Every year, according to Defence for Children International, around 700 Palestinian minors between the ages of 12 and 17 are arrested in the West Bank and are tried in Israeli Military Courts.
In this issue: 195 children held in Israeli military detention at the end of August 2012; new military order (1685) affecting children still not translated into Arabic; former Israeli soldiers break the silence about the treatment of Palestinian children during military operations – testimonies disclose a pattern of beatings and intimidation.
On 26 August 2012, three Israeli settler children, aged between 12 and 13 years, were arrested on suspicion of involvement in the attack. One boy was conditionally released by a civilian judge on 29 August, and the other two were conditionally released the following day. This case highlights the discriminatory nature of the legal systems applied by the Israeli authorities in the West Bank. Whilst settler children are processed through Israel’s juvenile justice system and generally released on bail, Palestinian children accused of similar offences are prosecuted in military courts which deny children bail in at least 87 percent of cases, and have a conviction rate of 99.74 percent.
Palestine / Israel Links
This is the disgusting reality of Israel’s sickening apartheid: ‘The IDF’s Civil Administration is preventing the Palestinian Authority from laying a water pipe that would alleviate the acute water shortage for more than 600,000 Palestinian
s in the West Bank.
The reason given for preventing the pipe’s construction is that a section of less than two kilometers of it, laid on the margins of Route 50, would disrupt Jewish passenger traffic on the road.’
We have discovered you are scheduled to play in Israel on 23 August at the Barby in Tel Aviv.
The fact that there is a cultural boycott of Israel is not something of which all musical artists are aware when they schedule to play Israel. After becoming aware, many cancel. (See http://www.pacbi.org/etemplate.php?id=1788)
We are writing to let you know more about this global movement, and we hope you will decide to be a part of it.
Israel has claimed authority over the lives and land of millions of Palestinian people. What began in 1948 in Palestine has now escalated into what South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu and many others call apartheid. Racism runs deep in the streets of Tel Aviv, Africans seeking asylum and living as refugees are filled with fear as Israelis demonstrate on the streets against their presence. Last May brought fear to Africans in Israel as a series of fire bombings of apartments and a day nursery were set off in an area where African migrants live. Shops run by or serving migrants were smashed up and looted in violent demonstrations in which several Africans were attacked. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu stated
“We’ll start by ejecting the infiltrators from South Sudan…and then move on to other groups.”
Israel’s Minister of the Interior, Eli Yishai said chillingly:
“The infiltrators [African immigrants] along with the Palestinians will quickly bring us to the end of the Zionist dream…we don’t need to import more problems from Africa…[they] think the country doesn’t belong to us, the white man”.
A heinous series of walls, checkpoints, and sniper towers dot the landscape for millions of Palestinians. Brutal military might is flaunted daily and children in Gaza are regularly targeted to demonstrate the “effectiveness” of new weapons. Armed soldiers raid homes, fire into schoolyards, maiming and killing children.
While some liberal “peacenik” Israelis will tell you they want you to play because they will be your audience, please know that the most effective tool to end the oppression is an unequivocal stand against the injustice by saying no. Instead listen to the brave Israelis from “Boycott From Within” who have asked many artists to stay away from the failing Zionist state. (See http://boycottisrael.info/ )
Artists who do play for apartheid are being used to promote Israel as a false democracy. The Israeli government has an official twitter and uses its position to let the world know which artists lend their name to promote Israel’s false image. Just three of many examples are Bobby McFerrin, Gun N Roses and Sister Bliss.
Please don’t allow your name to be used to whitewash racism, apartheid, and the horrible illegal annexation wall (pictured here in this recent video). http://youtu.be/pxZrUIctF5A
Join the boycott for justice, equality, freedom and human rights.
Don’t Play Apartheid Israel (DPAI) seeks to inform musicians of the Palestinian call to boycott Israel, and the extent to which their decision to play in the apartheid state will be instrumentalized – against their will – as propaganda for the maintenance of a horrifying status quo in Israel/Palestine: that is a brutal, decades-long occupation, ongoing ethnic cleansing, continual land theft, passing of over 20 racist laws within Israel/’48, and the crackdown on human rights groups. We represent over 900 members from around the globe who believe that it is essential for musicians & other artists to heed the call of the PACBI, and join in the boycott of Israel.
