Friday, May 16, 2008
See you at the Palestine Think Tank!
This blog hasn't gone away just when it's come back! I've been extremely busy uploading and editing dozens of posts for www.palestinethinktank.com
Make sure you bookmark it and visit it! Not only has it had great success with readers, many articles have been reprinted in sites such as Dissident Voice, Online Journal, AMIN, Mid East Online, Norman Finkelstein, The People's Voice, Redress, Rense, Al Jazeerah info, Rebelion, Alternet and quite a few more.
Will be back to add more content here, as you can always check out 890 archived articles, visit the links, and find new articles that even PTT won't carry.
Make sure you bookmark it and visit it! Not only has it had great success with readers, many articles have been reprinted in sites such as Dissident Voice, Online Journal, AMIN, Mid East Online, Norman Finkelstein, The People's Voice, Redress, Rense, Al Jazeerah info, Rebelion, Alternet and quite a few more.
Will be back to add more content here, as you can always check out 890 archived articles, visit the links, and find new articles that even PTT won't carry.
Labels: activism, good news, journalism, Palestine
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Oren Ben-Dor - Freedom of Speech, Free Speech and Their Enemies
from CounterpunchThe Silencing of Gilad Atzmon
By OREN BEN-DOR
I have recently signed a petition that condemns the constant attempts to silence Gilad Atzmon. The same petition also objects to the constant attempts to discredit and hinder the website that hosts, among others, Gilad's views--Peacepalestine--one of the more enlightening internet platforms on Palestine.
It would be an understatement to say that debating Gilad's voice is supremely important. No thinking person could fail to be stimulated by the deep connections Gilad makes.
Dwelling together in the unsaid is what makes intellectuals' innermost togetherness but it does not mean that all those who respond to the unsaid can be assimilated into one another so as to form some kind of a "group".
All those who try to smother Gilad's endeavours, to distort his voice through vulgar associations and conventional clichés, and to utilise uncritically accepted conventional havens for thoughtlessness, do not really do justice to the intellectual game as far as Palestine is concerned. I believe this message to be the essence of this petition.
In Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Gabriel García Márquez narrates the story of a village in which everybody understands that a murder is about to be committed in the near future. Yet, nobody is doing anything about this forthcoming event that is chronicled to happen. Some deep causes combine to make everybody complicit in diverting, repressing, hindering, "forgetting", being "delayed", in short avoiding any possibility of stopping the chronicle from happening. This concealment thus becomes a part of that fate that eventually leads to the death of Santiago Nasar.
García Márquez may have given us a metaphor of how fate can unfold as possibilities that are always already grounded in denial of deep self-concealing past events. He also shows how the unfolding of this fate lurks amidst intensive highly-involved chatter.
Zionism may not merely be a cause of colonial injustice in Palestine in the sense of being a misguided response to anti-Jewish racism understood as "anti-semitism". Zionism can be conceived as a symptom the non-empathetic manifestations of which are historically and existentially continuing certain facets of Jewish being and thinking. It is very important to ask whether the originary aggression of victim mentality as well as the choseness-begotten separateness existentially links the Zionist and the Jewish question. This link may well pervade the mentality of Israelis whether orthodox or not.
The anti-Zionist struggle must not encage itself in too simplistic a link between the Jewish Question with the Zionist Question--a simplistic link that in fact craves to sever the deeper ontological connection that might persist between the two questions. Such a dominant, and far too quick, paradigm that by and large dominates the anti-Zionist struggle has been that Zionism's misuse of the Holocaust is somehow an aberration of Jewish thinking. Thus portrayed, Zionism can be successfully isolated and fought against by Jews as Jews.
It is this very denial of the existential link between the Jewish Question and the Zionist Question--a link that is suppressed by formulations such as "Jews Against Zionism" or, more broadly, by many attempts of "Jews" to become anti-Zionist - that needs to be questioned and destabilised.To be an anti-Zionist without due regard to that being and thinking that Zionism may so tragically continues, may well be to confuse symptom and cause, thus perpetuating that history that leaves the symptom--Zionism--intact. There is need to fathom the extent to which the slogan "Jews against Zionism" may be an oxymoron. Such an oxymoron may be at the heart of the denial, and protection bestowed upon the denial, of the oxymoronic nature of another notion, namely that of a "Jewish and democratic state".
It is the task of an intellectual to touch the untouchable and liberate thinking from its blackmailed, somewhere idle, comfort zones. I am firmly convinced that these vulgar attempts at silencing of Gilad and other courageous voices offends against supremely thoughtful, compassionate and egalitarian intellectual endeavours. This propaganda of silencing which is characterised by breeding conflict and heresy stalls a debate which is crucial for Palestine and for humanity. Intellectual reflections on actuality, historicity, causes of events--those primordial events that manifestations of violence, the Holocaust amongst them, respond to - are not to be decided by picketing, balloting and smearing.
What is an intellectual? What is an intellectual pursuit? Intellectual pursuit is to make a connection that brings the unsaid and the unsayable into language. As such, an intellectual pursuit is not only about sharpening and clarifying but about being able to hear the unsaid, thus making a connection and near actuality in a way that may shock and surprise in its strangeness. Being an intellectual is first and foremost to hold the mirror, or rather losing oneself in the mirror.
The essence of an intellectual is free speech and therefore some reflections on free speech are in order here.For an intellectual, free speech is not a matter of choice, but a way of being, or responding, of being response-able and therefore responsible. To authentically speak rather than to be spoken by, to be active rather than passive, is to respond in speech to self-concealing actuality.
That which needs to be brought into language by free speech is quite often that which is most difficult to say and to hear.In fact so difficult it might be that we might even venture to suggest that it is essentially impossible to respond in speech to what is. So, rather, it would be better to say that to speak is to respond to an always antecedent and mysterious call, thus essentially belatedly and distortingly--to respond to what needs to be attended to in speech. If speech is the captive of discourse, the captive of represented group identification, the captive of methodologies, the captive of a representative narrative of captive of amputating version of collective memory, the captive even in the notion of a thinking-subject, it is not yet active speech.The Saying of speech is irreducible to anything merely said and is always a response to a call by a yet always-antecedent Saying that has already called upon the speaker to respond.
Freedom of speech is an absence of constraint on free speech. Freedom of speech is not merely associated with freedom of information but with a freedom that ensures conditions for free speech, speech that responds to what is unsaid- to something which is nameless and inexpressible.
Sometimes freedom of speech can be understood as that condition in which nobody has dominance over the means of representation. But even this is not quite, not yet, to capture the essence of free speech. Even conditions of absence of dominance of the means of representation are still not conditions that allow for freedom of speech. This is because equality of the means of representation does not by itself entail free speech. Speech happens as the dark side of representations and their means. Freedom of speech ensures the conditions for some people to ethically bring the inexpressible into language without giving up the secrets that language holds--secrets that call upon the ear and the mind.
We need free speech in order to understand what might be the deep origin of Zionism and in order to contemplate Zionism's so-successful use of the Holocaust "memory". By simplistically condemning any free speech about the mystery of the Holocaust as "anti-Semitic" or "holocaust denial" the silencers suck all energy from our thinking, thus playing into the hand of denials and vulnerabilities, thus helping to tranquilise the mind from connectedness to primordial events.
Moreover, it is the idle speech of those silencers which may in effect deny the significance of the Holocaust. The significance of the Holocaust, like the significance of terror and violence, is not attended to by making it dependent upon, or subservient to, this or that person or groups. The significance of the Holocaust is both nebulous and ubiquitous to humanity.
