Hatred has turned him into a Jew - Deconstructing Nick Cohen

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By Gilad Atzmon • Mar 7th, 2009 at 17:21 • Category: Analysis, Biography, Counter-terrorism, No thanks!, Gilad Atzmon, Gilad's Choice, Israel, Newswire, Our Authors, Palestine, Religion, War, Zionism

WRITTEN BY GILAD ATZMON

In an article published by the Jewish Chronicle, Observer columnist Nick Cohen argued that ‘Hatred turned him into a Jew’. Initially, I was rather amused by the revealing confession. Cohen must have a lot of hatred in him. He was one of the very few supporters of the illegal war against Iraq within the British media. He really believed that liberating the Iraqis was the way forward. Incidentally he also possesses an incredible record of Islamophobic ranting. Hence, I at first tended to interpret Cohen’s declaration as an acknowledgment that it was the loathing towards others which he finds in himself that made him into a Jew.

I was obviously wrong, Cohen was quick to clarify that it is actually other people’s hatred, specifically that of the ‘British Left’ that ‘indulges antisemitism’, which made him ‘feel Kosher’.

As we noticed many times before, it is always someone or something else that transforms the ‘innocent’, ‘atheist’, ‘cosmopolitan’, ‘secularist’, ‘egalitarian’ person into a ‘Jew’. I have previously heard Jewish leftists arguing that it was Hitler who made them into Jews, now we have Nick Cohen of the Observer who claims that it is actually the ‘Left’ that makes him ‘feel Kosher’. If it wasn’t very funny, it would be very sad, may even be tragic.

One again I find myself admitting that the more I elaborate on issues concerning contemporary Jewish Identity, the more I realise that it is actually the so-called ‘secular’, ‘enlightened’, ‘emancipated’, ‘assimilated’, ‘cosmopolitan’ Jew who provides us with a real meaningful insight into the subject of Zionism, Israeli genocidal policies, Jewish lobbying and Jewish institutional support of the Zionist crime.

Cohen’s JC article is an exemplary case study of the Zionisation of world Jewry and the transition of Jewish identity into a hawkish carrier of brutal, expansionist, murderous ideologies.

Let’s Take It From the Kosher Horse’s Mouth

“My name is Nick Cohen, and I think I’m turning into a Jew,” Cohen tells his British Jewish readers. “Despite being called ‘Cohen’, I’ve never been Jewish before. It’s not simply that I am an atheist. My Jewish friends tell me that it is hard to find an educated London Jew who is not an atheist, but that I have no connection with Jewish culture.”

For years I had been following Cohen defusing his Jewishness repeatedly. This time Cohen seems to surrender, he lets go, he’s let himself be a Jew. Yet, for some reason he insists upon untangling the notion of Jewishness, elaborating on religious perspective as if Jewishness has something to do with being observant. This tendency is rather bizarre. Cohen must be familiar enough with the subject to know that one does not have to be an observant Jew in order to consider oneself as a Jew. Unlike Islam and Christianity, Jewishness is not a belief system at all. While Muslims believe in Allah and Christians believe that Jesus is God, the Jew can believe in almost everything without ceasing to be a Jew. A Jew could believe in Marx, Bolshevism, Holocaust, secularism, democracy and even Lizards. Consequently, what makes a Jew into a Jew is the belief in ‘the Jew’, in Jewish suffering and in Jewish uniqueness

While talking to a strictly Jewish audience, Cohen tends to celebrate his ‘exceptional Jewish circumstances’ with his readers. “The Jewish side of my family is my father’s (which is not a help, I gather).” A friend pointed out me a while ago that somehow only with her Jewish friends she always happens to know where Papa’le and Mama’le are from, she always knows how the Grandparents managed to survive the big war. Cohen is apparently no different. As we launch into Cohen identity expedition we are getting familiar with Papa’le and Mama’le racial background. Cohen is also a dedicated protagonist of the kosher victim historical narrative. “My great grandparents fled from the Tsarist Empire at the time of the pogroms.” Not only did they flee, they even became communists. Indeed a common Jewish political choice at the turn of the 20^th Century.

One may wonder at this stage what lead Cohen the ‘pro-war secularist atheist’, to admit that he had become a ‘Kosher’ subject after so many years of relentless denial. “My sole interest in Jewish concerns came from being a left-wing opponent of the far Right and the blood-soaked antisemitic superstitions which turned Europe into a graveyard.”

Certainly, Cohen starts to come up with the goods. We now learn that when Cohen was a ‘leftist’, so to say, it was because the left was serving the Jewish tribal interests fighting ‘far right antisemitic superstitions’.

But these days seem to have passed. According to Cohen, the Left fails to do its job, it does not work for the Jews anymore. “Today the old certainties have gone because there are two far-right movements: the white neo-Nazi parties that the Left still opposes; and the clerical fascists of radical Islam which, extraordinarily, the modern left succours and indulges.”

Seemingly, according to Cohen, the Leftists have shunned the Jews and support the clerical fascists of radical Islam. “I am not only talking about Ken Livingstone, George Galloway and their gruesome accomplices in the intelligentsia. Wider liberal society is almost as complicit.”

At this point Cohen’s list of Judeophobes is growing by the second. It is actually not only the Leftists and liberals, it’s apparently the entire world that’s leaving the Jews to face for their doomed fate. “From the broadcasters, through the liberal press, the Civil Service, the Metropolitan Police, the bench of bishops and the judiciary, antisemitism is no longer an unthinkable mental deformation.”
Cohen’s take on the subject is rather illuminating. Yet I wonder - if Cohen believes in what he says, the most rational and reasonable thing to do would be to run as far as possible away from Judaism, Jewishness and the Jews. But as it seems, Cohen is doing the opposite, he runs straight into the cage, he rushes to the shtetl as if he tries to seek shelter in a synagogue. This is indeed a very Jewish thing to do. Yet, this very behaviour deserves some intellectual attention because this exact pattern can be seen as essential to the understanding of Jewish suicidal collectivism detected in Israel and its supportive lobbies and agents.