How obsession with “nonviolence” harms the Palestinian cause – As Lina says: ‘Oppressed people do not and should not have to explain their oppression to their oppressor, nor tailor their resistance to the comfort of the oppressors and their supporters.’
Yet Lina is noticing that Palestinian participation and leadership is limited by the current PSCC model, despite it being effective in terms of international awareness, and is funded inadequately by Fayyad who has his own dubious neoliberal, collaborator agenda, and foreign NGOs with their agendas. So how can this really be ‘popular’ resistance? instead, it can look more like normalisation – including with Fayyad’s neoliberalism. For a popular movement there has to be mobilisation.
In the wake of Irish traditional band Dervish’s cancellation of their dates in apartheid Israel, an astonishing campaign of lies and smears has played out in the Irish press- mainly in the Sunday Independent – and has had substantial and deeply worrying contributions from the Irish Minister for Justice and Defence, Alan Shatter.
When the Dervish dates in Israel became known to Palestine solidarity campaigners, DPAI set up a Facebook page, Dervish, Don’t Bring Your Travelling Show to Apartheid Israel, the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) wrote an open letter to the group, musicians supportive of BDS contacted the band and people posted on the band’s Facebook page. There was no abuse of the band, no ‘venom’ directed at them (there never is), there was a concerted campaign to give Dervish information about the terrible situation of the Palestinian people, to tell them about their call for solidarity in the form of BDS and to ask them to join other artists of conscience in refusing to play in Israel.
When Dervish cancelled, stating that they had been unaware of the cultural boycott of Israel: “At the time we agreed to these performances we were unaware there was a cultural boycott in place. We now feel that we do not wish to break this boycott. Our decision to withdraw from the concerts reflects our wish to neither endorse nor criticise anyone’s political views in this situation.” (Official Facebook page here), they were congratulated by the IPSC, DPAI, who wrote a letter of thanks, and many other supporters of the Palestinian people. The cancellation, of course, sparked the usual hate-filled posts from zionists and that’s where the ‘venom’ referred to in Dervish’s second statement came from.
Here are some examples of the positive statements made by BDS advocates:
“Respect and thanks for having the courage to refuse breaching the Palestinian call for boycott.”
Raymond Deane, Cultural Liaison Officer IPSC: “Dervish – I salute you for this courageous and morally correct decision. You will now be subject to massive defamation from Zionists and their fellow-travellers – you should see this as proof that you have made the correct decision, because it will reveal to you the viciousness and mendacity of Israel’s apologists.”
Zoe Lawlor: “Well done and thanks Dervish. You have joined a growing list of artists refusing to play for apartheid. You are on the right side of history and with the Palestinian people in their struggle for justice. Respect.”
“Thank you so much for refusing to support apartheid, history will remember artists like you. It is not always easy to do what is right. You are not alone, Nelson Mandela and many other peacemakers have said they themselves cannot feel free until there is an end to the brutal occupation and colonisation of Palestine.”
“This cannot have been an easy time for any of you. I hope one day you play Tel Aviv again with laughter and lightness and when this difficult week is just a dim bad memory. Thank you for not breaking the boycott… you paid a much higher price than most people ever have to. Respect !”
Martin O’ Quigley, IPSC Chair: “Thanks Dervish for not playing to Apartheid. Supporting Human Rights is not expressing hate; supporters of the South African boycott didn’t hate white South Africans, just the policies of the Apartheid regime.”
Some of the negative comments from supporters of Israeli apartheid:
“LMAO at this band attempting to sit on the fence while simultaniously boycotting a country surrounded by a bunch of Arabs that want to see it destroyed. Israel has been at war with the savages that refuse to tollerate Israels existence, yet the world is siding with the intollerant Muslims while demonizing Israel. The world turning against Israel, now was this not prophesied to happen. Everything is right on schedule thanks for doing your part in satans agenda you bunch of lunatics.”