We must not legalise the thinking about the Holocaust. We must not turn thinking about it into a moral, legal or indeed factual reflection. The horrors and murderous violence against Jews may have been a response to events that had corrupted the relationship between humans and Being long ago. Grasped thus, the Holocaust may have been severely distorted by National Socialism; by those who are said to "deny" the Holocaust by some arguments about facts; by self-righteous Jews-against-Zionism; by Zionists. All these forms of forgetfulness of the Holocaust may well be on a common matrix of denial. Indeed this denial may constitute a chronicle of another Holocaust foretold.
My point is that the Holocaust's significance lies beyond the actions by the Nazis who actually perpetrated the violence and who justified these actions by turning this significance into a militarist object of an idea. The same claim can be made in relation Zionists and their Jewish opponents.
Thus, a simplistic anti-Zionist struggle - including such struggle's memorialisation of the Holocaust by fighting against the abuse of Holocaust memory by Zionists - may itself tragically become the most sophisticated form of Holocaust denial. It is not simply that Zionism denies the Holocaust. Those who fight Zionism may have already fallen into that very fateful chronicle that Zionism participates in.
Voltaire's words concerning the freedom of speech loom large. I urge all people with free speech as their guide to sign this petition and to help by that to respond to the actuality of the actual in Palestine, an actuality, again, which embraces all humanity and the denial of which might well have catastrophic implications for humanity.
I believe that only through holding of the mirror might there be a faint chance to find a connective tissue to that being and thinking of Israelis. Without holding this mirror the egalitarian struggle against Zionism may well remain in distance and deafness to the self-preserving violence in the Middle East and the World.
Oren Ben-Dor grew up in the State of Israel. He teaches political philosophy and the philosophy of law at the School of Law, University of Southampton, UK.His books Constitutional Limits and the Public Sphere (2000) and Thinking about Law: In Silence with Heidegger (2007) are published with Hart Publishing, Oxford. He can be reached at: okbendor@yahoo.com
Labels: activism, Atzmon, friends, gatekeeping, good news, holocaust, philosophy
Monday, March 3, 2008
Children of the world, reach out to Gaza's children!
On the Palestinian Mothers web community (which I urge caring people to join) EshaAmeena asked if there was any way that her children and other children could write to kids in Gaza to show friendship. I asked a friend in Gaza if there was a school that could accept these letters, and he gave this address: For the children letters, you can address the letters to:
Mr. John Ging
Operations Manager / Gaza Field office
Headquarters Gaza
Gamal Abdul Nasser Street,
Gaza City
HQ Gaza, PO Box 140157
Palestinian Authority
Telephone: (+ 972 8) 677 7333 or (+ 972/0 8) 282 4508 (+ 1 212) 963 9571-3
(via UN satellite network) Facsimile: (+ 972 8) 677 7555)
UNRWA manages a very large number of schools in all Palestine
UNRWA manages a very large number of schools in all Palestine
Moreover, I can give the address of the schools where my kids are. Tarek
I urge all families to ask your children to send letters, drawings, little gifts and tokens of friendship so that the children in Gaza know there are many others around the world who care and want to reach out in friendship. I will ask my daughter's school to get involved, they just might, since they try to promote dialogue. It's a lovely idea from Esha, and one that would be a concrete sign that the people of the world feel for the people of Gaza. Children know what dreams of peace are, and they can share their dreams until they become REALITY!!
Labels: activism, friends, Gaza, good news
Friday, February 29, 2008
Try to censor peacepalestine? It's Tony wot done it.
Yes, dear friends and readers. You have been following the saga of Tony vs Gilad Atzmon and peacepalestine (or Mary Rizzo, since he seems to blur the distinction). Yes, you have signed an open letter for Tony to stop the defamation and harassment and let us continue our work of exposing Israeli crimes, Western complicity and in asking us to assume our responsibilities towards the Palestinian people and the other people oppressed by Zionism, and that includes you and me and all of us who want justice and rule of law. Rather than reflect and see that he is on the margin of the margin and no one wants him to dictate to Palestinians or activists for their rights what the discourse is supposed to be, who should be silenced and smeared and to mismanage every single campaign he works on. He is out to destroy and "target" all those who oppose him, and he doesn't care about what "the movement" says and requests. In the past day, we have seen this blog go down. Without any warning, it simply vanished. Thinking it was a technical glitch, I had contacted Google. I thought it would be a long wait, since this company is big and has millions of sites and blogs to think about. MUCH to Google's credit, they immediately informed me that there was legal action being taken against my site and sent me court documents. Actually, it was not against my site, but as I was already aware of, Tony Greenstein is suing Gilad Atzmon, although, on his friendly sites, he tells the 18 readers that he is being himself sued!!! Tony hates Gilad more than anything. More than Zionists. (Ask yourself why...) He never touches Zionist sites, seems to think my parody of Gilad Shalit campaign is horrors, but ignores the actual campaign, which he seems to have no qualms with. He only tries to bring down one of the most widely read Palestinian blogs, many hardworking and committed pro-Palestinian groups such as Redress and DYR, as well as now deciding that the list of signatories will comprise his new battles for justice. Yes, the activists in Palestinian activism don't only get insulted and called collaborators, now they will be targeted! Great Tony, glad to see you are consistent in your abuse, going only in the direction of those who engage in total solidarity with the righteous cause of the Palestinians!
So, I saw the suit, where he gives Google an ultimatum to take my blog down because HE SAYS SO. I ask you to read the PDF. It is quite interesting!
There are several interesting contradictions between it and the content of the Claim, which I am only reprinting the first page, although Google sent it all to me. (I can't believe how good Google was in all of this, and I intend upon sending them a thank you note as well as encouraging all of us to support them when they make these decisions). Read both items carefully (clicking on them enlarges them), and you will note some very odd things. There is a serious contradiction there, and I know all of you can see it. The letter practically contradicts the allegations of the claim itself!! This should not escape the attentive eye and it makes one wonder what the claim is even supposed to be about if not just stopping Gilad Atzmon and trying to squeeze money out of him based on the hope that others are inattentive. But let's examine still more: Yes, Tony is suing Gilad and yes, Tony claims, without any evidence, just his good name (sic) that "There is no truth in these allegations but they are, nonetheless, highly defamatory. The blog itself purports to be supportive of the Palestinians but is in fact deeply anti-Semitic".
So, besides the immediate huge support from my friends and fellow activists who already had it up to their eyeballs with his games, they nevertheless dropped what they were doing and went into action in a matter of moments, and were planning other actions - thinking, as I was, that this would be a long struggle, and they were going to fight to the bitter end. We were creating new blogs, saving content from archived material, sharing stuff on computers so that we all had backups.... these are the best friends in the world, as well as the greatest activists I have ever known... During this time I wrote twice to Google asking them to actually investigate the claim by Tony. These are my letters:
Dear Sirs,
If you read the pdf you sent, it is clear that there is no suit filed against me. Nor have I received any calls to alter or to delete information from anyone.
You may be aware that you have made a judgment yourself based on the comments of a person who has been repeatedly harassing in numerous ways over the course of years a great number of activists. As a matter of fact, he has been using the terminology to smear and defame others as his political tool. There has been no evidence provided in the claim he makes in the Pdf: "The blog itself purports to be supportive of Palestinians but is in fact deeply anti-Semitic."
