Anti-Imperialism & Anti-Humanist Rhetoric of Gilad Atzmon

[compared2what?]

This is on a level with, I don't know, some right-wing quotes after the Kent State killings about how the bodies of the dead were all full of lice and syphillis?

I hope and pray that you're right. The pattern I see looks a lot more like the Weimar era, except without the hope and innocence. (I know. But there really was a lot more, in some regards. Those are precisely the qualities that make then-contemporary dadaist exercises in/commentaries upon cynicism and despair so heart-breaking, from the perspective of the present. For example.)

What's the honest explorer of the big-money / deep state milieux to do, when forced to swim in seas full of these Nazi turds? After the Loose Change/WAC coup in the 9/11 truth movement, Madsen became a welcome guest.

I hear there's one of them Soros Feminists Defiling Christianity on this board too. Clitoris Uprising, or something.

Confusionism is one of the fastest routes to just plain Nazi. How far off is the image of modernity in Madsen's article from this poster? And the funny thing is, he's just a hack. Hired, no doubt. It's not like he's dumb enough to actually believe this stuff, any more than some low-level counterpart shilling at a state-run propaganda ministry.

What's frightening about it is that he's a relatively low-level hack. He caters to -- rather than controls -- marketplace demand. (At least functionally, I mean. He could be King of the Jews Spooks behind closed doors, for all I know. But he's always been a follower and not a ground-breaker, wrt content, subject and spin, etc.)

He's never been reliable, even at his best. But even at his worst, I don't remember his being this bad six or seven years ago. Or maybe a scoche longer than that? I don't know. In any event, he did used to be a useful resource for obscure and otherwise unreported factual detail to be worth checking out, occasionally. Not too very long ago.

I guess there's not enough of a market for that to make the preservation of a stray shred or two of credibility worth the effort anymore. However.

[compared2what?]

** You have failed to prove that Atzmon has lied about anything. Instead, it is you who keep making unsubstantiated claims and then arrogantly insisting that you are right, even though you can't/won't substantiate them.

You've also used sophistry to pretend that black is white and vice versa, notably in your claims about the commandments.

The fact that many of the commandments are not practiced today does not mean that, as you claim, they are not binding or unchangeable. For example, if there is a binding commandment that you must ensure that your parents are well fed, this is only possible as long as they're alive. Similarly, if there's another binding commandment that you must water your backyard lawn three times a week in the summer, this is only possible if you have a house and/or a backyard. Many of the commandments presume certain conditions that existed in ancient times but don't any more. Thus, they remain binding and unchangeable, just as Atzmon said, though inapplicable.

WRT to what I purportedly claimed:

Quote me (in context) or GTFO.

Thanks.

[AlicetheKurious]

I agree that Wayne Madsen is not a credible source. However, Israeli discrimination against Christians in Palestine is very real. This is just a small sample:

Christians in the Holy Land: Under (Israeli) Siege

Christians in Jerusalem want Jews to stop spitting on them

First Published: 2012-02-20

Israeli ‘price tag’ attacks spare no Muslim or Christian site

Attackers daub death threats on walls of Baptist House church in central Jerusalem, vandalise three cars parked nearby in latest hate crime.

Middle East Online

JERUSALEM - Attackers daubed death threats on the walls of the Baptist House church in central Jerusalem overnight and vandalised three cars parked nearby in the latest "price tag" hate crime, police said on Monday.

"Anti-Christian graffiti was found on the walls of the Baptist church and the tyres of three cars parked nearby were slashed," said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld of the church which is located on Narkis Street in west Jerusalem.

The Hebrew-language graffiti was written on the exterior walls of the building, with slogans reading: "We will crucify you" and "Death to Christianity," a correspondent at the scene said.

They also included crude insults about Jesus and his mother Mary, he said. Church officials were not immediately available to comment on the incident.

Chad Knight, business manager for the Baptist Convention of Israel, said the church was appalled by the attack.

"The people who did this knew what they were doing. These things call into question the core beliefs of Christianity," he said.

"We are just appalled by them and call on the authorities to take action to find those responsible as quickly as possible."

A week ago, anti-Arab graffiti was sprayed on the walls of a bilingual Jewish-Arab school in Jerusalem in what was the second such attack on the establishment in less than a week.

"Price tag" is a euphemism for revenge hate crimes by Israeli extremists, which normally target Palestinians and Arabs and tend to involve the torching and vandalism of cars, mosques and olive trees.

But in the past few months, the attacks have widened in scope and also targeted the Israeli army, Israeli anti-settlement activists and more recently several churches.

