The
Times Rides Again
The Times newspaper (the Old Lady of
London) attacked Gilad Atzmon, Paul Eisen and me again. The
article by the well-known Zionist and Blairite, David Aaronovitch
can be seen on
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22369-1671715,00.html
Here are some responses:
From Israel Shamir to the Times:
Dear Sir,
Re: Aaronovitch How Did the Far Left
To my annoyance, this is a second time in
one month your newspaper describes me as a “Swedish fascist”
who “claims to be a Russian Jew from Jaffa” (Aaronovitch) or
a “Swedish anti-Semite” (Pollard). When such ridiculous
claims are published by obscure ADL-financed publications,
one can shrug it off. When these claims are repeated by what
was once the leading newspaper of the Empire, one is amazed
by the lack of professional approach. A Times correspondent
in Tel Aviv can visit me anytime and check whether I am a
six-foot-tall blond Aryan supremacist with Swedish accent or
not; there are thousands of Israelis who know me since 1968
when I came to Israel from the Soviet Union. I published
many books including a translation of Joyce’s Ulysses, I
served in an elite unit of the Israeli army, I was seen at
the demonstrations in Bethlehem and Ramallah. I do belong to
the Israeli Left. Israeli newspapers wrote about me many
times; my biography was researched and combed by friends and
enemies; but none rushed to reprint these silly rumours. If
an overseas phone call is too expensive for you, the
newspaper could ask Tim Sebastian or other old BBC hands,
for I worked there in 1970s.
I do not mind being attacked by the likes
of Pollard (his own article begins with: 'I am a warmonger.
I am bloodthirsty. I am rabid.') and Aaronovitch (a Zionist
cheerleader of the Iraqi War) – actually their support would
be a greater embarrassment. But your readers deserve a
better researched reporting. They can read more on
http://www.israelshamir.net/english/Times_attacks.htm
where they can view so many letters to the Times you chose
not to publish.
They are also entitled to know that the
Aaronovitch’s article is but a rehash of a lengthy piece by
an ostensibly anti-zionist Jewish Trot from JPUK on a far
left site http://www.marxists.de/racism/antisemitism/counterpunch.htm
, including quotes and errors. While these Trots do not mind
to have a certified warmonger and Zionist as their
bedfellow, all antiwar and antizionist forces may postpone
their strife until better days.
Israel Shamir
Jaffa
From Rowan Berkeley to the Times:
Dear Sir
It is intriguing to see Mr Aaronovitch
straying from his usual Grauniad territory into yours,
because it suggests an attempt to outflank the leftists and
centrists from the right, before they manage to slip the
leash and combine their various anti-zionist arguments into
one broad front.
I say "leftists and centrists", because
despite Mr Aaronovitch's "browns under the bed" scare
tactics, there are few or no right wingers involved in
anti-zionism. There are merely different schools of thought
regarding the nature of, and consequently the correct mode
of attack upon, Zionism, and the undeniable climate of
global Jewish privilege that sustains it.
According to the perpetually recycled
world-war-two hysteria that Mr Aaronovitch and the
neoconservative movement (odd bedfellows, one would have
thought) seek to implant upon the twenty first century, "the
Jews" are still "the canaries in the coal mine of freedom"
and anything that discommodes any of their many and
ferociously antagonistic factions calls forth "beware the
fascist beast" rhetoric.
However, the real world has moved on
since world-war-two, and the substantive questions of
holocaust numerology, comparative atrocity propaganda, blood
libels, etc., are less important to most real world players
than the psychology of perpetual Jewish endangeredness
itself, which fits ill on a global super-power with special
protective legislation enforced in all the "free countries
of the world".
Mr Aaronovitch would be well advised to
dismount from his "anti-nazi" high horse and inspect his
troops. There may be fewer of them than he imagines.
yours sincerely, etc
Berkeley to Aaronovitch:
Dear David Aaronovitch,
I know Atzmon and Shamir personally, though not Eisen or
Zundel.
The four of them seem to constitute a continuum of intensity
of challenge to the no-go nature of the Holocaust. Gilad is
at the soft end of this continuum, which is why he is
attacked most often, as being the easiest target; then comes
Eisen, then Shamir, then Zundel (the only non-Jew - your
description of Shamir as a 'Swedish fascist' is grounded
solely in a decontextualised rumour, which is itself based
on the simple fact that he has, apparently, an alter ego
under the name Joren Jermas : I invite you to discover any
writing by this Jermas, nazistic or otherwise).
Maybe the distinction between "anti-Semitism" and
"anti-Zionism" is being not blurred but CHALLENGED, or maybe
DECONSTRUCTED?
From Nancy Harb Almendras to the Times:
Dear Editor,
Enough with the red herrings and the obfuscations (David
Aaronovitch, June 28) which abound in "How Far did the far
left manage to slip into bed with the
Jew-hating right?" Good grief. The children of Zahra
Zaboun are heartsick because she died recently at an Israeli
checkpoint. Her crime? She wanted to attend
Friday prayers.