Noticeably, when writing to Jews, Cohen allows himself to employ the most racist ideas and expressions. “As long as the conspiracy theories of the counter-enlightenment come from ideologues with dark rather than white skins, nominally liberal men and women will not speak out.” Someone should remind the Observer columnist that ideologies do not have ‘skin’ and ideologues cannot choose the colour of their skin either. Hence, referring to ideologues with dark skin is far beyond bigotry. It is racism per se. And yet, Cohen will get away with it because he is ‘Kosher’ as he himself admitted. In contemporary Britain a Dutch right-wing racist MP is deported for making a film, yet a racist can be a prominent columnist for the Observer. This is actually a good thing. It is probably the last remnant of Britain’s legendary liberalism. In the UK bigotry and racism is becoming a Jews-only territory. You might want to ask yourself why we stop a Dutch MP yet we let Melanie Philips and Nick Cohen celebrate their symptoms on paper. One possible answer is that we expect a Dutch Christian to be a Humanist, yet we allow the racially orientated tribal campaigner to be a racist bigot. We expect them to advocate wars, we expect them to refer to people’s skin and colour.

Cohen says about himself. “My experience of left-wing anti-Semitism has changed the way I think and made me, if you like, more Jewish.” While a Rabbi may be inclined to take advantage of this revelation and rush to Cohen’s dwelling, equipped with the necessary gear to kosherly modify the tip of his manhood, I may admit that I just happen to be slightly confused. What is it that Cohen refers to when claiming to be ‘more Jewish’? Is Jewishness a matter of degree or quantity? As far as I understand it, Jewishness, as opposed to Judaism (religion) and the Jews (the people), is a matter of ideology. In fact no one can really be more Jewish than Cohen. He possesses all the elementary ideological ingredients, he differentiates the value of people’s ideas based on the colour of their skin. He promotes war as a valid resolution to international problems. Yes, he may not be religious at this stage of his article. But surely most of those who follow the Jewish ideology have nothing to do with Judaism either.

Cohen is convinced that he may be able to fool some people with a minor lefty cliché statement against Israeli settlements. “Although I want to see every Israeli settlement on the West Bank dismantled, it was clear to me that when Hamas fired thousands of rockets into Israel it had declared war and had to accept the consequences.” Cohen doesn’t realise that after Gaza, we do not differentiate between the West Bank and Tel Aviv. Israel is basically a big occupied territory that is stretched over historic Palestine. The Jews-only state will have to go. It simply doesn’t have the right to exist. If it ever had a justification, it lost it a long time ago. With 94% of Israeli Jews supporting the massacre in Gaza, with Cohen advocating in favour of the Iraq war and justifying the slaughter of civilians in Gaza we are left with no other option but to expect some growing resentment towards Israel, the Jewish state and Jewish interests in general.

Interestingly enough, Cohen is already preparing his Jewish readers for the coming inevitable pogrom. “If a synagogue is attacked,” says Cohen, “I guarantee that within minutes the airwaves will be filled with insinuating voices insisting that the ‘root cause’ of the crime was a rational anger at the behaviour of Israel or the Jewish diaspora.” Cohen is probably right. Without justifying any violent act whatsoever, the reasoning behind resentment towards Israel and Jews is rational. In fact, Cohen is himself a ‘root cause’ for such hatred. Cohen, who supported the illegal war in Iraq, a war that lead to the death of 1.3 million innocent civilians and millions of refugees, should have long stood up a time ago and said: I was wrong, I was a fool, I regret it all. Cohen failed to do so.

Instead, he runs back to the Ghetto and succumbs to the most radical form of Jewish tribal ideology. In favour of Cohen it must be said that at least the man is genuine and authentic. Tony Blair and George Bush do not have a community that would embrace them that warmly. Except of course the Jewish State.

* Cohen concludes his JC article stating his Judeo-centric hostile mantra. “I believe that I can see some being pushed into taking the same journey I have taken and finding their views towards Judaism and Israel softening as they realise that antisemitism helps drive the fascistic ideologies of the 21st century just as it drove the Nazism of the 20th.”

In his final paragraph, for the alleged secularist atheist and egalitarian who’s reverted to Judaism, it is not about being an ethnic Jew anymore, it is not about being a cultural Jew anymore, it is not even about being a secular tribal Jew. It is now all about ‘Judaism’. Cohen expects people out there to find their “views towards Judaism”. Seemingly, Cohen who starts his JC journey by taking issues with identity, sums it up preaching religion. Quite a substantial leap I would say. The Observer columnist who claimed to be an atheist secularist ends up taking the role of a radical messianic Rabbi admitting a homogenous bond between Jews, Judaism and Israel.

Such a declaration is actually symptomatic to the most radical Zionist within the far right Messianic school. It is no wonder Cohen is writing for the JC. Yet one may wonder how come such a Judeo-centric fundamentalist cleric still holds a regular column in the Observer. It must be that British freedom of speech again that is apparently reserved for self-loving Jews, and to them alone.

* Tel Aviv based Dan David Foundation just awarded Blair with one million dollars, an award for his “leadership on the world stage”. Indeed, not many world leaders were as committed to killing so many innocent civilians in the name of democracy. Not many world leaders agreed to recruit their armies for fighting Israeli wars.

Tagged as: anti-Semitism, Gilad Atzmon, Islamophobia, Israel, Jewish Identity Politics, Nick Cohen, Zionism

Gilad Atzmon is a jazz musician, composer, producer and writer.
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