“Congratulations! You are now part of a cynical negative political campaign promoting nothing but hatred. Shame on you.”
“let it be kbown that i have heard that the bds uses some pretty shady tactics to threaten artists to cancel shows in the name of peace. oddly, much like hamas.”
“Wow Dervish! UNLIKE! Once again proving how anti-Semitic the Irish are! Please do not come back to Montana, we prefer real world music! I will do my best Not to promote you at every opportunity. Booooo Hisssss…get off the Stage!!!”
” white liberals. jeeeesus. take care all. i dont even like Dervish”
“For shame, Dervish, for so ignorantly taking a side in this misguided movement. Your statement that “Our decision to withdraw from the concerts reflects our wish to neither endorse nor criticise anyone’s political views in this situation” is so absurd as to be comical. How, by joining a boycott, are you not endorsing a position? Way to land on the wrong side of history. Pathetic.”
“this is the day the nusic of dervish die for me”
The posts above are representative of the reaction on the Dervish page and absolutely refute any smears against IPSC members and those standing in solidarity with the Palestinian people. They make Alan Shatter’s press release of 4th May look even more baseless when the evidence is there for anyone to see on the Internet. Instead of doing this and working on the basis of factual information, Shatter instead chose to write an outrageous press release accusing the IPSC (erroneously referred to as the IPSG) of “cyber bullying” and infringing on Irish citizens’ rights to travel. He also makes a link between Al Quaeda and the IPSC that is so ridiculous as to be laughable, except that this is a minister, in our government, paid for by our taxes, charged with upholding justice and protecting Irish citizens, IPSC members included. The statement defies belief and has been reported as fact in Irish newspapers, their journalists too lazy to actually investigate and report properly and accurately. The Irish Times and Independent are guilty of this and also claiming that there is no ‘official’ boycott of Israel, thereby displaying the usual orientalism of completely ignoring Palestinian voices. Meanwhile Shatter employs the all too familiar and predictable zionist tactic of mentioning Syria, demonstrating a profound inability to comprehend the simple tenet that the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign is just that, a campaign in solidarity with PALESTINE, not Syria…… rocket science and all that. By the way, his concern for Syria doesn’t extend to the Golan Heights….
While Palestinians live under occupation, oppression, siege, are frequent victims of Israeli war crimes and while over 2,000 of them are currently on hunger strike to protest the illegal practice of detention without charge or trial, Shatter has been silent. Could it be that the Minister for Justice has no sense of justice when it comes to Palestinians?
In the wake of the Dervish cancellation, there has been much hysteria in the Irish media, accompanied by increasingly poor standards of journalism – even journalists with no apparent pro-Israel agenda have managed to mischaracterise both BDS and the campaign around the Dervish tour. Above all else, they keep spectacularly missing the bloody point. Palestinians living through their 64th year of brutal occupation, betrayed by the so-called international community, have called for a comprehensive boycott of Israel – that’s their call, that’s one of the means by which they choose to resist the apartheid imposed on them. Solidarity groups support that call, that’s what solidarity means.
Raymond Deane, IPSC Cultural Liaison Officer, was interviewed by the ignorant and boorish Marc Colman on Newstalk radio (about 20 mins in) and subjected to personal attack by the uninformed and rude Eamon Delaney, both of whom trotted out the usual zionist cliches, familiar to any observer of the defenders of Israel and rehearsed multiple times on this blog. He was ‘accused’ of calling for the boycott himself, then it was claimed that it was a Hamas led boycott. Delaney even said that Israel shouldn’t be ‘picked on’ as it is a country made up of people who are white and European originally, very telling.
The thing about democracy is that, of course, everyone is entitled to an opinion but let’s make them based on knowledge not empty rhetoric or lazy thinking. If you’re going to be against the cultural boycott, at least be informed as to where it came from, what it entails, how it fits into the struggle, the truth about Israel’s constant repression of Palestinian culture. What we have seen here is the usual knee-jerk reaction of Israel’s supporters, who often don’t know what it is exactly they are against, all they know is that they will defend the apartheid state no matter what.
