Before They Preach to us about White Privilege

 AUGUST 13, 2021 

BY GILAD ATZMON

Stanford University study reveals: “Some 80% of (Jews of colour) respondents said that they had ‘experienced discrimination’ within Jewish settings, including synagogues, congregations, and Jewish spiritual communities.”

By Gilad Atzmon

 People who are familiar with the history of Zionism are aware of the rich history of White Jewish (AKA Ashkenazi) abuse towards Arab and Sephardi Jews in Israel. In the years after the creation of the Israeli state hundreds of babies went missing. Their parents, mostly Jewish immigrants from Yemen, were told their children had died, but suspicions linger that they were secretly given away to White Jewish childless families. The Israeli government approved earlier this year a NIS162 million settlement with the families of these ‘vanishing’ children.

Volunteering the Israeli population as guinea pigs wasn’t invented by Netanyahu or/and Pfizer. Blood samples drawn from Yemenites Jews in the 1950s were tested to determine whether they had “Negro blood.” According to the Times of Israel “60 hearts were harvested from the bodies of new immigrants from Yemen post-mortem for purposes of medical research, in a project purportedly funded by the US.” Also in the same period, the Jewish state irradiated children who arrived from North Africa and the Middle East en masse in an attempt to fight ringworm. In the years to follow many of these children died from cancer. In 1995 the Israeli government decided to compensate the victims and families of the Ringworm Affair.

In the late 1950-1960s Jewish immigrants from Morocco were sprayed with DDT as soon as their feet touched the ‘promised land.’ For them, this bitter departure was merely an introduction to decades of abuse and humiliation that is still taking place.

It took the Israeli Government more than a few decades to lift its 1977 ban preventing Jews from Ethiopia donating blood.  This late immigration wave of African Jews sent their children to serve in the army and to die for Israel but apparently their blood wasn’t as good as their fellow Israelis.

The Yemenites, Moroccans and Ethiopians have something in common. They are ‘Jews of colour,’ not exactly the most privileged Jews in Israel. Just slightly above the Palestinians and the African non-Jewish immigrants.  Some anti-Zionists may insist that this is exactly what we should expect from a racist criminal State. However, the fate of American Jews of colour isn’t any better, in fact it is far worse.

The Jerusalem Post reported yesterday on a study conducted by researchers at Stanford University that delved into the experiences of American Jews of Color. The new report titled Beyond the Count revealed large and systemic discrimination and scrutinization based on race in the Jewish Society.

The data was gathered at Stanford University by a multi-racial team of researchers, with over 1,118 respondents participating. It revealed that “Some 80% of respondents said that they had ‘experienced discrimination’ within Jewish settings, including synagogues, congregations, and Jewish spiritual communities.”

“Additionally, respondents indicated that they had previously experienced an increased sense of awareness regarding how others perceive them because of either their race or their Jewishness.” Some participants admitted they found it “more difficult for their identities to co-exist in predominantly white Jewish spaces than in Black indigenous people of color spaces.” Furthermore, 44% said they had changed how they dress or speak in white Jewish spaces, and 66% reported feeling “disconnected from their Jewish identities at times.”

I wouldn’t dare to ask Jews or anyone else to morph, to become more tolerant or harmonious, as that is not my task in life. I wouldn’t expect anyone who upholds racist and/or white supremacist views to change their spots. I just expect Jews in general and Jewish institutions (such as the ADL or AIPAC) in particular, to look in the mirror twice before they preach to us about ‘race’ in general or white privilege in particular.  

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The American Left, the Jewish Question and the Repetition Compulsion

JUNE 02, 2021 BY GILAD ATZMON

By Gilad Atzmon 

A few days ago, Ynet (the biggest Israeli media outlet) reported that the American progressive movement has come to acknowledge the problematic role of its Jewish elements. The Israeli outlet revealed that in the eyes of emerging progressive circles within the American left, Jews are perceived as “white oppressors” at the core of America’s social injustice. The Ynet report is based on a recent study made by Dafna Kaufman, an analyst at the Israeli Reut institute.

“The contemporary discourse of the American left divides society into (identitarian) squares: you are either with us or against us – and the Jews are left out.” Ynet sums up Kaufman’s argument. “Although the vast majority of American Jews support the Democratic Party, progressive circles no longer really allow Jews to be part of the struggle for social change, as long as they continue to be pro-Zionist and actively express their Jewishness.”  You may have already noticed that the Israeli outlet doesn’t refer solely to ‘Zionists’ as most Palestinian solidarity campaigners do out of fear of the ‘Jews in their movement.’  The Israeli news outlet refers to ‘Jews,’ ‘Jewishness’ and also to ‘Zionists’ as an integral organic spectrum of Jewish life, culture, identity and politics.   

Ynet stresses that the American Left has developed an intolerance towards Jewish politics and Jewish identitarianism. “The report further indicates that the radical progressive faction contributes to the growing exclusion of Jewish community organizations from the American left by denying Jews the right to complain about their discrimination or anti-Semitism.” Ynet quotes Kaufman’s report, “Jews are being identified as strong white oppressors, and so is the State of Israel.”

