Anti-Imperialism & Anti-Humanist Rhetoric of Gilad Atzmon

[barracuda]

you were very clearly implying that California is a scary, racist place for Jews to live, but not for Muslims:

Well, you know, I do live in California. I mean, the town I live in is actually situated in the state of California, even though saying you live in Niles, the district where I reside, is, for most people, like saying you live in Bumfuck, Egypt. I don't know what colloquial imaginary town people in Egypt refer to when they say a location is in the middle of nowhere, but they might as well say Niles, California. Or maybe Lodi.

I consider it to be taken for granted that Muslims anywhere in America face discrimination and hate crime. Thankfully it's just not very prevalent in Fremont probably due to the demographics.

Is it scary for Jews here? Honestly, I don't know - I'm not a Jew, so it's hard to say, but generally speaking I doubt that "scary" would be the term anyone would use for my town, despite it being a headquarter for the Red and White in this part of the world. California is a racist place for anyone to live, unfortunately. Are the Jews oppressed here? I don't think so. I'd say the Mexicans and blacks probably have the corner on that market 'round these parts. My real point wasn't that California was some sort of Aufstand im Warschauer Ghetto, but that the symbology and language of Jew hatred permeates life here, which is unsurprising considering it's the birthplace of the Aryan Brotherhood and has maybe more than its share of fun-loving National Socialists and white supremacists. But to be fair, those people are pretty marginalized.

Would it be upsetting for a Jew to encounter "Fuck the Kikes" spray painted on a wall? I imagine so. It's not something I really want my daughter to see. I imagine that even in Atzmon's view of things that would qualify as at least a quote, xenophobic, unquote, thing to say. Is that bit of upset in some manner equivalent to being phosphor bombed in Gaza? Nope.

And is it a sign of quote, xenophobia, unquote, to see Nazi symbology a common sight in California? I guess most Jews are totally inured to it, but again, I personally don't like to see it because it's sort of like seeing the words "HATE EVERYTHING" casually posted around, but I don't fool myself into thinking my perception of the swastika is the same as a Jew's would be. I have the luxury of at least attempting to view it ironically, unlike some people. Speaking of some of those some people...

The interview can be found here:
Part 1— http://www.gnosticmedia.com/gilad-atzmon-interview-zionism-and-jewish-identity-politics-pt-1-142
Part 2— http://www.gnosticmedia.com/gilad-atzmon-interview-zionism-and-jewish-identity-politics-pt-2-143

Not much new in that interview, except a rather nice string-backed cover of one of my favorite Matt Dennis songs. That's the first Atzmon recording I sort of enjoyed. I may have to reassess everything I've said about his philosophy if I start liking his music. Fuck.

The comments section was interesting, though.

Ben Steigmann on April 11, 2012 at 2:33 am
Interview this person. Even though he may be controversial, he is one of the most hard-hitting anti-Zionist researchers today. He wrote THE article on how Israel did 9/11, and he has done much other high quality, well documented work. He will be considered extreme to the uninitiated, but his articles are worth considering: http://zioncrimefactory.com/

REPLY

Ben Steigmann on April 11, 2012 at 4:42 pm
Also, I suggest visitors to this site watch the documentary “Auschwitz: The Surprising Hidden Truth”: http://holocausthandbooks.com/index.php ... y=96#watch

REPLY

CripWiz on April 12, 2012 at 3:04 pm
Right on, Ben. ZCF is one of the best at getting this info out there. His site is a wealth of the most important research going right now.

REPLY

If you're not already familiar with them, I highly recommend the links above to all those of you of an Atzmondian philosophical bent. Especially Zion Crime Factory. If nothing else you get a good look at some of your new colleagues. Admittedly, their take on things may be slightly different from your own (they are sadly lacking in irony, for one thing), but I think you'll find some comforting overlap in goals and political perspectives on Israel and Jews. At the very least, you can find some fine recordings of poetry readings by Ernst Zundel. And who knows? Maybe you can recommend Rigorous Intuition to some of those good folks as a sympathetic place where the Jewish Problem and quote, xenophobia, unquote can be discussed in a largely unmoderated atmosphere of mutual trust and friendship.

Now, is it Gilad Atzmon's fault that discussion of his philosophy brings readers of this board to a click away from Zion Crime Factory? Maybe not. I just thought you should see who stands with you in your valiant fight against Jewish exceptionalism. Huzzah.

[Searcher08]

Well said Cuda and similarly I respect the right of AD and yourself to stand shoulder to shoulder with Tony Greenstein, Alan Dershowitz and Abe Foxman and the supporting cast of the IDF and hey - they are not even one-click away in this thread!

OTOH you will probably find this VERY VERY OFFENSIVE.

I respect your right to contact Jeff and get me perma-banned for posting it. But, hey,
sometimes somethings should be said - dont you agree? Integrity is after all when one's values match one's actions.


Where would purveyor of poison Atzmon have learned his hatefilled craft of evil?
Probably from the Master of Evil Filth himself - Ian Dury

Spasticus Autisticus

Dury's 1981 song "Spasticus Autisticus"—written to show his disdain for that year's International Year of Disabled Persons, which he saw as patronising and counter-productive—was banned by the BBC. Dury was a disabled person himself, having been left crippled by childhood polio. The lyrics were uncompromising:

So place your hard-earned peanuts in my tin
And thank the Creator you're not in the state I'm in
So long have I been languished on the shelf
I must give all proceedings to myself

The song's refrain, "I'm spasticus, autisticus" was inspired by the response of the rebellious Roman gladiators in the film Spartacus, who, when instructed to identify their leader, all answered, "I am Spartacus", to protect him. According to Professor George McKay, in a 2009 article in Popular Music called 'Crippled with nerves' (an early Dury song title):

Ian Dury, that ‘flaw of the jungle’, produced a remarkable and sustained body of work that explored issues of disability, in both personal and social contexts, institutionalisation, and to a lesser extent the pop cultural tradition of disability. He also, with the single ‘Spasticus Autisticus’ (1981), produced one of the outstanding protest songs about the place of disabled people in what he called ‘normal land’.[14]

You can see the evil dripping from Dury's disablist eyes


Now - see how the contagion of filth is being passed on!

I AM NOW GOING TO POST A VIDEO FEATURING RAVING VIRULENT RABID DROOLING ANTISEMITE ATZMON!
IN A BAND!!
WITH RABID VIRULENT BBC-BANNED HATE-FILLED DISABLIST IAN DURY!!!


What did you learn at school today?
Jack shit
The minute the teacher turns away
That's it
How many times were you truly intrigued?
Not any
Is boredom a symptom of mental fatigue?
Not many
When have you ever been top of the class?
Not once
What will you do when you're out on your arse?
A dunce
What are your prospects of doing quite well?
Too small
And what will you have at the very last Bell?
Fuck all

You can't bear another's beauty, you can't emulate a grace
You can't filch another's mystery, occupy another's space
You can't do another's duty, or take a special place
In another person's history when they've sunk without a trace

What's the reward for being a berk?
A blank
Thick as a plank and looking for work
What a wank
What do you think of the Welfare State?
It's a fake
What have they handed you on a plate?
The ache
Have you considered how lucky you are?
Well shucks
What do you think of the system so far?
It sucks
Aren't you endowed with the patience of Job?
I wish
Don't you feel ready to conquer the globe?
Oh fish

You can't steal another's thunder, you can't fill a great divide
You can't steer another's fancy, you can't change another's side
Not undo another's blunder nor pretend another's pride
You can't offer necromancy till the final hope has died

I'm a second-class person citizen-wise,
This is something I must recognise
It's not my place to make complaint,
But am I happy? No, I ain't
I missed my chance when I was young,
Now I live below the bottom rung
I was put on earth to discover my niche;
Oh Lord, won't you make me Nouveau Riche?

[barracuda]

Well said Cuda and similarly I respect the right of AD and yourself to stand shoulder to shoulder with Tony Greenstein, Alan Dershowitz and Abe Foxman and the supporting cast of the IDF and hey - they are not even one-click away in this thread!

Well there you go, then. On the subject of Gilad Atzmon, I stand with Abe Foxman (that empathetic fellow) and you stand with the Nazis. Well done.