The pages of your opinion section should be railing against
this Israeli crime against humanity instead of smearing
Gilad Atzmon, who courageously left Israel
because he could no longer tolerate the abuses of Zionism.
Your editorial writers might question why Johnny Thalijiah,
a Greek Orthodox altar boy, was shot
by an Israeli sniper while standing around his cousin's
store, instead of Aaronvitch's inanities re Atzmon. Your
editorial writers might look up Maria Khoury, the Christian
Palestinian who picked up bullets off her son's bed and
wondered what offended
the Israeli soldiers who fired them. Was it the sign fron
the World Council of Churches that said "End the Occupation"
she wondered?
Atzmon empathizes with the suffering of the Palestinians,
and has won the heart of this Palestinian, and I say with
certainty, knowing my people, that I am among a majority, in
spite of the unnamed Palestinian musician who refused to
work with
Atzmon, to whom Aaranovitch refers. Aaraonvich throws out
obfuscations in order to keep the British public ignorant of
Zionist atrocities. It is clear that
Aztmon works in the interests of humanity, while Aaronvitch
serves a government which perpetuates crimes against it.
Nancy Harb Almendras
Wiesbaden
Dear Editor,
In "How did the far Left manage to slip into bed with the
Jew-hating Right?" (28/6/5), David Aaronovitch states that
Atzmon's "tirades have got him into trouble with more than
just the Jewish community." As if that is some kind of
no-no. Maybe the Jewish community is wrong about certain
things. Maybe we
are all wrong about certain things. Rather than rushing to
sling mud at brave, lonely voices trying to set the record
straight, maybe we should set aside our prejudices and
listen to them.
Does Aaronovitch think that Atzmon takes his brave stands
just for a lark, or because he is uninformed or "a silly
boy"? I suggest he look at the fine philosophical writings
of Atzmon at
www.gilad.co.uk and take
pride in a fellow Jew who is willing to take on the
formidable Jewish establishment, calling it to account for
the crimes that Israel commits every day in its name.
Aaronovitch is terrible interested in the 'blood libel'
tradition in European folklore and makes this a central
argument in his polemic against Atzmon. While we have no way
of knowing whether medieval Jews actually drank non-Jewish
children's blood, we do have Mordechai Vanunu's uncle on
video
screaming "I will drink his blood!" after Vanunu was 'freed'
for telling the world the truth about Israel's nuclear
weapons program. Funny this fascination with drinking blood
among Jews. Brrrr.
And how he LOVES to throw around 'anti-semite' and
'fascist'. Israel Shamir is not a fascist and I hope he can
successfully sue Aaronovitch for this slander. Is this mud
slinging an example of the great Jewish legal principle 'An
eye for an eye etc'? Yes, yes - revennnge! Perhaps
Shakespeare's
Shylock is the real Jew after all, despite Hollywood's
recent attempt to dress him up as a misunderstood victim of
(yes!) anti-semitism.
Aaronovitch casually refers to "Eisen's Holocaust-denying
article" though the article in question is no such thing.
What it 'denies' is what Israel and its Zionist fanatics
have turned a terrible tragedy - the murder of many people -
into. These murders are now the basis of a sick cult which
is promoted to perpetrate yet more racist murders, this time
of Palestinians. It is also based on dubious stories, many
of which are fantasies and outright lies. Mr. Eisen merely
protests the perverse use that the 'Holocaust' as the
tragedy is officially called is being put to IN HIS NAME (as
a Jew). All historical events need to be studied and
documented, especially when they are tooted as being beyond
all discussion, as the
Holocaust is.
Sure, call Atzmon "cretinous" or a
"disorganised racist", despite his brilliant writings,
outstanding musicianship and courageous rejection of the
hideous racist state of Israel and his concern for its
victims. Keep digging David. There's lots more muck down
there. But be careful your house of cards doesn't collapse
on you. Jews have a long history of building up wealth and
control in their 'host' societies, only to 'go beyond the
Pale' and find themselves expelled or stripped of their
wealth or worse. I think we can all agree that Fukiyama's
'end of history' was a trifle premature. That goes for the
history of the Jews too. Atzmon is merely trying to stop
this reckless plunge by his coreligionists (or co-ethnics or
whatever) into the abyss. You should be thanking him and
Eisen, instead of slinging mud at them.
Eric Walberg
Tashkent
From Joachim Martillo
The Aaronovitch column is a pastiche of libels of Atzmon and
Shamir that Plaut and others have been circulating around
Israel action groups in the USA and (I assume) the UK for
the past few years.[1] There is probably an ethical issue
merely in Aaronovitch' claim to have authored the article.
