This Blog and others like it are Slowly Being Strangled by Facebook and the Social Media Giants – We Need Your Help

The use of Algorithms will Lead to the Demise of Alternative Media if they are Starved of an Audience unless Readers also take on Responsibility

This blog is 14 years old. It began on January 29th 2008 with An Open Letter to Indymedia asking why they were allowing anti-Semitic articles by Gilad Atzmon to be posted. I was myself suspended from posting on UK Indymedia. The political incoherence of Indymedia, its failure to distinguish between right and left in the case of Atzmon and its lack of class politics or perspective, coupled with state repression and the growth of social media, led to its death in 2016.

Gilad Atzmon - the anti-Semitic Jazzman

I ended 2008 with 11 articles which represent a fair summary of the kind of article this blog has carried. Charles Tannock - Zionist and Apologist for anti-Semites showed how a far-right pro-Zionist Tory MEP, Charles Tannock, had defended an openly anti-Semitic Ukrainian paper, " Silski visti (Village News). Silski visiti published a paid for article ‘Jews in Ukraine Today: Reality Without Myths’ which stated that ‘some 400,000 Jews had taken part in the Nazi invasion of the Ukraine?’ That anyone could really believe such garbage is in itself breathtaking.

This story was consistent with many blogs which I have published since. It describes how Zionists and supporters of the Israeli state have no hesitation, like Israel itself, in backing open fascists and neo-Nazis whilst at the same time crying ‘anti-Semitism’.

The 11 articles included one comparing the Warsaw Ghetto to the Gaza Ghetto during Operation Cast Lead. Another took Atzmon to task for writing stuff that the neo-Nazi Red Watch site had printed wholesale.

Ali Abunimah, Editor of Electronic Intifada

Contrary to the allegations of the Zionists that the struggle against Zionism and in support of the Palestinians is anti-Semitic, it was the statement Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon by Ali Abunimah, Joseph, Massad, Omar Barghouti and a host of other Palestinian and Arab personalities that delivered the coup de grâce to Atzmon and his anti-Semitic supporters.

Another article mourned the passing of Harold Pinter (is it really that long ago that he died?). Another supported the Shministim, Israeli youth who refused to serve in Israel’s occupation army. I have always tried to highlight those brave few Israelis who stand up against Israeli Apartheid just as socialists stood with White South Africans who rejected Apartheid a generation ago.

The Arab baby that wasn't wanted by Jewish parents in Tel Aviv

An article on the Arab baby that wasn’t wanted at a kindergarten by racist Jewish parents set the tone for hundreds of articles that followed. Institutionalised Israeli racism. I quoted YNet about

‘Parents at (Tel Aviv’s) Hatikva neighborhood' s Hagalil School outraged by decision to integrate Arab students in classes, say their concerns are for school's academic level, not racially motivated.’

Bernie Madoff

The blog also had its lighter side. An article ‘Bernie Madoff - It's an ill wind that blows no good!!’ on one of the major collapses in the banking crisis took a more benevolent view of the malefactor. I wrote

Never was someone more appropriately named. Bernie literally made off with the proceeds of others' ill-gotten gains!’ To listen to some people the collapse of Bernie Madoff's $50 billion dollar investment operation, in reality the world's largest pyramid scheme, is the end of capitalism. Chance would be a fine thing. In fact it seems that the hand of providence is upon us. To listen to the squeals coming from the Jewish Chronicle it is the poor and vulnerable, the beneficiaries of Jewish charities, who are going to suffer.

I pointed out in mitigation that

this may be the best thing that has come out of the financial crisis. Zionist operations in both the USA and Israel have, in some cases been crippled

Many of those who had lost money were Zionist institutions!

In the intervening years I have written over 3,000 posts and there have been some 6¾ million hits. The blog started off quite slowly and built up to a crescendo in 2018 when I had over ¼ million hits in one month. For a long period I had around 100,000 hits a month. Today it is between 30 and 40,000 a month. The decline for other social media groups like The Canary has been even more pronounced. From some 7.5 million page views at the time of the 2017 General Election it has about 700,000 today.

Total Number of Hits Over Time

A Statistical Analysis of Tony Greenstein’s Blog

Over the 14 years 22.35% of all hits have come from Facebook. Today that number is 8.5%, a decline of two-thirds.

A third of hits have come from the UK, with 21.8% from the United States and 13.9% from Germany, followed by France, Norway and Russia.