IN fact, the claim is not against me, but against another person, who also has not been demonstrated to be anti-Semitic, despite the claims this individual uses to smear us. Read the Pdf, and you can see for yourself what the content is, and my blog should NOT have been pulled without warning, especially since it is one of the most widely circulated and trusted blogs on the subject of Palestinian rights, Human rights, Activism and Anti-War.
As a matter of fact, my blog is in no way racist or anti-Semitic. In fact, his "evidence" is that I have in the past sought to deter others from engaging in smear campaigns and rather do political work. This to him, especially when he operates to smear and damage activists, is defined as racist and anti-Semitic. I am not affiliated with anti-semites or neo-Nazis and he knows this. And, as a matter of fact, the BLOG is only composed of posts I have set up. There is not a single anti-Semitic post on it, and he has never been able to find one, yet continues in the harassment.
This harassment was requested also to be stopped by a large number of anti-racist activists, including a Holocaust survivor. In addition, being of Jewish origin myself, it is a strange claim to make on his part.
If that were not enough, I was actively involved in the campaign to extradite Michael Seifert, an SS officer in the Bolzano Camp to Italy to face his punishment. As a matter of fact, just a few days ago, the official news dispatch service that furnishes all the newpapers with their content released this: http://www.adnkronos.com/IGN/Esteri/?id=1.0.1880767965
It is in Italian, but it is clear enough. I was a protagonist in the capture of a Nazi criminal in hiding.
It is the dispatch, including my name TWICE, once in bold text, highlighting my involvement in the discovery and bringing to justice of this Nazi. I wonder just how many friends of Neo-Nazis, anti-Semites and Holocaust Deniers or Apologists have played an active part in such work. This is evidence, as if any other were needed, that this individual invents his charges and seeks to damage humanists who work for the Palestinian cause. I need to consult my blog. I ask you to reinstate it at least for my own personal use as I wish to archive all the information. My blog is very popular, and Google may not like repercussions coming from complaints from readers.
SECOND LETTER, (a few hours later)
I have requested that you reinstate the blog for my personal use (at the very least), as there has been no judgment against my blog, and you have yourselves decided to judge it, without any evidence that the person bringing legal action to another individual is justified in his claims.
I request that you examine the blog and you demonstrate where it is anti-Semitic if this is the decision you have made, as indeed you have made a decision and have passed judgment based on an arbitrary claim. I ask you to look up my own person history, or even just the dispatch linked to you from last week's Italian News Service dispatch Adnkronos, which supplies all the Italian media with their news feed, and you will see that I am a well-known activist and have an excellent track record FIGHTING hate crimes, and not supporting them.
I further request that since the material on the blog is intellectual property and contains not simply words, but the writing of many individuals as compiled by myself, almost all of these persons, if not the entirety, involved for many years in Human rights activism, and well-known persons, have been insulted and smeared as well by having their content removed from your server, and therefore, the net, and for this reason, out of respect for them, who work using their own names, I also that you identify yourselves also by name - not Blogger Team - so that I am allowed to know which human beings have made this decision.
I may not need to remind you that on the Social Rank rating (the currently most popular one for blogs) my blog is always among the top 3 Palestinian blogs. It has extensive readership, and its absence from your server is not going unnoticed.
Awaiting your quick reply
Mary Rizzo
THIS IS BLOGGER'S REPLY
From: "Blogger Help"
To: "mary rizzo" Cc: "mary rizzo" Subject: Re: [#246323120] [Spam?] Blog termporarily suspended due to lawsuit
Hello Mary,
After reviewing your blog and the suit filed against Mr. Atzmon, and the Claimant's alleged claim against you or your blog is unclear, we have reinstated your blog. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this temporary suspension has caused you and your readers.
Thank you for your understanding and continued support.
Sincerely,
The Blogger Team
Justice will prevail! Thanks Google, Thanks Blogger, and thanks to all the wonderful people who believed that we have to fight the Zionists, no matter what they call themselves. Tony says all the time... if it quacks like a duck....
There Will Always Be A Palestine!!
Labels: activism, anti-Semitism, Atzmon, Blogger, documents, friends, gatekeeping, good news, Google, journalism, UK
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Peacepalestine Returns!!
Yes, someone tried to shut us down. Apparently, he seems to think he can tell everyone what to do and how to think, that he is the receptacle of truth.
Blogger examined the case and they did not see anything in my blog that would be reason to close it down. I have the letter from Blogger on file, and due to some reserved and specific information, I am publishing it in an excerpted version :
Hello Mary,
After reviewing your blog ....(omissis).....we have reinstated your blog. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this temporary suspension has caused you and your readers. Thank you for your understanding and continued support.
Sincerely,
The Blogger Team
Meanwhile, I republish here the post on one of my new blogs, which I am going to keep available.
also see: http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2008/02/28/long-live-peacepalestine/#comment-352089
This blog takes up where peacepalestine left off (for now). And…It will go further -
Straight to the liberation of the Palestinian people so that Justice will be theirs, as well as the Peace they deserve after so much pain and hardship.
It may not be the definitive blog. I will decide how to fight the censorship forced upon me by someone who arrogantly defies the requests of many hardworking activists, Palestinians, Humanists, people from all around the world who care about the lives of the Palestinians.
Together with the blog, the person who has attacked it has brought down a gigantic slice of Palestinian activism: hundreds of links, almost all the major bloggers against Zionism and against Imperialism. He has silenced the voices of hundreds of writers, slammed the door on information about the Boycott of the Turin Book Fair, (the only blog in English covering this with immediate translations of the latest information), direct links to the Popular Committee Against the Siege in Gaza and other activist, relief and charitable works that are there only for the benefit of helping us wake up and listen to the cries of the Palestinians who have been victims of one of the worst crimes imaginable, and are treated instead as if they are the aggressors. Yes, in shutting down my blog, for personal gain of his own image, this person has probably damaged without remedy, his own “reputation” within campaign for Solidarity with Palestinians. Never has a Zionist blog been even slightly scratched, no. Apparently, they are better for the Palestinian cause than Peacepalestine.
Peacepalestine was (and is) a labour of love of just one person. I chose to do it myself, because my view is that nothing but the most radical activism, without compromising on a single right that belongs to the Palestinian people, is what it takes. I can’t ask anyone else to be responsible for my content, and my content is not tender with Israel or its supporters. My content is a true faith in the steadfastness and in the rightness of the Palestinians. Just to serve them, whatever it is they ask for to liberate themselves from their oppression.
I was able to have obtained some original documents (such as the only version of the Avrum Burg interview in its entirety in English, and many others besides), some important work by others, especially by Palestinian and Arab writers who probably don’t have as much chance of getting published as perhaps someone involved in politics or someone who represents the “peaceloving Israeli”. All of this has been decided by the censor that it is not good for others to see.
Mind, not a single Zionist blog or site has ever had even the slightest problem from this individual.
Ask yourself why.
This person has silenced the voices of 250 activists who want to hear what we say and want other people to respect our rights of free speech. Their request was not only ignored, but it was spat upon. Perhaps others will be subject to this same treatment. I don’t doubt it.
Yet, in these three years of blogging activity, I have learned one thing: a lot of other people believe in Radical Solidarity. I’m not the only one. Perhaps this blog, or another one with more features, will replace this one, and it will be built together with others who feel like I do. It may be a group blog. At any rate, we are not defeated, and I learned just how greatly my blog is loved. It’s not just “my” blog, it’s a blog of all the people who use it and love it.
