The Holocaust Lies of Gilad Atzmon the anti-Semitic Jazzman

Why Atzmon plays fast and loose with Truth, History and Integrity

For those who want an acquaintance with Atzmon, you could do worse than consult my (now out of date) Guide to the Sayings of Gilad Atzmon.  Atzmon it should be explained was a famous jazz musician, having won the BBC jazz record of the year in 2003 with ‘Exile’.

It was, as lies go, only a little lie.  I asserted, on Atzmon’s Facebook page, that he was a Holocaust denier, citing his article Truth, History and Integrity. Quick as a flash Atzmon came back.  This was, yet one more false assertion, by me, his Jewish persecutor. Atzmon referred me to a statement he made at the Babylon, Theatre, Berlin of 14.12.17.

‘Tony Greenstein in case you didn’t know, Truth History and Integrity was integrated into The Wandering Who’ [his book].  Atzmon could not help but boast that ‘it was translated and published in every European language, including German.. If the text above was suggesting H denial the book would ve been banned and i would be arrested.’ As things stand I hold a post in Germany and I visit the country regularly! I am proud of my take on History above and repeated it last month in a massive marxist gathering in Berlin... enjoy yourself.’ 

Atzmon did not say what kind of post he holds in Germany.  I assume it is a wooden post as I cannot believe academic standards have fallen that low. 

And at first sight it would appear that the passage below, from his book, is not a holocaust denial narrative, despite the suggestive passage that 'we must be entitled to ask questions' concerning Auschwitz.  What questions I wonder?

However it is yet one more Atzmon lie.  The book deliberately omits the passage I have bordered below in black from the original article.  No doubt it was with things like his visits to Germany in mind that he omitted this passage which makes it crystal clear that he doesn't accept the holocaust 'narrative' as he terms it.  In the article, but not the book, he says that the 'Holocaust narrative, in its current form, doesn't make any historical sense.'  He goes on to explain at the end of the omitted passage 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.'  (my emphasis) The only conclusion to draw from the passage is that Auschwitz-Birkenau was not a death factory.  In short

the section of the book entitled Truth History and Integrity deliberately omits the section of the original article surrounded by a Black border below

The original Truth History and Integrity - the part surrounded by a Black border was not integrated into the book The Wandering Who?

I have, over the past decade, posted numerous articles about Atzmon, an Israeli born Zionist who masquerades as a supporter of the Palestinians. This blog owes its formation to Atzmon.  In June 2005 Atzmon was invited by the Socialist Workers Party to give a talk on Otto Weininger, a German Jewish fascist, at Bookmarx.  It was said that Hitler had joked that ‘I only knew one good Jew and he killed himself’!  Attending the talk was one Ian Donovan, now of Socialist Fight. 

After refusing our request to cancel the talk, Jews Against Zionism organised a successful picket of the meeting.  We received the support of Professors Moshe Machover, Hilary and Stephen Rose – all of whom had made regular appearances till then at the SWP’s annual Marxism event. 

Paul Eisen writes on the DYR site arguing that historical evidence suggests there was no Holocaust

It was about two years previously that a group of anti-Semites, who professed to support the Palestinians, had gathered in a group called Deir Yassin Remembered [DYR].  DYR had started off as a Palestine solidarity group which was committed to preserving the memory of the notorious massacre of the villagers of Deir Yassin in April 1948 by the Zionist terrorist groups Lehi and Irgun. 

What supporter of Palestine didn’t want to support such a group?  It held annual concerts and the money helped pay for a scholarship for a Palestinian student.  It was or so it seemed, a most worthy cause. 

DYR took in a number of otherwise wholly reputable individuals who sympathised with the Palestinians.  MPs such as Jeremy Corbyn and Gerald Kaufman attended their concerts.  It had the support of a number of anti-Zionist Israeli Jews such as Michel Warshawsky, Jeff Halper, Ilan Pappe and Lea Tsemel.  However when the group decided to invite Israel Shamir onto its board people began to resign.  

The statement of Jeff Halper explaining why he left the DYR Board, shortly after Shamir joined it, is instructive.  In July 2005, shortly after JAZ had picketed the SWP’s meeting with Atzmon, two prominent Israeli anti-Zionists – Michel Warshawski and Lea Tsemel, also resigned.  Lea’s name is still on the Board of Advisors to this day

DYR had a solution to these resignations.  It simply refused to delete their names from the web site so you will still see some of their names on it over a decade after their resignation.  As Gabriel Ash remarked ‘The Deir Yassin Remembered board is like Hotel California, you can check in any time you like, but you can never leave.’

