Unterstützung fand Atzmons Werk in
Deutschland im
rechtsradikal-antisemitischen und
antizionistisch-linken Milieu.
Horst Mahler lobte Atzmons Buch
als einen „inspirierenden Beitrag“
eines Juden zur Beendigung der
„Judenherrschaft über die
Nichtjuden“. Auch Detlef Nolde,
ehemaliger Funktionär der verbotenen
Freiheitlichen Deutschen
Arbeiterpartei und heutiger
Querfrontler aus dem Dunstkreis
von
Jürgen Elsässer, bezieht sich
positiv auf Atzmons Buch.[45]
Die mehrfach verurteilte
Holocaustleugnerin
Ursula Haverbeck berief sich mit
ihren Thesen, dass „der Holocaust
[...] eine der größten Lügen der
Geschichte“ sei und die Gaskammern
von Auschwitz „nicht echt“ wären,
auf The wandering who?.[46]
Quelle
Merkwürdigkeiten
- Ich
bekam die 3. Auflage der Übersetzung
ins deutsche "Der wandernde - Wer?"
in die Hand. In diesem Buch fanden
sich in der 1. Auflage viele der
sehr zu kritisierenden
Zitate.
Die Fans von Gilad Atzmon bestreiten
ja, dass er ein Holocaustrelativerer
ist. Gilad Atzmon selber bestreitet
das auch. Die Merkwürdigkeit ist,
fast alle oder alle diese
fragwürdigen Zitate sind in der 3.
Auflage nicht mehr zu finden.
Wen diese
Zitate Gilad Atzmon nicht
belasten würden, warum hat er, hat
man sie herausgenommen?
The
Wandering Who?
- Dr. Ludwig Watzal - Bücher, die sich
mit der Frage nach der jüdischen Identität
beschäftigen, dürften eine spannende
Lektüre abgeben. Diesem nicht so einfachen
Sujet hat sich der in Großbritannien
lebende israelische Saxophonist Gilad
Atzmon in seinem Buch gewidmet. Er geht
der Frage nach, was eine jüdische säkulare
Person motiviert, sich weiterhin als
Jude zu fühlen. Darüber hinaus zeigt
das Buch die negativen Konsequenzen
einer jüdischen Identität, insbesondere
wenn sie nicht auf der jüdischen Religion
basiert. Jüdische Identität definiert
er als „Jewishness“ (Jüdischkeit), die
er vehement ablehnt. >>>
A Review of "The Who"
- Stanley Heller - I have been repelled
by Gilad Atzmon's writings over the
years so I had no intention of reading
his book, "The Wondering Who", but as
a number of prominent human rights activists
mysteriously have given the book praise
I felt it has to be given a careful
refutation. How it could be treated
seriously is beyond me. One chapter
is particularly rancid. It's Chapter
11 "Sex and Anti-Semitism". He starts
it with this sentence: "For the last
decade I have been drawing many of my
insights from a man who has been totally
eradicated from Western academic and
scholarly discourse." The man is named
Otto Weininger 1880-1903. According
to Atzmon Wittgenstein, Heidegger and
Freud were interested in his ideas.
And another, "Even Hitler supposedly
mentioned him, admitting: 'There was
one decent Jews, and he killed himself.'"
Huh? The ultimate beast Adolph Hitler
likes Weininger and that's a testament
to his significance? In the first few
paragraphs Atzmon writes "Weininger
was an anti-Semite as well as a radical
misogynist." In the conclusion of the
chapter he writes, "Otto Weininger was
just twenty-three when he committed
suicide. One may wonder how he knew
so much about women. Why did he hate
them so? How did he know so much about
Jews, and why did he hate them so?"