In the last year there has been a slight decline in UK hits from a third over the whole period to 30.59%. In second place is France with 22.9% compared to 4.9% over the 14 years. The number of hits from the United States has declined from 21.8% over the whole period to 14.8% now. Germany has declined from 13.9% to 4.4% now. Make of these what you may. Japan has gone from 19^th to 4^th. Taiwan is 10^th today have not even registered 13 years ago. Likewise Romania is now 12^th having not figured in the statistics before.

Another blogger with similar problems is Jonathan Cook, an ex-Guardian journalist. Two days ago Jonathan wrote on a similar theme: Is it already too late to say goodbye?

My blog posts once attracted tens of thousands of shares. Then, as the algorithms tightened, it became thousands. Now, as they throttle me further, shares can often be counted in the hundreds. “Going viral” is a distant memory.

What distinguishes this blog from all others?

I have tried, not always successfully, to concentrate not only on current events but also to analyse those events and provide a theoretical background. A number of themes have come to the fore:

i.              Unlike many pro-Palestinian blogs (I except Electronic Intifada) I consistently defended Ken Livingstone when he referred in passing to the Nazis’ support for Zionism. This is a matter of historical fact and I am currently bringing out a heavily footnoted book on the subject. Indeed the Zionist record was far worse than Livingstone gave them credit for.

ii.            I have always insisted that you can’t understand what Israel is doing to the Palestinians if you don’t have an analysis and understanding of Zionism as a settler, colonial movement. It is this refusal to draw conclusions from Zionism, that from the start it sought to colonise the whole of Palestine, that led the Palestinians and PLO into making the fatal error of agreeing to the Oslo Accords. [see my article debating the Oslo Accords with Julia Bard of the Jewish Socialists Group in 1993].

iii.         I have always opposed anti-Semitism in the Palestine solidarity movement because genuine anti-Semitism is the ally of Zionism. Literally they are Siamese twins. Although Zionism is not in the least concerned with genuine anti-Semitism it welcomes manifestations (rare as they are) in the Palestine solidarity movement as ‘proving’ that their opponents are motivated by hatred of Jews rather than hatred of what Israel does to the Palestinians. There was no better friend of the Zionist movement than Hitler. Without the flood of immigrants from Germany and elsewhere, the Zionist movement would have found great difficulty in achieving a critical mass in Palestine.

Noah Lucas, a critical Zionist historian in the Founding of Modern Israel observed that:

As the European holocaust erupted, Ben-Gurion saw it as a decisive opportunity for Zionism... In conditions of peace,… Zionism could not move the masses of world Jewry. The forces unleashed by Hitler in all their horror must be harnessed to the advantage of Zionism. ... By the end of 1942… the struggle for a Jewish state became the primary concern of the movement.

Ben Gurion wrote, in October 1941, that:

Disaster is strength if channelled to a productive course. The whole trick of Zionism is that it knows how to channel our disaster, not into despondency or degradation, as is the case in the Diaspora, but into a source of creativity and exploitation. [Shabtai Teveth ‘The Burning Ground 1886-1948’ p.853]

Other themes have included a focus on Israelis opposed to Zionism and who refuse to serve in the IDF, a focus on Israel’s abuse and torture of Palestinian children.

My blog is, as it says, socialist, anti-racist and anti-Zionist.  In no particular order! My most popular blogs may come as a surprise to people but for the first time I publish a list of them.

Which were the most popular posts?

The most popular with an incredible 165,000 hits was in April 2018 Winston Churchill – a Mass Murderer to whom history was very kind. Quite why this was so popular I simply do not know. Maybe it caught the mood of the time and the attacks on this war criminal’s statue.

The second most popular blog, on New Year’s day 2018 was Feminist silence over Ahed Tamimi exposes the racist consensus at the heart of western feminism with 105,000 hits. Ahed Tamimi was the 16 year old girl who slapped an Israeli soldier and was put in prison for 8 months.  It highlighted the imprisonment of Palestinian children and the racism at the heart of their lack of justice system since no Jewish child would have served a single day. Both these blogs appeared within 4 months of each other.

My third most popular in April 2012 was Israeli Shop Sodastream (Ecostream) Opens in Brighton to Large Picket with 51,900 hits. I am an activist not just a writer and I was involved from the start in the campaign to remove Sodastream’s shop from Brighton.

My 4^th most popular blog was Open Letter to John Mann MP from a 90 Year Old Jewish Dr Glatt in October 2016 with 35,900 hits. Dr Blatt, a Jewish doctor who has since died, was so angry that he wrote a letter to John Mann, the Tory Lord and anti-Corbyn Labour MP who had alleged that Glatt’s letter criticising him was in fact written by Alan Madison, a Momentum supporter. Mann put up a Facebook post which blatantly lied. I produced Glatt’s letter on my blog and Mann was shamed into taking down his lying post.