[Searcher08]

Well said Cuda and similarly I respect the right of AD and yourself to stand shoulder to shoulder with Tony Greenstein, Alan Dershowitz and Abe Foxman and the supporting cast of the IDF and hey - they are not even one-click away in this thread!

Well there you go, then. On the subject of Gilad Atzmon, I stand with Abe Foxman (that empathetic fellow) and you stand with the Nazis. Well done.

LOL I always pay more attention to what people claim for themselves, rather than what others claim for me.

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon: From time to time, I do meet some very brave Jews, people who fight for humanism while stripping themselves of any trace of choseness and exeptionalism. Evelyn Hecht-Galinski is such a person.
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/from-de-nazification-to-de-antisemitification-by-evelyn-hech.html
From De-Nazification to 'De-Antisemitification'

After 1945, my father issued a 'Denazification Certificate' to the then GDR leader Erich Honecker, amongst others.
In today's sad present, a point is already reached where critics of Israel have to be provided with a 'Antisemitism-free Certificate' in order to kosherize them.

A point is already reached where representatives of Jewish interests are pressing to prevent public appearances of any such critic perceived as dangerous to them for simply working on the basis of facts.

A son of German Jewish immigrants, Prof. Ilan Pappe was banned by the highest representative of the city of Munich, Mayor Christian Ude (Social Democratic Party, SPD), from delivering a public talk in a local cultural centre. In Vienna the 'Wiener Zeitung' (Vienna newspaper) called him a 'controversial' historian with the aim of challenging his appearance at a conference right from the start. Public funding is being withdrawn in order to nip all criticism of Israel in the bud. In Freiburg, it was only by means of a court order that the cancellation of a Nakba exhibition in public spaces could be averted. Then the city of Düsseldorf staged a replay of its inglorious past: the early eighties had already seen the enforcement of a ban on performing Joshua Sobol's “The Palestinian Girl” at the Düsseldorfer Schauspielhaus (Düsseldorf theatre) at the instigation of Mr. Scheinmann, president of the local Jewish community. Even my public protest, e.g. in WDR-TV and in various print media, didn't succeed in lifting the ban. It was, however, possible to get "asylum" at the theatre in Bonn (general director Volker Canaris from Düsseldorf). In these days, it is again Düsseldorf that prevented a Nakba exhibition.

But it doesn't end there: A boycott campaign against Gilad Atzmon, one of the best jazz musicians in the world and a Israel critic gifted with analytical sharpness, is in full swing. This fabulous artist is due to perform with his Orient House Ensemble at a jazz festival in Göttingen on 12th November. Immediately after the announcement of the event, the Jewish community of Göttingen distributed a pamphlet flyer brimming with smear and vilification of the worst kind in order to press for the cancellation of Atzmon's much anticipated performance. In my assessment, the real reason behind all this is that Atzmon has written a wonderfully sharp and trenchant book: “The Wandering Who” (at present, unfortunately available only in English) against which those people with all their 'factoids' and sundry concoctions are simply powerless and which is already beating all records on the Amazon hit list.

Such is the treatment given to Israel's critics in Germany. From book burning to book destruction ('Don't read anything written by critical Jews').

Books, however, scribbled up by the islamophobic porn author H.M. Broder are presented even in the august German Bundestag (parliament) by a member of the political party 'DIE LINKEN' (The Left), Mrs. Petra Pau, and are widely disseminated by the Federal Agency for Civic Education (Bundeszentrale für politische Bildung) with taxpayers' money. When Mr. Döpfner, CEO and chairman of the publishing house Springer and Broder's boss, introduced the latter's book to the public, then 'tout” Berlin – i.e. the whole of Berlin - rushed to join the event including the Israeli ambassador: what belongs together, is growing together.

Does the Israel lobby really think it commands the sole right of representation for all Jews when it comes to decide on boycotting those critics of Israel the lobby chooses to dislike?
Is it not just those lobbyists who are so vehemently fighting Israel boycotts with invocations of absurd historical references like “Do not by from Jews”? Obviously, boycott is allowed only on the condition that it is practised by the Israel supported front. 'Boycott for Jews only'? No and no again! Boycott against states founded on and committing injustices like the Jewish state of Israel, as long as it tramples international law and human rights!

Why should Iran be punished with a boycott because she desires that the Zionist regime disappear?
Iran never called for the destruction of Israel neither did Hamas. Both demand only that the State of Israel retreat to the borders of 1967. This is a legitimate demand, which I support fully!

What is the difference between the Iranian Guardian Council and a settler council in Israel? What is the difference between extremist ayatollahs suppressing "only" their citizens and extremist rabbis who call for the killing of all Palestinians? Racist Zionists are given free rein while so-called islamistic leaders are subjected to targeted killings around the world.


From no-fly zone to drone attack killing zone

The West, the U.S. and Israel always have the license to kill because they claim to represent democracy and spread it all over the world. And indeed, two veritable Nobel 'Peace' Prize winners have found each other - Obama and Peres. Obama has almost surpassed his predecessor in 'peace' (aka war) creating measures while Peres, father of the Israeli settlement building project and the Israeli atomic bomb, keeps on representing the so-called 'only democracy in the Middle East' in old freshness.


This 'democracy' voted together with the United States and Germany against the admission of Palestine to the UNESCO. In doing so, Germany, i.e. Chancellor Merkel and foreign minister Westerwelle, once again showed its disregard for the Palestinians. Only 14 countries voted against the admission, including, besides Germany, the Netherlands (think of Wilders) and Canada. 107 states voted for it, among them Russia, China, Brazil, India as well as, surprisingly, France (the French election campaign and North African and Arab voters seem to beckon). 52 countries abstained. A disgrace for Germany, especially in view of our responsibility towards Israel and the Palestinians as well. Together with Israel and the U.S., Germany stands now isolated on the side of those unwilling to commit themselves to peace. Once again, the U.S. and Germany as the largest financial contributors to UNESCO are marching together against a just peace for the Palestinian people. What concept of democracy is this? Threatening to block funds, then translating it into action, but still remaining in the UNESCO. Has our understanding of democracy - together with that of the U.S. - degenerated into accepting the use of sheer blackmail against politically not suited states and/or as punishment for any disliked action? While Hillary Clinton, U.S. Secretary of State had already threatened beforehand that it was forbidden for the United States to fund organizations with Palestinian members (based on laws of 1990 and 1994 against the PLO), now after Palestine's admission to the UNESCO, they went the whole hog blocking the November contributions in the amount of $ 60 million. Nor is there anything good the Palestinians have to expect from Congress and Senate: Already for a long time now, the Israel lobby (AIPAC) has been engaged in aggressive election campaigning with the aim of promoting the Jewish/Israeli cause.

Thanks to Israel and its intransigence towards the Palestinians, the so-called peace process has been destroyed or no longer exists at all. The Middle East Quartet should be dissolved finally admitting that no peace negotiations with Israel are possible anymore. A black day for Germany's foreign policy and a beautiful day for the Palestinians. A day of joy in the struggle for Palestinian self-determination and a breeze of a Palestinian spring awakening.

If Israel really wants to be a democracy - here I can only agree with my friend Gilad Atzmon - then any professed democratic voter should not vote for undemocratic policies. When looking at states committing injustice the picture is rather clear – just like in the case of Germany that went through the painful experience of the Nazi era when it certainly couldn't be described as a democracy.

Israel, the 'only democracy' bars Jewish professors like Finkelstein, Chomsky and others from entry. Why? What do they fear from these intellectuals? Unpleasant truths shattering Israeli propaganda myths?

But what good at all can we still expect from one of the leading leftist like Mr. Lothar Bisky, who agrees to a no-fly zone, or from a senate in Berlin under a 'red, social democratic' leadership, which - without any even whispery resonance - adopted a so-called ‘protective custody’ law on placement in a detention situation, a law extending detention from two to four days without any criminal suspicion.

My and my husband's ancestors had already been in ‘protective custody’ without criminal suspicion.
We all know where this is leading to in the end.