A heartfelt thanks to my loving and supportive friends who are there for me right now, despite the fact that each of them has their own burdens to bear:
All my love and affection to the best friends anyone could ever hope to have, people who are so beautiful and whose hearts are made of pure gold:Gilad, Manuel, Iqbal, Steve, Annie, Laila, Haitham, Reham, Akram, Edna, Susanne, Kristoffer, Khalid, Robin, Nadia, Sumaia, Adib, Wael, Miguel, Sarah, Benedetta, Francis, Paul, Ariella, Mohammad, Khaled, Javier, Daniel, Mazin, Richard, Les, Juan, Walid, Glenn, Simon for their supportive letters and phone calls, putting things in perspective and giving me their encouragement and wisdom.
The practical help and the knowledge and advice of so many of you has gotten me through a few rough hours, and now we are ready to begin where we left off.
I love you all.
Blogger examined the case and they did not see anything in my blog that would be reason to close it down. I have the letter from Blogger on file, and due to some reserved and specific information, I am publishing it in an excerpted version :
Hello Mary,
After reviewing your blog ....(omissis).....we have reinstated your blog. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this temporary suspension has caused you and your readers. Thank you for your understanding and continued support.
Sincerely,
The Blogger Team
Meanwhile, I republish here the post on one of my new blogs, which I am going to keep available.
also see: http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2008/02/28/long-live-peacepalestine/#comment-352089
This blog takes up where peacepalestine left off (for now). And…It will go further -
Straight to the liberation of the Palestinian people so that Justice will be theirs, as well as the Peace they deserve after so much pain and hardship.
It may not be the definitive blog. I will decide how to fight the censorship forced upon me by someone who arrogantly defies the requests of many hardworking activists, Palestinians, Humanists, people from all around the world who care about the lives of the Palestinians.
Together with the blog, the person who has attacked it has brought down a gigantic slice of Palestinian activism: hundreds of links, almost all the major bloggers against Zionism and against Imperialism. He has silenced the voices of hundreds of writers, slammed the door on information about the Boycott of the Turin Book Fair, (the only blog in English covering this with immediate translations of the latest information), direct links to the Popular Committee Against the Siege in Gaza and other activist, relief and charitable works that are there only for the benefit of helping us wake up and listen to the cries of the Palestinians who have been victims of one of the worst crimes imaginable, and are treated instead as if they are the aggressors. Yes, in shutting down my blog, for personal gain of his own image, this person has probably damaged without remedy, his own “reputation” within campaign for Solidarity with Palestinians. Never has a Zionist blog been even slightly scratched, no. Apparently, they are better for the Palestinian cause than Peacepalestine.
Peacepalestine was (and is) a labour of love of just one person. I chose to do it myself, because my view is that nothing but the most radical activism, without compromising on a single right that belongs to the Palestinian people, is what it takes. I can’t ask anyone else to be responsible for my content, and my content is not tender with Israel or its supporters. My content is a true faith in the steadfastness and in the rightness of the Palestinians. Just to serve them, whatever it is they ask for to liberate themselves from their oppression.
I was able to have obtained some original documents (such as the only version of the Avrum Burg interview in its entirety in English, and many others besides), some important work by others, especially by Palestinian and Arab writers who probably don’t have as much chance of getting published as perhaps someone involved in politics or someone who represents the “peaceloving Israeli”. All of this has been decided by the censor that it is not good for others to see.
Mind, not a single Zionist blog or site has ever had even the slightest problem from this individual.
Ask yourself why.
This person has silenced the voices of 250 activists who want to hear what we say and want other people to respect our rights of free speech. Their request was not only ignored, but it was spat upon. Perhaps others will be subject to this same treatment. I don’t doubt it.
Yet, in these three years of blogging activity, I have learned one thing: a lot of other people believe in Radical Solidarity. I’m not the only one. Perhaps this blog, or another one with more features, will replace this one, and it will be built together with others who feel like I do. It may be a group blog. At any rate, we are not defeated, and I learned just how greatly my blog is loved. It’s not just “my” blog, it’s a blog of all the people who use it and love it.
A heartfelt thanks to my loving and supportive friends who are there for me right now, despite the fact that each of them has their own burdens to bear:
All my love and affection to the best friends anyone could ever hope to have, people who are so beautiful and whose hearts are made of pure gold:Gilad, Manuel, Iqbal, Steve, Annie, Laila, Haitham, Reham, Akram, Edna, Susanne, Kristoffer, Khalid, Robin, Nadia, Sumaia, Adib, Wael, Miguel, Sarah, Benedetta, Francis, Paul, Ariella, Mohammad, Khaled, Javier, Daniel, Mazin, Richard, Les, Juan, Walid, Glenn, Simon for their supportive letters and phone calls, putting things in perspective and giving me their encouragement and wisdom.
The practical help and the knowledge and advice of so many of you has gotten me through a few rough hours, and now we are ready to begin where we left off.
I love you all.
Labels: activism, friends, gatekeeping, good news, journalism, Palestine
Monday, January 28, 2008
Culture cannot save Israel, Shabtai and more on the Turin Israel Extravaganza
The Israeli poet Aharon Shabtai says “no” also to the Book Fair of Paris. Here is the letter he sent to negatively respond to the invitation of the director of the book fair, dedicated, as is the Turin edition, to Israel.Dear Edna,
Thank you for your letter.
I do not believe that a State that maintains an occupation, committing on a daily basis crimes against civilians, deserves to be invited to any kind of cultural week. That is, it is anti-cultural; it is a barbarian act masked as culture in the most cynical way. It manifests support for Israel, and even to France that sustains the occupation. And I do not want to participate.
Kind regards,
Aharon Shabtai
7 December, 2007
Culture - Aharon Shabtai
The mark of Cain won't sprout
from a soldier who shoots
at the head of a child
at the head of a child
on a knoll by the fence
around a refugee camp-
-for beneath his helmet,
conceptually speaking,
his head is made of cardboard.
On the other hand,
the officer has read The Rebel;
his head is enlightened,
and so he does not believe
in the mark of Cain.
He's spent time in museums,
and when he aims his rifle at a boy
as an ambassador of Culture,
he updates and recycles
Goya's etchings
and Guernica.
ANOTHER LETTER TO VALENTINO PARLATO
Dear Valentino,
I think that for you to have expressed your hasty negative judgment on the proposal of boycotting of the International Book Fair of Turin this year, which has decided to choose as its guest of honour the State of Israel in the year that marks the 60th since its birth, you could and should have used less banal and more convincing arguments. Your fine distinction between the (just) boycott of Apartheid South Africa and the (wrong) boycott of Apartheid Israel is of a subtlety that is even somewhat dangerous to interpret. You write, with a particularly insufferable tone, that “with the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the State of Israel, the Palestinian question inevitably reopens”. In reality, the Palestinian question has been open for 60 years and has never been closed. The State of Palestine, which itself was foreseen by the UN in December 1947, never saw the light of day, not even on that minuscule 22% in which the Palestinian population has been rounded up into after the Nakba, that is, the Catastrophe, that is, the ethnic cleansing of 1948. And it is really strange that you, in order to justify these 60 years of oppression, occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing bring in Stalin, notorious organiser of Gulags. It is just as strange that you cite the fact that in the Warsaw Ghetto the last Jews who were the protagonists of a heroic armed resistance (that right to resistance that the cowardly and hypocritical European governments deny to the Palestinians who are occupied militarily and who have been mistreated for decades by Israel), sung the Internationale before being massacred. Those heroes, certainly, would have had nothing whatsoever to do with a State, the State of Israel, that for more than 60 years denies every kind of right to the Palestinian people, that forces them to undergo cruel incarceration in a ghetto and constant genocide. Not in their names, please! Hence, there is nothing to celebrate: next 15 May will be a sad and tragic date, it is the sign of a historical failure and a catastrophe that unfolds day after day. It is with a heavy heart that I write this to you, deeply troubled by your brief article and, I add, aware that the newspaper you edit is one of the very few non-embedded voices and that through your correspondents from Palestine, it is able to still communicate that tragic truth without compromise, taking the side of the victims and not of the persecutors no matter what ethnic group or religion they belong to.