The 5^th most popular blog was a curious one The Framing of Kelvin Hopkins MP with 18.9K on 5 November 2017 which drove holes in the allegations of a member of Progress Ava Etemadzadeh  that she had been sexually assaulted by this staunch left-wing MP. Unfortunately Corbyn abandoned Hopkins just as he did so many others. Despite criticism from some on the left I was convinced the allegations were false.

The 6^th most popular blog in November 2018 with 17.8K was NW Friends of Israel, Tommy Robinson and the EDL, are Holding a Demonstration Against ‘Anti-semitism’ in Manchester this Sunday. The Zionist didn’t like that one but what I said came true with a vengeance last May when Tommy Robinson was given a hero’s welcome at the Board of Deputies demonstration outside the Israeli Embassy.

The 7^th most popular blog in October 2017 was Professor Moshe Machover Israeli Anti-Zionist Expelled from Labour today for ‘anti-Semitism’ with 16,300 hits.

The only blog from 2021 to make it into the top 10 at number 8 is May Day 2021 – Brighton & Hove Trades Union Council Says Stop the Police Bill with 15,000 hits.

Number 9 was Israel is not only the world’s most racist state it is a nation of murderers from September 2019 with 14.9K hits.

Number 10 was a humorous How do you tell if someone is a Nazi? with 14.2K hits in August 2017.

There is just one blog in the top ten from last year and 2019. None made it in 2020. By contrast there were 3 in 2017 and 3 in 2018 with 1 each in 2012 and 2016.

In the past 12 months, apart from the blog on the Trades Council demonstration against the Police Bill, the only ones to gather more than 5,000 hits were Defend Bristol University’s Professor David Miller – Defend Academic Freedom – Defend Free Speech in February 2021 with 7.65K and Open Letter to the Guardian's Editor Kath Viner & its Zionist Gatekeeper, Jonathan Freedland on December 28 2021 with 5.07K.

Numbers 11-20 were:

A Desperate John Mann MP Tries to Undermine 90 year old Jewish Doctor's Letter by Falsely Alleging It was a Forgery October 2016

Destroying the Myths of Israel’s Birth – the Mass Gang Rape & Murder of an Arab Child, July 2017

Support Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu, January 2011

Brighton & Hove Labour Party Suspended by National Labour Party, July 2016

Open Letter to the Lying Leader of Brighton and Hove City Council, Warren Morgan, October 2017

The Zionists admit that the IHRA is about defending Israel NOT Jews, September 2018

Owen Jones – the Final Betrayal - Supporting Zionist Apartheid & the Jewish Labour Movement, February 2017

Labour’s Expulsion of Cyril Chilson, a Child of Holocaust Survivors, Says Everything You Need to Know About Labour's 'Antisemitism' Witchhunt, April 2018

Torture couldn’t happen to a Jewish child - 16 year old Ahed Tamimi’s Detention is Extended by Israel's Military Court, December 2017

Crooked Iain McNicol Revives the Noble Nazi Role of Informer, August 2016

There was one post from 2011, three from 2016, four from 2017 and two from 2018. So of the top 20 posts:

1 was from 2011,

1 was from 2012,

4 were from 2016,

7 were from 2017

5 were from 2018

1 was from 2019 and

1 was from 2021

It is clear that the peak number of hits were from 2016-2018 and then there was a decline coinciding with the effect of Facebook's tampering with its algorithms as it affected other social media.

What Can You Do To Combat Social Media Censorship?

It is clear that after the shock of the 2017 General Election which Corbyn nearly won, with The Canary getting more hits than the mainstream media sites, that the corporate social media and Mark Fuckerberg’s Facebook have altered their algorithms in order to weed out people like Jonathan and me. Writing about Palestine is not welcome in the corporate boardrooms.

Part of the reason why this blog has weathered the storm better, proportionately than many other similar blogs, is because I post links to a large database that I have built up over the years. So one thing you can do, if your name is not already on it, is to send your email address to azvsas@gmail.com and I shall add you to it.

Another thing you can do is to share my blogs so as to overcome the dirty tricks of Facebook and Twitter. Twitter even banned me after I had responded to Zionist trolls abusing me. Calling a Jewish person anti-Semitic is not an offence in Twitter’s eyes but calling your detractors racists is.

Many people, like Jonathan Cook, depend on their blog for an income. I don’t. However it does cost money to maintain. I employ a local charity Sussex Community Internet Project. It isn’t cheap but without them the site would be vulnerable to attack. At the moment they are redesigning my site.

