[Imc-uk-features] Atzmon

[tony greenstein]

Contrary to what phunkee writes, I have certainly not harassed ftp.  He wrote to me first, not the other way around.  But this nitpicking is irrelevant.  The question is simply whether or not Indymedia aligns itself with the small anti-Semitic current on the fringes of the Palestine solidarity movement.  Having posted articles myself, including the Police attack on the Lebanon demonstration in 2005, and the secret taping of Brighton Police Commander Moore, I have no doubt it is incredibly useful to activists.  Why allow racists a space?
   
  Atzmon talks about ‘zionist lobbying’ in reference to our request to take down his article.  None of those who have written are Zionists.  This is one reason why we say that Atzmon is anti-Semitic.  He equates Jews as Zionists, even when they have fought for years against Zionism.  Yes my dad was a rabbi.  I’m an atheist.  But Judaism’s view of what is kosher has nothing to do with a ‘Judaic world view’ which could be taken from Julius Streicher.  Any more than Muslims are trying to take over the world, as the neo-con right now argue (Huntingdon, Perle & co.).
   
  Atzmon says that ‘unlike Greenstein, who was banned from several institutes for accusations of anti -Semitism as well as violence against Jews,
’  The latter accusation, as Atzmon is aware, is libellous and untrue.  I have been repeatedly attacked as anti-Semitic by the Zionist Union of Jewish Students.  They have never succeeded in banning me because comrades in Anti-Fascist Action asked them to put up or shut up.  By saying Jewish anti-Zionists are in fact ‘crypto-Zionists’, Atzmon does his best to support the allegation that all Jews are Zionists and that anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism.  That is why he is dangerous to the Palestinian cause.
   
  Atzmon claims that there isn’t a single reference to ‘race’ in his writings, yet he admits he attacks ‘Jewishness’ although there is no such thing, unless you believe that all Jews hold to the same ideas or philosophy.  Absurdly he claims that ‘Jews do not form a race, yet Jewish identity is somehow racially orientated.’  This is utterly absurd as well as self-contradictory.  Jewish identity takes many forms yet Atzmon subsumes communist, socialist, anarchist and Zionist Jews under one heading.
   
  Atzmon criticises Jews Against Zionism for not admitting non-Jews.  This is factually incorrect.  The only reason it and similar groups even exist is because Zionism claims that all Jews are Zionist and that Israel’s actions are in the name of all Jews.  Nothing more.  Anyone who agrees with opposing Zionism and isn’t a racist can join JAZ.
   
  Mary Rizzo claims that I have never supported the right of return.  This is laughable.  I have signed a number of adverts in the Guardian and Times renouncing my ‘right of return’ to Israel and supporting a Palestinian right of return.  I was even a member of the editorial collective of Return, a magazine which explicitly supported the Palestinian right of return.  Why Mary, who knows these things, should lie I will leave to others to decide.
  I would ask that you do not put this post from Atzmon up on Indymedia lists.  Apart from being libellous it is deeply anti-Semitic.  Atzmon says that ‘this very binary opposition leads towards crucifixion.’  He repeats the old canard that Jews are Christ Killers.  This is medieval anti-Semitism.  He also complains that we are ‘nailing intellectuals and Palestinian solidarity institutions to the wood.’  The symbolism should be obvious. ‘they did it to Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir.’  We have nailed noone but we did argue that Shamir, who considers Auschwitz was only an internment camp, and Eisen, who believes there were no gas chambers, are a danger to the Palestinian cause.
   
  I have asked Atzmon this question before and I ask it of the Indymedia collective.  How does denying the Holocaust help the Palestinians?  Noone is hated more by the Zionists than Prof. Norman Finkelstein and his book ‘Holocaust Industry.’  Yet both his parents were both survivors of concentration camps.  Is he too a liar despite his being a prominent anti-Zionist?  Why when Zionists accuse their opponents of anti-Semitism does Atzmon go out of his way to prove them correct?  
   
  We are no more ethnic campaigners when opposing Atzmon than Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods were when picketing Israel’s Expo 2007 last weekend where flats on the West Bank were being sold. Or when many of us join pickets against the new asylum centre at Gatwick or other similar campaigns.  I can’t ever remember seeing Atzmon and friends engaging in practical solidarity with the Palestinians.  Denouncing Jews who have broken from Zionism is his speciality.  
   
  The fact is that when we were organising the Boycott campaign, on the lines of the same campaign against apartheid South Africa, Atzmon denounced it as ‘book burning’.  Even though this campaign has rocked the Zionists.
   
  Atzmon, Rizzo et al complain of being witchhunted, victimised and portray themselves as victims.  The National Front and BNP also did this when we prevented them marching or organising.  We, and I mean the labour movement and the anti-fascist movement, including many anarchists like Class War, recognised that ‘freedom’ for racists and fascists meant death to minorities.  Today’s propaganda against asylum seekers means death and torture for those deported.  I don’t see that there is any ‘freedom’ for racists.  Atzmon’s anti-Semitic diatribes weaken the opposition to Zionism, which is a murderous and racist project.  How does his twaddle about the ‘Judaic world view’ and his absurd inclusion of Christ, Spinoza and Marx help the Palestinians?
   
  We reject racism, all racism, including both Zionism and the racism of Atzmon.  I hope that Indymedia also rejects the attempt by Atzmon and Rizzo to portray themselves as victims.  They are nothing of the kind.
   
  Tony Greenstein
  


       
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