Marxist, Atheist, Jewish, Zionist and Prime Minister (wannabe)

Friday, March 8, 2013 at 9:30AM

Gilad Atzmon

Haaretz reported today that "Britain's next Jewish prime minister says he is a Zionist"‌ how surprising. His brother David, was listed by an Israeli official website as an "sraeli propaganda (Hasbarah) Author". Reading Haaretz today confirms that 'Red Ed' changed his mind, he is now 'Blue & White'. a genuine Zionist Jew. I guess that the British Labour is, once again, an Israeli occupied territory.

Read for yourself:
http://www.haaretz.com

Labor Party leader Ed Miliband establishes his pro-Israel credentials like never before by stating that while he doesn't always agree with its government, he is 'intolerant of those who question Israel's right to exist.'

The leader of the British Labor Party and the man who may well become the United Kingdom's first Jewish prime minister put a lot of minds at rest on Thursday when he said that he is a Zionist.
Ed Miliband may be the son of Jewish Holocaust refugees but he has never been considered a son of the local Jewish community. His Marxist parents gave him a resolutely atheist upbringing, and he never went through any of the typical rites of passage of British Jews; he didn't even have a Bar-Mitzvah. His leftist credential and a couple of critical remarks on Israel's operations in Gaza have rendered him suspect until recently. In recent months, however, he has been signaling a greater willingness to engage with the Jewish community – this included a personal essay on his Jewishness in the New Statesman weekly, mentions of his religious roots in his main policy speech at Labor's annual conference, closed meetings with community leaders and on Thursday night, the first open dialogue between the leader of the opposition and a Jewish audience.

The event in central London, organized by the Board of Deputies of British Jews and the London Jewish News, was essentially a friendly affair – many of the questioners identified themselves as longtime party members and they rarely posed him tough queries, also allowing him ample time to expand on his domestic policies, areas where he sounded more confident than the future of the Middle East.

Miliband began by acknowledging that religion didn't play much of a role in his family home but immediately established a rapport with the audience, telling them of his parents, especially the experiences of his mother during the Holocaust. That allowed him also to characterize his parents' politics as "Tikkun Olam" (repairing the world). He established his personal connection to Israel through a childhood visit to his grandmother's home in Tel Aviv, and elicited the first applause of the evening by saying "I have huge respect, admiration and indeed a debt, not just to Britain, but to Israel for the sanctuary it gave my grandmother – Israel gave her comfort."

Miliband then proceeded to establish his pro-Israel credentials in a way he never has in public. He said that while he does "not always agree" with its government, he is "intolerant of those who question Israel's right to exist. We should have no tolerance for those who go down that road." He made it clear that unlike many of the trade unions that backed his bid to become Labor's leader, he totally opposes boycotts of Israel. The moment that made it for the audience was when he emphatically answered the question of whether he is a Zionist by saying: "Yes, I consider myself a supporter of Israel." Nevertheless, some in the audience lamented that he was careful not to voice the sound bite – I am a Zionist.

After that the room was his, but Miliband continued ticking all the necessary boxes, making it clear that he would support the community's right to continue its customs, including of Milah (male circumcision) and Shechita (ritual slaughter). He repeatedly affirmed Israel's right to exist securely and his commitment to the two-state solution, and despite his insistence that the dual policy of sanctions and negotiations is the best way to confront Iran, he said twice that "we should not take any option off the table."

The past two leaders of the Labor Party, former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, were both instinctive supporters of Israel and were considered totally dependable allies both in Jerusalem and in the Jewish enclaves of Golders Green and Hendon long before they made their move to Downing Street.

It was the Labor's first ever Jewish leader who caused much more concern. Miliband went a long way last night in allaying those concerns and when the Israeli embassy, which didn't send a representative to the forum, read through the transcripts, they will also heave a sigh of relief.

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Ed Milliband And His Phony Populism

Friday, June 22, 2012 at 9:07PM
By Gilad Atzmon

In a desperate attempt to capture the imagination of patriots and nationalists, Labour leader Ed Miliband today promised new measures to prevent the British people being "locked out" of their own jobs by foreign workers. But what jobs is he talking about? Everyone knows there are no jobs. For forty years now, all British governments have gone out of their way to dismantle any manufacturing in this country and with devastating results - British industry and engineering belong to the past and the British governments have done little to change the situation.