As with all the BDS campaigns I have seen, there is no harrassment of those who would cross the picket line, there is however a sincere and very urgent campaign to educate them and try to persuade them not to endorse apartheid. This is what campaigning for justice and human rights looks like, it’s what it looked like in the campaign agaisnt South African apartheid. That the Irish Minister for Justice either cannot or refuses to see this is disturbing. That journalists can produce copy based on lies, inaccuracies and mistruths is worrying.
The Palestinian led cultural boycott is growing every year, more and more artists are choosing not to perform for apartheid Israel. It is an honourable campaign and one I am proud to be part of, as should all involved especially the artists who make the decision to join.
BDS until apartheid ends – if you don’t like it, then let’s see your work to end injustice.
‘And this really means that my detractors are pretty much left in a hopeless situation — they do not posses the intellectual means to silence me or my criticism, so instead, they revert to smear campaigns: they label me an ‘anti Semite’, a ‘Neo Nazi’, a ‘racist’, and so on. Tragically enough for them, no one out side of the Jewish political circuit takes any of these empty accusations at all seriously anymore.’
The signatories, including my (non-Jewish) own, on this article ‘“Not Quite “Ordinary Human Beings” – Anti-Imperialism and the Anti-Humanist Rhetoric of Gilad Atzmon‘ which exposes how Atzmon’s views serve zionism and imperialism may not convince him they do not aim to silence him, as he claims, but to advance legitimate criticism of his faulty positions, or that at the least a substantial number of them come from ‘outside the Jewish political circuit’. Yet racist views have no place in solidarity struggles grounded in human rights and international law.
Apparently, Atzmon does fail to recognise the depth of his non-Jewish critics – and he throws a pathetic character assassination and woeful strawmen at As’ad AbuKhalil, who is one of the signatories, to conflate As’ad into his manufactured framework, despicably calling Professor AbuKhalil a collaborator – a term with dangerous connotations.
‘this is somebody that we should reject from the pro-Palestinian advocacy movement. He is anti-Jewish and his offensive language against Jews and Judaism should be categorically rejected. I would put the name of Israel Shamir in the same category. Anti-Semites belong to the Zionist side, and not to our side.’
Below, Palestinian Ali Abunimah critiques Atzmon’s “theories” presented at Stuttgart in 2010.
“I do not agree at all with how he characterised the situation and the problem. And I think to use the language which blames a particular culture – he was talking about Jewish culture – is wrong, because such arguments could be made about anyone – we could blame German culture for the history of Germany, we could blame British culture for the history of British imperialism, we could blame Afrikaaner culture for apartheid in South Africa and this really doesn’t explain anything at all. So I think we should not go in that direction, and should be very clear in condemning explanations which blame a culture or a religion for a political situation. So I wanted to make that very clear.”
Further, one only has to read @GiladAtzmon ‘s twitstream to note the paucity of his concern for Palestinians and their struggle. Nearly every tweet is self-promotional, at a time when Hanaa al-Shalabi is in her 16th day of hunger strike against Israeli arbitrary administrative detention without charge or trial.
UPDATE 4/3/12
Atzmon’s apoplectic response to the MrZine article proves its theses. For Atzmon, his critics are either Tribal Marxist Jews or if Arab, Collaborators.
The tweets below demonstrate the opportunistic white supremacism which bubbles and froths up to defend Atzmon from his critics – in this case, me – by calling me Jewish, zionist and a sayanim.
I never thought that I would live to a day when an Israeli who fought (or provided “medical work”) in the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982. Yes, that kind of a guy is qualified to teach me about the crimes of Zionism, when I was at the receiving ends of his bombs and car bombs and shells in 1982. I wrote again and I will write it again: there is no room in the pro-Palestinian movement for anti-Semites–and I am not saying that they may even be Israeli infiltrators sent to sabotage and stigmatize the movement. I have declared Gilad Atzmon an anti-Semite (using the general word for anti-Jewishness). Go read some samples of his anti-Jewish statements on the entry on him at Wikipedia. I signed a petition against him and will sign more petitions against him, if asked. I don’t throw labels of racist or anti-Semitic lightly but the case against this former member of the Israeli armed terrorist forces is rather clear. Here, Atzmon thinks he can offer me lessons on anti-Zionism. He is as qualified as the Saudi King giving me lessons about feminism. He and others should get the message: the Palestinian cause is too just and too precious to be polluted by haters of any kind. Anti-Semites are never welcomed in our movement. The Zionist cause is your natural home.
