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Gilad Atzmon

Gilad Atzmon: 200 Israeli War Criminals Better Hope For Palestinian Amnesty

A few days ago, British Chief of  Defence Staff General Sir David Richards admitted that victory in Afghanistan is unachievable.  “In conventional war,” said Richards, “defeat and victory is very clear cut and is symbolised by troops marching into another nation’s capital.”

It took a few years for British military elites to admit that the war in Afghanistan cannot lead anywhere : a valuable lesson to learn from mid to late 20th century warfare, is that conventional military might cannot easily defeat mass civilian resistance.

It is interesting to reflect too, that the Jewish state has exercised a ‘strategy’ of occupation for sixty two years — and for some reason the penny has still failed to drop. The Israelis are still convinced that they can manage to knock down the resilient Palestinians using siege, indiscriminate  killing, carpet bombardment and chemical warfare.

The results are pretty obvious: and bearing in mind that Israel considers itself to be a ‘Jews only democracy’, then every Jewish Israeli is complicit in a colossal war crime against a civilian population.

But it goes further: more and more Israeli soldiers of all ranks are directly involved in an endless list of crimes — some stop pregnant women from receiving urgent medical attention , while others drop bombs on populated neighbourhoods. Some use children as human shields, while a few perform executions of peace activists. And others just feed the cannons with white phosphorus shells.

The perpetrators of these crimes are actually subject to universal jurisdiction laws. They can be detained everywhere around the world. They may end their life in jail.

A few brave Israelis must be very concerned with the moral condition of their state, because a few days ago, a document identifying 200 Israeli soldiers suspected of war crimes leaked out of Israel. It made it to the internet. The list included the names, ranks, military posts, pictures and addresses.

The people who leaked the information and put  it on the net stated that the names that followed were “the direct perpetrators, agents for the state of Israel that in Dec.- Jan. 2008- 2009 attacked scores of people in the besieged Gaza. The people listed… held positions of command at the time of the attack therefore not only did they perform on behalf of a murderous state mechanism but actively encouraged other people to do the same. They bear a distinctive personal responsibility. They range from low-level field commanders to the highest echelons of the Israeli army. All took an active and direct role in the offensive.”

On the 17th I was quick to refer to the story: I posted a link to the Israeli War Criminal site on my writing page.  On the 18th, I  was falsely accused  by the Israeli News Channel (Channel 10) and a few other Israeli blogs as being the man behind the publication of the names and the faces.

Needless to mention that this fact didn’t make me overwhelmingly popular in Israel. My email box looked like an Israeli war zone, and one of my recent youtube clips that was screened by the Israeli TV soon became a platform for Israeli vile ugliness.

It all reminded me why I had denounced my Jewishness and left Israel. It rang a bell. It reminded  me why I decided years ago never to step foot in that doomed place ever again — The Israelis were desperate and angry. They needed someone to blame. And after all, ‘blaming someone’ is far easier than admitting that something is systematically and categorically wrong at home.

On the 19th, the Israeli news channel managed to get hold of me : They were trying to trace the whistle blower. I obviously couldn’t help them; nor would I like to help them.  As far as I am aware, no one knows who the people behind the publication of the list are. Though initially the Israelis claimed that the list was fabricated and included many names that had nothing to do with the crimes in Gaza (2008-9), the Israeli media soon admitted that the list was leaked from an IDF source and was probably genuine.

I tried to point out to the Israeli Channel 10 researcher that the publication of the list is the best thing that has happened to Israel for years : The list is a clear signal for Israeli future combatants. It is there to suggest to them that non-ethical conduct may bear some heavy and direct consequences. Such a recognition is vital for Israelis so they can start to amend their path  and find a way to live in peace with their neighbours.

One may also find it strange that in the so called ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, a list of 200 suspected war criminals is leaked — and the entire media is chasing a whistle blower instead of engaging with the real story. It shows clearly a society that is rapidly drifting away from any form of recognition of international law, let alone ethical awareness.