Despite the rising number of attacks, the perpetrators are rarely caught and police say they are often unable to press charges given the lack of evidence.

Last year, police handed 65 indictments to extremists suspected of assault or for causing property damage in price tag attacks.[/b] Link

Christians Discriminated Against by Israel

By Donald Neff
Former Israel Bureau Chief for Time Magazine
Excerpted from Fifty Years of Israel

...Churches were again desecrated during the 1967 war when Israel captured East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza, completing the occupation of all of Palestine. On July 21, 1967, the Reverend James L. Kelso, a former moderator of the United Presbyterian Church and long-time resident in Palestine, complained of extensive damage to churches adding: “So significant was this third Jewish war against the Arabs that one of the finest missionaries of the Near East called it ‘perhaps the most serious setback that Christendom has had since the fall of Constantinople in 1453.’”

Kelso continued: “How did Israel respect church property in the fighting...? They shot up the Episcopal Cathedral [in Jerusalem], just as they had done in 1948. They smashed down the Episcopal school for boys...The Israelis wrecked and looted the YMCA...They wrecked the big Lutheran hospital...The Lutheran center for cripples also suffered...”

Nancy Nolan, wife of a physician at the American University Hospital in Beirut, who was in Jerusalem during and after the fighting, charged that “while the Israeli authorities proclaim to the world that all religions will be respected and protected, and post notices identifying the Holy Places, Israeli soldiers and youths are throwing stink bombs in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher.

“The Church of St. Anne, who crypt marks the birthplace of the Virgin Mary, has been severely damaged and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem also was damaged. The wanton killing of the Warden of the Garden Tomb followed by the shooting into the tomb itself, in an attempt to kill the warden’s wife, was another instance that we knew first-hand which illustrated the utter disregard shown by the occupation forces toward the Holy Places and the religious sensibilities of the people in Jordan and in the rest of the world.”

“The desecration of churches...includes smoking in the churches, littering the churches, taking dogs inside and entering in inappropriate manner of dress. Behavior such as this cannot be construed other than as a direct insult to the whole Christian world.”

Desecration has occurred not only in times of war. As recently as 1995, an Israeli soldier, Daniel Koren, 22, entered St. Anthony Catholic Church in Jaffa and went on a shooting rampage, firing more than 100 bullets in the altar and the cross above it but causing no injuries. Koren said his Judaic convictions forced him to destroy all physical images of God, and admitted that he had staged a prior attack in Jerusalem’s Gethsemane Church.

Perhaps the worst outbreak of organized desecration of Christian institutions came on Sept. 10, 1963, when hundreds of ultra-orthodox Jews simultaneously attacked Christian missions in Jaffa, Haifa and Jerusalem. (One has to say “perhaps because reporting on this sensitive subject in the U.S. media has been so poor over the decades.) At any rate, the attacks were a concerted effort to intimidate Christians in Israel by a religious vigilante group called Hever Peelei Hamahane Hatorati, the Society of Activists of the Torah Camp. In an attack on the Church of Scotland school in Jaffa, Christian children were beaten and considerable damage was caused to the school by at least 200 rampaging Jews.

Other attacks occurred at two nearby church schools, the Greek Catholic missionary school of St. Joseph and a Christian Brothers school. In Jerusalem, attacks occurred at the St. Joseph convent and the Finnish Lutheran mission school. In Haifa, the American-European Beth El Messianic Mission Children’s Hostel and School was attacked. No serious damage occurred in any of the attacks except at the Scotland school. More than 100 Jews were convicted in the attacks, none of them receiving more than small fines and suspended sentences. .... Link

Palestinians: Israeli Attack on Jesus, Mary "Racist," Anti-Semitic

Posted on 02/22/2009 by Juan Cole

The satirical comedy skits put on by Lior Klein concerning Jesus and Mary on Israel’s Channel 10 last week have provoked rallies and protests by Palestinian-Israeli Christians, of whom there are about 120,000. They also drew condemnation from Muslim Palestinian-Israelis, of whom there are over a million. Klein said that since Christians were denying the Holocaust, he was denying Christianity. He and Channel 10 later apologized to a delegation of Israeli Christians, and pledged that the skits would not be rerun. (Al-Safir covered the affair in Arabic).

The skits denied Jesus’s miracles, said he died young because he was too fat and so could not have walked on water, and said Mother Mary was not a virgin but rather a promiscuous woman who had had many lovers and first got pregnant in high school at age 15. Palestinian-Israelis viewed them as a secular Israeli attack on Arab beliefs and folkways. That is, the pieces were viewed as racist and not just anti-religious but as ethnic bigotry. They were even called “anti-Semitic,” since Arabs are Semites as are Jews.