I am more concerned with an emerging pattern of attempts to
silence discussion both of ethnic Ashkenazi behavior in
English-speaking countries and also of Zionist colonizer
behavior in Stolen and Occupied Palestine. This pattern is
not new. Ethnic Ashkenazi communities were characterized by
a culture that strictly controlled deviance and divergent
opinions among members until well into the 19th century.
Moreover in Eastern and Central Europe ethnic Ashkenazim
have a long history of resorting to slander, libel,
harrassment by frivolous law suits and other coercive
tactics to silence external critics of ethnic Ashkenazi
behavior.[2]
Over the past few months, Dershowitz has worked on blocking
the publication of Finkelstein's latest book. Charles
Jacobs and the David Project have put together a smear
campaign (Columbia Unbecoming) against Joseph Massad and
other professors and preceptors at Columbia. There is the
beginning of a smear campaign at Princeton against Khalidi
to prevent an offer of a professorship. Now we are seeing
simultaneous attacks on Israelis and ex-Israelis
sympathetic to Palestinians. The targets seem to include
Gilad Atzmon, Israel Shamir, Jeff Halper, Avi Shlaim and
Ilan Pappe, and there seems to be a fairly clever attempt to
get them to attack each other. Sympathetic non-Jews like
Susan Blackwell are apparently also on the radar screen. In
Boston, Fox and the Boston Herald have a long running smear
campaign against Yousuf Abou al-Laban and other members of
the ISB. Charles Jacobs and the JCRC Israel Action Center
seem to be involved just as they also seem to be involved in
the campaign against Somerville Divestment, in slandering me
and in bribing Mayor Curtatone with a free trip to Israel
(in part sponsored by the AJC).
A lot of the material involved in these campaigns is old and
has made the rounds in Israel advocacy sessions for a few
years, but these actions to defame pro-Palestinian activists
seem coordinated, and one has too wonder from whom Maccoby
and Greenstein are taking marching orders in the attempt to
get pro-Palestinian activists to start bickering among
themselves in order to create a distraction from the ongoing
and historic crimes of Zionism. Maccoby and Greenstein (and
Aaronovitch for that matter) seem too low in the food chain
to be in on the planning, but someone or some group seems to
be supplying them with a standard script, and I have the
feeling that I am experiencing a rerun of standard racist
Ashkenazi tactics that have been applied since Yiddish
newspapers in the USA at the beginning of the 20th century
were attacked, ransacked or burnt down by Zionists when the
editors penned editorials suggesting that some of the
tactics racist Zionist colonizer militias used against the
native population of Palestine were questionable and
unethical.
1] I read the accusation that Shamir was a Swedish Fascist
about 2 years ago, and Shamir easily refuted it. A real
editor would fire a columnist that used the newspaper to
spread demonstrably false propaganda.
[2] The behavior of ethnic Ashkenazim in the cattle and
meat industry in the Eastern Areas of the German
Empire provided a particularly nasty example of such
collective pressure tactics against non-Jews (and
sometimes Jews of other ethnicities) that tried to get a
share of the market. Ashkenazim used vertical,
horizontal and middle market collusion and restraint of
trade to bankrupt non-Ashkenazim in the industry, and,
when all else failed, they maliciously used the courts.
To be fair, I have to note that such behavior is common
among practically all ethnic groups in Eastern Europe
and the Balkans.
The editors of the Times should really pay more
attention to whose "opinion" it publishes.
Case in point is the malicious attack by one David
Aaronovitch on award winning musician and critically
acclaimed author, Gilad Atzmon. Two other intelligent
and courageous individuals, Isreal Shamir and Paul
Eisen, were also dragged into the mix.
Really, who is David Aaronovitch, and what has he ever
contributed to critical thought and reasoned discourse?
I am not aware of anything, but then how can such a
closed mind as Aaronovitch's produce anything other than
this unjustified attempt to discredit Gilad Atzmon,
Israel Shamir, and Paul Eisen, and in doing so, convince
the SWP to cancel Gilad Atzmon's appearance at its
upcoming festival?
Unable, obviously, from an intellectual perspective, to
engage in debate with Mr. Atzmon, Aaronovitch resorts ot
bringing out the usual arsenal used so often in efforts
to silence those with the courage to think for
themselves, said arsenal being unwarranted accusations
of racism, anti semitism, and even holocaust denier, all
of which is so predictable, so time worn, so used and
abused.
Describing Mr. Atzmon as being a "disorganized racist"
is not only unproven and unjustified, but also
slanderous and cannot be taken seriously.
Suffice to say, Mr. Aaronovitch, the only way that the
SWP will "lose its political and moral compass" is if it
succumbs to your insidious blackmail and removes Mr.
Atzmon from its guest list.
Such an action would be seen not just stifling freedom
of speech but of stifling freedom of thought as well.
More responses on
http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/
About Aaronovitch
a view from the Left:
http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/sr276/stack.htm
A view from the Right:
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=6472
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