Ynet asks, ‘can I be white, Jewish, liberal and Democrat?’ Kaufman answers “Of course you can be, but some of your rights are pretty much revoked. You can be an ally in social struggles, but you can’t be at the center of the issue.” I guess that what Kaufman is telling us here is that you can be a ‘Jew’ and a ‘Lefty’ but your role as controlled opposition might have come to an end.

Ynet stresses that “it is important to remember that Jews have made progress in American society through the establishment, and this is a significant part of the influence of Jews on the United States, yet the progressive movement is very anti-establishment. Therefore, the conclusion is clearly that the Jews are the oppressive white. Of course, the real picture is more complex, but this binary division puts the Jews in certain boxes.”

The above Israeli discourse reminds me of an old Israeli joke:

An Israeli arrives at Heathrow. The immigration officer asks “occupation?”

“No” replies the Israeli, “just visiting.”

In the joke, the Israeli sees himself as an occupier, and also accepts being perceived as one, but most significantly, he is totally at ease with his role as an occupier. The British immigration officer is obviously blind to all of that, as he is engaged in routine questioning. He might even miss the joke. In the American reality as depicted by Ynet’s article, the progressives are awakening to the reality that has been openly inflicted on their movement by some powerful and loud lobbies, well-funded think tanks and pressure groups.  

The Jewish fear of anti-Semitism is exactly that moment of awakening, the tormenting thought that the immigration officer actually understands the joke and even allows himself to laugh loudly. This is exactly what the French psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan meant by  ‘the unconscious is the discourse of the other.’ It is the fear that the other sees you for what you are and even dares to share his/her thoughts about you with everyone else. Accordingly, if Jewish power is the power to silence criticism of Jewish power, then the fear of anti-Semitism is the tormenting thought that this power wanes off: the thought about people starting to call a spade a spade and even worse: leftists sticking to their principles of equality and justice. 

The other day, I asked a progressive member of my family to define history: “we learn about our past mistakes so we don’t repeat them in the future,” he cleverly said.  I corrected him slightly. ‘We learn about our past mistakes so we can understand our future mistakes within context.’  Delving into this complexity from a psychoanalytical perspective brings to light the notion of ‘Repetition Compulsion.’ Repetition Compulsion is often defined as a psychological phenomenon in which a human subject repeats an event or its circumstances over and over again. This entails putting oneself in situations where the event is likely to happen again. The concept of repetition compulsion was first introduced by Freud who pointed at a situation in which “the patient does not remember anything of what he has forgotten and repressed, he acts it out, without, of course, knowing that he is repeating it …”

Yet, the Freudian concept fails to accurately describe the emerging dangerous circumstances as described by the Ynet article. As we know, self-identified Jews are fully aware of and actively identify with Jewish past suffering.   But, for one reason or another, some people do not learn from their past mistakes. They keep repeating the same mistakes and expect different outcomes.

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Israel, Zionism and the Jewish State.

 MAY 20, 2021 BY GILAD ATZMON

In this interview I told Pro-Palestinian activist Trond Ali Linstad about my early life in Israel and the way it shaped my position on Israel, Zionism and Jewishness.

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Israeli Politics and the Metaphysics of the Shtetl

 MARCH 29, 2021 BY GILAD ATZMON

by Gilad Atzmon

The ongoing political stalemate in Israel brings to mind an old recycled Jewish joke that reads as follows:

Q: How many synagogues are needed in a village with one Jew?

A: Two, one to go to and one to boycott!

Self identified Jews, and especially non-religious one, are hardly defined by what they are but mostly by that which they oppose. They are basically defined by means of negation: the list of ideas, thoughts, philosophies and people whom they reject, contest and boycott.

This unique state of being describes accurately the political paralysis in Israel. Roughly two-thirds of Knesset members are hard-core right wingers. They agree with PM Benjamin Netanyahu on pretty much every crucial political matter including the most radical chauvinist interpretations of Jewish nationalism. In a normal civilized democracy this would be enough to form the strongest possible government.  But in Israel they are already preparing for their fifth consecutive election, as they have failed to form a stable government in the last three years.

Like in the old Jewish joke they boycott each other. Netanyahu’s past allies such as Avigdor Lieberman and Gideon Sa’ar, who are actually to the right of Netanyahu, are committed to one goal: stopping the most popular Israeli right-wing politician. They prefer to join Netanyahu’s bitterest enemies in the vanishing Israeli ‘left’ just to make sure that Netanyahu finally disappears from the political arena. They will use every political maneuver to topple the man who, more than anyone else, transformed Israel into a right-wing regional superpower. Not many can deny that it is Netanyahu who reduced some world decaying powers into Israel’s obedient remote colonies.

How are we supposed to interpret this animosity within Israeli politics? How is it possible that right-wingers are determined to destroy their political twins? The genius philosopher Otto Weininger observed in his book Sex and Character that what we hate in others is that which we despise in ourselves.  According to Weininger, this is why the most dedicated homophobes are often latent gays themselves. Similarly, according to Weininger, the most devoted Jews-haters are themselves Jews. 