More hyperbole from Atzmon defender, Dr June Terpstra, who impugns a variety of motives without evidence onto the MrZine letter’s signatories. Accusing Atzmon’s critics of censorship (apparently criticism these days in some academic circles is known as ‘silencing’ and ‘censorship’ – will there be a call for an end to peer review next?), she demonstrates her affiliation with Atzmon’s supremacist beliefs and adopts his deceptive acronym for his critics – the Atzmon Defamation League (not to be confused with the Anti-Defamation League):
The ADL is opposed fundamentally to freedom of speech concerning Jewish cultural, political and religious supremacy.
She accuses the signatories of being privileged – yet does not examine Atzmon’s privilege. Perhaps she might scan his self-promotional twitstream today for clues.
UPDATE 6/3/12
More Atzmon self-promotion on twitter:
Atzmon snookers himself while attempting to trash another signatory on the MrZine article, well-known, stolidly anti-racist activist and writer, Emma Rosenthal :
In the interchange above, Atzmon definitively affirms his stance that zionism isn’t colonialism. This view is shared by zionists. Both are wrong and minimise this heinous crime against humanity. The zionist colonisation of Palestine is a classic example of settler colonialism.
Atzmon is grateful to this anon blogger, who transparently vilifies Jews as a group, for his/her support. Atzmon doesn’t even make the distinction between Jews and Jewishness when it’s a distinction his supporters fail to make. He only uses it as a strawman to those who say he’s anti-Jewish. Atzmon likes the antisemitic drivel so much he republishes it on his blog.
Atzmon’s politics rest on one main overriding assertion that serves as springboard for vicious attacks on anyone who disagrees with his obsession with “Jewishness”. He claims that all Jewish politics is “tribal,” and essentially, Zionist. Zionism, to Atzmon, is not a settler-colonial project, but a trans-historical “Jewish” one, part and parcel of defining one’s self as a Jew. Therefore, he claims, one cannot self-describe as a Jew and also do work in solidarity with Palestine, because to identify as a Jew is to be a Zionist. We could not disagree more. Indeed, we believe Atzmon’s argument is itself Zionist because it agrees with the ideology of Zionism and Israel that the only way to be a Jew is to be a Zionist.
Palestinians have faced two centuries of orientalist, colonialist and imperialist domination of our native lands. And so as Palestinians, we see such language as immoral and completely outside the core foundations of humanism, equality and justice, on which the struggle for Palestine and its national movement rests. As countless Palestinian activists and organizers, their parties, associations and campaigns, have attested throughout the last century, our struggle was never, and will never be, with Jews, or Judaism, no matter how much Zionism insists that our enemies are the Jews. Rather, our struggle is with Zionism, a modern European settler colonial movement, similar to movements in many other parts of the world that aim to displace indigenous people and build new European societies on their lands.
The statement concludes with these inspiring words:
The goal of the Palestinian people has always been clear: self determination. And we can only exercise that inalienable right through liberation, the return of our refugees (the absolute majority of our people) and achieving equal rights to all through decolonization. As such, we stand with all and any movements that call for justice, human dignity, equality, and social, economic, cultural and political rights. We will never compromise the principles and spirit of our liberation struggle. We will not allow a false sense of expediency to drive us into alliance with those who attack, malign, or otherwise attempt to target our political fraternity with all liberation struggles and movements for justice.
As Palestinians, it is our collective responsibility, whether we are in Palestine or in exile, to assert our guidance of our grassroots liberation struggle. We must protect the integrity of our movement, and to do so we must continue to remain vigilant that those for whom we provide platforms actually speak to its principles.
When the Palestinian people call for self-determination and decolonization of our homeland, we do so in the promise and hope of a community founded on justice, where all are free, all are equal and all are welcome.