Muslims believe that Jesus was an envoy of God and revere him and Mary. The Quran devotes more space to Mary and the nativity than does the New Testament. So the show offended Israeli Muslims, as well. I saw them on Aljazeera speaking out against the skits and denouncing them as racist (`unsuri).

The way in which the incident was interpreted in the terms of Israeli identity politics suggests that nerves are frayed among Palestinian-Israelis in the wake of the massive Israeli assault on Gaza this winter. Already humiliated by Israeli disregard for the value of innocent Arab life in that campaign, they are sensitive to any slights from the Jewish Israeli majority.

So what did we learn here? A Jewish-Israeli attack on the holy figures of Christianity provoked outrage among Muslims as well as Christians, and was denounced by Palestinian-Israelis (20% of the population) as racist and as anti-Semitic.

One background for this Palestinian-Israeli response is that the crucified Christ is often taken by Palestinian Christians as a symbol of their displacement and expropriation at the hands of Israelis. So the attack on that symbol (‘died young of being obese’) by a representative of the Jewish majority was doubly painful, since it repeated on a symbolic level the Israeli denial of the 1948 Catastrophe and even of the existence of the Palestinians. Link

[slimmouse]

Yes. Though not listening to slimmouse is usually as good a guide as any to How to Do the Right Thing on RI.

Whilst not wishing to derail this thread in any way, in its exposure of the psychopathic tendencies that have originated from labelling, I find your comment interesting Jack.

Would you care to elaborate ? What exactly do you mean by that ? I mean , I think I understand you pretty well, but if you'd just open your big mouth a tad wider we could probably all smell your breath through our computers

As youre doubtless aware, I can smell it from here.

[compared2what?]

** You have failed to prove that Atzmon has lied about anything. Instead, it is you who keep making unsubstantiated claims and then arrogantly insisting that you are right, even though you can't/won't substantiate them.

You've also used sophistry to pretend that black is white and vice versa, notably in your claims about the commandments.

The fact that many of the commandments are not practiced today does not mean that, as you claim, they are not binding or unchangeable. For example, if there is a binding commandment that you must ensure that your parents are well fed, this is only possible as long as they're alive. Similarly, if there's another binding commandment that you must water your backyard lawn three times a week in the summer, this is only possible if you have a house and/or a backyard. Many of the commandments presume certain conditions that existed in ancient times but don't any more. Thus, they remain binding and unchangeable, just as Atzmon said, though inapplicable.

Really?

Unlike Christianity and Islam, Judaism is a non-reformist religion. In Judaism there is no room for a single change or even minor modification. Judaism is a sealed list of 613 commandments (Mitzvas) that must be followed strictly.

^^That's a....

Hey! What happened to your argument? Only a page or so ago, it was based on the premise that the halakhah was strictly binding on the Orthodox in some way that not only left no room for a single change or even minor modification, but also was so totally equatable with the mitzvot as to render it inconsequential that Atzmon had referred to one and not the other.

Did you finally notice that the logic underlying that claim would have been totally specious even if the claim itself hadn't been wrong? Or what?

Because if you didn't, here's how it would have been:

You were (falsely) equating the mitzvot with the halakhah on the grounds that the former were "integral" to the latter. But that equation only would have worked if he had referred to the halakhah to begin with, had it worked at all. There still wouldn't have been any grounds for claiming that the mitzvot incorporated the halakhah. So it never would (or could) have had any bearing on what Atzmon said. At all.

Even if it had been something other than one great big, gigantic error on your part, born of confusion and compounded by your inability to admit that you were wrong. I mean.

[AlicetheKurious]

** You have failed to prove that Atzmon has lied about anything. Instead, it is you who keep making unsubstantiated claims and then arrogantly insisting that you are right, even though you can't/won't substantiate them.

You've also used sophistry to pretend that black is white and vice versa, notably in your claims about the commandments.

The fact that many of the commandments are not practiced today does not mean that, as you claim, they are not binding or unchangeable. For example, if there is a binding commandment that you must ensure that your parents are well fed, this is only possible as long as they're alive. Similarly, if there's another binding commandment that you must water your backyard lawn three times a week in the summer, this is only possible if you have a house and/or a backyard. Many of the commandments presume certain conditions that existed in ancient times but don't any more. Thus, they remain binding and unchangeable, just as Atzmon said, though inapplicable.