However, I know very well why the Israelis are so furious — People around the world do not realise that for Israelis, the Jewish state is nothing but a prison. As much as the Israelis claim to love their state, there is nothing they love more than leaving it behind, and I guess that the Israelis are starting to grasp the true meaning of the de- legitimisation of their state :  It is now reaching a point of no return, and  it has become personal, because the people on the list will have to think twice before they set foot on a plane.

Interestingly, the people who published the list used a tactic that was used by Jewish and Zionist institutes  after WWII : Instead of chasing leaders and military commanders, the Nazi hunters had collated information about ordinary people — the low ranking officers, the soldiers, the guards; those ordinary people who had perpetrated crimes against humanity.

This tactic proved to be effective in incriminating generations of Europeans as vile anti-Semites.  After the war, European guilt was quickly translated into Zionist power.

Clearly, the people behind the Israeli War Criminal list leak are letting Israel taste its own medicine : By listing 200 soldiers of all ranks, the message is clear — the Israeli society itself is deeply ill. It is not just the people at the top, it is actually  the very ordinary ones. Rather than Israel — it is actually the ‘Israeli’.  The malaise seems to be deeply imbued in the society and its culture.

In the case of Germany and other European nations, it was Israel and Jewish leaders who were given the choice of whether they wanted to forgive, or withhold forgiveness.  It was the Israelis and Jews who, tentatively and conditionally, have given European nations a kosher amnesty.

I guess the fate of Israel is similar — Yet now it is the Palestinians and only the Palestinians who can save the Israelis from  themselves and their brutality.  It is only the Palestinians who are entitled to pardon Israeli criminals.  The more crimes Israel commits in the present — the more Israelis are dependent on Palestinian’s future kindness.

Once the Truth and Reconciliation Commission for Israeli war crimes is founded in Palestine, it will be the Palestinian people who decide who to pardon.

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Slavoj Zizek: The capitalist system is pushing us all towards an apocalyptic doomsday.

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Gilad Atzmon – In a Suicidal Mood

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Over the rainbow

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Israeli Tolerance (video)

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Gilad Atzmon’s Video Address for The One Democratic State Conference

“Building on the Madrid, Boston, and Haifa conferences, a select group of activists from a variety of backgrounds convened last weekend in Dallas, Texas in order to implement an international project – to pass a declaration which professes the need for creating a single democratic state in what is now occupied Palestine….

Speakers included:
Dr.Mazin Qumsiyeh, Palestinian author and expert on Palestinian refugee rights, who spoke to us via video from occupied Palestine.
Lenni Brenner, Jewish anti-Zionist author of Zionism in the Age of the Dictators.
Gilad Atzmon, Israeli-born British jazz musician and anti-Zionist political activist and writer, who spoke to us from Britain.
Paul Hershfield, co-founding member of the Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid, Southern California. Richard Falk, professor of international law at Princeton University.
Virginia Tilley, professor of political science, author of The One-State Solution: A Breakthrough for Peace in the Israeli-Palestinian Deadlock, who spoke to us from South Africa.

 

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Gilad Atzmon: Julie Sabbath Goy Burchill

DateTuesday, November 2, 2010 at 11:18AM AuthorGilad Atzmon

In her desperate attempt to smear Lauren Booth, Independent writer Julie Burchill, a devout Zionist, proves how deceiving British multiculturalism is.

Indeed the Zionification of this Kingdom has left this country in a disastrous ethical limbo.

“Last year I took the first steps towards converting to Judaism; also last year, I abandoned my attempt”, says Burchill.

But I guess that Burchill didn’t really have to convert — She is obviously far more Jewish than anyone I can think of. Burchill can teach Rabbi Ovadia Yosef what self-love is all about. She can teach Paul Wolfowitz, David Aaronovitch and David Miliband what moral-interventionism stands for. She can give  Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman a crash course in Hasbara.   Burchill can lecture Zionist slander operators on how to spread venom.

But most significantly, she displays an astonishing command of Jewish humour. Burchill is indeed very funny.