Publicist Evelyn Hecht-Galinski is the daughter of Heinz Galinski, deceased in 1992, a former president of the Central Council of Jews in Germany. With this commentary she continues her series which she writes from the 'Hochblauen' (the High Blue), her 1186 m high "home mountain" in the Baden region of Germany.

[barracuda]

What did Old Abe say about Atzmon?

When the notorious, crusading anti-Semite Gilad Atzmon was recently invited to play his music, speak and disseminate his writings at Friends Seminary, a New York City private school, strong objections were raised by a number of people, including Harvard University law school professor Alan Dershowitz, and a number of organizations, including the Anti-Defamation League.

But...

The school has every right to present diverse views regarding Israel and the conflict.

Yeah, I can stand with that approach.

http://www.jpost.com/Opinion/Op-EdContr ... ?id=263450

[barracuda]

What did Alan Dershowitz have to say about Atzmon?

CONFIDENTIAL DRAFT
Wc: 2828
Professors John Mearsheimer and Richard Falk Cross a Red Line

As the discourse about Israel on university campuses continues to degenerate, there is growing concern that some of Israel’s most vocal detractors are crossing a red line between acceptable criticism of Israel and legitimizing anti-Semitism. The recent endorsements by several internationally prominent academics—including John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago and Richard Falk of Princeton—of an overtly anti-Semitic book written by a notorious Jew-hater illustrate this dangerous trend.

The book is entitled The Wandering Who? and was written by Gilad Atzmon, a British jazz musician. Lest there be any doubt about Atzmon’s anti-Semitic credentials, listen to his own self-description in the book itself. He boasts about “drawing many of my insights from a man who...was an anti-Semite as well as a radical misogynist” and a hater of “almost everything that fails to be Aryan masculinity.”1 He declares himself a “proud, self-hating Jew”2, writes with “contempt” of “the Jew in me”3, and describes himself as “a strong opponent of...Jewish-ness.”4 His writings, both online and in his new book, brim with classic anti-Semitic motifs that are borrowed from Nazi publications:5

Throughout his writings, Atzmon argues that Jews seek to control the world:

• “[W]e must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the
world very seriously.”6
• “American Jewry makes any debate on whether the ‘Protocols of the elder of Zion’ [sic]
are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews do try to control the world, by proxy.”7
Atzmon expands on this theme in The Wandering Who? in which he repeatedly conflates “the Jews” and “the Zionist.”8
• He calls the recent credit crunch “the Zio-punch”9 and says it was not “a Jewish conspiracy” because “it was all in the open.”10
• “Zionist decisions” might be made in Bernie Madoff’s office or elsewhere on Wall Street.11
• There is a secret worldwide network of thousands of Jews who are ready to “betray” their host nations in order to assist Zionist agents.12
• Paul Wolfowitz, Rahm Emmanuel, and other members of “the Jewish elite” remain abroad instead of moving to “Zion” because they “have proved far more effective for the Zionist cause by staying where they are.”13
• The American media “failed to warn the American people of the enemy within” because of money.14
• “Considering the energy and resources that Jewish lobbies pour into political parties around the world, and the efforts undertaken to influence media and leadership, it is far from clear what the Lord Levys and the Haim Sabans are trying to achieve” though they “have been doing it for three thousand years.”15

Atzmon writes that Jews are evil and a menace to humanity:

• “With Fagin and Shylock in mind Israeli barbarism and organ trafficking seem to be just
other events in an endless hellish continuum.”16
• “The Homo Zionicus quickly became a mass murderer, detached from any recognised
form of ethical thinking and engaged in a colossal crime against humanity.”17
• “If we want to save this world, if we want to live in a humane planet, we must focus on
the gravest enemy of peace, those who are wicked for the sake of evilness: the Israeli
State and world Zionism.”18
• “Israel and Zionism are the ultimate Evil with no comparison.”19
• “There is no room for racist ethnic cleanser Israel amongst the nations.”20

Atzmon rehearses many of these ideas in The Wandering Who?21 and goes even further:

• “[T]o be a Jew is a deep commitment that goes far beyond any legal or moral order”22
and this commitment “pulls more and more Jews into an obscure, dangerous and unethical fellowship.”23
• If Iran and Israel fight a nuclear war that kills tens of millions of people, “some may be bold enough to argue that ‘Hitler might have been right after all.’”24
• The “new Jewish religion...could well be the most sinister religion known to man...”25
Atzmon urges his readers to doubt the Holocaust and to reject Jewish history:
• “It took me years to accept that the Holocaust narrative, in its current form, doesn’t make
any historical sense. ... If, for instance, the Nazis wanted the Jews out of their Reich (Judenrein - free of Jews), or even dead, as the Zionist narrative insists, how come they marched hundreds of thousands of them back into the Reich at the end of the war?”26
• “[I]f the Nazis ran a death factory in Auschwitz-Birkenau, why would the Jewish prisoners join them at the end of the war? Why didn’t the Jews wait for their Red liberators? I think that 65 years after the liberation of Auschwitz, we must be entitled to start to ask the necessary questions. We should ask for some conclusive historical evidence and arguments...”27
• “[E]ven if we accept the Holocaust as the new Anglo-American liberal-democratic religion, we must allow people to be atheists.”28
• “Jewish history is a phantasmic tale [and “a set of fables”] 29 that is there to make the Jews happy and the Goyim behave themselves.”30

Atzmon reprises some of this language in The Wandering Who?31 and goes further:

•Children should be allowed to question, as he did, “how the teacher could know that these accusations of Jews making Matza out of young Goyim’s blood were indeed empty or groundless.”32
•“The Holocaust religion is probably as old as the Jews themselves.”33
•The history of Jewish persecution is a myth, and if there was any persecution the Jews brought it on themselves.34
Atzmon argues that Jews are corrupt and responsible for “why” they are “hated”:
• “I ask myself if Jesus was as bad as Hitler (in the eyes of the rabbis), why is it that the
Jews are so offended when blamed for killing him?”35
•“[I]n order to promote Zionist interests, Israel must generate significant anti-Jewish sentiment. Cruelty against Palestinian civilians is a favourite Israeli means of achieving this aim. ... Zionist leaders in Germany were very fast to welcome Hitler and the Nazi regime .... Sometimes, the Mossad itself has initiated attacks against Jews in order to ‘push them in the right direction’ ...”36
•“Jews may have managed to drop their God, but they have maintained goy-hating and racist ideologies at the heart of their newly emerging secular political identity. This explains why some Talmudic goy-hating elements have been transformed within the Zionist discourse into genocidal practices.”37
•“The Holocaust ... is the most sinister religion known to man. It is a license to kill, to flatten, [t]o nuke, to wipe, to rape, to loot and to ethnically cleanse.”38

Atzmon returns to this theme repeatedly in The Wandering Who?:

• The “Judaic God” described in Deuteronomy 6:10-12 “is an evil deity, who leads his
people to plunder, robbery and theft.”39 Atzmon explains that “Israel and Zionism ...
have instituted the plunder promised by the Hebrew God in the Judaic holy scriptures.”40
• “The Holocaust religion signals the final Jewish departure from monotheism, for every
Jew is potentially a little God or Goddess.”41
• The “heritage of the Tanakh (the Hebrew Bible)” is a “dialectic of fear”, designed “to
induce in Jews a pre-traumatic state.”42
• The “formula” of using donations and control of media to gain political influence “is
deeply brewed in the Judaic religious tradition”.43
• The moral of the Book of Esther is that Jews “had better infiltrate the corridors of power”
if they wish to survive.44

Finally, Atzmon repeatedly declares that Israel is worse than the Nazis and has actually apologized to the Nazis for having earlier compared them to Israel:

• “Israel is the ultimate evil rather than Nazi Germany.”45
• “Israel is actually far worse than Nazi Germany...”46
• “Many of us including me tend to equate Israel to Nazi Germany. Rather often I myself
join others and argue that Israelis are the Nazis of our time. I want to take this opportunity to amend my statement. Israelis are not the Nazis of our time and the Nazis were not the Israelis of their time. Israel, is in fact far worse than Nazi Germany and the above equation is simply meaningless and misleading.”47