WRT to what I purportedly claimed:

Quote me (in context) or GTFO.

Thanks.

How vulgar. How quickly the facade crumbles.

Given the bad faith you've displayed so far, I guess it's far too much to expect that you'd ever apologize for telling me to GTFU. I'll assume that no apology is forthcoming or even possible.

Here:

Sure. If you insist on making otiose comparisons. And also on minimizing, dismissing. denying and/or remaining blind to all signs of prejudice against Jews (some of it institutional, in this country and -- to a much greater extent -- elsewhere) as it actually occurs, I guess that might mean something besides....Link

In fact, as long as you're at it, please further note that I also never offered those figures as evidence of institutional discrimination against Jews.

Because I didn't offer any evidence for that claim at all, as it happens. And what's more, I very much doubt that I ever will. Although you never know, I guess. Link

And here:

Yet, I am being told that they are false, that they are "lies", and that I am "wrong" by people who have not bothered to provide ONE source that actually says so.

That's funny. It honestly didn't occur to me to provide a source. The distinctions that we're talking about are such basic, non-arcane matters of universal and commonly acknowledged fact -- and so undisputed by anyone -- that they don't rise above the level of vocabulary, really. There's no more reason to source them than there is for you to provide links to pictures of a missal, the act of Holy Communion, and the bible when speaking of the Eucharist and the Last Supper.

I mean, as you say, they're obviously separate things.

That's my point. ]Link

Well, now it should occur to you. Provide a credible source that says different.

I think not. Link

[AlicetheKurious]

Hey! What happened to your argument? Only a page or so ago, it was based on the premise that the halakhah was strictly binding on the Orthodox in some way that not only left no room for a single change or even minor modification, but also was so totally equatable with the mitzvot as to render it inconsequential that Atzmon had referred to one and not the other.

More bad faith: I quoted authoritative sources stating that the mitzvot are strictly binding and unchanging.

You were (falsely) equating the mitzvot with the halakhah on the grounds that the former were "integral" to the latter. But that equation only would have worked if he had referred to the halakhah to begin with, had it worked at all. There still wouldn't have been any grounds for claiming that the mitzvot incorporated the halakhah. So it never would (or could) have had any bearing on what Atzmon said. At all.

Even if it had been something other than one great big, gigantic error on your part, born of confusion and compounded by your inability to admit that you were wrong. I mean.

More bad faith: I never equated the mitzvot with the halakhah -- I quoted authoritative sources stating that the halakhah is the Jewish legal system that consists of the 613 mitzvot and other legal texts.

It is you who insists that they are entirely different and separate, and refuse to provide even one source that says so, to back up your baseless insults.

[slimmouse]

A brief summary of 60 some pages.

Atzmon fully understands the dangers of cultural labelling. He sees it in action everywhere, and particularly in Israel and its surrounding territories.

In not so many words , he's telling those who cant get their heads around such stupidity to basically stick it where the sun don't shine - which is probably where their heads are anyway.

Atzmon isnt antisemitic, hes anti stupid brainless labelling, which has landed us all in this mess.

Just imagine if you can - A "Jew" wakes up one day and says, "hey Im not Jewish, Im a human being, so why am I killing these people and stealing from them ?"

Your thoughts Jack ?

So , go ahead C2W, and in fact all the rest of you who believe that these labels can be positive.

Have a good look at this 60 or so page "discussion" and ask yourself again where the real problem lies.

Once youve decided on reflection that Atzmon knows his stuff, then think about how you can deconstruct yourselves and others from such fake parameters.

Otherwise , for the rest of your lives its gonna be business as usual. And Im sick of that.

[barracuda]

Another brief summary of 60 some pages.

Atzmon is a tool of forces larger than himself, but likes to pretend he's a shocking breath of fresh air by regurgitating centuries of Jew-hate in the guise of a new spin.

In other words, he serves to debase Palestinian liberation activism wherever he goes by aligning it explicitly with holocaust deniers and racists.

The usual, predictable cadre of posters here on the forum, who have spent the better part of a decade using code-speak and conspiracy memes as a cover for their true feelings about the Worldwide Jewish Conspiracy to take over everything as well as various shades of blood-libel and holocaust revisionism, have found in Atzmon a spirit guide that allows them to use his language as a new format to reinforce what they already thought they knew but could only talk around due to the board rules.

None of them have the balls to say outright what they think, for fear they'll lose access to their posting privileges here, when they should really be looking for outlets where they might not be so constrained.