Jewish humour is a pretty simple concept : it is based on self-mockery mixed together with the absurd. Thus we have Woody Allen presenting himself as an alpha male Schwarzenegger type, and through self deprecation, Larry David would appear to challenge our tolerance of the ultimate form of Jewish rudeness.

And then we have Julie Burchill presenting herself as a veteran Sex bomb –  funny indeed.

Jewish humour though, is, in practice, a camouflage: through comedy, funny Jews manage to live in peace with their symptoms. But sometimes, even the best of Jewish comedians fail to provide the goods, as Woody Allen and Larry David may have learned.

It is pretty astonishing to witness the amount of poison that pours out of Burchill against Booth, a fellow journalist who recently converted into Islam: it is even more astonishing to find such a level of islamophobia and  personal attack on the pages of a respected British paper. In the past, I certainly saw this kind of vile personal slander on Jews only  blogs.

But I have never seen anything similar on paper, let alone in a British paper.

I guess that the Zionification of Britain is beginning to take a heavy toll on our cultural and public life.

Would Booth have to go through such a slanderous campaign  if she had converted into Judaism? I don’t think so. Would anyone in  the British press dare remind us, for instance, that it is actually Judaism that calls on its followers to “pour their wrath on the Goyim?”  No one would remind us that the crimes that are committed on a daily basis  by the Jewish state, are actually implied by certain interpretation of the Old Testament, namely the Zionist interpretation.

British multiculturalism is indeed a funny concept,  it basically means tolerance towards everyone except Muslims.

I would prefer to spare you from reading Burchill’s personal attack on Booth (much of which reminds me of an old Jewish mother’s Passover dinner tantrum) but, I will review some of her argument, because it is apparent that the logic she employs is symptomatic of both Neocons and Zionists in Britain and in America.

“There is one religion which proscribes its followers under threat of death from rejecting it, and that is Islam” says Burchill :  Yet if there was any truth in such a statement, our streets would be soaking with the blood of ex-Muslims. This is obviously not the case.

Whilst we are on the subject of proscription, restriction, revenge and forgiveness in religious precept and religious tradition, I am sure that  Burchill learned in school about Jesus : whilst the man didn’t actually reject Judaism, he did suggest to his fellow Jews to love their neighbours.

That was enough  to nail him to the cross. I guess that Burchill doesn’t know   that the word Yeshu- Jesus in Hebrew-is the abbreviation  for the Hebrew phrase “may his name and memory be blotted out”. Seemingly, Rabbinical Jews are yet to forgive Jesus.

But maybe we should leave Jesus’ crucifixion aside. Many contemporary Jews rightly argue that they have nothing to do with this crime. Yet, I do wonder whether Burchill has heard about Israeli PM Yitzchak Rabin, and the Talmudic Rabbinical ruling that led to his assassination. Igal Amir, the young student who took Rabin’s life, had come to believe that Rabin was a ‘din rodef’, meaning Talmudically, a ‘pursuer’ who endangered Jewish lives. Under din rodef, Amir would be justified in ‘removing’ Rabin from being a threat to Jews.

As far as Rabbinical  Judaism is concerned, one doesn’t even have to reject Judaism in order to be murdered.  It is enough that a Rabbi or a great Cohen tags  a Jew as a ‘din rodef’ in order for another Jew to complete the job.

But let us return to Burchill’s ad hominem argument against Lauren Booth – next, she turns her attention to Booth’s work for Press T.V.

“It’s hard to know where to start when describing the sheer ickiness of Booth,” says condescending Burchill. “That she works as a paid stooge for the murderous Iranian regime’s television channel has to come pretty near the top.”

As tragic as it may be, it is actually Britain and the British (rather than Iran and Iranians) who are directly complicit in a colossal criminal war that has lead up to date to  1,421,933 fatalities in Iraq alone.  It is pretty fascinating that ‘nearly converted’ Burchill would denounce the Iranian regime as murderous while it is evident  that Britain was taken to the Iraq  war by a government that was funded by the Zionist lobby, led by no other than fund raiser,  Lord Cashpoint Levy.