In light of this Der Stürmer-like bigotry against Jews, it should come as no surprise that even some of the most hard-core anti-Israel activists have shunned Atzmon out of fear that Atzmon’s anti-Semitism will discredit their cause. Tony Greenstein, a self-styled “anti-Zionist”48 who recently participated in the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s unprecedented disruption of an Israel Philharmonic Orchestra concert in London49 (which Greenstein compared to protesting the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra in the 1930s50), denounced The Wandering Who? as “a poisonous anti-Semitic tome.”51 Sue Blackwell, who co-wrote the Association of University Teachers’ motion to boycott Israeli universities in 200552, removed all links to Atzmon from her website and placed Atzmon on her list of “nasties” along with David Irving and Israel Shamir.53 Socialist Worker, a website that frequently refers to Israeli “apartheid” and publishes articles with titles such as “Israel’s murderous violence”54, removed an interview with Atzmon and called the evidence of Atzmon’s anti-Semitism “damning.”55 At least ten authors associated with the Leftist publisher that published The Wandering Who? have called on the publisher to distance itself from Atzmon’s views, explaining that the “thrust of Atzmon’s work is to normalise and legitimise anti-Semitism.”56

Hard-core neo-Nazis, racists, anti-Semites and Holocaust deniers, on the other hand, have happily counted Atzmon as one of their own. David Duke, America’s premier white supremacist, has posted more than a dozen of Atzmon’s articles on his website over the past five years57 and recently praised Atzmon for “writ[ing] such fine articles exposing the evil of Zionism and Jewish supremacism”.58 Kevin MacDonald, a professor at Cal State Long Beach whose colleagues formally disassociated themselves from his “anti-Semitic and white ethnocentric views”59, called Atzmon’s book “an invaluable account by someone who clearly understands the main symptoms of Jewish pathology.”60 Israel Shamir, a Holocaust denier (“We must deny the concept of Holocaust without doubt and hesitation”61) who argues that Jews ritually murdered Christian children for their blood62 and that “The rule of the Elders of Zion is already upon us”63, refers to Atzmon as a “good friend”64 and calls Atzmon one of “the shining stars of the battle” against “the Jewish alliance”65. Atzmon returned the favor, saying that there is “more wisdom in a single sentence” by Shamir “than in the entire work of the Jewish Left put together”66 and defending Shamir in The Times of London as “a brave man”67 after The Times described Shamir as “a rabid anti-Semite”68.

But neither Atzmon’s well-established reputation for anti-Semitism nor the copious anti-Semitic filth that fills The Wandering Who? has deterred Professors John Mearsheimer and Richard Falk from actively endorsing Atzmon’s work. Mearsheimer, the Harrison Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science at the University of Chicago and a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, calls The Wandering Who? a “fascinating” book that “should be read widely by Jews and non-Jews alike.”69 Falk, Milibank Professor of International Law Emeritus at Princeton University and United Nations Special Rapporteur on “human rights in the Palestinian territories”, calls The Wandering Who? an “absorbing and moving” book that everyone who “care[s] about real peace” should “not only read, but reflect upon and discuss widely.”70 Falk’s endorsement appears prominently on the cover of Atzmon’s repulsive book. Mearsheimer’s endorsement is featured prominently on its first page.

These professors are not merely defending Atzmon’s right to publish such a book; they are endorsing its content and urging their colleagues, students and others to read and “reflect upon” the views expressed by Atzmon.

One wonders which portions of this bigoted screed Professor Mearsheimer believes his students and others “should” read: The argument that Jews are trying to control the world? The claim that Holocaust history is nonsense? What aspects of Atzmon’s writings does Professor Falk want everyone to “discuss widely”? The assertion that Jews may be guilty of “making Matza out of young Goyim’s blood”? The possibility that “Hitler might have been right after all”?

Mearsheimer has defended his endorsement (on Stephen Walt’s blog) by questioning whether his critics have even read Atzmon’s book. Well, I’ve read every word of it, as well as many of Atzmon’s blogs. No one who has read this material could escape the conclusion—which Atzmon freely admits—that many of his “insights” are borrowed directly from classic anti-Semitic writings. Mearsheimer claims, however, that he has endorsed only Atzmon’s book and not his other writings. First, the book itself is filled with crass neo-Nazi rants against the “Jew,” “World Jewry” and “Jewish bankers.” He claims that “robbery and hatred is imbued in Jewish modern political ideology on both the left and the right.”71 Like other anti-Semites, Atzmon, in the book endorsed by Mearsheimer, is obsessed with Jewish names. It was Jews, such as Wolfowitz and Libby, who pushed the United States into war against Iraq in the “interests” of a “foreign” government72:

•“How is it that America failed to restrain its Wolfowitzes? How is it that America let its foreign policy be shaped by some ruthless Zio-driven think tanks? How come alleged American ‘free media’ failed to warn the American people of the enemy within?”73

It was “Jewish bankers,” financiers, economists, writers and politicians such as Greenspan, Levy, Aaronovitch, Saban, Friedman, Schiff and Rothschild who have caused the economic and political problems of the world, ranging from the Bolshevik revolution to the wars of the 20th century to the current economic troubles.74 And like other classic anti-Semites, Atzmon doesn’t simply fault the individual Jews he names; he concocts a worldwide Jewish conspiracy motivated by a “ruthless Zio-driven”75 “Jewish ideology”76 that finds its source in “the lethal spirit” 77 of the Hebrew Bible. This sort of conspiratorial drivel is borrowed almost word for word from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion—the Czarist forgery that became a staple of Nazi propaganda.

These crass anti-Jewish sentiments are expressed in the very book Mearsheimer has endorsed, not in Atzmon’s other writings. Mearsheimer argues that what Atzmon had earlier written “is not relevant” to his decision to endorse his book. By that criterion, would Mearsheimer have endorsed a book by David Duke that was similar in content to Atzmon’s book? In fact, many of Duke’s writings are quite similar.78
A number of other prominent academics have defended Atzmon and his endorsers. Brian Leiter, the Llewellyn Professor of Jurisprudence at the University of Chicago Law School, dismissed the reaction to the book and to Mearsheimer’s “straightforward” endorsement as “hysterical” and not “advance[ing] honest intellectual discourse,” though he acknowledges not having read Atzmon’s book. On the basis of having perused one brief interview with Atzmon, Leiter is prepared to defend him against charges that he is an anti-Semite or a Holocaust denier: “His positions [do not mark him] as an anti-Semite [but rather as] cosmopolitan.” “He does not deny the Holocaust or the gas chambers....”79 Leiter should read the book, especially pages 175-176, before leaping to Atzmon’s defense.80

After Mearsheimer was attacked for endorsing the Atzmon book, Stephen Walt, the Belfer Professor of International Affairs at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, offered Mearsheimer space on his Foreign Policy blog so that Mearsheimer could defend his endorsement and explain how Atzmon is neither “a Holocaust denier” nor a “Nazi sympathizer.”81 James Petras, Bartle Professor of Sociology Emeritus at Binghamton University, called The Wandering Who? “a series of brilliant illuminations” and praised Atzmon’s “courage”.82 The list of academics who have endorsed Atzmon also includes William A. Cook, a professor of English at the University of La Verne in southern California; Makram Khoury- Machool, a lecturer at the University of Cambridge; and Oren Ben-Dor of the University of Southampton School of Law.83

These endorsements represent a dangerous step toward legitimizing anti-Semitic rhetoric on university campuses. If respected professors endorse the views contained in Atzmon’s book as “brilliant,” “fascinating,” “absorbing,” and “moving,”84 these views—which include Jewish domination of the world, doubting the Holocaust, blaming “the Jews” for being so hated, and attributing the current economic troubles to a “Zio-punch”—risk becoming acceptable among their students. These endorsements of Atzmon’s book are the best evidence yet that academic discourse is beginning to cross a red line, and that the crossing of this line must be exposed, rebutted and rejected in the marketplace of ideas and in the academy. (Another evidence of this academic trend in Europe appeared recently on Atzmon’s website, where he brags that he has been invited to “give a talk on ethics at the Trondheim University” in Norway. This is the same university whose faculty refused to invite me to speak about the Arab-Israel conflict.)