(p.95) >>>
Gilad Atzmon (The Wanderng Who?)
wird klug kritisiert in The Blundering
Who?
auf
Red Scribblings,
während Mark Elf auf
Jews sans frontières
die wesentlichen Atzmon-Aussagen völlig
mißverstanden hat. Red Scribblings bringt
die Überlegung ins Spiel, daß der US-Herrschaftselite
die überproportionale Beteiligung von
Juden an ihren imperialistischen Konzepten
und Unterfangen als Rückversicherung
dienen könne. Laufen sie schief , ist
der Sündenbock schnell zur Hand. Permanent
unter
Identität / Ergänzungen
- Thomas Immanuel Steinberg
Abraham Melzer - Man
beklagt, dass GA zu Unrecht
von Antisemiten angegriffen
wird und meintest, dass es
dann unnötig sei, wenn auch
ich ihn angreife. Lass mich
einige Beispiele nennen.
Quelle -
Der wandernde
- Wer-- Eine Studie
jüdischer Identitätspolitik
- Gilad Atzmon, Andreas
Schmidt und Einar Schlereth
von Zambon, Giuseppe (20.
Juni 2012)
Seite 97
unten: "Ich sehe
mich auch als "stolzen,
Selbst hassenden Juden" und
wiederum brauche ich
niemandes Genehmigung dazu".
Ein sich selbst hassender
Jude, hasst ja nicht nur
sich selbst, sondern alle
Juden.
Seite 106:
"...eine weitere
Folge der zionistischen
Kollektivneurose. Und
wiederum: Sie lieben sich
als diejenigen, die sie zu
sein meinen, hassen sich
aber nichtsdestoweniger
dafür, was sie eben sind".
Trifft das nicht auf GA zu?
Seite 117:
"Meine Bewunderung
(für Weininger!) hat eine
persönliche Seite. Weininger
half mir zu verstehen, wer
ich bin, oder eher, wer ich
sein könnte..."
Wenn das kein Hinweis auf
ein Weininger Syndrom ist?
Er schreibt auf dieser Seite
auch: "Weininger ist
geradezu skandalös".
Ja, das will er ja auch
werden.
Seite 121:
"In Wirklichkeit
schaue ich in den Spiegel.
In Wirklichkeit arbeite ich
mit Verachtung den Juden in
mir sorgfältig heraus".
Ist das kein Antisemitismus?
Seite 123:
Über Weininger, mit dem er
sich so total identifiziert,
schreibt er: "Er
hasste Frauen und Juden,
weil er selbst eine Frau und
ein Jude war. Er bewunderte
arische Männlichkeit".
Hasst GA deshalb auch Juden
und bewundert Arier so sehr,
dass er ihnen den Holocaust
nicht übel nimmt.
Seite 128:
Überschrift: "Liebe
dich selbst ebenso sehr, wie
du jeden anderen hasst".
Was ist das für eine absurde
und krude Lebensweisheit?
Seite 142:
"Juden profitieren
tatsächlich von hartem
Kapitalismus und
Wettbewerbsmärkten".
Und Nichtjuden?
Seite 144: "Kapitalismus
von Natur aus jüdisch ist".
Seite 145: "Damit
war es den Juden nur
natürlich, sich der Linken
anzuschließen".
Seite 149: "Juden
und anderen ethnischen oder
religiösen Minderheiten ging
es deshalb gut, weil es
andere gab, die um sie herum
arbeiteten". Und
die Juden? Sie spielten den
ganzen tag Golf!?
Seite 162: "Bei
Paranoia können wir klar
bestimmen, dass der an ihr
Leidende in einer Wahnwelt
gefangen ist". Ja,
so wie GA.
Seite 179: "Wenn
Juden keine Rasse sind und
nichts mit Semitismus zu tun
haben, dann ist
"Antisemitismus"
grundsätzlich eine
bedeutungslose Bezeichnung.
Anders gesagt: Kritik am
jüdischen Nationalismus, an
jüdischer Lobbyarbeit und
jüdischer Macht kann nur als
legitime Kritik der
Ideologie, Politik und
Praxis erfolgen".
Hier zeigt GA wie verwirrt
er ist und wie verworren
seine Thesen sind. Auch wenn
Juden keine Rasse sind, so
sind sie doch Juden. Diese
Identität kann ihnen keiner
abnehmen und absprechen. Und
Judenhass, ganz gleich wie
man ihn nennt, kann doch
niemals "bedeutungslos"
sein.