In fact, more than ever,  we need Press TV  in the UK, for the Iranian TV channel is the only broadcast in Britain to deliver a full coverage of Israel’s colossal crimes.   In case Burchill has managed to forget, at the eve of  Operation Cast Lead, when the BBC was quick to follow IDF ‘instructions’ and evacuated its reporters from Gaza, it was Press TV that stayed behind and  delivered live footage of the Israeli massacre. It was Press TV rather than BBC, SKY or ITN that broadcasted in real time UNRA shelter shelled with white phosphorous.

We need Press TV, and we need many more Lauren Booths to practise real journalism instead of Zionised comedy. We need Press TV and Lauren Booth exactly because the British press and people like Julie Burchill have so evidently failed.

Burchill is not just a devout Zionist and a Neocon, she is also a sincere feminist. She doesn’t like Islam, and she doesn’t hide it either. She doesn’t approve of regimes that “uphold the punishment of death by stoning for adulteresses”.   For those who fail to remember, it was also so called ‘feminists’ who were the first to campaign against the Taliban  in the mid 1990’s, just to  prepare the ground for the American invasion.  I am almost taken in by Burchill’s caring for Muslim women;  yet, I wonder  how come the ‘women’s right campaigner’ fails  to  show the same care for Palestinian women  who are  often enough bleeding  to death in  Israeli roadblocks.

When it seems as if Burchill runs out of Necoon slogans, she then takes the gloves off and pulls the chicken out of the boiling soup :  Booth ,according to  Burchill, is so “jaded that she can only get a kick from self-denial.”  But may I point out to Burchill here,  that conversion is actually the exact opposite of ‘self-denial’. It is actually all about the ‘self’ being ‘spiritually awakened’ out of a state of denial, an experience that may be foreign to ‘nearly converted’ Burchill.

However, Burchill’s feeble accusation of ‘self denial’ does ring a bell here; it does sound familiar: It is after all, common amongst Jews and within the Zionist fold to label their dissident voices as being ‘self haters’.

As I mentioned earlier on, Burchill didn’t have to convert: the Jewish philosophy and manners are apparently deeply engraved within her soul. It spills out  in each of her sentences — and it is far from being attractive.

But I guess that at a certain stage Burchill just couldn’t hold it together anymore. She wanted Lauren Booth to simply shut up. She suggested that Booth treats herself “to a full-face and – most essentially – mouth-covering burka”. All of a sudden, Burchill, the liberal impostor, the one who just a few lines before was rallying for freedom of Muslims, gays and women, has revealed her true face: in Burchill’s world, women and homosexuals should be free — but Muslim converts better shut up.

Can anyone explain this discrepancy?  It is no wonder that Neo-conservatism and  moral interventionism are such a disaster.  There is not a single shred of truth, coherence or consistency in them. They are, in fact, simply a pretext for Zionist expansionism.

This is unfortunately the true meaning of the current western brutality. It obviously didn’t take me by complete surprise then, when I found out that Julie Burchill was also a supporter of the war in Iraq.

But, as one would expect, Burchill’s poisonous outbursts are followed by some tender ‘light waves’ of self-love: Israel was named recently as “the eighth happiest country in the world – coming in above Britain and the US”, says the proud Zionist enthusiast.

And I am now more concerned than ever : If Israelis can be so pleased with themselves at a time when their army locks millions of Palestinians in concentration camps with no food or medical supplies, it really says a lot about the Jewish State, the Israelis — and it says a lot about Sabbath Goys like Julie Burchill.

I am afraid that we are dealing here with a morbid psychotic ideological collective.  I wish I knew how to help them — or at least how to save the rest of us.

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Gilad Atzmon & the OHE, Re-Arranging the 20th Century, Video Art by Yeast

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Gilad Atzmon: Zionist Tolerance For a Change

DateFriday, October 29, 2010 at 8:24PM AuthorGilad Atzmon

I have spent the last ten years elaborating on Jewish national ideology and tribal politics.  During my journey of grasping what Zionism and Israel stand for, I came to realize that it is actually the Jewish left — and Jewish Marxists in particular — that provide us with an adequate glimpse into contemporary Jewish identity,  tribal supremacy,  marginal politics and tribalism.