Accordingly, I hereby challenge Professors Mearsheimer and Falk to a public debate about why they have endorsed and said such positive things about so hateful and anti-Semitic a book by so bigoted and dishonest a writer.

I'm not sure I disagree with any of that.

http://www.alandershowitz.com/gilad_atzmon.pdf

[Searcher08]

I visited the link you gave - this in the comments section
The commenter is talking about notorious Crusaders Foxman and Dershowitz.


Unwarranted

From the March 28 letters section:

Unwarranted attacks

In “Teaching American kids about Arab culture and Israel” (Comment &
Features, March 27), Abraham H. Foxman continues an unjustified and unsupported
attack on a New York private school, Friends Seminary, that Alan Dershowitz
began last month (“NY Friends seminary plays bait-and-switch on anti-Semitism,”
February 24).

Foxman, like Dershowitz, criticizes this respected school,
its administration and faculty based on assertions he fails to
support.

The crux of Foxman’s criticism is that Friends Seminary
organized a student visit to Israel and the West Bank that was supposedly
imbalanced because the trip was co-led by a history teacher he blithely asserts
holds “anti-Israel views” and because the group supposedly is not devoting as
much time to visiting people apparently more suited to his perspective. He cites
no evidence for his accusation about the history teacher, much like Dershowitz
failed to offer when he began the attacks against Friends and this
teacher.

Like Dershowitz, Foxman also fails to provide evidence that he
in fact knows anything meaningful about the Friends visit.

Whether the
Friends trip could have been planned differently, including more time with
Israeli families and less time with Palestinian families, cannot seriously be
what animates his complaint. Surely Foxman knows that thousands of students visit Israel every year and the organizers of their trips do not include visits with Palestinians, yet he has never complained that those visits are imbalanced.

Equally, why do Foxman and Dershowitz equate approaches to
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that they do not like with anti- Semitism? As a
committed and involved Jewish parent of children educated at Friends Seminary, I know this is an institution committed to justice, fairness and decency,qualities sadly lacking in Foxman’s and Dershowitz’s campaigns against this proud and respected institution.

JOEL COHEN
New York

[barracuda]

Well, as I've stated, I doubt Mr. Foxman or Mr. Dershowitz would approve of my feelings regarding the fascist actions of the state of Israel with respect to the Palestinians.

But what do your comrades fellow non-xenophobes over at der Stormfront say about Atzmon? A search on that site shows two-hundred and eighty threads either about Atzmon or mentioning him approvingly. And here's Hugh complaining about one little thread. Geez.

[slimmouse]

What did Alan Dershowitz have to say about Atzmon?

Im not sure I disagree with any of that.

Having read the long article that followed I probably wouldnt disagree with any of it either, but knowing Alan Dershowitz for the vile contemptable example of humanity that he clearly is, if I hadnt read the book, Id be very careful about using any kind of quotes he makes.

He's a lawyer who defends, and indeed frees child abusers. Hes not even remotely interested in the truth, or the suffering his work causes, because that doesnt pay his bills - those are his priorities. As such Hes a serial liar just "doing his job" as he might argue as he frees another peodophile or murderer. Right and wrong are simply an absract in his eyes. I shouldnt of course use his profession, and the kind of people he defends against him cos thats a guilt by association type thing, but the indisputable fact that hes a proven liar is more than a fair claim.

I havent read the book myself, but I'll bet you all you like that the quotes he makes are taken completely out of context. Once you know the MO of these guys, you know them. I once watched a one hour interview of him on democracy now with Amy Goodman, and Norman Finklestein.
It confirmed virtually everything I had ever learned about the way Zionists operate. Dershowitz could hardly utter a sentence that was even remotely true. Not that it didnt stop him from interrupting the entire debate whenever Finklestein tried to correct him. It was one of the most contemptable interviews Ive ever seen.

On the larger scale , the bad news is of course that we all suffer cos of this. The indisputable fact meanwhile is that Israel is a racist hell on earth who's existence is being funded by you. Which surely makes one wonder how, if Atzmon is so wrong, this has come to pass ?

It comes back of course to that labels thing.

Oh, and BTW, the Nazis didnt ever defend free speech, so its rather confusing to suggest that searcher is on that side of the fence.

Have you read the book Cuda ? Or have the thought police fooled you too ? Dont worry if they have. It happens to the best of us.

[compared2what?]

But really, Alice, I was talking anecdotally about the town I live in, specifically, which, for your edification is this town.

No, you were very clearly implying that California is a scary, racist place for Jews to live, but not for Muslims:

In a certain sense, of course, comparisons are otiose when it comes to discrimination. Because (obviously) it's all bad. But fwiw...

If Yoav Shamir wanted to know what antisemitism looks like today, he should come out to California. If I had a dollar for every swastika spray painted on walls and fences around my neighborhood, or the occasional "Fuck the Kikes" scrawled around here, I could by a month's worth of groceries. It's a total commonplace. I cleaned a swastika off the sidewalk in front of my daughter's elementary school about a week ago. The kids learn right away the right symbol to draw and the right words to say. And it's no surprise that they do - the shop around the corner from me sells all kinds of Nazi themed merchandise, mostly scuttle helmets and SS badges and iron crosses for the local biker crews. But it's so deeply ingrained in the culture you don't even think about it. Oh my, the governor of California was photographed wearing a SS symbol on his belt buckle on the cover of Time magazine? Not really surprising - half the people on the street around here are wearing Totenkopfs too. They're ubiquitous.

To be fair, so are characterizations of blacks as niggers. I live in a highly charged, racist society. However, I have never - not once - seen or heard anti-arab, anti-muslim, anti-hindi racism voiced or graffitied around here. In the media, yes, but not on the street or in conversation. There's no paki-bashing here, or talk of "rag heads" that I'm aware of. And it's easy to imagine why - the Sikhs who wear the dastar around here are some of the toughest-looking mofos you'd ever want to meet.They carry kirpans - big ones. Don't fuck with 'em.

^^^

...all the statistics suggest that's simply (and quite literally) a fair observation. For example, the population of California is about seven percent black, about three percent Jewish, and (almost) three percent Islamic. Since 2001, however, about 26 percent of all hate crimes in in California have been anti-black; about seven percent have been anti-Jewish, and about one percent have been anti-Muslim.

I decry each and every one of those acts of hatred equally, needless to say. (And I invite -- not to say "beg" -- you to second me on that one, if you feel the same.) But there's certainly nothing about impartially and absolutely denouncing all forms of discrimination that requires me -- or, imo, barracuda or anyone else -- to remain blind to the proportionate frequency with which various vulnerable groups are victimized by their haters in California.

Incidentally, anti-gay hate crimes are consistently the second commonest single-bias kind annually committed in California. If anyone cares.

Anti-Muslim hate rally summons the ghosts of Jim Crow
On 03.05.11, By Max Blumenthal

While watching the unforgettably hideous (and now viral) footage of the recent anti-Muslim demonstration in Yorba Linda, California, I could not help but think of Elizabeth Eckford, the African-American student who was forced to walk through a phalanx of violent white racists chanting “Lynch her! Lynch her!” during the federal government’s first attempt to integrate Little Rock Central High School. This iconic image was immediately recalled by the video of Muslim-American children walking through a crowd of protesters calling them terrorists, threatening them, and chanting “Go home!” as they proceeded towards a local community center for a charity event. Eckford was badly scarred by her experience; the trauma affected her life for decades. I wonder how the children who had to be marched through the gauntlet of racists in Yorba Linda will remember their experience.

Billed as a “Patriotic Rally,” the anti-Muslim demonstration was organized by official hate group leader Pam Geller, Tea Party outfits including the North Orange County Conservative Coalition and We Surround Them OC 912; and Rabbi David Eliezrie of the Yorba Linda chapter of Chabad-Lubavitch, a messianic Orthodox Jewish group.

IOW:

IT WAS ORGANIZED BY AND FOR EXTREME AND EXTREMELY REACTIONARY RIGHT-WING SEGMENTS OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY, NEITHER OF WHICH REPRESENT, STAND FOR, OR INDICATE THE SENTIMENTS OR TENDENCIES OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH POPULATION AS A WHOLE.

