The British Israel lobby and the so-called ‘anti-Zionist’ groups had campaigned for weeks against holding an anti-Israel panel meeting at the University of Westminster Campus (London, UK). The topic of the debate was ‘Jewishness and Israeli criminality’. The debate, scheduled on May 3 made a huge success.
Israel-born internationally-known British saxophonist and author Gilad Atzmon had put together the panel which included Alan Hart, British author and ME specialist, Karl Sabbagh, British author and TV producer and Sameh Habib, a young founder and editor of the online newspaper The Palestine Telegraph.
I have read and quoted both Gilad Atzmon and Alan Hart. However, I am not familiar with Karl Sabbagh and Sameh Habib. While Gilad Atzmon believes in a single secular-democratic state for both the natives and the foreign Jews with equal rights – Alan Hart bluntly says that Israel has no right to exist. Alan’s views are more ‘extreme’ than Iran’s President Dr. Ahmadinejad, who had said that ‘Zionist regime has no right to exist’.
“The Zionist state which came into being as a consequence of Zionism terrorism and ethnic cleansing had no right to exist and more to the point could have no right to exist unless it was recognized and legitimized by those who were dispossessed of their land and their rights during the creation of the Zionist state. In international law, only the Palestinian could give Israel the legitimacy it craved….”, Alan Hart wrote to David Cameron, then Leader of Conservative Party, in August 2007.
Last year in an interview, Gilad Atzmon told Theo Panayides: “I don’t write about politics. I write about ethics. I write about identity. I write a lot about the Jewish Question – because I was born in the Jew-land, and my whole process in maturing into an adult was involved in the realization that my people are living on stolen land.”
Alex Seymour explained Jewishness: “If you ask a Muslim what he is he will explain his relationship to the Koran and his beliefs; if you ask a Christian what he is, he will talk about God and Jesus etc; if you ask an orthodox Jew what he is he will explain the concept of the 613 mitsvot and his belief in the Torah. Ask a secular Jew what he is however and he will define himself by what he is not; he is not Christian, not Muslim, not religious, not anything; basically his identity is based on something like the traditional Jewish chicken soup”.
Sabbagh prefers historical facts to rhetoric. “You cannot argue with people from a position of logic when they come from a position of no logic.” For an example he describes the old lie that the Nakba was in fact the time, in 1948, when a small group of brave Jewish Holocaust survivors, fought against the might, cruelty and brutality of the surrounding Arabs. In fact, Sabbagh who specialises in this era of history reports that when the British mandate ended in ignominy; “Ninety thousand well-armed, highly trained Jews, went against, twenty thousand, poorly motivated, badly trained ill equipped Arabs! You tell them this (British Jews who support Israel) and they say it didn’t happen”.
Alex Seymour’s report of the event entitled ‘Wandering Who?’ can be read here.
Gilad Atzmon’s article entitled ‘Britain’s Jewish anti-Zionist pretenders lose another battle’ can be read here.
Lauren Booth’s report of the event entitled ‘Jewishness’, Scare Tactics and a Sense of Humour’ can be read here.
Uprooted Palestinian
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