[Imc-uk-features] Brenner - 'serious history' questions and and some serious smearing.

[freethepeeps at aktivix.org]

Quoting BrennerL21 at aol.com:

> 11 10 07
> To: Indymedia
> From: Lenni Brenner
> 
> Hi Comrades,

Can I say that right now I don't think you're any kind of comrade of mine?
> 
> Tony Greenstein has alerted me to the fact that Indymedia has run material by
> Gilad Atzmon. I second Tony's demand that Indymedia stop printing Atzmon's 
> material. 

Thanks for clarifying that it IS a demand. Don't comrades make requests, and
respect the decision making process of the organisation they are making the
request to? Instead of  getting all their mates to pile in and make demands and
threats and offer a little bit of abuse to boot!!! How many times have you
hounded Atzmon on behalf of Tony Greenstein (who already told us he is doing it
for Moshe Machover)? We should be told!

> 
> Atzmon, an Israeli who broke with Zionism, now calls himself an ex-Jew. 
> Indeed he devotes much of his writing to denouncing leftist anti-Zionist
> Jews. 
> Worse yet, he denounces us because we fight both Zionists and anti-Semites. 

heh, you denounce him and he denounces you. Tony Greenstein tells us that we
must be very wary of claims of anti-semitism because its a term that zionists
use to denounce their political foes. Perhaps like him, you think it is always
true when you denounce, but never true when you are denounced? Atzmon also
denounces the kind of campaigning that you are engaged in on this list as part
of a continuum of zionist behavior I think. Don't you think that zionist
behaviour should be denounced? Heh, you both agree on something I think!

Do you remember writing this?

"Abraham Foxman, the ADL's National Director, is well and truly crazy, and for
two reasons: 1) He libeled me and 2) he thinks he can get away with it.

The saying is that one good turn deserves another. Since Foxman and the ADL have
spread malicious nonsense about me, I will tell the exact truth about them,
putting their dishonesty about my ideas within the context of the ADL's
unending history of rightwing stupidity and dishonor."
http://www.fantompowa.net/Flame/brenner_adl.htm

So, why are you behaving like your old foe Abe Foxman now? And why should Atzmon
not behave like you decided to?

You didn't like being smeared, and yet you willingly join in a campaign to
demand the silencing of Atzmon. Do you feel good about that Lenni Brenner?
> 
> In a 3/3/07 CounterPunch article, "From Esther to AIPAC," 
> <www.counterpunch.org/atzmon03032007.html>
> 
> He cites "Marc Ellis... Adi Ofir... Lenni Brenner... Shraga Elam... 
> Finkelstein," who write on the holocaust. He insists that 
> 
> "Though they may be critical of different aspects of the exploitation of the
> Holocaust, they all accept the validity of the Nazi Judeocide and its 
> mainstream interpretations and implications. Most of the scholars, if not all
> of them, 
> do not challenge the Zionist narrative, namely Nazi Judeocide.... 

You're the historian  Brenner. So, heres the obvious question. Do we know every
single historical thing that there is to know about the Holocaust? Is the
Zionist narrative absolutely 100% correct? Is there any other historical
subject where history has all been verified - and where anyone who investigates
it in anon-approved manner is going to be smeared by that field's equivalents
of Abe and Lenni if they suggest dialogue?

Shouldn't take you very long to confirm that the zionist Holocaust narrative is
the true verified history, and nothing more can be learned. And I'm sure you
can point us to several similar situations where we have reached the limits of
knowledge, and where questioning the official narrative needs to be a
punishable crime?

Let me tell you right now that I have never read any of the works of the
revisionists, and nor do I intend to. Because I reckon your mates will use the
fact that I am questioning the way that you operate as a historian. They will
twist it around and call me a revisionist, and save Abe the bother of having to
do it himself. And we wouldn't want that would we?

I am really just very interested in how your background as a historian helps you
to understand this issue, and it will help me personally to give a considered
answer to your final question.


>not a 
> single Holocaust religion scholar dares engage in a dialogue with the
> so-called 
> 'deniers' to discuss their vision of the events or any other revisionist 
> scholarship."
> 
> Does Indymedia believe that we should "dialogue with the so-called 'deniers'
> to discuss their vision of the events or any other revisionist scholarship"?


Indymedia doesn't have a single mind, so I can only speak for myself. But I
would prefer to put it back to you. Is there any other field of history where
no-one is prepared to 'dialogue' with the "so-called 'deniers'?" Wouldn't a
historian who knew that his case was absolutely watertight relish taking on a
deluded fool and making mincemeat out of him?

Whats going on Lenni. I need a serious scholar of history to explain it all to
me.


> 
> Should Indymedia "dialogue" with David Irving?

We're an alternative news service, not a bunch of serious historians like
yourself and your highly esteemed colleagues, so the question doesn't have
relevance. But of course, we don't like Irving at all. I've not read him
either. Have you? 


> 
> As with everyone else on the Brit left, I'm sure you are concerned about the
> fact that the British National Party has won some local municipality seats. 
> You know them. Monday they are Nazis, Tuesday they are anti-Muslim, Wednesday
> its back to hating Jews, Thursday is for kicking Paki ass, etc. Therefore no 
> one, repeat, no one in Britain, atheist leftist, Christian, Jew, Muslim, who 
> genuinely wants to build a united front in the streets against the BNP wants
> any 
> part of "dialogue" with holocaust deniers, who are nothing more than 
> intellectual fronts for neo-Nazism. 