Seite 197: "Jude-Sein
bedeutet, in jedem Goj eine
Bedrohung zu sehen...".
Wieso?
Seite 210: "Ich
denke, dass wir 65 Jahre
nach der Befreiung von
Auschwitz das Recht haben
müssen, anzufangen, Fragen
zu stellen. Wir sollten
historische Beweise und
Argumente verlangen".
GA will aber keine Argumente
von Opfer wie Hajo Meyer
hören, sondern glaubt lieber
den Tätern. Er fragt welchen
Zweck Gesetze gegen
Holocaustleugnung dienen.
Das ist eine hinterhältige
und hinterfotzige Frage.
Auch ich bin gegen Gesetze.
Leugnung sollte
gesellschaftlich verachtet
werden. Aber GA will
leugnen.
Seite 222:
"Es ist der
Holocaust, der mich
schließlich zu einem treuen
Unterstützer palästinensischer Rechte...machte".
Wieso? Warum der Holocaust
und nicht das natürliche
Gefühl für Recht und
Gerechtigkeit? Etwa weil er
es den Juden zeigen will?
Für mich ist es eine Frage
von Moral und Ethik, die mir
mein Judentum lehren, und
nicht der Holocaust, den ich
nicht leugne, aber den ich
nicht zum moralischen
Wegweiser mache.
Seite 223:
"In einem langen und
schmerzlichen Prozess
erfasse ich, dass Israel
keinen humanistischen Juden
hervorbringen würde".
Wieso? Weil es in Israel
eine Menge Rassisten und
Chauvinisten gibt? Wer die
Bibel kennt, weiß, dass Gott
bereit gewesen wäre Sodom
auch wegen eines einzelnen
Gerechten zu retten. Es gab
aber keinen einzigen
Gerechten in Sodom. Israel
ist aber noch lange nicht
Sodom.
Besonders
geschmacklos und schamlos
finde ich solche
Überschriften wie:
Schwindlers Liste,
die natürlich eine
Anspielung auf Schindlers
Liste sein sollen. Ich frage
mich was das soll? Will er
Schindler durch den Dreck
ziehen? Warum, weil er
mehrere hundert oder tausend
Juden gerettet hat?
Alles in
allem geht es GA nur um
Skandal. Er will mitten im
Skandal stehen und den
Skandal wie einen Orgasmus
genießen. Ich habe im
Prinzip nichts dagegen, aber
deshalb muss ich ihn nicht
als mutigen Juden bewundern.
Abraham
Melzer |
Gilad Atzmon: The
Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics
Zero Books (2011).
Book review by Elias Davidsson, November 14, 2011
(Note: The numbers within parenthesis refer to the page numbers in the
author’s book. The numbers within brackets refer to endnotes below)
Atzmon is an Israeli musician, author and political activist who lives in
London. In his book he traces his own development from a young, rather
typical Israeli, brought up in a fiercely nationalist and chauvinist family,
to become a staunch opponent of Zionism and of the State of Israel. But his
book is far more than a personal story. It is an attempt to understand what
motivates secular people of Jewish background to continue to identify
themselves as Jews. It is also an attempt to demonstrate the harmful
consequences of Jewish identity, particularly when this is not based on
Jewish religion.
While referring at various points to Israeli gross violations of human
rights and international law, as well as to the Nakba of 1948, such facts
merely represent part of the background of his canvas. His focus, as the
title promises, is a study of Jewish identity, or as he writes, of
Jewish-ness. For the author, much of Israeli (mis)conduct can be traced to
such identity politics.
At the outset, the author makes sure to let the reader know about his
qualities, such as courage (“In the military orchestra I learned for the
first time how to be subversive, how to sabotage the system in order to
strive for a personal ideal”, (5)), fame (“(…) this was the beginning of my
international career as a jazz musician. Within a year I had become very
popular in the UK.” (8)), erudition (“Zola, according to Weininger, would
recognise the murderous impulse better than the murderer himself, rather
than merely being subject to it”, (93)) and humour (“At a certain stage,
around 2005, I thought to myself that I might be King of the Jews. I have
achieved the inachievable, accomplished the impossible. I have managed to
unite them all: Right, Left and Centre....They all hated Gilad Atzmon
equally.” (54)).