Its British representative and Director was Paul Eisen, who later surfaced when false allegations of anti-Semitism were made against Jeremy Corbyn.

Shamir was first called out for his Jew hatred by Abunimah and Hussein Ibish in Serious Concerns About Israel Shamir.  The article is no longer on the Internet though Shamir’s reply is. (I have now reposted it)

Shamir has now all but disappeared publicly. You can get a taste of his politics in Who Needs Holocaust? In a dialogue with Atzmon, who at this time was not a holocaust denier, Shamir decries the idea that Auschwitz was an extermination camp.  This was merely:

Another go of Zionist propaganda. The camp was perceived as an internment facility, attended by the Red Cross ...  If it were bombed, the internees would die – or as a result of the bombing, or due to starvation for the supplies would not arrive. Indeed, would Gilad advise to bomb Guantanamo? This idea of “bombing Auschwitz” makes sense only if one accepts the vision of “industrial extermination factory”, and it was formed only well after the war.

DYR is a classical example of a false flag organisation. Set up for one purpose but fulfilling another. When it was approached in 2014 to support the Boycott of Idan Raichel, a prominent supporter of Zionism and Israel’s military the Deir Yassin Remembered Board labelled the Raichel boycott campaign “gatekeeping”, describing it as ‘a tactic used often by Zionists and by people like Ali Abunimah. Hence we would oppose DYR gatekeeping anyone, including this fellow.‘’  [BDS Attacked by the Deir Yassin Remembered

I first came into contact with Atzmon after he had penned an article ‘The Protocols of the Elders Of London, the name being a take on the famous anti-Semitic forgery the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.  It attacks all those associated with Jews Against Zionism as ‘undercover Zionist agents’.

In ‘On Anti-Semitism’ Atzmon explained concerning the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion, which were described by Norman Cohn as a ‘Warrant for Genocide’ that: 

‘American Jewry makes any debate on whether the 'Protocols of the elder of Zion' are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews (in fact Zionists) do control the world.’

In Mein Kampf [174] Hitler wrote that ‘With groans and moan, the Frankfurter Zeitung repeats again and again that these are forgeries.   This alone is evidence in favour of their authenticity. ’ 

To Atzmon it is irrelevant if the Protocols are a forgery, because they are true, whereas for Hitler are ‘authentic’ precisely because they are true!  A distinction without a difference.

When I first corresponded with Atzmon after reading ‘The Protocols of the Elders of London’ I took Atzmon to task for his having distributed an article by Paul Eisen, the British Director of DYR, entitled Holocaust Wars. It was a full-fledged defence of Ernst Zundel, a holocaust denier who was later imprisoned for 5 years in Germany for incitement to racial hatred. Atzmon responded to my criticism by saying

‘True I circulated Paul Eisen's paper. I do believe that argumentative texts must be circulated as widely as possible.... Furthermore, Let me assure you that if I ever see a great text written by yourself I ll be the first to circulate it.’  This is a book, one of whose subtitles is ‘The Hitler we loved and why…’ in which Eisen explains that ‘Millions of Germans loved Hitler who for twelve years impacted on them as no German has or probably ever will, and, though they never say so, must, deep down still cherish his memory.’  It is a full throated defence of Holocaust denial  (my emphasis)

In the same correspondence Atzmon told me that ‘I regard Shamir as a unique and  advanced thinker.’

According to Atzmon I had falsely accused him of being a holocaust denier in ‘Truth, History and Integrity’ an article incorporated into his book, a book which was translated in German.  So I decided to investigate whether what Atzmon said was true and I had been maligning this noble, truthful figure. 