Desperate to maintain his political relevance, Milliband distances himself from his predecessor, Gordon Brown?s, rhetoric. He (Brown) went on record saying: "I am not going to promise 'British jobs for British workers'?. Here, I must mention, that the reference to ?British workers?, used so often by Labour politicians, is obviously and completely out of date. Our elected politicians care nothing for the ?worker?. They are far more interested in transforming those who used to be workers, into consumers.

In fact, all Western governments are there to regulate consumption and are therefore, openly and completely submissive to big monopolies and global interests. Accordingly the rest of us, immigrant or a native, have but one simple role in life: to buy, or more accurately, to spend money we don?t have.

?Immigration? is obviously another spin. The real problem in Britain and in the West in general is pretty obvious. We are paying a heavy price indeed for the fatal collapse of manufacturing. We hardly produce anything and, as time passes, lose any chance to ever produce anything again.

So Miliband diverts our attention from the real issues. He blames Brown for being ?disconnected from the concerns of working people." Now, I wonder, what could Ed Milliband, that political toddler, possibly know about ?working people? or for that matter, work in general? Did Ed Milliband ever spend one day of his life in a factory or farm? Did Ed Milliband ever produce anything except empty rhetoric?

Milliband picks on immigration because he is, quite simply, a banal populist. He longs to appeal to some imaginary British national collective. At first he is apologetic: "Why didn't we listen more?? he says as if he, Ed Milliband, could ever manage to listen. Then, he ?empathises? with the weak: ?We lost sight of who was benefiting from that growth - and the people who were being squeezed. And, to those who lost out.? As the son of an immigrant Jewish cosmopolitan socialist, I would expect nothing less of Milliband than to transcend himself beyond any such fake, righteous British tribalism. If Ed Milliband really cared about the ?squeezed? then he would be perhaps a universalist and care about all those who fall behind - both indigenous Britons and immigrants.

Ed Milliband speaks about ?immigration? today because to him, the very concept of production and manufacturing is alien. It is so much easier for his lame mind to appeal to the lowest form of British xenophobic feelings. But the truth is, as ever, quite simple: if Britain wants to save herself and to stand again on her own two feet, she must flee the service economy and pursue real production that would imbue the presently archaic notion of ?British worker?, with a new and vibrant meaning.
The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics, phony socialism and more..

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Ed, David and Glenn

Tuesday, May 29, 2012 at 3:30PM Gilad Atzmon

By Gilad Atzmon

http://www.deliberation.info/

A few days ago, in a New Statesman special Jewish edition article, Labour leader Ed Miliband explored his Jewish heritage.

As expected, Ed Miliband confessed that his father, the Marxist historian Ralph Miliband, and his mother, Marion, “raised him to appreciate various aspects of his Jewish heritage. “

But what is Jewish heritage for Ed Miliband, is it the Torah, the Ten Commandment or any particular ethical universal teaching? Not at all, Ed is not a religious Jew and is actually innocent enough to admit that his “relationship with Jewishness is complex.” In fact, it amounts to a combination of suffering mixed with Woody Allen and matzo balls.

On the one hand we follow the standard trail of Jewish anguish and trauma.

“So how can my Jewishness not be part of me?” he says. “It defines how my family was treated. It explains why we came to Britain. I would not be leader of the Labour Party without the trauma of my family history.”

But for Ed suffering is just part of the story, Ed’s Jewishness has some cultural elements in it too:

“My mum got me into Woody Allen; my dad taught me Yiddish phrases, and my grandmother cooked me chicken soup and matzo balls.”

Profound indeed.

Young Miliband is also deeply immersed in Jewish ‘rituals’. Like Zoey, Dictator Aladdeen’s Wife in Sacha Borat Cohen’s new Hasbara film, Justine, Ed’s new wife, also “broke a glass” under their wedding canopy.

I actually think that we have too many Milibands in British politics. It was revealed that David Miliband was an Israeli Hasbara author though Ed does seem to be slightly more careful than David, at least for the time being. However, I must admit that I don’t oppose all Milibands. I actually respect the eldest Miliband brother, trombone player Glenn Miliband. And you know what? I am In The Mood for a Moonlight Serenade.

 

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Gilad Atzmon: The Lowest of the Low

Thursday Sep 02 2010

Millions of ballot papers have been sent out yesterday to those eligible to vote in the Labour leadership election.