His analysis of Jewish identity politics includes some good bits, but cannot
by any means be regarded as a comprehensive treatise on the subject. Far
more, it is a personal and highly selective treatment of the subject, an
approach in which the author highlights particular elements and omits others.
Admittedly, the author does not claim to have written a scholarly treatise.
If his book were limited to the analysis of Jewish identity politics, it
might have had some merit, at least as a contribution to the debate. But the
author lacks the humility of a scholar, who limits himself to what he knows
well. Atzmon makes numerous peremptory declarations in various fields,
including history, economics, international relations, human rights and
psychology, without a shred of evidence. If this were his only vice, one
could dismiss the author as a fool. His pronouncements are not, however,
haphazard: They sustain a specific, undisclosed, agenda that can only
inferred from his book. As we go along, his agenda might reveal itself.
At the most superficial level, the author is clearly opposing Zionism. So
far, so good. The zeal of the author to combat Zionism and what he regards
as a nefarious form of Jewish identity, leads him to toy with murky fields
of inquiry, which are not rigorously examined. These excursions appear at
first superfluous add-ons to his subject-matter. The innocent reader might
wonder, for example, why the author is devoting space to examine the credit
crunch in the United States in a book on Jewish identity politics. We will
come to that.
One of the door-openers to the world-view of the author is found here:
“It is more than likely that ‘Jews’ do not have a centre or headquarters. It
is more than likely that they aren’t aware of their particular role within
the entire system, the way an organ is not aware of its role within the
complexity of the organism....This is probably the Zionist movement’s
greatest strength. It transformed the Jewish tribal mode into a collective
functioning system. Looking at Zionism as an organismus (sic) would lead to
a major shift in our perspective of current world affairs.”(21) Adolf
Hitler, incidentally, also used the term organismus in Mein Kampf to
describe the organic nature of a human society as distinct from an
organisation evolving from human agency.[1] Borrowing again from Hitler, who
talked about Jews’ intent to “enslave” the German nation[2], the author asks
in all innocence: “How did America allow itself be enslaved by ideologies
inherently associated with foreign [Zionist] interests”? (26 - emphasis
added). The author repeatedly borrows Nazi terminology, as can also be
ascertained by his numerous writings.
His idea of a Zionist organismus or network appears widely throughout the
book. Here another example: “Within the Zionist network there is no need for
a lucid system of hegemony. In such a network, each element is complying
with its role. And indeed the success of Zionism is that the whole is
greater than the sum of its parts.” (69)
The author reveals his desperate efforts to demonstrate the existence of
such organismus and its responsibility for the initiation of wars of
aggression when he selects three leading American Jews, Paul Wolfowitz,
Scooter Libby and Alan Greenspan, to represent, as it were, this “collective
functioning system”, or as he prefers to call it “third category brotherhood”,
an expression that he equates with “racial solidarity” and with “Zionism”
(21).
The Wolfowitz Doctrine is the name of a 46-page policy document drafted by
Paul Wolfowitz and issued by the U.S. Department of Defense under the
authority of Secretary of Defense Dick Cheney in 1992. This document asserts
that “America’s political and military mission in the post-cold-war era will
be to ensure that no rival superpower is allowed to emerge in Western
Europe, Asia or the territories of the former Soviet Union.” The document
does not directly address Israeli interests. According to the author,
Wolfowitz, by drafting this document, “laid out the strategy for merging
American and global Zionist interests into a unified practice.” (23) The
author does not provide evidence that this document attempted to "merge"
American and Zionist interests. But the expression “global Zionist interests”,
introduced at this juncture by the author, is remarkable, both in term of
its historical connotations and because the author fails to describe what
these "global" interests consist of. Does the author, using a euphemism,
refers to a Jewish quest for global domination? We are left guessing.