I first went to Atzmon’s original essay ‘Truth, History and Integrity’: In the section ‘It doesn’t make sense’, the ‘it’ being the Holocaust, Atzmon wrote:

It took me years to accept that the Holocaust narrative, in its current form, doesn’t make any historical sense. Here is just one little anecdote to elaborate on:

If, for instance, the Nazis wanted the Jews out of their Reich... or even dead, as the Zionist narrative insists, how come they marched hundreds of thousands of them back into the Reich at the end of the war? I have been concerned with this simple question for more than a while. I eventually launched into an historical research of the topic and happened to learn from Israeli holocaust historian professor Israel Gutman that Jewish prisoners actually joined the march voluntarily. Here is a testimony taken from Gutman’s book

"One of my friends and relatives in the camp came to me on the night of the evacuation and offered a common hiding place somewhere on the way from the camp to the factory. …The intention was to leave the camp with one of the convoys and to escape near the gate, using the darkness we thought to go a little far from the camp. The temptation was very strong. And yet, after I considered it all  I then decided to join (the march) with all the other inmates and to share their fate " (Israel Gutman [editor], People and Ashes: Book Auschwitz - Birkenau, Merhavia 1957). 

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 to ask the necessary questions. We should ask for some conclusive historical evidence and arguments rather than follow a religious narrative that is sustained by political pressure and laws. 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

I then went to my copy of Atzmon’s book ‘The Wandering Who’ and turned to page 175 and what did I discover?  The first four paragraphs above had been omitted!  If Truth, History and Integrity had been ‘integrated’ into his book Atzmon had taken care not to integrate the very paragraphs in which he cast doubt on the Holocaust!  Presumably because, as he says, he didn’t want to get arrested in Germany. 

However Ian Donovan of Socialist Fight described ‘Greenstein’s campaign between 2005 and 2010’ as an attempt ‘to witchhunt the Socialist Workers Party for hosting Atzmon’s gigs, and maintaining a fraternal dialogue with him, before they finally capitulated.’

Gilad Atzmon can claim some originality in distinguishing between Marxism and 'Jewish Marxism' given that Marx was Jewish

Donovan and Gerry Downing seriously believe that it is the job of socialists to maintain ‘a fraternal dialogue’ with someone who when not denying the Holocaust justifies it. Someone who states, in Tribal Marxism for Dummies that there is a distinction to be made between Marxism and what he calls ‘Jewish Marxism’ which ‘is very different from Marxism or socialism in general. While Marxism is a universal paradigm, its Jewish version is very different.’

Atzmon detests, like Donovan himself, the Jewish Bund. In Swindler’s List he states that ‘Bundists believe that instead of robbing Palestinians we should all get together and rob who is considered to be the rich, the wealthy and the strong in the name of working class revolution.’

In reality Socialist Fight are now acting as little more than ‘left’ apologists for Atzmon.  See Why the Steering Committee are proposing that Socialist Fight [SF] should be excluded from Labour Against the Witch-hunt  see also

Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon and

A Guide to the Sayings of Gilad Atzmon, the anti-Semitic jazzman

Gary Spedding - The Zionist Cuckoo in the Palestine Solidarity Nest

Flattered by Zionists - The Walter Mitty of Palestine Politics

Spedding also can't take criticism!  Hence I'm Blocked!

Gary Spedding combines support for the Palestinians with a close working relationship, according to his accounts, with Zionist groups like the Community Security Trust and he also praises overt Zionists and neo-cons like John  Mann and his Parliamentary Committee on anti-Semitism.

I have, unfortunately, had more than one occasion to write about his antics. See:

Open Letter to Members of Parliament

SNP MPs don't take kindly to criticism
Scottish National Party MPs Echo Zionist Propaganda

The False Use of anti-Semitism - Gary Spedding, the SNP’s Advisor on Palestine Sings the Zionist Song

Like the Guardian’s resident airhead, Owen Jones, Spedding sees Zionist accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ as having nothing to do with Palestine solidarity despite the fact that it is anti-Zionists and Palestinian solidarity activists who get targeted by accusations of ‘anti-Semitism’ not members of the far-Right.

Spedding's bad faith

Zionist advocates openly argue that anti-Zionism is the same as anti-Semitism.  Spedding however ignores this.  Like Owen he is oblivious to the ‘new anti-Semitism’ which redefines anti-Zionism and opposition to the Israeli state as ‘anti-Semitic’ on the spurious grounds that Israel is the ‘new Jew’ among states.  This idea which originated with Irwin Cotler, a former Minister in the Canadian government, , argues that people oppose what Israel does, not because it the only Apartheid state in the world, but because it is Jewish.