Symbolically enough, this happened the day Tony Blair, the British PM who launched the criminal war in Iraq, published his controversial memoirs.

I am not holding my breath for the Labour party to make the right decision. Clearly, the same party failed to curtail Blair’s militant enthusiasm, even when it was plainly clear that the argument for the Iraq war was grounded in a dodgy dossier.

Considering the scale of the atrocities we are all complicit in thanks to the Labour government, it is my duty to remind the Labour party members who their leading candidate is, what he stands for and what interests he may serve.

Labour Party members should consider the role allegedly played by its leaders and leading candidate David Miliband in what has come to be known as "extraordinary rendition": knowingly allowing terror suspects to be transferred through British airspace, in order for them to be tortured in third countries and to allow British agents to gather information from suspects treated in this way. Miliband also attempted to block public disclosure of intelligence information related to torture allegations in the case of former Guantanamo detainee Binyam Mohamed.

Interestingly enough, the same David Miliband has been preaching to us on ethics recently, here is what he told the Independent on Sunday.

"The alternative to an ethical foreign policy is an unethical foreign policy, and I don't believe in an unethical foreign policy.”

I guess that Labour members better ask themselves what is so ‘ethical’ about concealing Britain's involvement in torture.

The Labour party members also should remember that their leading candidate David Miliband announced his intention to change the law on ‘universal jurisdiction’. According to the Jewish Chronicle he was “pushing hard within Whitehall” for such a cause. In case someone has managed to forget, Miliband put much effort into the subject so that Israeli suspected war criminals could avoid justice once landing in this kingdom.
Ironically in the Independent Miliband claimed to know what ‘British values’ are, yet his actions against universal jurisdiction proves the opposite. However, is apparent that David Miliband certainly knows what Israeli interests are. He has been promoting these interests in our midst for quite a while.

David Miliband was, until recently, listd on an Israeli Propaganda site as an ‘Israeli Hasbara (Propaganda) Author’ (what ever that means). Interestingly enough, The Israeli Hasbara site that listed him disappeared on the 5^th of May 2010, a day before the British election, when it was clear that Gordon Brown’s political career was cast to history. From then on it was obvious that David Miliband would offer himself as a candidate for the Labour leadership. Is it a coincidence? I honestly do not know the answer and I also do not have the means to check.

Miliband might have been happy to discover that the Israeli Propaganda site ceased to exist. However, he may not be as happy to find out that some of us have saved a PDF image of the site content. I believe that every Labour party member should look at the list of Israeli Propaganda Authors and find their party’s favorite candidate. Every Labour party member should wonder what a Labour leadership candidate is doing on such a list.

To upload the PDF file that David Milband would probably prefer you don't see, cick here.
I urge Labour party members to circulate this document.

Like Tony Blair, David Miliband supports moral interventionism, as if killing 1.5 million Iraqis in the name of democracy is not enough. In 2008 Miliband maintained that spreading democracy should be a “...great progressive project; (and) the means need to combine both soft and hard power.”

I wonder what is so ‘progressive’ about pushing tribal and reactionary interests in Whitehall? What is so advanced in concealing torture? Is torture ‘soft’ or ‘hard’ power? What is so ethical in attempting to amend Britain Universal Jurisdiction? What is Moral about killing in the name of democracy? One may wonder how much torture can David Miliband take before he gives up on torturing others? Unlike Shaker Aamer, the Brit who is still incarcerated in Guantánamo Bay, Milliband tells us that the Labour party ‘has been punished enough.’

I hope that the Labour party rids itself of David Miliband and the kind of ideology he promotes. This party is already liable for enough death and carnage. This party made us all complicit in a colossal war crime. The Labour party better depart quickly from its moral interventionism and remind itself what labour ideology is all about.

Flying the flag, faking the news

NewStatesman

John Pilger

Published 01 September 2010

Loud noises from Washington about a US pull-out from Iraq are a poor disguise for America’s determination to keep waging war. And the same sort of spin is at work here in Britain

Edward Bernays, the American nephew of Sigmund Freud, is said to have invented modern propaganda. During the First World War, he was one of a group of influential liberals who mounted a secret government campaign to persuade reluctant Americans to send an army to the bloodbath in Europe. In his book Propaganda, published in 1928, Bernays wrote that the "intelligent manipulation of the organised habits and opinions of the masses is an important element in democratic society", and that the manipulators "constitute an invisible government which is the true ruling power in our country". Instead of propaganda, he coined the euphemism "public relations".