Ascribing perfidy to Wolfowitz and his friends, the Iraqis are described by
the author “as the victims of those third category infiltrators within
British and American administrations” (emphasis added). The Bush
administration is said to have “complied” with PNAC’s political philosophy
(25), implying that Wolfowitz had a power to coerce the Bush administration,
which duly “complied”. One is made to understand that the former two
individuals are part of a group of Zionist infiltrators who are responsible
for the Iraq war: “They planned to rob the Arab oil and to simultaneously
‘secure’ their beloved Jewish state.”(26) The author claims that “people
like Wolfowitz and Perle dragged America and Britain into a futile criminal
war in Iraq in the name of “moral interventionism”, “democracy” and
“liberation” (64). Yet, the main justification by the Bush administration
for this war was the alleged threat of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and
not the human rights of the Iraqi population. Humanitarian intervention was,
however, invoked for the US-NATO wars against ex-Yugoslavia and Libya. The
author, surprisingly, does not mention these wars. Is it because he could
find no Zionist motive for these wars? The author equally omits references
to the war against Afghanistan, where no Jewish or Zionist interests could
be adduced. It is by such omissions that the author constructs the idea of
Zionist-inspired US policies.
The author wishes to convince the reader that the two aforementioned Zionist
infiltrators convinced or even coerced the Bush administration and the U.S.
military, to attack and occupy Iraq. Indeed, the author asks in what appears
as contrived innocence: “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?” But the author does not provide an answer.
For, had he attempted to answer the question, he would have had to inquire
why the numerous American billionaires and board members of the largest US
corporations, including Boeing, Enron, Halliburton, and IBM, did not oppose
this alleged Zionist perfidy, if the Zionist plans were contrary to their
interests. The inference left unexpressed by the author is, that absent
Zionist infiltration, the US plutocracy would not have attacked Iraq (or
Panama, or Grenada, or Afghanistan, or Libya) and that US imperialism is
actually a Zionist enterprise. The author evidently does not spell such
absurd theory, but his selective facts leave no other conclusion possible.
A similar, yet somehow less successful effort, is undertaken by the author
to link another American Jew to a plan intended to defraud the American
people, namely Alan Greenspan, at the time head of the Federal Reserve Bank.
The author suggests - without actually referring to any hard facts - that
Greenspan's monetary policies were based on his Jewish (or Zionist) identity,
with the aim to assist the State of Israel. In order to emotionally prepare
the reader for such insinuations, the author begins by mentioning, just in
passing, that Jewish bankers have a “reputation” as “backers and financiers
of wars and even [of] one communist revolution.”This casual remark is
obviously intended to suggest that Alan Greenspan - by virtue of his Jewish
background - is also one of these perfidious bankers. As proof, the author
claims that Greenspan intended by his monetary policies to “divert the
attention from the wars perpetrated by Libby, Wolfowitz and PNAC" in the
defense of Israel. (27). Greenspan thus “provided his president with an
astonishing economic boom...Greenspan...knew very well that as long as
Americans were doing well, buying, and selling homes, his President would be
able to continue implementing the ‘Wolfowitz doctrine’ and PNAC philosophy,
destroying the ‘bad Arabs’ in the name of ‘democracy’, ‘liberalism’,
‘ethics’ and even ‘women’s rights’”.(27) The author does not deem it
necessary to prove Greenspan’s motives, the causality between his monetary
policies and the war on Iraq, or to inquire whether his policies were
perhaps commensurate with the interests of the American ruling class. The
profits generated by the Iraq war and flowing to US corporations are
disregarded by the author. It must be remembered that Atzmon’s book was
written, as he claims, to discuss Jewish identity politics and not to
analyze US capitalism. Invoking Alan Greenspan in this book had one, and
only one, purpose: To impress on readers the power, perfidy and callousness
of people who do not negate their Jewish identity.
Sensing the danger that readers might regard him as peddling the idea of a
“Zionist plot or even a Jewish conspiracy” to defraud America, he attempts
to dismiss such suspicion by claiming - after detailing Alan Greenspan’s
decisions and statements - that the US credit crunch was “no Zionist plot or
even a Jewish conspiracy...for it was all in the open. It is actually an
accident”.(30) One is entitled to doubt his sincerity, for if he really
believes that the credit crunch was an accident and not a deliberately
engineered result, why did he introduce the theme of America’s credit crunch
into his book in the first place and why did he introduce his discussion by
referring to Jewish bankers’ apparent reputation of financing and backing
wars? His bad faith is here displayed in plain sight.