I've now brought the above distinction -- which is both real and meaningful -- to your attention repeatedly. Your continued inability to grasp and/or acknowledge it is therefore both misleading and discriminatory. So please make every good-faith effort of which I know you to be capable by taking it into account in future.

Thanks.

[AlicetheKurious]

But what do your comrades quote, fellow non-xenophobic citizens of the world, unquote, over at Stormfront say about Atzmon? A search on that site shows two-hundred and eighty threads either about Atzmon or mentioning him approvingly. And here's Hugh complaining about one little thread. Geez.

We're back to that? AD is recycling his robotic copy-paste from Tony Greenstein's blog, and you're recycling the old "David Duke approves" spurious guilt-by-association ploy. If this thread relied on you two, it would truly have been as "boring" as you claim it is, not to mention intellectually and morally vacuous. And barracuda, your association of me with Stormfront does cross the line into libel, as does your earlier insinuation that I am any kind of a racist.

Maybe it's time you ask yourselves why, if you have any valid arguments to make, you feel compelled to use such ugly and frankly stupid methods to make them. (I know, if you had any capacity for self-reflection, it would have been evident by now).

As for the plagiarist and serial liar Derschowitz, who throws around accusations of "antisemitism" as though they were rice at a wedding, his may not be the most reliable judgement when it comes to anybody who is not a rabid zionist like he is:

Derschowitz on Judge Goldstone:

Speaking with [Israel] Army Radio on Sunday morning, Dershowitz said that Goldstone – whose report to the United Nations on Israel’s anti-terrorism Operation Cast Lead accused Israel of war crimes – “is a traitor using his Jewishness to malign Israel… He is an evil man, one who allowed himself to be used against the Jewish people, an absolute traitor.” Link

Derschowitz on Norman G. Finkelstein:

Having failed as an academic, Finkelstein is now trying to emulate Ann Coulter, except that Coulter is actually sometimes funny, where Finkelstein is merely disgusting. He has mocked Holocaust survivors and victims of terrorism. He has used anti-Semitic stereotypes to describe Jewish leaders. He also specializes in making up phony quotes and attributing them to his enemies. This was one of the reasons he was denied tenure at DePaul University. Link

As Beyond Chutzpah was going to press and after its publication Dershowitz embarked on an unremitting campaign of defamation, hurling wild and, frankly, obscene ad hominem calumnies. Disseminating these slanders under such juvenile titles as The Committee to Expose NORMAN FINKELSTEIN’s Close Connections to Neo-Nazism, Holocaust Denial, and His "Big Lie" of an "International Jewish Conspiracy," he asserted that this writer was a "notorious Jewish anti-Semite" and "Holocaust revisionist," had "praised" Osama Bin Laden, and had been let go from a teaching post due to "mental instability." He even threatened to show up during the tenure process at the university where this writer teaches at his–Dershowitz’s — "own expense" to "document the case against Finkelstein." Although he hasn’t yet acted on this particular threat, Dershowitz is currently inundating the university’s faculty and administration with lurid allegations to block this writer’s tenure.

Dershowitz posted on Harvard Law School’s official website the insinuation that this writer’s late mother was a "kapo" who had been "cooperating with the Nazis during the Holocaust." Harvard Law School Dean Elena Kagan held that Dershowitz’s gross defamation fell within the parameters of what was permissible to post on its website. For the record, this writer’s late mother was a survivor of the Warsaw Ghetto, Maidanek concentration camp and two slave-labor camps, lost every member of her family during the war and after the war served as a key witness at a Nazi deportation hearing in the U.S. and at the trial of Maidanek concentration camp guards in Germany.

-Norman Finkelstein, The Dershowitz Treatment

Derschowitz on Walt & Mearsheimer's study, The Israel Lobby:

In essence, the working paper is little more than a compilation of old, false, and authoritatively discredited charges dressed up in academic garb. The only thing new about it is the imprimatur these recycled assertions have now been given by the prominence of its authors and their institutional affiliations. As [former Ku Klux Klan leader] David Duke observed: "The Harvard report contains little new information. I and a few other American commentators have for years been making the same assertions as this new paper." It "validates every major point I [Duke] have been making." It should have been easily predictable - especially to "realists" - that their "Harvard report" would be featured, as it has been, on neo-Nazi and extremist websites, and even by terrorist organizations, and that it would be used by overt anti-Semites to "validate" their paranoid claims of a worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Link

Derschowitz on Media Matters:

“Media Matters and Center for American Progress are two extremely left-bigoted groups that are so virulently anti-Israel and anti-supporters of Israel that they’ve gone over the line from anti-Zionism to anti-Semitism,” Dershowitz said. ”They now use the term ‘Israel firsters,’ the way anti-Catholic bigots used to use the term ‘Vatican firsters’ or ‘Irish firsters,’ as if to suggest Americans who support Israel have dual loyalty. This false charge goes back to the Bible — goes back to the Book of Esther, goes back thousands of years. It was one of Hitler’s justifications for killing the Jews: ‘Dual loyalty, they’re not good Germans, they’re not good Americans,’ whatever it is.”
...

“These two organizations have been found to be anti-Semitic by many of the objective monitoring groups,” he said. “And now they are closely associated with the Democratic Party and I have said very clearly there is no room in this tent for me on the one hand, and for Media Matters and for this other group on the other hand. We can’t be in the same tent. I will not be in a tent with fascists, with supporters of Ahmadinejad, with supporters of Hamas, with supporters of Hezbollah, with anti-Semitic bigots, whether they’re Jewish or not. Some of them are Jewish. Some of them are not.”

Dershowitz likened both organizations to David Duke, and said he would urge people not to vote Democratic if the party didn’t purge itself of those from Media Matters and the Center for American Progress. Link

Derschowitz on Norway:

“Norway is the worst country in the world when it comes to its record on Israel and the Jews,” he said. “It is on the wrong side of history, morality and democratic values. It permits the butchering of seals and whales, but does not allow the most humane means of animal slaughter simply because it is needed by Jews.” Link

Derschowitz on the Palestinians:

“The truth,” wrote Dershowitz, “is that the Palestinian leadership, supported by the Palestinian masses, played a significant role in Hitler’s Holocaust.” Link

Derschowitz in debate:

At the Boston Book Festival yesterday, the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Boston (to its credit) sponsored a panel featuring Dershowitz and Palestinian novelist Susan Abulhawa, a daughter of 1967 refugees. The panel becomes excruciating in a hurry. Abulhawa is cool; in fact Dershowitz rails at her once for maintaining such a "calm" demeanor. And meantime he goes a little haywire, calling Abulhawa a liar, an "extremist," a "zealot," a "bigot" and a Holocaust denier-- all because she insists on Palestinian political freedom in a secular state, and calls for boycott to get there.

I don't think Dershowitz ever uses Abulhawa's name. She is "this woman." Link

Derschowitz, the Nazi-accuser, demonstrates how much he abhors Nazi methods:

In light of the willingness of suicide bombers to die in the process of killing Israelis, the traditional methods of deterrence and retaliation seem insufficient. To succeed, Israel must turn the Palestinian leadership and people against the use of terrorism and the terrorists themselves. One way to do this is to make terrorists directly bear the responsibility for losses inflicted on the Palestinian cause as a direct result of their terrorism.

Following the end of the moratorium, Israel would institute the following new policy if Palestinian terrorism were to resume. It will announce precisely what it will do in response to the next act of terrorism. For example, it could announce the first act of terrorism following the moratorium will result in the destruction of a small village which has been used as a base for terrorist operations. The residents would be given 24 hours to leave, and then troops will come in and bulldoze all of the buildings.

Over time, the Palestinian residents of these villages will place the blame where it should be placed: directly on the Palestinian terrorists who engaged in terrorism against Israel with full knowledge the consequence would be the destruction of their homes. Those villagers whose homes were coming up on the list would have an incentive to pressure the terrorists to desist. Link

Dershowitz, who has little sympathy for the Palestinians who struggle to survive in the squalid refugee camps and devastated villages of the Israeli occupied territories, does not believe the numerous reports of "desperation" in those areas. "There are reasons to be skeptical of this claim," he warns, although he gives no indication of ever having bothered to pay a visit. Link

Note that he has paid many visits to Israel, where he became an admirer and advocate of Israeli torture methods. As James Bamford writes, "One form of torture recommended by Dershowitz -- "the sterilized needle being shoved under the fingernails" -- is chillingly Nazi-like." Hmm.