I think that for you to have expressed your hasty negative judgment on the proposal of boycotting of the International Book Fair of Turin this year, which has decided to choose as its guest of honour the State of Israel in the year that marks the 60th since its birth, you could and should have used less banal and more convincing arguments. Your fine distinction between the (just) boycott of Apartheid South Africa and the (wrong) boycott of Apartheid Israel is of a subtlety that is even somewhat dangerous to interpret. You write, with a particularly insufferable tone, that “with the 60th anniversary of the foundation of the State of Israel, the Palestinian question inevitably reopens”. In reality, the Palestinian question has been open for 60 years and has never been closed. The State of Palestine, which itself was foreseen by the UN in December 1947, never saw the light of day, not even on that minuscule 22% in which the Palestinian population has been rounded up into after the Nakba, that is, the Catastrophe, that is, the ethnic cleansing of 1948. And it is really strange that you, in order to justify these 60 years of oppression, occupation, apartheid and ethnic cleansing bring in Stalin, notorious organiser of Gulags. It is just as strange that you cite the fact that in the Warsaw Ghetto the last Jews who were the protagonists of a heroic armed resistance (that right to resistance that the cowardly and hypocritical European governments deny to the Palestinians who are occupied militarily and who have been mistreated for decades by Israel), sung the Internationale before being massacred. Those heroes, certainly, would have had nothing whatsoever to do with a State, the State of Israel, that for more than 60 years denies every kind of right to the Palestinian people, that forces them to undergo cruel incarceration in a ghetto and constant genocide. Not in their names, please! Hence, there is nothing to celebrate: next 15 May will be a sad and tragic date, it is the sign of a historical failure and a catastrophe that unfolds day after day. It is with a heavy heart that I write this to you, deeply troubled by your brief article and, I add, aware that the newspaper you edit is one of the very few non-embedded voices and that through your correspondents from Palestine, it is able to still communicate that tragic truth without compromise, taking the side of the victims and not of the persecutors no matter what ethnic group or religion they belong to.
Vincenzo Tradardi
ISM Italia
Parma 24 January 2008
Translated from Italian by Mary Rizzo, member of Tlaxcala, network of translators for linguistic diversity.
Labels: activism, boycott, good news, hasbara, Israel, Italy, journalism, Palestine, poetry
Thursday, January 24, 2008
Nahida Izzat - Two poems for the beloved people of Gaza
Photo from Free Gaza, one of many photos of the people of Gaza.Beloved people of Gaza
Treasured people of Palestine
Teachers of courage and dignity
Archetype of humanity
Allow me to kneel down
And wash your feet with my tears
Kiss your blessed hands
And sprinkle your beautiful faces with musk and roses
While we sat pondering like fools
Utterly helpless
Talking much and doing less
Going round and round in circles
Thinking how to help
What to offer you to relief some of your pain
As usual
Full of surprises, you come out to our rescue, to soothe our agony
You present us with the most precious gifts
Lessons in bravery
Steadfastness, patience, perseverance, defiance, resilience
Optimism against all odds
Creativity in the face of utter oblivion
You’ve demonstrated that you are the free ones … we are the captives
You chose resistance over subjugation
You decided not to be enslaved
Not even to superpowers
Would we ever learn from you?
I Believe in Miracles
You can break my bones
My free spirit is invincible
You can cause me the loss of sight
The light of my insight
You’ll never take away
In the shadows of darkness
Lies the corpse of your might
You can destroy my house
The windows of my hope,
You cannot break
The pillars of my faith
You can never shake
You can threaten me
With weapons of death
And mass destruction
Implanting fear in my heart
You cannot achieve
Nor can you cut off
My divine connection
With a missile
You can tear my body apart
My soul however
Is out of your reach
And is forever intact
You claimed victory in six days!
Victorious are those
With a dignified gaze
Facing tanks with tender flesh
And only with stones,
The F16 fighter blaze
You can never defeat my will to be
Because my power that you cannot explain
Grows from within the roots of my pain
You depend on the United States
For wealth and war supply
My infinite strength stems from
My creator, the One most high
Nahida is the author of many poems, prose and articles. Her site is http://poetryforpalestine.spaces.live.com/
Labels: activism, friends, Gaza, good news, Palestine, poetry, somoud
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
Rafah! A Victory of the Palestinian People
Infopalestina writes:Rafah. A great victory of the Palestinian people. That cursed wall has been broken. The Palestinian people have demonstrated, once again, to never be resigned to their fate or defeated. No one can close them in a cage or a prison. The struggle of the Palestinians deserves all of our support, all of our respect and the trust that they merit.
Rafah. Una grande vittoria del popolo palestinese
Quel maledetto muro è stato rotto. Il popolo palestinese ha dimostrato, ancora una volta, di non essere mai rassegnato nè sconfitto. Nessuno può chiuderlo dentro una gabbia o una prigione. La lotta dei palestinesi merita ancora tutto il sostegno, il rispetto e la fiducia che gli sono dovuti
VEDI FOTO CLICCANDO QUI
Domenica 3 febbraio, ore 10.30 riunione nazionale
della Campagna "2008 anno della Palestina"
Roma, via Giolitti 231
info: www.forumpalestina.org
Labels: Arab countries, Gaza, good news, human rights violations, occupation, Palestine, somoud, Wall
Tuesday, January 15, 2008
Some Human Beings are More Human than Others
Why ethnic campaigning can be unethical
by Mary Rizzo
This blog recently has had some attention from Tony Greenstein. Taking a detour from his general direction of activism (sic) which boils down to exclusively attacking a growing list of other Pro-Palestinian activists - posting the same article that has been proven to be a misrepresentation consisting of a series of out-of-context quotes and insinuations about Gilad Atzmon - he’s using the same method, wallpapering every spot he can think of with his rantings using an identical post (to get the most mileage out of it, I suppose) that my blog is an Anti-Semitic sewer because it had this:
He stated:
“Under a title ‘Peacepalestine Offers Prisoner Exchange’ are four photographs of Ariel Sharon, Gilad Shalit, David Hirsh and myself, with what presumably are supposed to be wanted posters bearing our names, photographs, the title ‘human being’ (presumably this is disputed) and then, in reverse video the word ‘JEW’. All that is missing is the yellow star, but I’m sure Rizzo will manage to find a graphic artist up to the task.”
He then emphasizes that this is “clearly racist and anti-Semitic”.
