, I stopped wanting to do all that free work for various reasons, which you can maybe begin to understand..., and Haitham and I asked him to be more cooperative with the group effort or leave. He has been saying he left due to lack of shared political ideas, but that's bunk. It was that he didn't want to accept the 3 tiny conditions we gave because I was fed up with his constant bitching: 1) find someone else to do the actual editing work, since I had no time or interest for it anymore, at least in the short term, as I was physically ill, 2) circulate once a month any article by anyone except himself, 3) stop insulting people on comments because as the person moderating them, I could not accept his name calling of commenters and block others from doing the same to him. He said (even though a normal editor would actually realise these conditions were the bare minimum to cooperate with other busy people who also wanted to focus on their own writing and promoting some more writers and translate more Palestinian writers) "I don't take conditions!" so, we dropped him. We later "hid" his articles and kept them stored in archives along with all the comments because he started to publish them without crediting PTT, which we told him was not correct and could not be accepted. So, that is the Gilad Story with PTT.

As an Israeli, he has a right to invent his own narrative like "he left due to the political differences", as actually, this site has always been the same and it's pretty clear to anyone who does not have a weird agenda: ie., it's Patriotic to Palestinen, Arab Nationalist, accepts the primacy of the Palestinian voice, critical of anyone in activism who is making their work "the Solidarity Industry" (making money or fame off of the misery of another people), intolerant of gatekeepers, respectful of the diversity of Palestinian society, (secular, religious, socialist, whatever, it does not matter one iota, as long as the persons support and seek the full ROR and liberation from zionist occupation, they will have space to be heard here and to have their thoughts freely expressed and discussed, no matter how critical of any other faction or party. Palestinian society is diverse and varied, and this is how it will remain. Discussion and dissent is encouraged at all times, not gatekept or punished.

Discussion on a site like this allows anyone to freely hold any particular religious belief, because it doesn't matter what someone believes unless they use it as a wedge to divide. Gilad himself started telling me it was fine to have religious people express, but I should "shut up" on my own views, since in his mind it would drive Palestinians away if they were not getting the lip service about Islam, also culminating in him promoting some "Muslim scholar" also famous for pimping the Iraq war!! That was unacceptable, though we allowed it... PTT was not gatekeeping one of its editors.

But PTT can't support admitting any kind of intolerance to people's beliefs. I respect those who believe, just as I expect those who believe to respect my own beliefs! Any gatekeeping of that kind is not acceptable and this was also a position shared by my contacts who are actually DOING resistance in Lebanon and Palestine. They saw the whole thing as his sucking up and asked me what that was about. I could only shrug my shoulders. I only hope he has grown out of his drive to feed a culture clash since nobody but the neocons and the fanatics want it. He invented the narrative that he left and asked us to remove his content. well, "If it makes you happy, Gilad! say what you want. We know the truth and so do you!" <we have all the emails>

3) VT is an odd combination of people, let me just say that. Some are ok, they seem ok, others I have no idea about. They are American Patriots, so what they print will reflect that, obviously. If they are now busy slamming Wikileaks, I don't know what to say.. I haven't seen any evidence, just speculation, but I don't read that site, I find it pretty useless and repetitive. Some writers there, though, I've had some good discussions with and consider as friendly acquaintances. My personal radar though happened about a year ago, long before they started to attack me -if they are, I actually haven't checked, and if Salem News attacks me, I laugh. They have published some junk pieces that can line a litter box for how full they are of bad (and I mean BAD) journalism, with zero due diligence, zero fact checking (even a title they had to change because they don't check a basic fact... That the editor gets angry when I mention he was embedded, says it all.. HE is the guy who admits it, it's evidently fine with him). But VT has Jeff Gates (who also contributes here... but I am reading his stuff with a fine tooth comb these days) who actually had endorse his book that looked like it came out of the Republican Party Economic Plan no less that Amitai Etzioni. So, if a person writes a book on the Jewish lobby and has Etzioni pimp his previous book, can I rightly assume he really is as up to scratch on the lobby as he wants us to believe? I dunno... maybe he is? All I can say is, my antennae went up a few notches.

4) the word Goyim is used by Jews to mean "non-Jews"... I don't understand your fit you are having over it.

5) I have decided, there is no such thing as an ex-mil who is REALLY ex. Some have an agenda, I am still trying to figure out what it is. I do know that every single one of them KNOW things they dare not actually state, such as what daddy does for a living and how this impacts REALLY the Palestinians. Things like that I hope one day they can really look in the mirror and say... I should have done what my heart prevented me from doing, but I didn't... family and tribe came first. I hope I can be forgiven for being such a fake.

but I don't count on it.

Just like I don't believe any real narcissist has a grasp on how others do see him, and that is what makes it actually rather funny.