Spedding's arrogance is only matched by his ignorance

Spedding is an appalling narcisist who judges everything by his own ego.  Spedding therefore launched an unwarranted attack on Ali Abunimah, a Palestinian who is the Director of the Electronic Intifada site, by far the best anti-racist Palestinian solidarity web site there is.  Ali was responsible for the marginalisation of Israel Shamir, a notorious fascist and anti-Semite who wrote of Auschwitz that it was:

‘perceived as an internment facility, attended by the Red Cross … If it were bombed, the internees would die … This idea of “bombing Auschwitz” makes sense only if one accepts the vision of “industrial extermination factory”, and it was formed only well after the war. [Who needs Holocaust?]

Together with Hussein Ibish. Ali penned an article Serious Concerns About Israel Shamir which was written in 2001 that led to the discrediting of someone who had gained a considerable following on account of his flowery style of writing: 

'We do not have any need for some of what Israel Shamir is introducing into the discourse on behalf of Palestinian rights, which increasingly includes elements of traditional European anti-Semitic rhetoric.’’  [see Blind eye to anti-semitism

Gilad Atzmon, a close associate of Shamir, who considered him a ‘unique and advanced thinker’ [see Shamir’s A Reply to Tony Greenstein's Reply....]  gained an even wider following than Shamir, primarily due to the fact that he attained a certain fame as a jazz player.  Atzmon was also supported initially by the Socialist Workers Party.  A letter  was initiated by Ali Abunimah and signed by many of the most well-known Palestinians in the solidarity movement, people such as Omar Barghouti of the Boycott National Committee and Joseph Massad of Colombia University, entitled Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon put paid to Atzmon’s influence in the movement.

Spedding has pronounced on the 'intimidation' of the Eagle

Nonetheless Spedding engaged in a completely unprovoked and unwarranted attacks on Ali calling him a fool, despite as Ali put it conducting a private conversation with him in good faith.

Spedding has cosied up to the virulently anti-Palestinian group, the Zionist Community Security Trust and praised the work of John Mann’s Parliamentary Committee on anti-Semitism.  [see The False Use of anti-Semitism - Gary Spedding, the SNP’s Advisor on Palestine Sings the Zionist Song in which Spedding is quoted as saying that ‘In fact the CST has been incredibly helpful to me in my work.’

Spedding sees no harm in writing an article We in the Palestinian Solidarity Movement Have a Problem With anti-Semitism for Ha’aretz [see below] which defames and traduces the Palestine solidarity movement.

According to Spedding ‘Toxic conspiracy theories, group-blame and stereotyping are becoming a serious problem in the Palestine solidarity movement – and it’s undermining our struggle.’  In this article he tells us that ‘to my disappointment, I have found that some fellow solidarity activists are failing to take anti-Semitism seriously, to the extent that they’re prepared to believe every concern raised is a false accusation designed to smear the movement for Palestinian rights.’

Anti-Semitism in Britain is a marginal prejudice.  Jewish people aren’t attacked because they are Jewish.  Jews don’t suffer from state racism.  The mass media, at the same time as ignoring Stop and Search of Black people, deaths of Black people in custody or the rape of refugees in Yarl’s Wood is always ready to talk of ‘anti-Semitism’ when Israel is on the agenda.

We see this bogus concern with ‘anti-Semitism’ in the current attacks on the Left in the Labour Party.  I have been suspended from the Labour Party because of this attack by the Right, despite my long record as an anti-fascist activist.  The Zionist movement in this country has never been involved in anti-fascist or combating anti-Semitism of the far-Right.  Nor for that matter has Spedding, but that doesn’t stop him writing articles which are only of help to racist Zionism.

Apparently what bothers this fake solidarity activist is that at a meeting of his local PSC group ‘an audience member announced to the room that the term anti-Semitism was incorrectly used: "Arabs are also Semites."   Spedding idiotically took this to mean that ‘we should have a free pass to ignore Jews when they accuse us of anti-Semitism.’

This is a non-sequitur. The last statement does not logically follow on from the first.  The term anti-Semitism is, through usage, the term used for anti-Jewish hatred.  It is true that many people get hung up on a literal interpretation of ‘Semitism’.  In fact, as Spedding should know but obviously doesn’t, the term was first coined by a German anti-Semite, Wilhelm Marr, in 1879.  He like most racists of the time was seeking to put their racism on a ‘scientific’ as opposed to a religious basis.  It was the age of rationality. 

Marr therefore defined Jews as ‘Semites’ even though Semitic applies to a language group not a race or ethnicity.  He based it on the false assumption that most Jews spoke Hebrew, a semitic language.  In fact they spoke Yiddish, which was mainly German with some Hebrew terms.  Of course Arabs also speak semitic languages.