It was Otto Weininger’s brilliant observation that helped me grasp that it was me whom I hate the most. It was Weininger who helped me realize that the most profound study of Jewish ID politics may be achieved by means of self-reflection. It was Weininger who explained why it is that the Jews who contributed to humanity the most (such as Jesus, Spinoza and Weininger himself) were often described by fellow Jews as ‘self-haters.’  It is more than likely that those who despise Netanyahu within the Israeli political realm actually hate in Netanyahu that which they despise in themselves. They are all deeply compromised; Netanyahu is just slightly more gifted in being compromised. He harnessed this gift into an astonishing political career.  

Netanyahu, in the most peculiar way, has brought to light everything the state has tried to conceal and suppress. It is Netanyahu that transformed Israel into a ‘Jewish State,’ understanding already in the 1990s that it is actually ‘Jewishness’ that unites Israeli Jews, as opposed to an ‘Israeliness’ that means less and less as time goes by. It was this realization that created that most resilient bond between Netanyahu and the Israeli orthodox parties. But Netanyahu is an elastic political character; when he realized that a coalition of ‘the Jews’ is not enough to win him the election he successfully bonded with the Islamic Party (Ra’am).

In a very short time ahead of the last election, Netanyahu managed to break the Israeli-Arab’s rising political power, with Ra’am separating from the United Arab List.  If Netanyahu manages to form a government at this stage, it is almost certain that he will do this with the support of the Islamic Party. Some Jewish nationalist parties on the far right of Bibi’s ‘potential’ coalition have declared that governing with the Islamist party is unimaginable. Yet the Jewish orthodox party Shas announced that the possibility of uniting with Ra’am isn’t at all a remote option. Again we see a repetition of the synagogue joke above. The Jewish Orthodox prefer to sit with pious Muslims rather than with Jewish LGBTQ enthusiasts of the pseudo-Left type.  

The Israeli Left is obviously made of the exact same material as their orthodox twins.  The so-called ‘Left’ party Meretz already signaled that it is willing to sit in a coalition with the ultra-right Sa’ar and Bennett just to make sure that Netanyahu is ousted. They will join one Synagogue just to boycott the other.

One may wonder at this stage whether this absurd theater is a manifestation of some tribal irrational behavior. I don’t believe it is. The entire Israeli political establishment benefits from the current political chaos. Netanyahu knows that his lawyers will manage to postpone his trial indefinitely as long as Israel is heading towards elections. His Likud Party members also know that without Netanyahu at the helm, their party would evaporate into dust.

Netanyahu’s enemies in the Right know that the public do not believe in them or their abilities, and with good reason. Centrist parties are also a vanishing political power. The disappearance of Netanyahu and the rise of a wall-to-wall right-wing coalition is a death sentence for them. The Israeli Left doesn’t even deserve our attention as it is nonexistent by now and what is left out of it is treacherous to every recognized left value. Israel’s Left is more concerned with Identitarian matters and LGBTQ fights than anything that is remotely working class-related, labour and social oriented or concerned with Israeli-Arab reconciliation.

The truth of the matter is that everybody around Netanyahu expected him to win this election and form a coalition. The image of ‘success’ in the ‘fight against Covid’ was orchestrated by Netanyahu in the most profound manner and even this didn’t translate into a victory. The truth of the matter is that for Netanyahu and the rest of the Israeli political world, the continuing paralysis is a survival strategy.  

This detachment between the masses and their oligarchs is not new to the Jewish universe. This is exactly how the Shtetl, the Diaspora Jewish town, was run. In the Shtetl, the rich and the oligarchs married their daughters to the young rabbinical protégés just to form a very successful bond between wealth and authority. Consequently, the history of the Jewish Ghetto is a story of a great divided society of a cognitive and social partition between the people and the elite, between the ‘Rothschilds,’ so to say, and the rest: “hewers of wood and drawers of water.”

Israel was born to amend the Jewish fate and correct the Jewish Diaspora’s destiny. It was made into a reality by left-leaning Zionist ideologists and agitators who vowed to equalize Jewish society, to make Jews ‘people like all others.’ They tried to defy capitalism with labour, agriculture and new ethics. But the reality of the Jewish State proves the complete opposite. In just a few decades Israel has morphed into the worst shtetl of them all.  It manifests every aspect Zionism vowed to eradicate. It is corrupted, divided and run by an aloof society that cares for itself and itself alone. 

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‘Ordinary’ Israelis Don’t Perceive Themselves as Ordinary People

By Rima Najjar

Global Research, June 28, 2020

On reading the enduring horrific daily news coming out of Palestine/Israel relating to the ongoing Jewish-state Nakba, I invariably feel a strong desire to discuss what is often the elephant in the room. It’s an issue constantly on the minds of Israelis and Palestinians alike, while at the same time being difficult to discuss frankly and directly in polite society.

The issue is Jewish supremacy as it manifests itself in the Zionist settler-colonial state of Israel and beyond. (See my blog post, What is Jewish supremacy and how is it different from White supremacy?). I say “beyond”, because there is a strong existing connection to Israel by ‘ordinary’ Jews outside of Israel/Palestine, whose Jewish communities, in Europe and America, feed Israel. Even at a mature age they go there, either to visit or to stay (which is a support and confirmation for the state), but more often to serve in the military which is the most militant of brainwashing in Jewish supremacy.

