Gilad Atzmon

My Father was a Freedom Fighter- a book review by Gilad Atzmon

AuthorGilad Atzmon

Ramzy Baroud’s “My Father Was A Freedom Fighter” is more than a book, it is actually a masterpiece. In an overwhelmingly evoking personal style Baroud manages to bring to light the history of the Palestinian people and their battle with Israel and Zionism. Through the story of the Baroud’s family the book outlines every event in the history of the conflict and reflects on the way it transformed the Palestinian reality.

The book is a heart breaking depressing story of the Baroud family’s journey from paradise to hell. It is a flight that starts in Beit Daras, a small pictorial village in the south of Palestine. It ends in a Gaza refugee camp. It is a tragic journey of a rural self-sufficient population that is driven into total dispossession, humiliation and absolute poverty. And yet, there is a beam of light along the book namely resistance: Ramzy’s father Mohammed, was a freedom fighter. He didn’t win a single war, not even a battle, yet, against all odds, in spite of his poverty and illness, he managed to educate his children and to plant hope in their young souls, to fuel Ramzy with fierceness, which along the years transformed the young man into a monumental inspirational writer and an icon of intellectual resistance.

read on

February 4, 2010 0

CrossTalk on Holocaust: Murder Revenues

Sixty-five years ago, Auschwitz was liberated by Soviet troops. Peter Lavelle asks his guests what the legacy of the Holocaust is today. Is its memory being abused? Does Israel use Holocaust as a blackmail weapon? Norman Finkelstein and Israel W. Charny discuss the issue in a heated debate.

January 29, 2010 0

In Memory of Martin Luther King

Author : Gilad Atzmon

I also have a dream that one day the Jewish state, a state sweltering in the heat of injustice, sweltering in the heat of oppression; will be transformed into an oasis of freedom and fairness.

I have a dream that in the ‘Jew-Only State’ people will not be judged according to the blood of their (Jewish) mother, but rather by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Israel in spite of their racist Foreign Minister, mas-murderer Defense minister and Jewish supremacist Prime Minister, one day right there in between the river and the sea boys and girls will be able to join hands as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, and every ‘Separation Wall’ will be rubble. The horror of the refugee camps will be made plain and the crooked Israeli town will be made straight by Palestinians returning to their homes, villages, fields and orchards. “And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.” God Almighty, we are free at last!

I have a dream today and this dream will become true. However when this happens the Jewish state will be called Palestine and it will be one and a state of its citizens.

source

January 22, 2010 0

Defamation – A Yoav Shamir Film

See Gilad’s article

January 15, 2010 0

Film Review: Avatar, A Humanist Call from Mt. Hollywood by Gilad Atzmon

Avatar may well be the biggest anti War film of all time. It stands against everything the West is identified with. It is against greed and capitalism, it is against interventionalism, it is against colonialism and imperialism, it is against technological orientation, it is against America and Britain. It puts Wolfowitz, Blair and Bush on trial without even mentioning their names. It enlightens the true meaning of ethics as a dynamic judgmental process rather than fixed moral guidelines (such as the Ten Commandments or the 1948 Human Right Declaration). It throws a very dark light on our murderous tendencies towards other people, their belief and rituals. But it doesn’t just stop there. In the same breath, very much like German Leben philosophers (1), it praises the power of nature and the attempt to bond in harmony with soil, the forest and the wildlife. It advises us all to integrate with our surrounding reality rather than impose ourselves on it. Very much like German Idealists and early Romanticists, it raises questions to do with essence, existence and the absolute. It celebrates the true meaning of life and livelihood.

It is pretty astonishing and cheering to discover Hollywood paving the way to the victorious return of German philosophical thought.

To view trailer:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dyDQoXEBkGw

December 30, 2009 0

‘Anti-Semitism up, Islamophobia down” a New Academic Research Says

One-quarter of Europeans believe that “Jews have too much influence“

31% agree that “Jews in general do not care about anything or anyone but their own kind.”

45.7% of the Europeans somewhat or strongly agree that “Israel is conducting a war of extermination against the Palestinians.”

About 37.4% agree with the following statement: “Considering Israel’s policy, I can understand why people do not like Jews.”

read on

December 9, 2009 2

Autumn in Shanghai by Gilad Atzmon

shanghai_pudong-1

Shanghai is modernity in action, it is up for business, its many staggering new high-rise buildings, spear the imagination as well as the sky. It is saturated with festive almost unreal glamour, it is soaking in wealth, it is overwhelmingly proud and yet, it is humane, very humane in fact. It is habitable, it is relatively quiet, it feels safe, it welcomes you on board. It is the Western Metropolis wannabe, yet it is in the East.

read on

October 21, 2009 0

Gilad Atzmon

Gilad Atzmon – Beyond Comparison

You don’t have to be a brutal tyrant to want to commit crimes against humanity. Hatred is alive and well in Israel in nice young patriotic families. Israel is a country bad enough as it is, without making historical comparisons.

“Israel Military action is an unjustified aggression that is being carried out in a style of Hitler, in a fascist fashion.” (Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez)

“Clearly, President Chavez needs a reality check when it comes to the Middle East conflict.” (Anti-Defamation League National Director, Abraham H. Foxman)

There is a trend amongst us all, the critical voices of Israel and Zionism. Time after time we compare Israel to the Third Reich; we equate the IDF to the Wehrmacht, we find a resemblance between the Israeli Air Force’s tactics to the blitz technique of the Luftwafe, we occasionally associate Sharon’s and Olmert’s war crimes with those of Hitler. I myself have fallen into this very trap more than once. But I have now made up my mind. This fashion of speaking must be stopped once and for all.

To regard Hitler as the ultimate evil is nothing but surrendering to the Zio-centric discourse. To regard Hitler as the wickedest man and the Third Reich as the embodiment of evilness is to let Israel off the hook. To compare Olmert to Hitler is to provide Israel and Olmert with a metaphorical moral shield. It maintains Hitler at the lead and allows Olmert to stay in the tail.

My mother, indeed a very clever woman, challenged me a long time ago asking: “Tell me Gilad, why is it that you and your friends always compare Israel to the Nazis? Isn’t Israel bad enough?”

READ ON

April 12, 2009 0