This causes confusion but it is in no way anti-Jewish.  However Spedding, who perfectly illustrates the old saying that a little knowledge can be dangerous, explained that ‘to my dismay, as the dismissive rant continued many in the room were nodding in agreement. I myself felt too insecure to raise my own voice.’

One suspects his insecurity derived from the fact that he knew nothing about the origins of the term anti-Semitism coupled with the fact that he is widely disliked and distrusted wherever he goes.

 But to Spedding ‘This toying with semantics is sinister in nature - by redefining anti-Semitism in a way that erases the fact this term specifically denotes hatred and discrimination against Jews.’

Now it might be irritating the way that some people take ‘anti-Semitism’ literally, for all the aforementioned reasons, since if one were to set out afresh to define anti-Jewish racism, ‘anti-Semitism’ would not be the best term to invent.  However there is nothing sinister in questioning a term coined by Wilhelm Marr, who was after all an anti-Semite.

Spedding however can’t handle this.  He writes that Palestine solidarity activists went ‘as far as to redefine the term in order to avoid being labeled anti-Semitic, even when anti-Jewish - as opposed to anti-Israel - language is used.’  The only problem is that Spedding doesn’t give us any examples of this ‘anti-Jewish’ language.

Spedding makes the unremarkable observation that ‘For me, being equipped to recognize and call out anti-Semitism can only strengthen my Palestine advocacy.’

Possibly.  The only problem is that Spedding doesn’t recognise anti-Semitism.  He is totally confused.  He says that ‘Having a clear definition of anti-Semitism helps to reassure the Jewish community and means our activism is less susceptible to the false accusations of anti-Semitism by Israel advocacy groups’.

This is nonsense.  The Jewish community, which includes Zionists, doesn’t have a single definition of anti-Semitism.  As the late Hajo Meyer, a survivor of Auschwitz put it, ‘Formerly an anti-Semite was somebody who hated Jews because they were Jews and had a Jewish soul. But nowadays an anti-Semite is somebody who is hated by Jews.

The definition of anti-Semitism is contested territory with Zionist groups vying to redefine anti-Zionism as anti-Semitism.

We get to the heart of Spedding’s agenda when he says ‘We should also stop viewing Zionism as a catch-all term. It isn't. There are multiple strands of Zionism and varying political directions - some of which are indeed racist and ultra-nationalist, whilst others are not.’

This really is utter rubbish.  Spedding demonstrates that whatever he is, he is not an anti-Zionist.  He is trying to reconcile Zionism with support for the Palestinians (of a sort) and falling flat on his face.  All strands of Zionism held that  the Jews were a nation entitled to colonise and settle Palestine.  All agreed on the creation of a Jewish state where Jews would be privileged.  All strands of Zionism were signed up to the dispossession and expulsion of the Palestinians just as all strands except the miniscule Meretz today are in agreement with the Occupation of the West Bank.

Spedding tells us that ‘Some activists have tried to hide their intentions, again playing semantics, by replacing the word "Jew" with "Zionist."   In fact it is Zionists who deliberately conflate the two and opponents of Zionism who insist on separating them.  He complains that the ultra-Orthodox Neturei Karta say that "real Jews" reject "Zionism."  Quite what that has to do with anti-Semitism is not clear.

Spedding’s real beef is that ‘When people like me raise concerns about anti-Semitism we are often told that we are "useful idiots" for the Zionists and their agenda.’  The problem is that this is a good description of Spedding though how useful he will be to them is not clear.  This is why Ha’aretz published Spedding’s boring drivel.  He writes of  how, ‘When I drafted a U.K. Parliamentary Early Day Motion condemning anti-Semitism, I was told I was being used in a Zionist ploy, one that deliberately connects Palestine solidarity with anti-Semitism.’

I assume he is referring to my previous critique of his activities for the SNP.   Spedding mentions that but otherwise draws no conclusion from the fact that Zionism weaponises anti-Semitism against BDS.  In writing his article for Ha’aretz Spedding is allowing himself to be used by the Zionists, as the comments underneath his article demonstrate.  Anti-Semitism hasn’t disappeared but it is a vestigial form of racism.  It is almost wholly used to put western policy in the Middle East and its support of Israel in a good light. 

Tony Greenstein