Most activists skirt the issue of Jewish supremacy and some deny it outright in a way they would not dream of doing with White supremacy. The only safe place to discuss the issue of Jewish supremacy, it sometimes appears, is within the confines of Mondoweiss.

But even there, we are more likely to read forceful critiques debunking the Zionist idea of a ‘Jewish nation’ as sold to the world by the world Zionist movement. A necessary exercise. Nevertheless, I often wonder, what about the concomitant fact of the religious Jewish character of the state as expressed in its Basic Law? What about the self-professed Jewish identity of millions of Jews, in Israel and outside Israel — not to mention Palestinian perceptions of them — as Jews first, and Zionist second?

It therefore seems at times that, in order to liberate Palestine from the Zionist settler-colonial regime, Palestinians must first undertake the impossible task of convincing the world that those who espouse the Zionist settler-colonial regime are less Jewish than Zionist, which of course strips them of their self-identified Jewish identity and is unacceptable to them.

More and more Jews worldwide today are saying “not in our name”, in reference to Israel’s crimes against the Palestinian people. However, they too, don’t have the power to rename Israeli Jews as something else. This brings to mind Israel’s chief rabbi’s statement that “some Jews are more Jewish than others.”

When we talk about Israel, we can discuss apartheid, demographics, settler-colonialism, but we are often silenced when the issue is Jewish supremacy and the Jewish nature of the state — issues that are central to Israeli society as well as to the current and future dynamics of Palestinian-Israeli relations.

If the goal of all the analysis about Israel is to find realistic solutions for an impossible status quo, we ought not to dismiss this very real and troubling issue. It doesn’t make sense to do so.

In a 2015 article published online and titled ‘Palestine‒Israel: Decolonization Now, Peace Later’, Alaa Tartir (researcher at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, Switzerland and a policy advisor at Al-Shabaka) lists a number of basic but fundamental obstacles to any future lasting peace in Israel/Palestine. Among them is the following characterization of Israeli society:

Another dominant observation that I noticed in my small, random and unrepresentative sample is the sense of superiority [among Israeli Jews]. liberal, leftist, fundamentalists, secular, religious and progressive voices, from different generations living in different cities, shared the feature of superiority, which is problematic at the very personal and human level, before it extends to politics. Statements like ‘we are God’s chosen nation’, ‘we don’t care about international law’, ‘we help those poor Palestinians to end the occupation’, ‘we offer Palestinians jobs and they work for us’, ‘Gaza is irrelevant’, ‘I have Palestinian friends but would never trust them’ characterized the discussions. Therefore, unless ‘ordinary’ Israelis perceive themselves as ordinary people and not superior to other nations it is impossible to imagine how a one-state or two-state solution could work.

Tartir goes on to say,

Just as the Palestinian people and leadership need to engage in a serious process of reforming their strategies, so do the Israelis. The Israelis need to reconcile internally a number of issues mainly related to the apartheid structures, Jewish supremacy, the Jewish nature of the state, the demographic phobia and the return of the Palestinian refugees from exile.

When we are forced to ignore the perceptions of Israelis and their set of values and beliefs (which are the root manifestation of the Zionist Jewish state in Palestine), when we are unable to confront them candidly, we Palestinians will never be able to achieve justice and equality.

Lena, a former Israeli, writes:

Many Jews, even if not overtly Zionist, share this basic belief that in order to prevent another extermination, they must become DOMINANT and exercise superiority, because “this is how the world works, either you dominate or be exterminated”. Although nobody ever has persecuted or offended these young Jews, they share the view of Goyim as a bunch of people who inherently want to erase Jews from this planet. I honestly do not know how to combat a basic belief that the world is based on domination, that whoever does not dominate will be subjugated or killed, that Jews must forever fight against an inherent existential threat, therefore not letting them dominate is the same as wanting them all dead.

Lena describes the mindset of any group of people who have been conditioned to see the world through us vs. them.

“Confronting the occupier, colonizer or oppressor is the main lesson from the history of liberation movements across the world,” writes Tartir. We must confront Israelis on the issue of Jewish supremacy, as on all others.

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Rima Najjar is a Palestinian whose father’s side of the family comes from the forcibly depopulated village of Lifta on the western outskirts of Jerusalem and whose mother’s side of the family is from Ijzim, south of Haifa. She is an activist, researcher and retired professor of English literature, Al-Quds University, occupied West Bank. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.The original source of this article is Global ResearchCopyright © Rima Najjar, Global Research, 2020

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Adel Samara & Gilad Atzmon discussing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on Quds Day 2020

Millions of people mark International Quds Day to reaffirm call for liberation of Palestine

MAY 23, 2020 BY GILAD ATZMON

We elaborated on the true meaning of the Israeli occupation and the philosophy that drives the Israeli regime. Things went slightly out of hand towards the end of the show when I pointed out that if Israel defines itself as the ‘Jewish State,’ we should also allow ourselves to question what the J words (Jews, Judaism, Jewishness etc.) stand for.

Source: https://urmedium.com/c/presstv/17411

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Why does Netanyahu keep winning?

by Gilad Atzmon

A few days ahead of the previous Israeli election, Haaretz’s lead writer Anshel Pfeffer,  authored a spectacular analysis of Israel’s current political deadlock: Israelis are going to the polls to decide whether they are ‘Jews’ or ‘Israelis.’ 