The American tobacco industry hired Bernays to convince women that they should smoke in public. By associating smoking with women's

liberation, he made cigarettes "torches of freedom". In 1954, he conjured a communist menace in Guatemala as an excuse for overthrowing the democratically elected government, whose social reforms were threatening the United Fruit Company's monopoly of the banana trade. He called it a "liberation".
Bernays was no rabid right-winger. He was an elitist liberal who believed that "engineering public consent" was for the greater good. This could be achieved by the creation of "false realities" which then became "news events". Here are examples of how it is done these days.

False reality The last US combat troops have left Iraq "as promised, on schedule", according to President Barack Obama. The TV news has been filled with cinematic images of the "last US soldiers", silhouetted against the dawn light, crossing the border into Kuwait.

Fact They have not left. At least 50,000 troops will continue to operate from 94 bases. American air assaults are unchanged, as are special forces' assassinations. The number of "military contractors" is 100,000 and rising. Most Iraqi oil is now under direct foreign control.

False reality BBC presenters have described the departing US troops as a "sort of victorious army" that has achieved "a remarkable change in [Iraq's] fortunes". Their commander, General David Petraeus, is a "celebrity", "charming", "savvy" and "remarkable".

Fact There is no victory of any sort. There is a catastrophic disaster, and attempts to present it as otherwise are a model of Bernays's campaign to "rebrand" the slaughter of the First World War as "necessary" and "noble". In 1980, Ronald Reagan, running for president, rebranded the invasion of Vietnam, in which up to three million people died, as a "noble cause", a theme taken up enthusiastically by Hollywood. Today's Iraq war movies have a similar purging theme: the invader as both idealist and victim.

False reality It is not known how many Iraqis have died. They are "countless", or maybe "in the tens of thousands".

Fact As a direct consequence of the Anglo-American-led invasion, a million Iraqis have died. This figure, from Opinion Research Business, follows peer-reviewed research by Johns Hopkins University in Washington, DC, whose methods were secretly affirmed as "best practice" and "robust" by the Blair government's chief scientific adviser. This is rarely reported or presented to "charming" American generals. Neither is the dispossession of four million Iraqis, the malnourishment of most Iraqi children, the epidemic of mental illness, or the poisoning of the environment.

False reality The British economy has a deficit of billions which must be reduced with cuts in public services and regressive taxation, in a spirit of "we're all in this together".

Fact We are not in this together. What is remarkable about this PR triumph is that only 18 months ago, the diametric opposite filled TV screens and front pages. Then, in a state of shock, truth became unavoidable, if briefly. The Wall Street and City of London trough was on full view for the first time, along with the venality of once-celebrated snouts. Billions in public money went to inept and crooked organisations known as banks, which were spared debt liability by their Labour government sponsors.

Within a year, record profits and personal bonuses were posted and the "black hole" was no longer the responsibility of the banks, whose debt is to be paid by those not in any way responsible: the public. The received media wisdom of this "necessity" is now a chorus, from the BBC to the Sun. A masterstroke, Bernays would surely say.

False reality Ed Miliband offers a "genuine alternative" as leader of the Labour Party.

Fact Miliband, like his brother and almost all those standing for the Labour leadership, is immersed in the effluent of New Labour. As a New Labour MP and minister, he did not refuse to serve under Blair or to speak out against Labour's persistent warmongering. He now calls the invasion of Iraq a "profound mistake". Calling it a mistake insults the memory and the dead. It was a crime, of which the evidence is voluminous. He has nothing new to say about the other colonial wars, none of them mistakes. Neither has he demanded basic social justice - that those who caused the recession clear up the mess and that Britain's fabulously rich corporate minority be taxed seriously, starting with Rupert Murdoch.

The good news is that false realities often fail when the public trusts its own critical intelligence. Two classified documents recently released by WikiLeaks express the CIA's concern that the populations of European countries, which oppose their governments' war policies, are not succumbing to the usual propaganda spun through the media.

For the rulers of the world, this is a conundrum, because their unaccountable power rests on the false reality that no popular resistance works. And it does.

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