Well, finally Tony Greenstein and I can partially agree on something. Gilad Atzmon and I have been stressing for years now that asking people to take action or to influence them by merit of some ethnically-based criterion is simply a racist way of thinking and operating, and Tony finally admits as much. If we are people, it shouldn’t matter one iota what group we are born or raised into. Ideologies are mindsets that are not "genetically instilled" and can be adopted or cast off or used at will. We can’t accept an objective ethnic belonging that carries no merit or defect as such, as an ethical device or even a way to persuade people. Ideologies matter, ethnic belonging does not. Belonging to one group or another should be irrelevant when trying to persude people of the value of an argument and influence their opinions. We should move beyond the stage of focussing on a person according to race, sex, religion, nationality or political leaning, and listen to their arguments.
It is too bad that Tony feels the need to continually insist on telling us that he was “The only Jewish speaker” at this meeting or that. Gosh, I didn’t know that there is a census made of the ethnic or religious belonging of the people who speak at meetings and that Tony was privy to that information. He also believes that Jews have special sensitivity to racism. “Jews, of all people, should be the first to oppose racism, whoever the victims and the perpetrators,” he says. While at the same time, he knows how (presumably all) Blacks must feel about it, refering to one of his interlocutors, so that he can be easily identified, apparently, as “a Black Sudanese guy”: “But again Black people have better understanding of racism than white ex-councillors”. (Following this logic, if the white ex-councillors are Jewish, they should be the first to oppose the racism, but other whites certainly are lacking in this moral characteristic.) If one were to judge the way he writes, it seems he does indeed think in racial stereotypes and categories and can’t resist mentioning it as if it were the normal thing to do. Yet, on the other hand, he insists that race does not exist, er… rather, it is a political construct. “Just to be clear. Zionism isn't based on a race, nor is German anti-Semitism for the simple reason there are no such things as race. Race is a political construct.” (Alef message 5 January, 2008) Whether or not there is such a thing as race seems to be a matter of debate for geneticists, and we’ve all seen acceptable arguments from both sides of the debate. Tony is extremely “ethnically aware”, and this is absolutely crystal clear in almost every intervention he has on internet. One might say that it borders on an obsession. Whites, Blacks, Jews, Non-Jews, hardly a single thing he has written escapes this ethnic (or racial, if you like) labeling, complete with a categorical judgment of the sensitivity each group must have to racism issues a priori of their personal experiences. What DOES seem interesting is the fact that when TONY stresses his ethnicity, in his worldview, it’s a good and positive thing. When OTHER people do it, as the Shalit campaigners do, or those who spoof it, as Peacepalestine has done, it’s clearly racist and anti-Semitic. I wish he would make up his mind one way or the other.
I agree that the campaign for Gilad Shalit is clearly racist, but it is far from being anti-Semitic. They will have to presumably find someone to paste in that Yellow Star as Tony suggests, not because the campaign is anti-Semitic, but because it represents to perfection the Jewish Victim role, the only way we are supposed to feel about Jews, especially Israeli ones. To justify what Israel does, we have to know they are clearly victims of some irrational hatred based on the simple fact that they are Jews in an Arab world hostile to their very existence. The Yellow Star would be an apt symbol of the victim paradigm that we should never forget or place into any context, no matter what. Jews are and will be the eternal victim, and you better get the idea that they act only out of reasons of defense. Being victims, we have to empathise with their plight in all instances.
The identifying label of the righteous victim is used to influence people and suspend any other kind of rational thinking or judgment. The innocent victim status is used in the Shalit campaign to instill an idea that goes against reality. We have to suspend our judgment on the role that he fulfilled. We have to think that a soldier who was in an Occupation army, in occupied territory AS an occupier, not a journalist or excursionist, there to render the lives of the people under Occupation a hell on earth and endanger their very safety with his presence, was just an innocent child who needs to be returned to his worried parents. He has become the centre of a “humanitarian” campaign that has very little to do with humanity, despite the text one can read on the banner.
This campaign has been going on for a while. Anyone who has seen even one blog by Israel supporters has bumped into it. It’s really hard to remain indifferent to. Indeed, the graphic artists felt it NECESSARY to point out that Shalit is a Human being. Oh, yes, and a Jew as well. Generally, members of Homo Sapiens Sapiens ARE considered to be Human beings and we don’t need to be told, even though the pictures of Shalit bring more the idea of a lost puppy to mind.
And we all know that if Shalit was an IDF member, well, he could have been nothing other than Jewish. Tony was shocked at the horrible sort of racist labeling. As a matter of fact, he thought it was something I dreamed up myself and not a parody. He was unaware of this campaign. Where has he been hiding? The amount of posts he leaves around would indicate that he’s online a hell of a lot of hours in a day. A legitimate question to ask is what precisely does he do other than post his own repetitious text? He claims that he fights Zionism, but he has NEVER seen a Zionist site or blog since the day of the campaign??? That is longer than a year. How can one fight the enemy if one does not even know what the enemy is up to? Or maybe he’s seen it, but is pretending righteous indignation in order to influence people who may not be familiar with the propaganda tools of Zionism so that they come to think of my blog in the same jaundiced way he does. He obviously detests it, because it exposes his endless smear and silencing campaigns against Gilad Atzmon. Yet, to call it a rightwing blog with an anti-Semitic and conspiracist agenda is really pushing it. Apparently, he may need to convince himself more than he does others. And with the three-person following he has, he has to work harder on it, apparently.
But, leaving aside this provincial matter for the moment, I shall return to the issue of humanity and the Gilad Shalit campaign. I had the good fortune of working for several years in a major advertising agency as a copy editor and then copywriter. Our clients would show us their new product and we would have to come up with an appropriate campaign. The first thing one has to do is to “frame the target”. You have to know who you are trying to convince, and you have to use a language that will appeal to them on even a subconscious level. You have to reach them, then you have to influence them. Later, they will become an additional and correlated (not to mention cost-free) advertising element, by driving around on your motorcycle (in the case of the campaigns I managed).
Bringing that knowledge to the Shalit campaign, we see this: our target probably is NOT the group or individuals that hold Shalit. Most likely, they would not be overly sensitive to the fact that he is a Jew, or at least, this would not be the aspect of his being that would influence them the most. Perhaps those who created the campaign feel that those holding him in captivity are unaware that he is a human, so they have to spell it out, but I tend to believe that since the advert is in English and in Hebrew, our target is the Zio-blogosphere. So, the banner gets picked up and distributed on sites where people go who support Israel or at least aren’t blatantly or even latently pro-Palestinian. I have never seen the banner on a single pro-Palestinian site. Correct me, someone, if I am wrong and it is posted on some site of the sort.
The language then, has got to appeal to the crowd that follows the Zio-blogosphere. It is “normal” for them, I guess, to believe racial profiling is acceptable. If you are a Jew, anyway, and you are a Jew who is doing it, however. I doubt they would be convinced that Tony is right and that it is anti-Semitic. If I were still in advertising and worked on this campaign, I am pretty sure they would like the Yellow Star, though, and should consider integrating it into future versions of the campaign (all campaigns require a refresher in order to remain effective).
Now, what is the most interesting aspect of the entire campaign, attempting to appeal to the humanitarian aspect of the crisis, is we see just how the people who support this campaign think. Take a look at http://giladshalit.blogspot.com/ and see that there is a poll asking the following question:
Poll: One Year On. What should the Israeli Government do?