The first to point out the political  rivalry between ‘the Jew’and ‘the Israeli’ was  Shimon Peres who, after his narrow 1996 defeat,  lamented in a Haaretz interview that “the Israelis lost the election.” When Peres asked who won, he answered, “The Jews won.” Peres, who was born in Poland, saw himself as the ‘Israeli’ candidate, Netanyahu, who was born in Israel and served as a commander in the IDF’s top unit, was in Peres’ eyes, the political choice of the ‘Jews.’  Peres’s observation was spot on.  Politically astute and well imbued in early Zionist thought, Peres identified the emerging Identitarian conflict that was destined to break up Israeli society.

Pfeffer pointed out that in the 1990s Netanyahu was influenced by his American campaign guru, Arthur Finkelstein, to accept that “Jewishness” is the primary unifier for Israelis. This clearly applies to religious Jews but it is also true of those who regard themselves as secular and/or leftist.

While early Zionism can be understood as an uncompromising attempt to divorce the Jews from Jewishness, the ghetto and tribalism to make them “people like all other people,” the Israeli Right/Religious political call is openly driven by a nostalgic adherence to the myths of the shtetl and its walls, segregation and every other aspect of Jewish tribalism, chauvinism included. As bizarre as it may sound, Netanyahu’s transformation of Israel into a Jewish ghetto surrounded by walls and defined by a ‘Jewish National Bill’  makes him, by early Zionist standards, into an ardent anti Zionist.

According to Pfeffer,  when Netanyahu returned to power in 2009 and formed a right-wing/ religious coalition,  “the Jews prevailed” and have done so ever since.

On Monday, Netanyahu won a significant political and personal victory. He earned the votes of the people despite his complicated legal situation and some would even say, because of his legal complications. In this rivalry between the ‘Israeli’ and the ‘Jew,’ the ‘Israeli’ is beaten time after time and the ‘Jew’ consistently prevails.

The ‘Jews,’ as Shimon Peres referred to them,  see in Netanyahu a clear path towards a true spiritual homecoming. Being Likudnics can be realised as a true celebration of who and what they truly are. The ‘Israelis,’ on the other hand, were hoping for Gantz and Kachol Lavan to revive the early Zionist promise to be emancipated from what they are and to finally become people like all other Goyim whether this means nationalist patriots or cosmopolitan pacifist.  

The demography of the ‘Jewish’  camp and its ‘Israeli’ rival is pretty much separated.  Netanyahu is largely supported by Mizrahi Jews and the Israeli Religious sectors (the orthodox and settlers). Gantz and Kachol Lavan have managed to ignite the imagination of the old elites: the Ashkenazi and educated Israelis. The ‘Jews,’ as Peres referred to them, love Bibi because he manipulates the Goyim. He reduced America into an Israeli colony and practically a ‘side in the conflict’ (as opposed to an impartial negotiator).  They are proud of their Bibi and his ability to puppeteer world leaders. He bonds with the Diaspora and the Lobby, he also manages to keep American taxpayers’ dollars flowing. Bibi, as far as they can tell, is the best thing that happened in modern Jewish history.  

The ‘Israelis’ vote Kachol Lavan because they don’t like Netanyahu, they can’t stand the idea that his voters and they are considered ‘one people.’ The ‘Israeli’ shares little with the religious sectors, the settlers and even less with the ‘Jews’ who live in the periphery.   The ‘Israeli’ would like Netanyahu to be locked up behind bars and subliminally hope that his voters will evaporate into thin air.  Kachol Lavan is not a centre party. Its vision of the conflict is actually to the right of the Likud party and its vision of social matters is vague to non-existent.  It is more likely that its leaders, veteran IDF Generals, evoke amongst the ‘Israelis’ nostalgic memories of 1967: an Ashkenazi ruled state, committed to the Zionist mantra of the rejection of Jewishness.

But the ‘Israeli’ was defeated again on Monday.  Nostalgia for the most heroic moment in Israeli history didn’t seem to mature into the necessary revolution and Gantz may have finished his political role. It is likely that Kachol Lavan will disintegrate into its elements in the coming weeks.  

The phantasy of becoming ‘people like all other people’ has collapsed for two obvious reasons: 1. no other people want to be like all other people.  2. The ‘Israeli’ is far more Jewish than he or she is willing to admit.  

Arthur Finkelstein figured it out in the 1990s and Netanyahu continues to follow his campaign mentor, refining his political agenda in line with Judeo-centrism. In the state that calls itself the ‘Jewish State,’ the ‘Israeli’ is gradually becoming  rare, he has been supplanted by ‘the Jew.’

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Addressing the Lies Spread about Gilad

FEBRUARY 06, 2020

 BY GILAD ATZMON

For more than a decade and a half I have been subjected to a relentless and sometimes violent smear campaign. I have been accused of all sorts of ‘hate crimes’ including the totally ludicrous claim that I advocate the ‘burning of synagogues,[ ‘incitements of violence,’ and have routinely been labelled, among other slurs, a ‘notorious anti semite’ and a ‘Holocaust denier.’ Of course, if any of these accusations had merit, I would have spent time behind bars. The truth, as should be embarrassing for the name callers, is that I have never been charged with  hate speech or any other crime. No law enforcement authority anywhere has ever even questioned me about anything I wrote or said. I perform and teach all over the world, including in Germany and Austria, where ‘holocaust denial’ is vigorously prosecuted.