I should point out that I have two sites – Google’s blogspot www.azvsas.blogspot.com  but also  www.tonygreenstein.com. I took the decision in around 2017 to set up a mirror site because of threats from Zionists that they would get Google to remove my blog altogether. It was a precaution but it didn’t come cheap.

I also discovered that some posts had simply disappeared. Google had never notified me about them but they were no longer there. If the Zionists had hacked the site then they would have simply erased everything. For example one post on the activities of a particularly nasty Tammi Rossman Benjamin disappeared. Fortunately I have backed up all files on disc and shall be replacing it in the course of time.

There are 3 things you can do:

i.                   Share, share, share

ii.                Get added to my mailing list. No amount of algorithms can get round that!

iii.             Donate what you can afford, however little or however much, to my web appeal. I am happy to write articles (I know there have been fewer in the past few weeks but I am heavily involved in the production and editing of my forthcoming book on the Nazis and Zionists). You can donate in 3 ways:

a.     Straight to my Paypal account tonygreenstein111@gmail.com

b.    By bank transfer to

Brighton and Hove Unemployed Workers Centre,

Sort Code 09-01-50

Account Number: 04094107

but please put in the reference ‘Web’ or ‘Blog’

c.     By snail mail to:

BUWC, PO Box 173, Brighton, BN51 9EZ

Tony Greenstein

Gilad Atzmon Comes Out - Now an open anti-Semite

I am not a Jew anymore.  I despise the Jew in me. I absolutely detest the Jew in you.

This blog was set up in 2007 to combat the pernicious influence of Gilad Atzmon, who operated on the fringes of the Palestine solidarity campaign.  To me and others anti-Zionist Jews it was clear that Atzmon was, without doubt, anti-Semitic.  Unfortunately this wasn’t at all clear to many others in the movement.

The Socialist Workers Party in particular couldn’t see the light and for a long time defended Atzmon.   See for example Time to say goodbye Why does the SWP not break its links withholocaust-denier Gilad Atzmon? 

The anti-Semitic Jazzman

What was decisive in breaking the influence of Atzmon over many in the Palestine solidarity movement was the joint call by Ali Abunimah, Omar Barghouti, Joseph Massad and other Palestinians for the movement to dissociate itself from Atzmon.  Granting NoQuarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of GiladAtzmon

I had many long arguments with many people who just didn’t seem to get it.  Not just common and garden fools like Roy Ratcliffe of Exeter PSC, who composed lengthy treaties proving that the Eart was flat and Atzmon was an anti-racist  but people who had a much higher intellectual calibre.

For example Richard Falk, the distinguished professor and UN representative in Gaza, provided a  blurb for Atzmon’s book The Wandering Who.  In an email to me of 18 December 2011 Richard wrote ‘I appreciate some of the points and arguments that are made. Nevertheless, having re-read Atzmon's book and his responses to comparable lines of criticism I am not prepared to alter, much less renounce, my endorsement…. Atzmon may have pushed his basic argument too far, but it seems to me a valid inquiry that can lead to debate and discussion, but is not appropriate to denounce, and to go further, and denounce those who endorsed the reading of the book.’  

I found it frustrating that people like Richard Falk could not see what was in front of their eyes, but he was not alone.  The primary reason for the difficulty in persuading people that Atzmon was an anti-Semite was because of the determined efforts of the Zionist movement to equate all support for the Palestinians and opposition to Zionism as anti-Semitic.  It had indeed blurred the distinction between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, such that people could no longer tell the difference between the two.

As I wrote at the height of the controversy in Seamy Side of Solidarity 'Like the boy who cried wolf, the charge of "anti-semitism" has been made so often against critics of Zionism and the Israeli state that people now have difficulty recognising the genuine article.'

Falk had written that Atzmon’s book was "A transformative story told with unflinching integrity that all (especially Jews) who care about real peace, as well as their own identity, should not only read, but reflect upon and discuss widely."

Ramzy Baroud, Editor of the Palestine Chronicle wrote in the blurb of Atzmon's book, The Wandering Who that “Gilad Atzmon decided to open Pandora’s Box, and ignite a debate that has been frustratingly dormant for too long. His experiences are most authentic, views are hard-hitting, and, at times, provocative. It must be read and discussed.”  Ramzy Baroud is not stupid yet he too did not get it.

Professor John J. Mearsheimer of The Israel Lobby saw The Wandering Who as ‘Essential to an understanding of Jewish identity politics and the role they play on the world stage.’

The idiotic Dr. Samir Abed-Rabbo splutterd that Atzmon’s book was "A pioneering work that deserves to be read and Gilad Atzmon is brave to write this book!"