Atzmon responds to the Palestinian statement on WRMEA. He denies ziocolonialism and Israeli apartheid and suggests that his followers listen to him ‘with their hearts’. If only intellectual discourse was so easy!
Activist Emma Rosenthal comments on the content of his response:
No one is censoring Atzmon. All that people are saying (and by his own definitions -see his statement above) is that his positions are not consistent with a movement for universal human rights, an anti-apartheid anti-settler-colonialist movement. And given Atzmon’s dismissal of key palestinian activists and scholars, a movement for self determination either. There are plenty of venues and contexts for Atzmon’s ideas. A klan rally for one.
We view his public political stances as anti-Jewish and counterproductive to the pursuit of justice. Atzmon has an extensive record of demonizing Jews as a people under the guise of Palestine solidarity. For these reasons,we cannot endorse events in which he takes part.
We deeply appreciate the statement put out today that re-affirms Palestinian activists’ principled stance against anti-Semitism.
UPDATE 15/3/12
A ludicrous article by Gordon Duff attempts to defend Atzmon, libelling Palestinian leaders. So who from military intelligence did the vetting of Atzmon at vt, and what was the vetting process?
And yet another Atzmon defender wades in to defend non-Palestinians. Siegel, the Palestinian struggle is led by Palestinians, not by you or Atzmon. The Palestinian struggle furthermore is not about Jewishness, Jewish culture or Judaeism.
Eisen moans about Ali Abunimah’s criticisms of Shamir and DYR. It’s like a nasty boil has been lanced and a lot of smelly pus is oozing out.
UPDATE 16/3/12
Weir wades in. She encourages people to go see Atzmon’s lectures. She quotes an unnamed “Palestinian activist” who ludicrously and tellingly accuses ‘Palestinian “academists / activists” of standing on the side of Israel and AIPAC’. The Palestinian letter is clearly written by more than 20 Palestinians and was published first on the USPCN website yet the reading comprehension of many of Atzmon’s defenders and Atzmon himself leaves much to be desired – they attack Ali Abunimah. Weir quotes Blankfort making the assumption that Ali Abunimah is responsible for the Palestinian letter:
I suspect whoever initiated the list, and it appears that it was Abumimah[sic], was pressed to do so by the Jewish left equivalent of the mainstream Jewish machers who pressure local black leaders to denounce Louis Farrakhan whenever he makes an appearance and has the audacity to speak out Jews and the slave trade which, like Zionist-Nazi collaboration, is a classic Left taboo.
Blankfort, shooting his mouth off further, then attacks Joseph Massad and Asad Abukhalil. Hey Blankfort, you didn’t waste any time in making this situation one for the exercise of your personal spite, did you? Weir fails to quote any Palestinians who support the disavowal of Atzmon’s ambit, so her position is made crystal clear by omission.
Weir founded If Americans Knew, “an organization to be directed by Americans without bias and ethnic ties to the region, who would research and actively disseminate accurate information to the American public.” [NB : The wording on Weir’s site changed in January 2013 – see note at the foot of this post *]
Do Palestinians need Americans to interpret their predicament and to disseminate ‘accurate’ information to the American public on their behalf? Palestinians get quite enough of the US delivering bombs and military aid for the benefit of the US ruling class. Imperialism takes many forms. Can an American directed organisation really claim to be without bias and ethnic ties to the region? Do Palestinians really have to be patronised like this, as if their situation has to be reframed to make it digestible and credible to the US public?
Well, we now see how the disdain for Palestinians lurks very close to the surface amongst those who protect their own self-interest, US empire and the exclusivity of white western people to determine the context and direction of the Palestinian people’s struggle. I hope there’s a rehabilitation centre for recovering white supremacists established – it will do a roaring trade. 🙂
Another miscreant – Debbie Menon, this time from the rightwing Catbird Seat blog, wrongly blames it all on Ali, and again wrongly assumes the Palestinian article is about Atzmon’s book. She attempts to spruik for said book, bludgeoning her readers with the fallacy from authority. Laughably, Menon also waxes furiously on behalf of her favourite western polemicists who she thinks are “uterly[sic] frustrated and penniless precisely due to the lack of any support from diaspora Paletinians[sic]”. How could these ungrateful Palestinians be so remiss as to leave these privileged folks in penury!