My detractors boast that they intend to ruin my reputation, smear and impoverish me and any others they deem improperly critical of Israel. I should have written this piece long ago but I found it demeaning to deny baseless accusations founded on lies and misquotes. For the record, I am not an anti-Semite, a Holocaust denier, nor a conspiracy theorist. 

My detractors are now terrorizing the extended music community in an attempt to accomplish their insane mission.  I defy the idea that we live in a ‘post truth era.’ Athens, for me, is a core of inspiration and truth seeking and is my life time adventure. Here, in response to the fabrications attributed to me by various Jewish institutions such as the JC and the CAA,   are the actual statements I made. 

Gilad on Burning Synagogues: Rationality vs. Justification

Zionist pressure groups have claimed that I advocated burning  synagogues. The origin of this preposterous assertion is a misquote attributed to me in a Guardian article in 2005. According to the Guardian “Gilad Atzmon, a pro-Palestine advocate, gave a talk to students this month, arguing: ‘I’m not going to say whether it is right or not to burn down a synagogue, I can see that it is a rational act.’”  A week later the Guardian agreed to publish my letter in which I explain and refute this claim. “Your quote …[of me] is inaccurate and taken out of context. By no means did I justify any form of violence against Jews, Jewish interests or any innocent people. In the School of Oriental and African Studies we were debating the question of rationality of anti-semitism. I claimed that since Israel presents itself as the ‘state of the Jewish people’, and bearing in mind the atrocities committed by the Jewish state against the Palestinians, any form of anti-Jewish activity may be seen as political retaliation. This does not make it right.”

At the time, pro Zionist online discussion groups complained that the police failed to charge me with incitement of hatred. The reason for that  is obvious, there was no evidence, I never advocated burning synagogues. I have always opposed any form of violence against Jews or anyone else!  The British authorities understood that I was discussing the ‘discourse of rationality’ (Reasoning) and not the ‘context of rationalisation’ (Justification).  Horrendous war crimes are grossly unethical but may also be rational. The decision to nuke Hiroshima, for instance, was a rational decision although insanely immoral. The same applies to Israel shelling Gaza with white phosphorus. A calculated military decision was made to engage in these vile war crimes.  Examining the rationale for such crimes may be our best hope to prevent them. Rationality and morality are categorically distinct concepts as my actual words made clear.   

Is Gilad a ‘Holocaust Denier?’

I have been accused of being a ‘Holocaust denier’ or a Holocaust revisionist.  This is simply false. I have never denied the Holocaust nor have I written a single revisionist text as I am not an historian of any sort.  I guess no need to  mention once again that my mother’s family suffered enormously in that terrible period. 

I am a philosopher. As such, I argue that this chapter in our past should be treated not as a religion or dogma, but must, like all other past events, be subject to scrutiny and open discussion. If history is the art of narrating the past as we move along, then revising our understanding of  the past is the true meaning of the historical endeavour. In my work I argue that engaging in a discourse of history that is open to revision is at the core of the ethical insight.

It is also crucial to mention that the notion of ‘holocaust religion’ was actually coined by the legendary Israeli philosopher prof. Yeshayahu Leibowitz back in the 1970s. Leibowitz was followed by Adi Ophir, another prominent Israeli philosopher who offered his own criticism of the Holocaust religion in his paper On Sanctifying the Holocaust: An Anti-Theological Treatise.

Did Gilad really say that Hitler was right after all?

My  words as they appear in my 2011 book, “The Wandering Who?”  shows that I said the opposite: even the thought by some that Hitler might have been right is presented as an unacceptable scenario. 

“We, for instance, can envisage an horrific situation in which an Israeli so-called ‘pre-emptive’ nuclear attack on Iran escalates into a disastrous nuclear war, in which tens of millions of people perish. I guess that amongst the survivors of such a nightmare scenario, some may be bold enough to argue that ‘Hitler might have been right after all.’ The above is obviously a fictional scenario, and by no means a wishful one, yet such a vision of a ‘possible’ horrific development should restrain Israeli or Zionist aggression towards Iran.” (The Wandering Who? pg 179)

As you can read, my actual words are diametrically opposed to the manufactured misquotes attributed to me by various Zionist pressure groups. I used the extreme example of a nuclear war to argue that Israel should finally seek peace with its neighbours to deny anyone the thought that Hitler was right after all. 

Did Gilad ask Jews to apologise for the Holocaust?

In 2014, in the light of huge anti Jewish protests in Paris, I wrote a piece titled Holocaust Day – The Time Is Ripe For A Jewish Apology.  In the article I briefly elaborated on historical hatred of Jews and the Zionist promise to prevent the Jewish fate by ‘fixing’ the Jews and making them ‘people like all other people.’ I closed the article with the following paragraph.  “Many Jews around the world are commemorating the Holocaust this week. But if I am correct, maybe the time is ripe for Jewish and Zionist organisations to draw the real and most important lesson from the Holocaust. Instead of constantly blaming the Goyim for inflicting pain on Jews, it is time for Jews to look in the mirror and try to identify what it is in Jews and their culture that evokes so much fury. It may even be possible that some Jews would take this opportunity to apologise to the Gentiles around them for evoking all this anger.”