Atzmon’s main enemies: Socialists and human rights
Readers who have not read Atzmon's writings before might be surprised to
discover that he spends inordinate efforts to discredit leftist and
socialist groups such as “Jews Against Zionism” and “Jews for Justice in
Palestine”(62), i.e. groups who oppose Zionism and support Palestinian
rights in the name of Jews. For him, such groups exemplify a pathological
clinging to Jewish identity. Yet, people assemble in various constellations
for good causes: There are associations of physicians against nuclear
armaments, lawyers for democracy, and even gay choirs. Are these, too,
pathological phenomena?
There might, however, be a far more plausible explanation for supporting the
Palestinian cause as Jews. The author must be aware that when Arabs
criticize Israel, their accusations are not taken seriously. One must sadly
admit that anti-Arab and islamophobic prejudice is extremely prevalent in
the West. What Palestinian scholars wrote long ago about the Nakba was
ignored in the West until the new Israeli historians, such as Benny Morris,
Simha Flapan and Ilan Pappe began to expose the crimes committed by the
Zionists in 1947/8. The fact that Western opinion considers Arab scholars as
lacking credibility is deplorable and has led some anti-Zionist activists to
speak out against Israel and Zionism as Jews in order to make their message
more credible. The RETURN statement, signed by hundreds of Jews around 1988,
provides a fair example of such a principled position.[3] One may debate
about the wisdom of such an approach, but it is unfair and baseless to claim
that those who do so, are motivated by Jewish tribalism.
Not contenting himself to deal with Jewish identity politics, the author
ventures into the field of human rights. While harping on the need for Jews
to espouse unidentified universal principles, the author surprisingly
rejects the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as a normative framework.
He writes: “As opposed to the Kantian vision of ethical judgements being
distinguished by openness, the Declaration is interpreted by some as a set
of moral rules. As such, it impedes an authentic moral exercise. It is not
surprising, therefore, that Neocon think-tanks, moral interventionists,
Israeli lobbies and supporters of the war against Islam ground their
argument in the declaration. It conveys an image of an ethical argument.”(64
-65). The author disregards the fact that the Universal Declaration is
endorsed by almost all UN member states and constitutes the basis for
numerous human rights treaties, which specify in greater detail what rights
human beings are entitled to enjoy and what obligations states have to
fulfill to protect, ensure and promote these rights. He does not, either,
propose an alternative ethical framework that could replace the Universal
Declaration.
The author does not reveal in his book the reasons for his opposition to the
normative status of human rights. He laconically writes that “[f]or obvious
reasons, [the Declaration] fails to provide answers to some different
questions that arise as we proceed in time and live through some dramatic
changes.”(63) The reader is left in the dark regarding the nature of these
“different questions” and the “dramatic changes”. One is entitled to suspect
that his opposition to the normative force of human rights is connected with
his pandering to Islamic fundamentalism, revealed in his web-based writings.
For reasons that escape the reviewer, the author appears particularly
inclined to disparage leftists, and among them particularly those who oppose
Zionism. At various points, the author takes issue with such groups,
including the now defunct Israeli leftist organization Matzpen, implying
that these groups are essentially part and parcel of the Zionist organismus.