“these strident Atzmon supporters insist that Palestinians/Arabs/Muslim/brown people live up to mythical ideological standards that they set for them. A sickening aspect here: Atzmon is seen as the prophetic voice who some how speaks for and about the Israel/Palestine situation. And yet his supporters replicate older colonialist ideals where the white man speaks for the native regardless of the native voice.”
Emma Rosenthal comments on Singh: “Singh unfortunately can’t see the similarities between Atzmon defenders and Atzmon. She is so offended by the zionist attacks, she can’t see that many of the people Atzmon attacks have been similarly targeted and how dangerous his behavior is to the movement.” I agree.
UPDATE 18/3/12
The erupted pustule continues to weep white ooze.
Out of all the vertiginous flailing strawman rants and blithers thus far in defence of Atzmon, This piece published on a blog on which Atzmon also posts, takes the cake. An avid supporter of Atzmon is willing to post a depraved poster from the notorious Elder of Ziyon site in order to attack Omar Barghouti and BDS. Laura Stuart, who tweets as @gazaboatconvoy seems to have lost the plot. This westerner has chosen to laud non-Palestinian leadership over the Palestinian struggle and the call by 200 Palestinian groups from civil society to boycott, divest and sanction apartheid Israel and has posted depraved zionist propaganda to do it. Their white supremacist narrative mirrors the corresponding zionist hasbara completely, even down to the two major hasbara memes “we feel silenced” and “this is dividing our community”. Like all bad smells, propaganda is better outed than in – noone is trying to silence Atzmon, merely to dissociate his odiferous positions from the principled human rights movement of BDS. Homework note to Laura – boycotts originated in Ireland.
This incident also highlights a phenomenon amongst a minority of solidarity activists who make the grand effort to attempt to break the blockade on Gaza and return feeling like they own the movement, not the Palestinians whom their original effort was directed toward assisting. Those folks who exploit these activists are also exploiting the struggle of Palestinian people.
“Anti-zionist zionists claim to oppose zionism but their actions are different” (he thereby allows attacks on all Jews as zionists whether they support zionism or oppose it). “Antizionists are not much different from zionists.”
“There’s a big difference between jewish marxists and marxists of jewish descent, american jews and americans of jewish descent.”
Atzmoan doesn’t ‘regard himself as a Jew anymore’ because he doesn’t want to be privileged in any discourse. Later he says ‘We are all Palestinians now.’ What sort of privilege is he assuming there?
Atzmon says “when we see the plunderous tendency of zionists to rob Palestinians, is it something invented or something we find in the Jewish heritage, the bible”. Yet it is zionism which conflates Jews, Jewishness and Jewish culture with itself. Palestinians’ problem is with Occupation, colonialism and apartheid, not with Jews, Jewishness or Jewish culture.
Comment by Tom Pessah in response to an Atzmon defender:
a lot of right-wing zionists use accusations of antisemitism to silence criticism of zionism, which is completely wrong. It distracts attention from what Israel is doing, and in addition it also de-sensitizes people from paying attention to proper anti-jewish bigotry. You wrote that “Right wingers call him “anti-semitic” and a “fully fledged holocaust denier.” http://cindysheehanssoapbox.blogspot.com/2012/03/let-st-storm-commence.html – but this isn’t a right-wing issue. The reason why people call him that is because he is. He’s said he can’t say whether the Holocaust happened or not, because he is not a historian
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/09/17/gilad-atzmon-wont-say-whether-the-holocaust-happened-because-hes-not-a-historian/
he thinks 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” http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/truth-history-and-integrity-by-gilad-atzmon.html
but plenty of historians have already found conclusive historical evidence – for example, scroll down here to the Nazi letter from 12 August 1942 describing the use of poisonous gas in Auschwitz – http://www.holocaust-history.org/questions/zyklon.shtml).