‘Jewish left’ is basically an oxymoron. It is a contradiction in terms, because ‘Jewishness’ is a tribal ideology, whilst ‘the left’ are traditionally understood as aspiring to universalism.

On the face of it, the ‘Jewish left’ is, at least categorically, no different from Israel or Zionism: after all, it is an attempt to form yet another ‘Jews only political club’.  And as  far as the Palestinian solidarity movement is concerned, its role is subject to a growing debate — For  on the one hand, one can see the political benefit of pointing at a very few ‘good Jews’, and emphasizing that there are Jews who ‘oppose Zionism as Jews’. Yet on the other hand, however, accepting the legitimacy of such a racially orientated political affair, is in itself, an acceptance of yet another form, or manifestation of Zionism, for Zionism claims that Jews are primarily Jewish, and had better operate politically as Jews(1).

To a certain extent then, it is clear that Jewish anti Zionism, is, in itself, still just another  form of Zionism.

‘Jewish dissidence’ has two main roles: First, it attempts to depict and bolster a positive image of Jews in general (2). Second, it is there to silence and obscure any attempts on the part of the outsider to grasp the meaning of Jewish identity and Jewish politics within the machinations of the Jewish state. It is also there to stop elements in this movement from elaborating on the crucial role of Jewish lobbying.

The Jewish Left is there then, to mute any possible criticism of Jewish politics within the wider Left movements.  It is there to stop the Goyim from looking into Jewish affairs.

A decade ago I met the Kosher dissident brigade for the first time — As soon as I started to  express criticism of Israel and Zionism — they started to  bounce around me.

For a short while, I fitted nicely into their  discourse : I was young  and energetic.   I was an award winning musician, as well as a promising writer. In their eyes I was a celebrity, or at least a good reason to celebrate.  Their chief commissars reserved  the best, and most expensive dining tables ahead  of my Orient House’s  Ensemble concerts. The five grass-root penniless activists, followed the trend and came to my free stage Jazz Combo  afternoon  concerts in the Barbican Centre’s Foyer.  They all wanted to believe that I would follow their agenda, and become a commissar myself.  They were also very quick  to preach to me who were the ‘bad guys’, those who should be burnt in hell: Israel Shahak, Paul Eisen,  Israel Shamir and Otto Weininger were just a few amongst the many baddies.  As one may guess by now, it didn’t take me too long to admit to myself that there was more wisdom in a single sentence  by Eisen, Weininger, Shahak or Shamir than in the entire work of the Jewish Left  put together. I was quick to make it clear to my new ‘Red’ fans that it was not going to work : I was an ex-Israeli, and I no longer regarded myself as a Jew any more. I shared nothing with them and I did not believe in their agenda.  Indeed, I had left Israel because I wanted to drift as far away as I could from any form of tribal politics.

Paddling in chicken soup has never been  my thing.

Naturally, I bought  myself at least a half a dozen enemies, and they were quick to run a campaign against me. They tried to silence me; they desperately ( and hopelessly ) tried to wreck my music career; they mounted pressure on political institutions, media outlets,  and music venues.  One of them even tried to drag me to court.

But they failed all the way through and they failed on every possible level. The more pressure they mounted, the more people read my writing. At a certain point, people around me were convinced that my detractors were actually running my PR campaign. Moreover, the relentless attempts to silence me could only prove my point. They were there to divert attention away from the crucial role of Jewish politics and Jewish identity politics.

I have asked myself often enough — how is it that they failed with me? But I guess that the same internet that successfully defeated Israeli Hasbara, has also defeated the Jewish left and its hegemony within the movement. In the wider scheme of things, it is totally obvious how marginal the Jewish Marxist discourse is. Its voice within the dissident movement is, in actuality, insignificant.

I guess also, that the fact that I am a popular Jazz artist didn’t make life easy for them — At the time those Jewish commissars labeled me as a racist and an anti Semite, I was touring around the world with two ex Israeli Jews, an Argentinean Jew, a Romanian Gipsy and  a Palestinian Oud player.  It just couldn’t work for them, and it didn’t.