Nowhere in the article did I suggest Jews apologise for the Holocaust. I accept that my words may be infuriating to those who are contemptuous of conciliatory efforts. I reckon that it would not be such a bad idea for Campaign Against Antisemitism to apologise to Labour members and Jeremy Corbyn whom they smeared mercilessly. The British Chief Rabbi could join them, as might the editors of the three British Jewish papers who literally referred to Corbyn as an ‘existential threat’ and practically equated him with Hitler. Such a peace-seeking approach on the part of some Jewish institutions will help to diffuse the anger these bodies engendered  during the GE 2019 amongst many segments of the British Left.  

Is Gilad a “promoter of classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories?”

According to the ADL, I’m an “outspoken promoter of classic anti-Semitic conspiracy theories and a fierce critic of the State of Israel.” I am indeed a fierce critic of Israel and  I am outspoken. But not only do I not promote ‘antisemitic conspiracy theories,’ as I repeatedly state throughout my entire body of work, ‘there are no Jewish conspiracies. Everything is done in the open’ and in front of our eyes. 

What I do observe is that  we cannot speak about any of that: Jewish power, as I define it, is the power to suppress criticism of Jewish power. The Israel Lobby dominates American foreign policy, it pushes for a conflict with Iran. Similarly, the Congress’ performance of one standing ovation after the other for Netanyahu wasn’t a secret ritual. In Britain, Jewish institutions such as the Jewish papers, the Chief Rabbi and a Jewish charity declared an open war on the opposition party and its leader. None of that was ‘conspiratorial’ or secretive. We are dealing with mainstream news, yet we dare not talk about it let alone criticise it.

 Evoking animosity in others

In 2013 I was interviewed by Swiss writer Alimuddin Usmanani who asked me to define what it means to be a Jew. My answer was short and conclusive: “To be a Jew is to evoke animosity in others.” My answer was provocative and at least as challenging as the official Tikun Olam’s answer to the same question, i.e., ‘to be a Jew is to fix the world.’ However, while there are no statistics that show that Jews are actually engaged in fixing the world, my critics within the CAA, the ADL, The Jewish Chronicle and other Zionists institutions publish polls on an almost  daily basis that suggest that Jews are hated globally and locally.

The ethos that drove early Labour Zionism both ideologically and politically was the acceptance that, for one reason or another, Jews can’t assimilate  and would be safer somewhere else where they would become, through political training, into ‘people like all other people.’ I do not say that Jews should be hated. Rather like those early Zionists, I contend that Jewish institutions must self-reflect. Instead of accusing Goyim, Brits, Labour members, Americans, etc. they should engage in a true introspective process. Crying about antisemitism and/or terrorising jazz clubs and music venues won’t solve the Jewish problem, it will make it worse and the situation is clearly deteriorating as the ADL/CAA/CST statistics on anti semitism reveal.   

Is David Duke a humanist?

I oppose all forms of biologically oriented politics. I oppose all forms of politics that are defined by race, gender or sexual orientation. I contend that politics ought to unite us as equals rather than divide us on the basis of biology. David Duke and I hold distinctly opposite positions on this and other fundamental issues.

In March 2014 I gave an interview to larmurerie.fr/ I can’t trace the original French article but a  Google translation of the French original exists on my site. I was asked by the French Journalist the following question: Many French people share your opinion. For example, there is a French thinker, Hervé Ryssen, who uses the same metaphor as you when you talk about the mirror, saying that when a Jew accuses you of being an anti-semite, you just have to read the mirror image of the argument to reveal his racism towards goyim.”

My answer was as follows. “I actually use the word projection, but the mirror image is no doubt similar. And projection, by the way, is something that Freudtaught us about. You know, we have to admit that some of the most interesting humanists in the history of the West are Jews: Christ, Spinoza, Marx were Jews. Why is that?…Now there is something very interesting and it’s again the first time I’m saying it. The left is devastated by David Duke for instance. He was in the KKK when he was young. But here is something quite amazing: I read him and I was shocked to find out that this guy knows more about Jewish identity than I do! How could a supposedly ‘racist’ Gentile who probably never entered a synagogue knows more than I do about Judaism? The reason is in fact very simple: he is a proud white man. He’s interested in nationalism, in the culture of his own people, so he understands things that I am not even allowed to think about. Believe it or not, even as a Jew, I wasn’t allowed to think of myself as a racist. I was a racist, maybe I am still one, but I was not allowed to acknowledge it. Once he acknowledges that he’s talking about white people’s rights, in a way he thinks like Avigdor Lieberman! But in fact, he is way better than Lieberman. David Duke is a humanist because he says, «I want to celebrate my right and you should celebrate your rights»  whether you are Muslim or black or whatever. He believes that all people should celebrate their rights, this is his current philosophy. Avidgor Liberman is not a humanist, because he wants to celebrate his rights at the expense of other people.”