What action should the Israeli Government take now that Hamas has clear control of Gaza and it has been 1 year since Gilad Shalit was been kidnapped
Negotiate with Hamas
Negotiate with Hamas, release as many prisoners as it takes
Hold the Hamas Leadership directly accountable
Hold the Leadership accountable and give them one final deadline before military action
Hold Leadership accountable, give deadline for military action and total cessation of all Israeli supplied electricty and Water.
view results
Well, how do you think that the public answered as of today's date?
Let me show you the results:
What action should the Israeli Government take now that Hamas has clear control of Gaza and it has been 1 year since Gilad Shalit has been kidnapped
Negotiate with Hamas 18% 127
Negotiate with Hamas, release as many prisoners as it takes 14% 97
Hold the Hamas Leadership directly accountable 10% 72
Hold the Leadership accountable and give them another final deadline before military action 10% 73
Hold Leadership accountable, give deadline for military action and total cessation of all Israeli supplied electricty and Water. 47% 327
total votes: 696
More than half of them (58%) demand that there be military action taken (raids, presumably resulting in deaths of innocent civilians, as is often the case), and a whopping 47% call for total cessation of Israeli-supplied electricty (sic) and Water. (As if it comes from someplace else).
What would the result of such a call be? It isn’t too hard to comprehend, given that Israel has already begun the cessation of supply to the people they keep confined in Gaza. It means treating human beings like their lives are expendable, and actually turning a deaf ear as one hears their cries that they are dying. I would hope that people who care about Shalit would think before they push a little button to state their opinion, and consider that it is very inhumane to cut off basic utilities services of the people who you have made depend on them. It is a form of torture and duress. It certainly is how a complete sadist would operate. Animals in a zoo are treated better than that.
Are the people who are so concerned to show the world that the IDF soldier captured while he was in operative duty is a Human being (oh, and a Jew too), able to even see or feel that the more than one million men, women and children in Gaza are Human beings as well? Or does the fact that there are no longer any Jews in Gaza mean that genocide and collective punishment is acceptable? Was the last human removed from Gaza with the unilateral withdrawal?
But, I don’t know why any of this surprises me. We all have heard that the reason for the breakout of the so-called Second Lebanon War was the capture of two IDF soldiers and the killing of eight in the border zone between Lebanon and Israel. This is the Israeli Government version of the war. Therefore, untold death and devastation is a normal and acceptable price to pay for the lives of a Human being (and Jew) wearing an IDF uniform? We know how many innocent Human beings were killed in the war Israel started. This is the page of the Israeli deaths, and this is a listing of all the casualties. Take a look at it carefully. The civilian casualties are 1,233+ (the plus meaning countless and unknown numbers of those whose death was not immediate, and we can probably add a great deal more to this list, given the situation of utter devastation that Israel created in Lebanon. The civilian wounded tops 5,089 people. The military deaths are 438 - 888+ (given the variable reports) and more than 512 wounded. The situation of devastation caused over one million people (human beings, as far as I know) to have been temporarily made into refugees, “with an unknown number of missing civilians in the south”, as was stated in several articles referenced but no longer available in an online version. It is important to mention that the southern zone of Lebanon, a residential area, was cluster bombed, meaning, the resettlement of humans is quite unlikely, due to the remote possibilities of returning to a land that has been wilfully disseminated with unconventional (and illegal, even in an activity as unholy as war) weapons that will bring about devastation for years to come. These weapons were dropped there precisely for that inhumane purpose by the Israeli army.
So, are we to deduce from all of this that you are only a Human being if you wear an IDF uniform? Or if you are a Jew? Is calling for carnage and devastation to other Human beings a proper response to the capture of a soldier? Judging by the “humanitarian” mode of thinking by those who support the Free Gilad Shalit campaign, I think we can come to some of our own conclusions.
One thing is clear, and that is that we are anaesthetized into thinking that if it is a Jewish activist, campaigning as such, calling for action, be it to “fight anti-Semitism”, “bring down Zionism” or to collectively punish millions of non-Jews (non-Humans?) it is something “normal”. It is indeed not something normal, and it is about time we started to stop expecting people to think in pre-masticated ways, expecting them to assume that a Jew certainly should know better or act in a way that is beyond judgment. This is a call for the end, once and for all, of ethnically based campaigning. It’s just another aspect of racist campaigning, and it treats us all like we are racists and need to be told what is right and what is wrong.
by Mary Rizzo
This blog recently has had some attention from Tony Greenstein. Taking a detour from his general direction of activism (sic) which boils down to exclusively attacking a growing list of other Pro-Palestinian activists - posting the same article that has been proven to be a misrepresentation consisting of a series of out-of-context quotes and insinuations about Gilad Atzmon - he’s using the same method, wallpapering every spot he can think of with his rantings using an identical post (to get the most mileage out of it, I suppose) that my blog is an Anti-Semitic sewer because it had this:
He stated:
“Under a title ‘Peacepalestine Offers Prisoner Exchange’ are four photographs of Ariel Sharon, Gilad Shalit, David Hirsh and myself, with what presumably are supposed to be wanted posters bearing our names, photographs, the title ‘human being’ (presumably this is disputed) and then, in reverse video the word ‘JEW’. All that is missing is the yellow star, but I’m sure Rizzo will manage to find a graphic artist up to the task.”
He then emphasizes that this is “clearly racist and anti-Semitic”.
Well, finally Tony Greenstein and I can partially agree on something. Gilad Atzmon and I have been stressing for years now that asking people to take action or to influence them by merit of some ethnically-based criterion is simply a racist way of thinking and operating, and Tony finally admits as much. If we are people, it shouldn’t matter one iota what group we are born or raised into. Ideologies are mindsets that are not "genetically instilled" and can be adopted or cast off or used at will. We can’t accept an objective ethnic belonging that carries no merit or defect as such, as an ethical device or even a way to persuade people. Ideologies matter, ethnic belonging does not. Belonging to one group or another should be irrelevant when trying to persude people of the value of an argument and influence their opinions. We should move beyond the stage of focussing on a person according to race, sex, religion, nationality or political leaning, and listen to their arguments.
It is too bad that Tony feels the need to continually insist on telling us that he was “The only Jewish speaker” at this meeting or that. Gosh, I didn’t know that there is a census made of the ethnic or religious belonging of the people who speak at meetings and that Tony was privy to that information. He also believes that Jews have special sensitivity to racism. “Jews, of all people, should be the first to oppose racism, whoever the victims and the perpetrators,” he says. While at the same time, he knows how (presumably all) Blacks must feel about it, refering to one of his interlocutors, so that he can be easily identified, apparently, as “a Black Sudanese guy”: “But again Black people have better understanding of racism than white ex-councillors”. (Following this logic, if the white ex-councillors are Jewish, they should be the first to oppose the racism, but other whites certainly are lacking in this moral characteristic.) If one were to judge the way he writes, it seems he does indeed think in racial stereotypes and categories and can’t resist mentioning it as if it were the normal thing to do. Yet, on the other hand, he insists that race does not exist, er… rather, it is a political construct. “Just to be clear. Zionism isn't based on a race, nor is German anti-Semitism for the simple reason there are no such things as race. Race is a political construct.” (Alef message 5 January, 2008) Whether or not there is such a thing as race seems to be a matter of debate for geneticists, and we’ve all seen acceptable arguments from both sides of the debate. Tony is extremely “ethnically aware”, and this is absolutely crystal clear in almost every intervention he has on internet. One might say that it borders on an obsession. Whites, Blacks, Jews, Non-Jews, hardly a single thing he has written escapes this ethnic (or racial, if you like) labeling, complete with a categorical judgment of the sensitivity each group must have to racism issues a priori of their personal experiences. What DOES seem interesting is the fact that when TONY stresses his ethnicity, in his worldview, it’s a good and positive thing. When OTHER people do it, as the Shalit campaigners do, or those who spoof it, as Peacepalestine has done, it’s clearly racist and anti-Semitic. I wish he would make up his mind one way or the other.