The author actually devotes two pages under the subtitle “Matzpen and
Wolfowitz” to discredit that organisation(108-110). The author’s bad faith
can be gauged by the way he misconstrues Matzpen´s manifesto of 1967
(wrongly stated as 1962). In that manifesto, briefly cited by the author,
Matzpen posited that the “solution to the national and social problems of
this region...can come about only through socialist revolution, which will
overthrow all its existing regimes and replace them by a political union of
the region, ruled by the toilers.” Misrepresenting this manifesto he writes
that “Matzpenists had a plan to ‘liberate’ the Arab world ”through a
socialist revolution” (108 - emphasis added). The author omits to mention
that Matzpen had also Arab members. By such misrepresentation, he could
claim that “Matzpen’s principles are no different from Wolfowitz’s neocon
mantra”. Delving into the realm of fantasy, the author found a formula that
imputed to Matzpen even greater evil than the U.S. warmongers: “For the
Matzpenist, to liberate Arabs is to turn them into Bolsheviks; the neocon is
actually slightly more modest - all he wants is for Arabs to drink their
Coca-Cola in a Westernized democratic society”. Leaving aside the absurdity
of the claim that Matzpen intended or had the capacity to turn Arabs into
Bolsheviks and that all what imperialists want is to make Arabs drink
Coca-Cola, the previous sentence reveals the depth of the author’s hatred
towards Socialists, even when these are already dead.
The author’s hatred for socialists is further demonstrated by his
endorsement of a bizarre view expressed by Milton Friedman. According to
Friedman, cited by the author, “Jewish affiliation with the left might be
better understood as an attempt to disown some anti-Semitic stereotypes of
the Jew as being’a merchant or moneylender who put commercial interests
ahead of human values. “(116) The author makes it clear that he agrees with
that explanation. Hiding behind Friedman, the author muses that what “moves
the Jew to the left..is neither humanism, nor solidarity...nor kindness,
but, instead, it seems to be a desperate attempt to replace or amend the
Jewish image.” But while Friedman considered Jewish commercial inclinations
to be a positive testimony of entrepreneurship, the author contends that
“robbery and hatred is imbued in Jewish modern political ideology on both
the left and the right.”(123). While Zionism practice indeed included
robbery and hatred of Arabs, the author is apparently not ashamed to include
under the headline of “robbery and hatred” leftist groups who actually place
the struggle against robbery and hatred at the head of their agenda. To
further press the point, the author writes: “within the modern Jewish
national and political context, Jews kill and rob”, and they do so also in
the name of “working class politics…[T]he progressive Jew [robs] in the name
of ‘Marx’” We now know that according to Atzmon’s Gospel, Marxism is a
Jewish ideology used to justify Jewish robbery and murder. Adolf Hitler
would have been proud of his Jewish disciple![4]
In hindsight, it is easy to criticize Matzpen. But Matzpen must be credited
as one of the earliest Israeli groups which opposed occupation and the
oppression of the Palestinian people. It acted at the margins of Israeli
society long before the author began to support Palestinian rights. What is
the purpose of the author to select Matzpen as a subject of scorn? And what
prompts the author to dispense moral marks to Jews who like to hold some
Jewish traditions at home while taking full part in civil society?(“Either
you pretend to be a cosmopolitan while in the street or you lie to your
creator at your dwelling. This behavioural code (…) happens to be
non-ethical by definition. It is based on deception.”)(57) He does not
explain what is so unethical about eating gefilte fish at home. His
displeasure also extends to people who present themselves as “progressive”,
“secular” or “humanist” (105). According to him they “fail to grasp that
true human brotherhood needs no introduction or declaration, only genuine
love for one another.”(57) According to the author, people may present
themselves as “popular saxophonists” but not as “humanists”. As illustrated
above, the author demonstrates what “true human brotherhood and genuine love
for one another” means to him, when empties his bile on genuine and
courageous fighters for justice, or when he calls the present reviewer a
“miserable creature”. Modesty and civility are apparently not among the
author’s eminent qualities.
After circling around the search for an explanation for Zionist, or Jewish,
identity, the author seems to have finally reached his goal. Zionist (or
Jewish) identity today is the religion of the Holocaust! While there is a
grain of truth in such a claim, it certainly does not apply to every person
who claims Jewish identity nor does it constitute, strictly speaking, a
religion. Invoking the theme of the Holocaust, provides the author, however,
an opportunity to expose in public his empathy with Holocaust deniers. While
the author correctly condemns the misuse of the Holocaust by the State of
Israel and the Zionist movement, as others have done, the author suggests
that there is more to it. He thus suggests: “I think that 65 years after the
liberation of Auschwitz, we must be entitled to start asking questions. We
should ask for historical evidence and arguments rather than follow a
religious narrative that is sustained by political pressure and
laws.”(174-175) One is entitled to wonder what the author is alluding to,
when suggesting that we “should ask for historical evidence” about the
Holocaust. Is he suggesting that Jews were not exterminated industrially? Is
he suggesting that Jews financed the Holocaust? The author does not reveal
what he suggests. He reveals only a little about his true views when
suggesting that we ask “why were the Jews hated?”, implying that there might
have been a slight justification for the persecution, if not extermination,
of Jews. (174) Is the author simply trying to play an enfant terrible by
such provocations or does he espouse a world view that he dare not name?