But here is an interesting twist :  In comparison with the contemporaneous  Jewish Red terror, Zionism comes across as a relatively tolerant  endeavour.  In recent months I have been approached by every possible Israeli media outlet. In the summer, Ouvda, the leading Israeli investigative TV show asked repeatedly to join with me and my band on the road. They were interested to  launch a debate, and to discuss my ideas in prime time.  This week, The Israeli Second Channel approached me for a news item.  Again, they were interested in my views. Yesterday, I discussed my views for an hour with Guy Elhanan on Israel’s ‘Kol ha-shalom’ (Voice of Peace).

For the most obvious of reasons, I am very cautious when dealing with the Israeli media.  I choose my outlets very carefully. I usually tend to refuse. But, I also accept that as a person who cares about the prospect of  peace I must keep an open channel with the Israeli public, and two weeks ago I agreed to be interviewed by Haaretz writer,Yaron Frid.  This was my first published interview in Israel for more than a decade. I must admit that I was shocked to find out that not a single word of mine had been removed or censored. Haaretz let me say everything that the Kosher ‘Socialists’ had consistently tried to stop me from saying.

On my ‘self-hatred’ and  Jewishness   the Israeli paper Haaretz let me say :

“I am not a nice Jew, because I don’t want to be a Jew, because Jewish values don’t really turn me on and all this ‘Pour out Thy wrath on the nations’ stuff doesn’t impress me.”

It also let me question the entire Zionist ethos; the reality of plunder and deluded historicism : “Why do I live on lands that are not mine, the plundered lands of another people whose owners want to return to them but cannot? Why do I send my children to kill and be killed, after I myself was a soldier, too? Why do I believe all this bullshit about ‘because it’s the land of our forefathers’ and ‘our patrimony’ if I am not even religious?

And about  Palestinians’ right of return, I said :

“The Israelis can put an end to the conflict in two fucking minutes. Netanyahu gets up tomorrow morning, returns to the Palestinians the lands that belong to them.”

They let me express how I would differentiate between, and define Israel and Palestine:  “Palestine is the land and Israel is the state. It took me time to realize that Israel was never my home, but only a fantasy saturated in blood and sweat.”

About chosen-ness, de-Judification  and Jewish identity I said, “for Netanyahu and the Israelis to do that (accept the Palestinian  right of return), they have to undergo de-Judaization and accept the fact that they are like all peoples and are not the chosen people. So, in my analysis this is not a political, sociopolitical or socioeconomic issue but something basic that has to do with Jewish identity.”

And in the interview I compared Jewish left with National Socialism — And Haaretz’s editorial  let it through: “The idea of left-wing Jews is fundamentally sickening.  It contains an absolute internal contradiction. If you are leftists it doesn’t matter whether you’re Jewish or not, so on principle when you present yourselves as leftist Jews you are accepting the idea of national socialism. Nazism.”

Haaretz, as could be expected, challenged   my  opposition to Jewish politics :    “Atzmon has been accused from every possible platform of disseminating vitriol against Jews. He, though, maintains that he ‘hates everyone in equal measure.’ He’s also been accused of self-hatred, but he is the first to admit this, and in comparison with Otto Weininger – the Austrian Jewish philosopher who converted to Christianity and of whom Hitler said, ‘There was one good Jew in Germany, and he killed himself’ – he is even proud. ‘Otto and I are good friends.’”

But clearly, at least Israelis can cope with Otto Weininger and his ideology. However — when I gave a talk about Otto Weininger in a London Marxist book shop five years ago (Bookmarks), a ‘synagogue’ of fourteen Jewish Marxists unsuccessfully tried to picket the event and to pressure the SWP into submission.

Guess what; they failed.

Haaretz  challenged  my take on the Holocaust; yet it  printed my answer without changing  a single word. “I am fighting against all the disgusting laws and persecutions of those so-called Holocaust deniers – a categorization I don’t accept. I think the Holocaust, like any historical episode, must be open to research, to examination, to discussion and debate.”