Alice has made a complete fool of herself by attempting to school a Jewish intellectual on Jewish law, and in the process shown she's not below just about anything to avoid simply conceding the smallest point of her fanaticism.

It's all pretty much business as usual.

[slimmouse]

Another brief summary of 60 some pages.

Atzmonis a tool of forces larger than himself, but likes to pretend he's a shocking breath of fresh air by regurgitating centuries of Jew-hate in the guise of a new spin.

In other words, he serves to debase Palestinian liberation activation wherever he goes by aligning it explicitly with holocaust deniers and racists.

The usual, predictable cadre of posters here on the forum, who have spent the better part of a decade using code-speak and conspiracy memes as a cover for their true feelings about the Worldwide Jewish Conspiracy to take over everything as well as various shades of blood-libel and holocaust revisionism, have found in Atzmon a spirit guide that allows them to use his language as a new format to reinforce what they already thought they knew but could only talk around due to the board rules.

None of them have the balls to say outright what they think, for fear they'll lose access to their posting privileges here, when they should really be looking for outlets where they might not be so constrained.

Alice has made a complete fool of herself by attempting to school a Jewish intellectual on Jewish law, and in the process shown she's not below just about anything to avoid simply conceding the smallest point of her fanaticism.

It's all pretty much business as usual.

Im sorry barracuda, but to my mind this is simply a cowardly retraction from adressing A key concept here.

Tell me who the "Jews" are, if you believe they are not a construct of human imagination ?

Tell me further about the benefits of being a "Jew" in relation to this particular discussion , and the ongoing situation in the ME ? We've already agreed that people should be free to think what they like as long as they dont harm others. Clearly this is not the case here.

I await your response with baited breath.

Once youve removed your head from where the sun dont shine that is.

[barracuda]

As far as I can tell, there's basically no benefit to being a Jew at all, never has been, never will be. I mean, no shellfish? Fuck that.

[JackRiddler]

I'd say so, barracuda. (re: your brief summary)

Plus for the 60-year-old man-boy Atzmon it seems to be about the boner he gets from the way recycled Nazi talk pisses off his conservative family. They stop condescending, as they do to mere critique from some kind of leftist or liberationist perspective. They go all rabid-catatonic. Hooray! WGUDN is cool, right?

What upsets me is Alice. This is one reason why I mostly ignore this thread, besides that it's one of the most epic time sinks ever to infest RI. Now even c2w? and Alice are at each others' throats. (I have a bunch of backlogged stories I'll eventually add to the Egypt thread, in the slim hope of getting more of her always illuminating commentary, that is if we're not crossing an event horizon with this thread.)

I've said six times now I wish this thread would just drop out for lack of further interest. No locking, no banishments, just people get sick of it. Every day I see it back on top of "active topics" and once every two weeks, I check in. You'd think people would tire of re-posting the same stuff. But of course I mean the real people, not the faker-parasites who have never given anything here except vague paranoid insinuations and faux-naive Nazi lite, like slimmouse and eyeno. But you'd think genuine contributors to the board, people who have their own personas and ideas and things to say, would tire of compulsively re-posting the same old long-ago irrelevant side-points to the main drama (I'm looking at you, searcher08).

[Simulist]

Tell me who the "Jews" are, if you believe they are not a construct of human imagination ?

This pisses me the fuck off.

"The Jews," you imbecile, are PEOPLE — not a "construct of the human imagination."

THAT is who the "Jews" are, and your depersonalizing them demands a fucking apology.

[slimmouse]

As far as I can tell, there's basically no benefit to being a Jew at all, never has been, never will be. I mean, no shellfish? Fuck that.

Well lets not be exclusionist here. Lest you forget, I hate that kind of crap - its just that this thread is about a particular brand of stupid labelling, and the death and destruction it currently generates in this era. But generally speaking ( possibly for another thread) How about a muslim or a christian, or dare I say a Catholic, or any of the other faux parameters foisted upon us ?

[slimmouse]

Tell me who the "Jews" are, if you believe they are not a construct of human imagination ?

This pisses me the fuck off.

"The Jews," you imbecile, are PEOPLE — not a "construct of the human imagination."

THAT is who the "Jews" are, and your depersonalizing them demands a fucking apology.

WHAT DEMANDS AN APOLOGY IS WHAT IS HAPPENING IN PALESTINE "IN THE NAME OF THE JEWS" if you wish to put it that way.

That pisses me off. How about you , oh pissed off one ?

Seriously, what fuking planet are you on ? Do you not get it yet ?