The ADL, Gilad Atzmon & Free Speech

by Jonathon Blakeley
Saturday, March 10th, 2012
 Gilad Atzmon, well known Jazz activist has been touring the US recently promoting his Book – ‘the Wandering Who’ and talking about Israel and Palestine. Yet some people have determined that Gilad Atzmon is not kosher for the general public, and he is not fit to talk, or be even listened to. The ADL (Atzmon Defamation League) have put their names to an anti-Atzmon list, they claim he is variously a racist, anti-semite, neo-nazi and so on.

On the other hand, many others claim quite the opposite that he is a peace activist but just an out-spoken critic of Israel. So the question is this – is the list below a list of people expressing their moral outrage valid or is it a list of people who suppress free speech?

On a further thought, the list affirms, in fact, Atzmon’s argument regarding the continuum between hard core Zionist JAZZ (Jewish Anti-Zionist Zionists) and some elements within the left. However we believe that the list is far from being completed. We would also like to see Alan Dershowitz , Abe Foxman, CST , BOD, David Aaronivitch and other prominent names and organisations who fight Atzmon in vein.

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As political activists committed to resisting colonialism and imperialism—in North America and around the world—we recognize that there can be different interpretations of history, and we welcome exploring these. Without wishing to debate the question of whether far-right and racist ideologues should be censored, or how, we see no reason for progressive people to organize events to promote their works
In our struggle against Zionism, racism, and all forms of colonialism and imperialism, there is no place for antisemitism or the vilification of Jews, Palestinians or any people based on their religions, cultures, nationalities, ethnicity or history. At this historic junction—when the need to struggle for the liberation of Palestine is more vital than ever and the fault lines of capitalist empire are becoming more widely exposed—no anti-oppressive revolution can be built with ultra-right allies or upon foundations friendly to creeping fascism.

• As’ad AbuKhalil, The Angry Arab News Service, Turlock, CA
• Suha Afyouni, solidarity activist, Beirut, LEBANON
• Max Ajl, essayist, rabble-rouser, proprietor of Jewbonics blog site, Ithaca, NY
• Haifaa Al-Moammar, activist, stay-at-home mom, and marathon walker, Los Angeles, CA
• Electa Arenal, professor emerita, CUNY Graduate Center/Hispanic & Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Women’s Studies, New York, NY
• Gabriel Ash, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Geneva, SWITZERLAND
• Joel Beinin, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
• Dan Berger, Wild Poppies Collective, Philadelphia, PA
• Chip Berlet, Boston, MA
• Nazila Bettache, activist, Montréal, CANADA
• Sam Bick, Tadamon!, Immigrant Workers Center, Montréal, Québec
• Max Blumenthal, author; writing fellow, The Nation, New York, NY
• Lenni Brenner, author, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, New York, NY
• Café Intifada
• Paola Canarutto, Rete-ECO (Italian Network of Jews against the Occupation), Torino, ITALY
• Paulette d’Auteuil, National Jericho Movement, Albuquerque, NM
• Susie Day, Monthly Review, New York, NY
• Ali Hocine Dimerdji, PhD student at The University of Nottingham, in Nottingham, UK
• Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, professor emerita, California State University
• Todd Eaton, Park Slope Food Coop Members for Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions, Brooklyn, NY
• Mark Elf, Jews sans frontieres
• S. EtShalom, registered nurse, Philadelphia, PA