And Haaretz, evidently an Israeli Zionist paper, let me express my thoughts about Israeli mass murderers and their destiny. “It might be a good thing if the Nazi hunters hunt down [Shaul] Mofaz and [Ehud] Barak, for example, and not all kinds of 96-year-olds who are barely alive. It’s pathetic.”

It also let me tell Israelis that they are all to be blamed : “In Israel 94 percent of the nation supported Operation Cast Lead. On the one hand, you want to behave like a post-enlightenment state and talk to me about individualism, but on the other hand you surround yourselves with a wall and remain attached to a tribal identity.”

Yaron Frid ended his piece saying, “Israel lost Gilad,” and,   “The score, for now: 1-0, Palestine leading.”

I was happy with the article. But I was also jealous. For here in Britain, we are still far from being free  to explore these issues.

The message here is plain and simple — Haaretz, a  Zionist paper,  has let me discuss all those intellectual avenues that ‘the  Kosher Socialists’ insist on blocking. A week before my Haaretz special, the Israeli paper featured Mavi Marmara hero Ken O’keefe. Again, Haaretz coverage was fairly balanced; certainly more balanced than BBC Panorama.

The moral is clear : As much as Zionism is repugnant and  murderous — it is still way ahead of the Jewish Left , simply because it is still, in some regards at least, part of an ongoing and open discourse.

There is no doubt that amongst the  most prolific enemies of Israel and Jewish identity,  you will find Israelis and ex Israelis, such as Ilan Pappe,  Gideon Levi, Amira Hass, Tali Fahima, Israel Shamir, Israel Shahak,  Nurit Peled , Rami Elhanan Guy Elhanan, Jonathan Shapira, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Mordechai Vanunu,  Uri Avneri, Shimon Tzabar, myself,  and others.

We may not always agree with each other — but we let each other be.

Zionism was an attempt to bring about a new Jew: an ethical, productive and authentic being.  But Zionism failed all the way through. Israel is a criminal state, and the Israelis are collectively complicit in relentless crimes against humanity. And yet, Zionism has also  succeeded  in  erecting  a solid   school of eloquent and proud  ‘self haters’. Israelis are taught to be outspoken  and critical. Unlike the Diaspora Jewish left, that for some reason, operates as a thought-police, Israeli dissidence speaks out. Israelis are trained to celebrate their ‘symptoms’ — and this also applies in the case of dissidence.

Unlike Jewish Marxism that operates  largely as a tribal PR campaign, Israeli dissidence is an ethical approach : You wouldn’t hear Israeli activists  shouting ‘not in my name’.   The Israelis mentioned above do accept that each Israeli crime is committed  in their names. They also accept that activism is the crucial shift from guilt into responsibility.  Hence, it is also far from  surprising that on the ‘Jewish Boat to Gaza’ mission, the Israeli veteran AIF pilot Shapira and also Elahanan, both spoke about ethics and humanitarian issues, while the British Jew, Kuper, was apparently, judging from his words, perhaps more concerned  with the amendment of  the image of world Jewry.

Being an ex Israeli, I believe that the only thing I  can do for Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan, myself, my family, my neighbours and humanity — is to stand firm and speak my heart against all odds.

I also believe that we all know the truth.

We just need to be courageous enough to spit it out.

(1) As bizarre as it may sound to some, ‘Jews Against  Zionists’ (JAZ) and ‘Jews for BDS’ (Boycott of Divestment of Israeli Goods) do affirm the Zionist mantra : They operate, primarily, as Jews.  As much as it is impossible for uprooted Palestinians   to settle in Israel and become a citizen with equal civil rights — it is also impossible for them to  join any of the primarily Jewish groups for Palestine.

(2) Richard Kuper,  the person behind ‘Irene-the Jewish Boat to Gaza’, was bold enough to admit it —  “Our goal is to show that not all Jews support Israeli policies toward Palestinians,” he said. It is now an established fact that the Jewish boat carried hardly any humanitarian aid for the Gazans : its main mission, as far as Kuper was concerned, seems to have been to amend Jewish reputation.

 

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