In my book. Humanism is primarily a universal adventure. Duke, today, is no doubt a separatist. He prefers to see people  living in partitioned enclaves, he opposes immigration and his political thought is racially oriented, yet, if I understand it correctly, he believes that all people regardless of their race, ethnicity, skin colour or religion should enjoy such a right. At least in comparison with the right wing Zionist philosophy that adheres to the idea that one people should celebrate their self determination on the expense of another people, Duke’s current offering is more ethical, universal and humane. I understand that some Jews may be upset by the comparison, however, the way to deal with disagreement is to produce a counter argument rather than terrorising the music community.  I myself hold completely opposing views to Duke’s on the matter: I believe that people should learn to live together and seek harmony. This is why I left Israel. However, despite of my disagreement with Duke on some fundamental and crucial issues, in consistance with the Western intellectual tradition, I take pride in making an effort to understand positions before I criticize them. 

Does Gilad Hate Jews?

As I have stated time and time again, I have never criticized Jews or anyone else as a people, a race, an ethnicity or a biology. I challenge my detractors to produce a single reference in my work that contradicts this. No one has ever produced the goods. In my work there is no hatred whatsoever, against Jews or anyone else. Many years ago, I accepted that some Jews regard me as a ‘self hater’ yet, I fail to see how me hating myself is so unsettling for other Jews.   

In 2014 I produced a statement that some mistakenly saw as an admission of ‘Jew hatred’ and racism. At the time, I engaged in a brief twitter exchange with @OnePoundOne, an Israeli nationalist who frequently urged the murder of Palestinians, Muslims and Arabs.

On one occasion @OnePoundOne insisted  that ‘as a Jew’ I should support his violent anti Arab/Muslim rampage. I replied:

“@OnePoundOne 1. I am not a Jew anymore 2. I indeed despise the Jew in me (whatever is left) 3. I absolutely detest the Jew in you.”

@OnePoundOne’s twitter account was suspended shortly after our exchange for spreading hate speech and advocating violence.

Despite the suspension of @OnePoundOne’s account, some examples of his hateful communications survive on the internet in the form of screenshots.

I have never before publicly addressed the criticism over my answer to @OnePoundOne. Anti-Semites are people who hate Jews for being Jews. Anti-Semites do not accept that Jews can stop being Jews and morph into something else.  My response to @OnePoundOne dismantles this racist doctrine:

1.  I suggest that one can choose to stop being a Jew. In this view, Jewishness is a cultural or religious construct and is not either racially or biologically determined.

2. To the extent I myself retain that culture, I admit that I detest that cultural aspect in myself.

3. Further, I rejected any cultural impetus that may exist in @OnePoundOne’s hateful statements that called for violence against Arabs, Palestinians and Muslims ‘as a Jew’.

But there is a fascinating intellectual exercise to apply here that helps explain my reaction to @OnePoundOne’s vile incitement of violence. Replacing the word ‘Jew’ with ‘Protestant’  in my answer to @OnePoundOne would read as follows: “1. I am not a Protestant anymore 2. I indeed despise the Protestant in me (whatever is left) 3. I absolutely detest the Protestant in you.” While  some might find this offensive, it is not racist as Protestantism is a belief system rather than a racial identification. If we proceed with this exercise and replace the word Jew with a biological category such as skin-colour or race, the statement collapses instantly as ‘I am not  Black anymore’ is a meaningless statement for someone who is Black. Similarly, ‘I am not Caucasian anymore’ is just as silly and hollow. In other words, my answer to @OnePoundOne could never be grasped as a ‘racist’ offensive statement as it defies the idea that Jews are actually a race, as I myself managed to stop being one.

I am afraid to inform my detractors once again, that at least intellectually, I operate as a philosopher. If they want to fight my ideas, they will first have to invest some energy in understanding what I am saying. 

Look at these clueless British students recycling misquotes without verifying their authenticity or their meanings:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYecmT2GhHQ

Final words on the matter

I accept that my deconstruction of Jewish Identity politics upsets some Jews: no one likes to be scrutinized or criticized. But my work is limited to questioning politics and culture. I  have never criticized Jews or anyone else in racial, biological, physiological or ethnic terms. I dig into ideology, politics and culture assuming that these three must be subject to criticism. The fact that I am smeared and defamed for doing so, only suggests to me and others that in the eyes of some self identified Jews, their politics, ideology and culture are beyond criticism. In fact, this is exactly the supremacist view I deconstruct in my work.

I would expect that by now, considering their relentless efforts to destroy me, my detractors would have managed to spot a single incriminating line in my work so they don’t have to keep fabricating quotes and taking words out of context while terrorizing jazz clubs in between. So far they have failed to do so. This raises the assumption that their insane campaign against me, one that reflects very badly on my detractors, suggests that I have something very important to say.

I honestly believe that if my detractors would engage with my writing instead of attempting to burn my books, anti-Semitism wouldn’t be an issue in Britain or anywhere else. Jews would enjoy their lives and live in harmony with their neighbors.  I guess that in the minds of some Zionists crucifying me is the way forward. Some people must be foolish not to see that they turn me into an intellectual martyr, a Jazzus figure.   

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