On other occasions he has written that the Jews, rather than the Nazis, should be blamed for the Holocaust –
Rather than blaming the Goyim, the Germans, the Muslims, the Arabs, it is about time the Jewish subject learns to ask the 6 million $ question: “why do they pick on me?” http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2007/10/gilad-atzmon-open-comment-to-jsf.html
“in March 1933, long before Hitler became the undisputed leader of Germany and began restricting the rights of German Jews, the American Jewish Congress announced a massive protest at Madison Square Gardens and called for an American boycott of German goods”
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/judea-declares-war-on-obama-by-gilad-atzmon.html
this is a complete lie – Hitler came to power in January 1933 and this boycott was in reaction to that, so he is twisting history to portray Adolph Hitler as the victim of world jewry
he is also impressed by Wagner’s claim that “Jews were only capable of producing money-making music” – this he calls “an astute reading of the socio-economy of the show business” http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/gilad-atzmon-wagner-again.html
he boasts that “when we studied the middle age blood libels, I again wondered out loud how the teacher could know that these accusations of Jews making Matzo out of young Goyim’s blood were indeed empty or groundless”
http://hurryupharry.org/2011/09/17/gilad-atzmon-wont-say-whether-the-holocaust-happened-because-hes-not-a-historian/
UPDATE 10/4/2012
Atzmon reiterates his denial of zionist colonialism and apartheid and zionism itself and pathetically attributes Israel to Nazism.
‘I openly contend that their entire terminology is misleading. Zionism is not colonialism, Israel is not Apartheid and the Israelis are not Zionists. Zionism is not colonialism for the Jewish ‘Settler State’ lacks a Jewish ‘Mother State’. Israel is not Apartheid for the Jewish State doesn’t want to exploit the Palestinians but to get rid of them. Israel is actually driven by Lebensraum (Living Space) philosophy. In other words, the Jewish State adopted the Nazi racist, expansionist ideology. But the Jews in our movement do not like the comparison with Nazi Germany. And also Israel is not exactly Zionism and the Israelis are not necessarily Zionists. Israel is the product of the Zionist ideology and the Israeli is basically a post revolutionary product. Hence, the Zionist/anti Zionist debate has very little significance in Israel or on Israeli politics.’
I’ve never seen so many holes dug then fallen into than in this ‘interview’. 🙂
UPDATE 30/4/12
On Deliberation, Atzmon reveals his opportunism and antipathy to BDS:
It seems to me as if the UK BDS, in its current form, operates as an Israeli PR agency. It turns to floodlight on Israeli acts, create some controversy and then let them sell out. In fact I use the same tactics, I let Greenstein, Dershowitz and Abunimah make some noise and watch Wandering Who selling out.
And:
I think that we should all say NO to Book Burning , Zionist or BDS… the principle is the same and it is always wrong !!!
The first musical entry on a youtube search for Gilad Atzmon is a fifteen minute performance at the SWP’s annual Cultures of Resistance gig in 2006; now, with another five years of Jew-baiting under Atzmon’s belt, that dalliance is passed over in SWP politics in embarrassed silence.
* Re changes to If Americans Knew show in the Wayback Machine as at January 2013.
Here’s screenshots of the old and new text from the Wayback Machine of the “Who We Are” page.
September 12 “Who We Are”
‘she founded an organization to be directed by Americans without bias and ethnic ties to the region who would research and actively disseminate accurate information to the American public.’
http://web.archive.org/web/20120922075359/http://www.ifamericansknew.org/about_us/whoweare.html
IAK “Who We Are” – January 2013
“she founded an organization to be directed by Americans without personal or family ties to the region who would research and actively disseminate accurate information to the American public.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20130115074332/http://ifamericansknew.org/about_us/whoweare.html
The mission statement wording ‘In the United States, currently the most powerful nation on earth, it is even more essential that its citizens receive complete and undistorted information on topics of importance, so that they may wield their extraordinary power with wisdom and intelligence.
…
It is the mission of If Americans Knew to ensure that this does not happen – that the information on which Americans base their actions is complete, accurate, and undistorted by conscious or unconscious bias, by lies of either commission or omission, or by pressures exerted by powerful special interest groups.’ remains the same.