Not content to suggest that historical evidence be demanded about the
Holocaust (as if no such evidence exists), he claims that by failing to ask
such questions “[w]e will continue killing in the name of Jewish suffering.”
(176) We are thus asked to conclude that proximate causality exists between
an act of omission and a resulting act of commission. That this is logically
possible is beyond the comprehension of the reviewer.
Conclusions
If the author had limited himself to examine Jewish identity politics, his
essay could have been considered as a modest contribution to the
subject-matter. His numerous excursions into highly speculative areas, his
repeated use of innuendo about the existence of a Zionist or Jewish cabal,
unsubstantiated accusations and allegations, and his condescending and
repulsive attacks on socialists and on genuine opponents of Israeli
atrocities and Zionism, undermine the declared purpose of the book and raise
disturbing questions about the author’s true motives. Borrowing from Nazi
terminology and pandering to Holocaust deniers does not add to the
credibility of the author. His book could be useful to those who seek to
absolve the leaders of Western powers from criminal culpability in planning
and carrying wars of aggression. Their legal counsel might in the future
cite the author, a bona fide Jew and former Zionist, in claiming that their
clients had been deceived and manipulated by perfidious Zionists to order an
attack on Iraq and to defraud the American people. His attacks on socialists
and on Marxism will undoubtedly please anti-communists, members of the US
military, members of the ruling classes in the West and some Muslim
constituencies. The book may, however, have pernicious effects on the
struggle for liberation of and in Palestine, because contrary to the
author’s claims, the ideas he presents can only exacerbate relations between
Jews and Muslims. His perspective is a frontal attack on the progressive
movement, similar in concept to that pursued by Adolf Hitler, who attempted
to destroy the Socialist movement by replacing public opposition to
capitalism with hatred towards Jews. Gilad Atzmon, who presents himself as a
grandson of a Zionist terrorist who hated Germans and Arabs(1), wrote a book
filled with hate. The present reviewer cannot recommend his book.
The reviewer, Elias Davidsson, was born in Palestine in 1941. He is a
composer and a veteran activist for human rights, international law and for
a just and lasting peace in his homeland. He now lives in Bonn, Germany. His
webpage is www.juscogens.org
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1. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf (Sentry Edition, 1943): “The urge to preserve
the species is the first cause for the formation of human communities; thus
the state is a national organism and not an economic organization.” (p. 151)
2. Ibid. : “For a racially pure people which is conscious of its blood can
never be enslaved by the Jew” (p. 325) and “Thus there arises a pure
movement entirely of manual workers under Jewish leadership, apparently
aiming to improve the situation of the worker, but in truth planning the
enslavement and with it the destruction of all non-Jewish peoples.” (p. 295)
3. The RETURN Statement. Against the Israeli Law of Return - For the
Palestinian Right to Return. http://www.juscogens.org/return
4. Adolf Hitler, supra n. 1 (“I began to study again, and now for the first
time really achieved an understanding of the content of the Jew Karl Marx’s
life effort. Only now did his Kapital become really intelligible to me, and
also the struggle of the Social Democracy against the national economy,
which aims only to prepare the ground for the domination of truly
international finance and stock exchange capital” (p. 215) (“Marxism itself
systematically plans to hand the world over to Jews” (p. 382) (“In this
period my eyes were opened to two menaces of which I had previously scarcely
known the names, and whose importance for the existence of the German people
I certainly did not understand: Marxism and Jewry”, p. 21)
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