Lauren Booth, Cherie Blair’s brain dead sister-in-law, wrote that “It is more than an academic exercise. It is a revelation!” Booth is clearly easily satisfied!

Eric Walberg of Al Aharam Weekly believed that ‘'In his inimitable deadpan style, Atzmon identifies the abscess in the Jewish wisdom tooth – exilic tribalism – and pulls it out. Ouch!” 

Jeff Blankfort an anti-Semite from the USA who used to be on the left, described Atzmon’s  book as "A brilliant analysis that makes what appear to be contradictions in Jewish identity based political behavior not only comprehensible but predictable."

One suspects Blankfort would have difficulty predicting a restaurant menu.

And Professor James Petras, who believes that the Israeli tail wages the American dog,  wittered on about how "Atzmon has the courage - so profoundly lacking among Western intellectuals"

Karl Sabbagh wrote that ‘Atzmon’s insight into the organism created by the Zionist movement is explosive.’  Quite how a vacuum can be explosive is best left to better minds than Sabbagh.

The unknown and best forgotten academic Dr. Makram Khoury-Machool wrote that  “Having known Gilad for 25 years, I read the book in English, I heard it in Hebrew and reflected on it in Arabic. Gilad Atzmon is astonishingly courageous” Makram Khoury-Machool has the ability to speak and read in 3 languages yet he is incapable of thinking in even one of them.

To the Israeli lecturer Oren Ben Dor, for whom the Holocaust is god's just revenge on the Jews, preordained in the thicket of his academic prose, Atzmon’s book was ‘A fascinating achievement”.

To Kim Petersen of the anti-Semitic Dissident Voice “Gilad Atzmon is someone who encompasses what it means to be an intellectual.” Thus demonstrating above all that she is no intellectual.

For Dr. Kevin Barrett “Gilad Atzmon is the Moses of our time” in other words another false Messiah.

What these and other eulogies to the Atzmon's ego demonstrate is not merely the stupidity of so many academics, whose use of long words and complicated phrases is designed to mask their own superficiality, but how Atzmon managed to pull the wool over peoples’ eyes.

It was that which I found most frustrating.

David Taube of Harry's Place and Mike Ezra excuse Atzmon's anti-SemitismMany Zionists too were fascinated by Atzmon because he was repeating many of their tropes, not least that Zionism and Judaism were inextricably linked.   People like Mikey Ezra and David Taube of Harry’s Place were fascinated.  Taube described a jaunt that he and Mikey Ezra had gone on with Atzmon:

'Last week, Mikey invited me for a drink with Gilad Atzmon.  Mikey’s thoughts on Gilad and his worldview follow, below. 

‘Gilad was, I have to say, utterly charming and a delightful drinking companion....
Is Gilad Atzmon a racist? Not in the narrow sense of being preoccupied by genetic differences between people certainly. He is rather, I think, a ‘cultural essentialist’: if such a term exists.'  

You get that?  A cultural essentialist, not a racist!

But with his latest tweet, there can be no doubt about Atzmon’s anti-Semitism.

‘1.        I am not a Jew anymore.  2.  I indeed despise the Jew in me (whatever is left).  3.  I absolutely detest the Jew in you.’

Arthur Topham - holocaust denier for whom Atzmon gave 'expert' evidence - KKK leader David Duke who wanted to give evidence was refused entry  into Canada

Last November Atzmon gave expert witness testimony (!) on behalf of Arthur Topham, an anti-Semite and holocaust denier, to a Canadian court.   Despite this Topham was convicted of racial hatred and is awaiting sentence.  

I have previously posted a compendium of Atzmon’s anti-Semitic sayings.  It can be found at:  A Guide to the Sayings of Gilad Atzmon, the anti-Semitic jazzman.  According to Atzmon, I am a Zionist because he too, like the Zionists, argues that any Jew who is politically active as a Jew must be a Zionist.

It is somewhat ironic that Atzmon is a fierce opponent of BDS.  For him it is a Jewish enterprise.  Atzmon makes a nasty, vicious attack on Omar Barghouti, who is facing the possibility of Israeli reprisals and deportation, despite being a long-standing Israeli resident.  In Omar Accomplished His Job, Omar Is Free To Go Atzmon says that 

'BDS was an Israeli controlled opposition maneuver.  For Israel, BDS presented the ideal front on which to fight. Instead of battling for a Palestinian Right Of Return, that is ethically solid and backed by UN resolutions, the solidarity movement was reduced to an internal Jewish debate over the “Right to BDS.”    

I just hope that Ramzy Baroud, Karl Sabbagh and co. have the honesty to admit that they made a mistake.