• Benjamin Evans, solidarity activist, Chicago, IL
• First of May Anarchist Alliance
• Sherna Berger Gluck, professor emerita, California State University/Israel Divestment Campaign, CA
• Neta Golan, International Solidarity Movement
• Tony Greenstein, Secretary Brighton Unemployed Centre/UNISON, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, Brighton, UK
• Andrew Griggs, Café Intifada, Los Angeles, CA
• Jenny Grossbard, artist, designer, writer and fighter, New York, NY
• Freda Guttman, activist, Montréal, CANADA
• Adam Hanieh, lecturer, Department of Development Studies/SOAS, University of London, UK
• Swaneagle Harijan, anti-racism, social justice activism, Seattle, WA
• Sarah Hawas, researcher and solidarity activist, Cairo, EGYPT• Stanley Heller, “The Struggle” Video News, moderator “Jews Who Speak Out”
• Mostafa Henaway, Tadamon!, Immigrant Workers Center, Montréal, CANADA
• Elise Hendrick, Meldungen aus dem Exil/Noticias de una multipátrida, Cincinnati, OH
• Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer, New York, NY
• Ken Hiebert, activist, Ladysmith, CANADA
• Elizabeth Horowitz, solidarity activist, New York, NY
• Adam Hudson, writer/blogger, San Francisco Bay Area, CA
• Dhruv Jain, Researcher at the Jan Van Eyck Academie and PhD student at York University, Paris, FRANCE
• Tom Keefer, an editor of the journal Upping the Anti, Toronto, CANADA
• Karl Kersplebedeb, Left Wing Books, Montréal, CANADA
• Anne Key, Penrith, Cumbria, UK
• Mark Klein, activist, Toronto, CANADA
• Bill Koehnlein, Brecht Forum, New York, NY
• L.A. Palestine Labor Solidarity Committee, Los Angeles, CA
• Mark Lance, Georgetown University/Institute for Anarchist Studies, Washington, DC
• David Landy, author, Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights: Diaspora Jewish Opposition to Israel, Dublin, IRELAND
• Bob Lederer, Pacifica/WBAI producer, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, New York, NY
• Matthew Lyons, Three Way Fight, Philadelphia, PA
• Karen MacRae, solidarity activist, Toronto, CANADA
• Heba Farouk Mahfouz, student activist, blogger, Cairo, EGYPT• Marvin Mandell and Betty Reid Mandell, co-editors, New Politics, West Roxbury, MA
• Ruth Sarah Berman McConnell, retired teacher, DeLand, FL
• Kathleen McLeod, poet, Brisbane, Australia
• Karrie Melendres, Los Angeles, CA
• Matt Meyer, Resistance in Brooklyn, New York, NY
• Amirah Mizrahi, poet and educator, New York, NY
• mesha Monge-Irizarry, co-director of Education Not Incarceration; SF MOOC City commissioner, San Francisco, CA
• Matthew Morgan-Brown, solidarity activist, Ottawa, CANADA
• Michael Novick, People Against Racist Terror/Anti-Racist Action, Los Angeles, CA
• Saffo Papantonopoulou, New School Students for Justice in Palestine, New York, NY
• Susan Pashkoff, Jews Against Zionism, London, UK
• Tom Pessah, UC Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine, Berkeley, CA
• Marie-Claire Picher, Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB), New York, NY
• Sylvia Posadas (Jinjirrie), Kadaitcha, Noosa, AUSTRALIA
• Roland Rance, Jews Against Zionism, London, UK
• Danielle Ratcliff, San Francisco, CA
• Liz Roberts, War Resisters League, New York, NY
• Emma Rosenthal, contributor, Shifting Sands: Jewish Women Confront the Israeli Occupation, Los Angeles, CA
• Penny Rosenwasser, PhD, Oakland, CA
• Suzanne Ross, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, The Riverside Church Prison Ministry, New York, NY
• Gabriel San Roman, Orange County Weekly, Orange County, CA
• Ian Saville, performer and lecturer, London, UK
• Joel Schwartz, CSEA retiree/AFSCME, New York, NY
• Tali Shapiro, Anarchists Against the Wall, Boycott From Within, Tel Aviv, OCCUPIED PALESTINE
• Simona Sharoni, SUNY, author, Gender & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Plattsburgh, NY
• Jaggi Singh, No One Is Illegal-Montreal/Solidarity Across Borders, Montréal, CANADA
• Michael S. Smith, board member, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, NY
• Pierre Stambul, Union juive française pour la paix (French Jewish Union for Peace), Paris, FRANCE
• Muffy Sunde, Los Angeles, CA
• Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin, Bronx, NY
• Tadamon! (http://www.tadamon.ca/), Montréal, CANADA
• Ian Trujillo, atheist, Los Angeles, CA
• Gabriella Turek, PhD, Auckland, NEW ZEALAND
• Henry Walton, SEIU, retired, Los Angeles, CA
• Bill Weinberg, New Jewish Resistance, New York, NY
• Abraham Weizfeld, author, The End of Zionism and the liberation of the Jewish People, Montreal, CANADA
• Ben White, author, Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination, and Democracy, Cambridge, UK
• Laura Whitehorn, former political prisoner, NYS Task Force on Political Prisoners, New York, NY
• Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, founding member, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG)
• Asa Winstanley, journalist for Electronic Intifada, Al-Akhbar and others, London, UK
• Ziyaad Yousef, solidarity activist
* List in formation
* Organizations listed for identification purposes only
* Contact us at: antiracistantizionist@yahoo.com
Postscript:
River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian  
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