Although he advocates legalizing torture to deal with "terrorists", he supports a terrorist organization, the People's Mujahideen of Iran (MEK), which just happens to be supported by Israel, engaged in a campaign of terror against Iranian civilians.

Derschowitz is a hypocrite who defames others as "antisemites" and gratuitously throws around Nazi analogies, while he's the one who uses Nazi-like justifications for racist oppression and war crimes, including collective punishment, torture and wars of aggression:

Since becoming a born-again Zionist after the June 1967 war Dershowitz has justified each and all of Israel's egregious violations of international law. In recent years he has used the "war on terrorism" as a springboard for a full frontal assault on this body of law. ...

The central premise of Dershowitz is that "international law, and those who administer it, must understand that the old rules" do not apply in the unprecedented war against a ruthless and fanatical foe, and that "the laws of war and the rules of morality must adapt to these [new] realities."

This is not the first time such a rationale has been invoked to dispense with international law. According to Nazi ideology, ethical conventions couldn't be applied in the case of "Jews or Bolsheviks; their method of political warfare is entirely amoral." On the eve of the "preventive war" against the Soviet Union, Hitler issued the Commissar Order, which mandated the summary execution of Soviet political commissars and Jews, and set the stage for the Final Solution. He justified the order targeting them for assassination on the ground that the Judeo-Bolsheviks represented a fanatical ideology, and that in these "exceptional conditions" civilized methods of warfare had to be cast aside:

In the fight against Bolshevism it must not be expected that the enemy will act in accordance with the principles of humanity or international lawany attitude of consideration or regard for international law in respect of these persons is an errorThe protagonists of barbaric Asiatic methods of warfare are the political commissars. Accordingly if captured in battle or while resisting, they should in principle be shot.

It was simultaneously alleged that the Red Army commissars (who were assimilated to Jews) qualified neither as prisoners of war protected by the Geneva Convention nor civilians entitled to trial before military courts, but rather were in effect illegal combatants. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose. Link

God, now I'm bored -- unlike Gilad Atzmon, Alan Derschowitz has no original thought, no insights, nor morality. Like so many zionist attack-dogs, he is a clown with a mediocre intellect lavished with honors and bully pulpits to spew his venomous apologia for oppression, his sycophantic tailoring of morality and law so that they always justify the worst abuses of power. I'm angry that I wasted time even reading his stupid, ignorant, vicious, FASCIST supremacist bull. I'm even angrier at your hypocrisy, deeming this apologist for war crimes, apartheid and torture Derschowitz worthy of quoting, solely because he suits your purpose of defaming people who would never advocate any of those things, nor justify them, under any circumstances.

Now, is it Gilad Atzmon's fault that discussion of his philosophy brings readers of this board to a click away from Zion Crime Factory? Maybe not. I just thought you should see who stands with you in your valiant fight against Jewish exceptionalism. Huzzah.

Sorry, if you are quoting approvingly from the likes of Derschowitz, that may associate you with certain of his opinions. But the converse is not true: it does does not make Derschowitz responsible for you or what you choose to quote, approvingly or not. If I quote Ghandi, does that make Ghandi "the guy that Alice quotes"? If AD chooses a photo of Che Guevara as his avatar, does that mean that I must now hold Che in contempt? I know, it's complicated.

Incidentally, nobody here has posted anything from the Zion Crime Factory, nor from Stormfront, but you. You brought them into this thread. Nobody here has advocated anything resembling the odious racist and fascist views of these people, unless we count your positive quoting of Alan Derschowitz as a tacit approval, or at least validation of his moral framework. All to substitute personal attacks for honestly and intelligently addressing the validity of Gilad Atzmon's ideas, which you have studiously avoided doing.

[barracuda]

But what do your comrades quote, fellow non-xenophobic citizens of the world, unquote, over at Stormfront say about Atzmon? A search on that site shows two-hundred and eighty threads either about Atzmon or mentioning him approvingly. And here's Hugh complaining about one little thread. Geez.

We're back to that? AD is recycling his robotic copy-paste from Tony Greenstein's blog, and you're recycling the old "David Duke approves" spurious guilt-by-association ploy. If this thread relied on you two, it would truly have been as "boring" as you claim it is, not to mention intellectually and morally vacuous.

You may be right. Nevertheless, The Dukester really does heartily approve, and the gang over at Stormfront apparently can't get enough of Gilad Atzmon. I mean really - two hundred threads? Is there that much to talk about? I agree with you that this thread ran out of juice many pages ago, on both sides. I mean, you even got around to posting that four sequence map of the Palestinian loss of land 1946 - 2000 like seven pages ago. I realize it's relevant, but you have to admit that particular JPEG is getting pretty dog-eared. Like, is there anyone on the thread unfamiliar with it?

And barracuda, your association of me with Stormfront does cross the line into libel, as does your earlier insinuation that I am any kind of a racist.

That's hilarious. I'm serious about the tee-vee show thing. You could do little humor skits and stuff. And there would definitely be a puppet show segment.

Maybe it's time you ask yourselves why, if you have any valid arguments to make, you feel compelled to use such ugly and frankly stupid methods to make them. (I know, if you had any capacity for self-reflection, it would have been evident by now).

In a thread, the crux of which is a determination of the racist quality of the writings of an author, the uses to which those writings are put by Nazis and white supremacists seems to me to have bearing. Of course, to you that seems silly, but why wouldn't it? You whole heartedly agree with the writer's formulations in question.

As for the plagiarist and serial liar Derschowitz, who throws around accusations of "antisemitism" as though they were rice at a wedding, his may not be the most reliable judgement when it comes to anybody who is not a rabid zionist like he is:

Derschowitz on Judge Goldstone:

Derschowitz on Norman G. Finkelstein:

Derschowitz on Walt & Mearsheimer's study, The Israel Lobby:

Derschowitz on Media Matters:

Derschowitz on Norway:

Derschowitz on the Palestinians:

Derschowitz in debate:

Dershowitz
Dershowitz
DershowitzDershowitzDershowitzDershowitzDershowitz

That's a lotta Dershowitz. Whew. Wotta tongue-twister.

God, now I'm bored -- unlike Gilad Atzmon, Alan Derschowitz has no original thought, no insights, nor morality. Like so many zionist attack-dogs, he is a clown with a mediocre intellect lavished with honors and bully pulpits to spew his venomous apologia for oppression, his sycophantic tailoring of morality and law so that they always justify the worst abuses of power. I'm angry that I wasted time even reading his stupid, ignorant, vicious, FASCIST supremacist bull. I'm even angrier at your hypocrisy, deeming this apologist for war crimes, apartheid and torture Derschowitz worthy of quoting, solely because he suits your purpose of defaming people who would never advocate any of those things, nor justify them, under any circumstances.

Anyway, I'm not defending Dershowitz him, just responding to some comment of Searcher's by investigating whether or not I actually did stand with Der him with regards to the issue of Gilad Atzmon. And lo and behold, he seemed rather reasonable on the subject. He wants to debate! In public! The horror.

You know, it's like they say about Hitler: "He loved his dogs and was a vegetarian." So if someone accuses you of being a Nazi, you can say, "The only agreement I have with Hitler are puppies and veggies," and no harm, no foul. By the way, Hitler had some interesting remarks that seem pertinent to this discussion, actually...

Vee don't care vhat he says about der Yoos, dat Gilad Atzmon plays der Schvinging Schaxophone, yah. Get vid it, Weißer.

So, even I kinda agree with that.

Sorry, if you are quoting approvingly from the likes of Derschowitz, that may associate you with certain of his opinions. But the converse is not true: it does does not make Derschowitz responsible for you or what you choose to quote, approvingly or not. If I quote Ghandi, does that make Ghandi "the guy that Alice quotes"? If AD chooses a photo of Che Guevara as his avatar, does that mean that I must now hold Che in contempt? I know, it's complicated.