There couldn't be any other reason to question the official zionist narrative
could there? What about someone who was Jewish, detested nazis but didn't think
that the story they'd been told rang true? Do you think it possible that
someone who'd shaken off their zionist upbringing might get to a stage when
they wanted to check it all out for themselves, because they'd discovered that
zionists had been lying to them for so long, about so much?

If they did do it - any idea what would hit them first? Would it be the ADL or
the anti-zionist clique you belong to? Which of you would be the first to
defend 'holocaust awareness'?

> 
> Jews are like anyone else. Atzmon isn't the 1st to freak out and he won't be
> the last. Back in the 50s, I was hospitalized with an infected liver. Across 
> from me was an elderly Jew. He was quite until his family visited him. He
> would 
> greet them with a Nazi salute and a hearty "Heil Hitler!" They didn't know 
> what set him off, but something offended him and this was his way of
> punishing 
> them. 

And Atzmon is that man? Did this mans family go on a campign to have him
silenced (or maybe thrown out of the hospital) in retaliation, Lenni? 

>Similarly, when Israelis break with Zionism, some go over to leftism, 
> others convert to Islam or Christianity and some, as with Atzmon, develop
> their 
> own mad form of fanaticism. 

What, like questioning everything that they've ever been taught? I find that I
was taught a lot of nonsense when I was growing up. Fortunately I rejected much
of it. Or I could well have ended up believing that God gave South Africa to
the Boers, and gave them black people to be their "Hewers of Wood and Drawers
of Water" and clean their houses, and do their gardens, and raise their kids
for less than the price of a good haircut every week. Anyway, the Dutch
Reformed Church eventually admitted that it wasn't true. Is it not possible
that one day the church of secular zionist thought will do the same?

I know this though, people who railed against the Apartheid system  got serious
bother from the supporters of Apartheid. At least their peers in the
anti-apartheid movement didn't usually denounce them. 


> 
> I am best known for my book, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, which 
> exposed Zionist collaboration with Hitler and Mussolini. It received
> favorable 
> reviews from publications as different as the London Times and Moscow's
> Izvestia. 
> I work in a field with other serious scholars, Zionist, anti-Zionist, Jew and
> gentile. Whatever our differences, we are of 1 mind when it comes to
> holocaust 
> deniers/revisionists: We have nothing to discuss with Nazis, holocaust 
> deniers or ex-Jewish crackpots who want us to discuss anything with such
> vermin. 

yes, you are all exactly the same as Abe in that respect. So, is it now your
position that Atzmon should be banished for ADVOCATING DIALOGUE? It sounds a
little harsh to me.

Talking about "having nothing to discuss with ex-Jewish crackpots", heres a bit
of history for you:

http://www.counterpunch.org/atzmon02152007.html

There must be another Lenni Brenner out there. He wanted dialogue with Atzmon in
february 2007. Do you by chance know him? he even has the same email as you!

A month before that, a member of Jews against Zionism, Deborah Maccoby had this
to say about Atzmon:

"No doubt Atzmon will present this article as yet another vicious "defamation"
of him by a "Jewish Gatekeeper". He will claim I and other practitioners of
"Jewish Power" - ie the Jewish world conspiracy &#8211; are trying to silence
him and his allies.  But we're not trying to silence them; we simply want to
reply to their attacks and defend ourselves.  Our very efforts to defend
ourselves become, in their twisted and deluded thinking, proof of our sinister
"Jewish Power".  I will end by asking readers of both articles to decide who is
doing the defaming, and I appeal to Palestinians and their supporters to resist
this attempt to divide and undermine the Palestinian solidarity movement from
within."
http://www.amin.org/look/amin/en.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=7&NrArticle=38731&NrIssue=1&NrSection=3

Shall we banish her too, She seems to be adopting a heretical position after all
- saying things like she was neither trying to, nor advocating silencing him.

I think the readers of AMIN might begin to think that you lot are defaming
Atzmon - and doing the dividing and undermining. I certainly have never seen a
call from Atzmon for you lot to be ignored and banned.

Is there anyone else you want us to denounce Lenni. To save you having to cross
over the ocean to do it again?

> 
> No mincing words, no evasions, no hypocrisy. You have read Atzmon calling for
> such a mad dialogue. Do you agree with us? Yes or no? Are you ready to 
> totally disentangle yourselves from him? Yes or no?

Answer my questions first please. I'm sure it will help me to make my mind up
one way or the other.

If we join in the denouncing, do you progressive anti-zionists have a handbook
to help us become effective denouncers, or shall we just borrow a copy from
Abe? Will it be the same one?


> 
> For 1 democratic, secular bi-national Palestine/Israel in a socialist world,

Excellent news. I like the sound of that option. I'm just a little unsure about
how you are going to persuade the Palestinians to see it your way. They kind of
think that they have some right to be there on their own terms, and last time I
looked they voted in some Islamic party that started with a H. Perhaps if you
put them under serious pressure they'll see it your way?


Talking about Palestinians, Tony has suggested that part of the reason for
needing to exile Atzmon is that he is damaging the Palestinian solidarity
movement.  Do you think, after wheeling in his tame serious historical scholar
to back him up, he might now be presenting us with some eminent Palestinians to
cement the kill?

Please excuse me if you find me a little less than deferential. Its a very
tiresome campaign that you guys are running, and frankly I find it very
uncomradely.

If you don't answer the question, maybe some people will think you can't. Shit,
they might even have to think of the answers themselves.

Thanks for your time.

ftp