C'mon, Alice. No one anywhere is denying that Atzmon is a supporter of Eisen, Shamir, Zundel, etc. Are they? You may recall the great joyfulness of your thread on the lovely Mister Shamir and how that turned out.

Incidentally, nobody here has posted anything from the Zion Crime Factory, nor from Stormfront, but you. You brought them into this thread. Nobody here has advocated anything resembling the odious racist and fascist views of these people, unless we count your positive quoting of Alan Derschowitz as a tacit approval, or at least validation of his moral framework. All to substitute personal attacks for honestly and intelligently addressing the validity of Gilad Atzmon's ideas, which you have studiously avoided doing.

But realistically, Stormfront and Zion Crime Factory are the proper venues for the kind of adulation afforded to Atzmon's ideas around here, in my honest opinion. And I think anyone reading the thread, even yourself, has heard arguments from myself and others which plainly and fairly presented reasons to disagree with Atzmon's ideas. The simple truth is that, shockingly, those arguments don't really impress you much. So be it.

[barracuda]

Oh, and BTW, the Nazis didnt ever defend free speech, so its rather confusing to suggest that searcher is on that side of the fence.

I hope Searcher can view our exchange there as rhetorical in some way. He's alright with me, really. And slim, you're remarkably even tempered and reasonable in your statements here. Again, I have no interest in defending Dersh.

Have you read the book Cuda ? Or have the thought police fooled you too ? Dont worry if they have. It happens to the best of us.

I have not. I investigated purchasing it on Amazon, then thought better of spending the thirteen bucks, wondering how I could really justify supporting Atzmon financially. I'm certainly not against reading it, though. And I have, at this point in the discussion, spent literally many hours reading Atzmon's blog, his articles, long discussion of comments sections in websites in which he was a vital participant, listening to him in symposia, speeches, commentary, and, yes, even in concerts. So, inasmuch as I wouldn't be against reading his book were it to fall into my lap, it's not really fair to say I haven't given him a fair hearing, above and beyond the call of duty imho.

[AlicetheKurious]

...all the statistics suggest that's simply (and quite literally) a fair observation. For example, the population of California is about seven percent black, about three percent Jewish, and (almost) three percent Islamic. Since 2001, however, about 26 percent of all hate crimes in in California have been anti-black; about seven percent have been anti-Jewish, and about one percent have been anti-Muslim.

First, it's hard to evaluate such statistics without first knowing if, say, a swastika drawn in chalk, or a very minor incident of rudeness or refusal to give time off work is registered the same as a physical assault or a shooting, or a bombing, or the ugly little organized hate-fest we saw in that video filmed in Orange County, or, for that matter, if the hate-fest is even counted as a "hate crime", which it probably wasn't; after all, the local paper merely described it as a celebration, with the atmosphere of a July 4 picnic, or something like that.

Government officials incited xenophobia and hatred, distributed the American flag to the harassers and congratulated them for their 'patriotism'. Is it imaginable that a comparable 'event', let alone with official sanction and media complicity, could be organized anywhere in the US to harass Jews, including children for pete's sake, for no reason other than that they are Jews? I don't think so. Those politicians who participated would be hounded out of office and could kiss their careers goodbye forever. What does this double standard say?

Second, nobody's addressed my main point about the crucial difference between individual racism and institutional racism. The former is very limited in impact and scope and can usually be dealt with as a crime, but the latter has a devastating yet often ignored impact on the personal, national and even global levels. Within the US, both black people and Arabs and/or Muslims are systematically targeted by the latter, unlike Jews. It's enough to know that "respectable" establishment types can and do openly call for Muslims to be profiled and kept under surveillance, and that for them, even a small, spontaneous charity donation or striking up an acquaintance with the wrong person could open up a whole world of hurt for them and their families. World-wide, there's simply no basis for comparison: we're talking about economic deprivation, denial of human and legal rights and mass murder in the millions. Institutional racism within the US may not be as obvious or severe as its external manifestations, but it's pretty bad, and they are very much interlinked.

I decry each and every one of those acts of hatred equally, needless to say. (And I invite -- not to say "beg" -- you to second me on that one, if you feel the same.)

I honestly hate any kind of bullying, in all its forms, against anyone. It makes me sick and furious. But not everyone who claims to be a victim really is. Unfortunately, real victims are all too often ignored in favor of powerful people who cloak themselves in a false 'victimhood' in order to bully those weaker than themselves.

IT WAS ORGANIZED BY AND FOR EXTREME AND EXTREMELY REACTIONARY RIGHT-WING SEGMENTS OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH COMMUNITY, NEITHER OF WHICH REPRESENT, STAND FOR, OR INDICATE THE SENTIMENTS OR TENDENCIES OF THE AMERICAN JEWISH POPULATION AS A WHOLE.

I've now brought the above distinction -- which is both real and meaningful -- to your attention repeatedly. Your continued inability to grasp and/or acknowledge it is therefore both misleading and discriminatory. So please make every good-faith effort of which I know you to be capable by taking it into account in future.

Thanks.

Yes, you have brought it to my attention repeatedly, and I've repeatedly answered it, only to be ignored. It's not enough to assert that a particular racist agitator is 'unrepresentative', when he happens to enjoy high-level state support, and/or is publicly legitimized by the establishment and systematically provided with a platform for disseminating his views. There's a big difference between a marginalized, isolated nutcase and someone who enjoys prestige and influence, and that difference is not whether you, c2w, want it to be true or not, but whether the empirical evidence says it is.

In the above example, the gentleman in question is not relegated to the fringes with the likes of David Duke and the KKK and their fellow denizens of the fringes of society, excoriated, denied legitimacy for his hateful ideology, but on the contrary, is recognized and welcomed as a respectable religious authority.

Anti-Muslim Hate Rally Organizer Eliezrie to Teach “Kabbalah of Love” at Jewish Federation Vegas Mega-Event
On 03.06.11, By Max Blumenthal


It's a thin line between love and hate

It should be clear to anyone who has seen the video of the anti-Muslim hate rally in Yorba Linda that the organizers of the event are extremely dangerous and demented people. If their pathological racism was not apparent before the video surfaced, then it is confirmed now. So why is the Jewish Federation and a who’s who of established Jewish organizations, from Birthright Israel to the New Israel Fund to JDate (even Rock The Vote is involved somehow), hosting one of the hate rally’s key organizers this weekend at a major gathering in Las Vegas billed as “an entertaining, interactive and educational celebration that will draw over 1,500 Jewish young adults (ages 22-45) from across North America?”

Last week, Rabbi David Eliezrie of the Yorba Linda chapter of Chabad was among a mob of local extremists who screamed racial epithets at immigrant families. On Monday, however, the rabbi will lead a session at “Tribefest” on “the Kabbalah of Love.” “Love has always been a central theme in Jewish teachings,” the event description reads. “In an interactive experience we will explore the mystical and classical sources about love.” How touching. Link

A list of the sponsors of the "tribefest" can be found here.

[AlicetheKurious]

But realistically, Stormfront and Zion Crime Factory are the proper venues for the kind of adulation afforded to Atzmon's ideas around here, in my honest opinion. And I think anyone reading the thread, even yourself, has heard arguments from myself and others which plainly and fairly presented reasons to disagree with Atzmon's ideas. The simple truth is that, shockingly, those arguments don't really impress you much. So be it.

No, realistically, you haven't presented any serious or thoughtful arguments at all, on the contrary: you've used personal insults, set up straw men, relied on spurious guilt by association, yawned repeatedly, praised AD's pathetic and repetitive copy-paste as an effective form of argument, ignored information that refutes your claims and otherwise acted disrespectfully and even childishly.

Clearly you've told yourself that this is impressive, and that's why you're so 'shocked' that it's not working.

You keep trying to force me into one of your little pigeon-holes where I can't fit. Instead of maybe considering enlarging the pigeon-holes (or doing away with them altogether), you just ignore all the parts of me that stick out. You're doing the same with Gilad Atzmon. You seem very, very attached to those pigeon-holes, and to the neat framework in which they nestle. Maybe you believe that you can trap reality inside it and tame it, but instead, it's you that's trapped. I'm sorry.