I agree that the campaign for Gilad Shalit is clearly racist, but it is far from being anti-Semitic. They will have to presumably find someone to paste in that Yellow Star as Tony suggests, not because the campaign is anti-Semitic, but because it represents to perfection the Jewish Victim role, the only way we are supposed to feel about Jews, especially Israeli ones. To justify what Israel does, we have to know they are clearly victims of some irrational hatred based on the simple fact that they are Jews in an Arab world hostile to their very existence. The Yellow Star would be an apt symbol of the victim paradigm that we should never forget or place into any context, no matter what. Jews are and will be the eternal victim, and you better get the idea that they act only out of reasons of defense. Being victims, we have to empathise with their plight in all instances.
The identifying label of the righteous victim is used to influence people and suspend any other kind of rational thinking or judgment. The innocent victim status is used in the Shalit campaign to instill an idea that goes against reality. We have to suspend our judgment on the role that he fulfilled. We have to think that a soldier who was in an Occupation army, in occupied territory AS an occupier, not a journalist or excursionist, there to render the lives of the people under Occupation a hell on earth and endanger their very safety with his presence, was just an innocent child who needs to be returned to his worried parents. He has become the centre of a “humanitarian” campaign that has very little to do with humanity, despite the text one can read on the banner.
This campaign has been going on for a while. Anyone who has seen even one blog by Israel supporters has bumped into it. It’s really hard to remain indifferent to. Indeed, the graphic artists felt it NECESSARY to point out that Shalit is a Human being. Oh, yes, and a Jew as well. Generally, members of Homo Sapiens Sapiens ARE considered to be Human beings and we don’t need to be told, even though the pictures of Shalit bring more the idea of a lost puppy to mind.
And we all know that if Shalit was an IDF member, well, he could have been nothing other than Jewish. Tony was shocked at the horrible sort of racist labeling. As a matter of fact, he thought it was something I dreamed up myself and not a parody. He was unaware of this campaign. Where has he been hiding? The amount of posts he leaves around would indicate that he’s online a hell of a lot of hours in a day. A legitimate question to ask is what precisely does he do other than post his own repetitious text? He claims that he fights Zionism, but he has NEVER seen a Zionist site or blog since the day of the campaign??? That is longer than a year. How can one fight the enemy if one does not even know what the enemy is up to? Or maybe he’s seen it, but is pretending righteous indignation in order to influence people who may not be familiar with the propaganda tools of Zionism so that they come to think of my blog in the same jaundiced way he does. He obviously detests it, because it exposes his endless smear and silencing campaigns against Gilad Atzmon. Yet, to call it a rightwing blog with an anti-Semitic and conspiracist agenda is really pushing it. Apparently, he may need to convince himself more than he does others. And with the three-person following he has, he has to work harder on it, apparently.But, leaving aside this provincial matter for the moment, I shall return to the issue of humanity and the Gilad Shalit campaign. I had the good fortune of working for several years in a major advertising agency as a copy editor and then copywriter. Our clients would show us their new product and we would have to come up with an appropriate campaign. The first thing one has to do is to “frame the target”. You have to know who you are trying to convince, and you have to use a language that will appeal to them on even a subconscious level. You have to reach them, then you have to influence them. Later, they will become an additional and correlated (not to mention cost-free) advertising element, by driving around on your motorcycle (in the case of the campaigns I managed).
Bringing that knowledge to the Shalit campaign, we see this: our target probably is NOT the group or individuals that hold Shalit. Most likely, they would not be overly sensitive to the fact that he is a Jew, or at least, this would not be the aspect of his being that would influence them the most. Perhaps those who created the campaign feel that those holding him in captivity are unaware that he is a human, so they have to spell it out, but I tend to believe that since the advert is in English and in Hebrew, our target is the Zio-blogosphere. So, the banner gets picked up and distributed on sites where people go who support Israel or at least aren’t blatantly or even latently pro-Palestinian. I have never seen the banner on a single pro-Palestinian site. Correct me, someone, if I am wrong and it is posted on some site of the sort.
The language then, has got to appeal to the crowd that follows the Zio-blogosphere. It is “normal” for them, I guess, to believe racial profiling is acceptable. If you are a Jew, anyway, and you are a Jew who is doing it, however. I doubt they would be convinced that Tony is right and that it is anti-Semitic. If I were still in advertising and worked on this campaign, I am pretty sure they would like the Yellow Star, though, and should consider integrating it into future versions of the campaign (all campaigns require a refresher in order to remain effective).
Now, what is the most interesting aspect of the entire campaign, attempting to appeal to the humanitarian aspect of the crisis, is we see just how the people who support this campaign think. Take a look at http://giladshalit.blogspot.com/ and see that there is a poll asking the following question:
Poll: One Year On. What should the Israeli Government do?
What action should the Israeli Government take now that Hamas has clear control of Gaza and it has been 1 year since Gilad Shalit was been kidnapped
Negotiate with Hamas
Negotiate with Hamas, release as many prisoners as it takes
Hold the Hamas Leadership directly accountable
Hold the Leadership accountable and give them one final deadline before military action
Hold Leadership accountable, give deadline for military action and total cessation of all Israeli supplied electricty and Water.
view results
Well, how do you think that the public answered as of today's date?
Let me show you the results:
What action should the Israeli Government take now that Hamas has clear control of Gaza and it has been 1 year since Gilad Shalit has been kidnapped
Negotiate with Hamas 18% 127
Negotiate with Hamas, release as many prisoners as it takes 14% 97
Hold the Hamas Leadership directly accountable 10% 72
Hold the Leadership accountable and give them another final deadline before military action 10% 73
Hold Leadership accountable, give deadline for military action and total cessation of all Israeli supplied electricty and Water. 47% 327
total votes: 696
More than half of them (58%) demand that there be military action taken (raids, presumably resulting in deaths of innocent civilians, as is often the case), and a whopping 47% call for total cessation of Israeli-supplied electricty (sic) and Water. (As if it comes from someplace else).
What would the result of such a call be? It isn’t too hard to comprehend, given that Israel has already begun the cessation of supply to the people they keep confined in Gaza. It means treating human beings like their lives are expendable, and actually turning a deaf ear as one hears their cries that they are dying. I would hope that people who care about Shalit would think before they push a little button to state their opinion, and consider that it is very inhumane to cut off basic utilities services of the people who you have made depend on them. It is a form of torture and duress. It certainly is how a complete sadist would operate. Animals in a zoo are treated better than that.
Are the people who are so concerned to show the world that the IDF soldier captured while he was in operative duty is a Human being (oh, and a Jew too), able to even see or feel that the more than one million men, women and children in Gaza are Human beings as well? Or does the fact that there are no longer any Jews in Gaza mean that genocide and collective punishment is acceptable? Was the last human removed from Gaza with the unilateral withdrawal?
But, I don’t know why any of this surprises me. We all have heard that the reason for the breakout of the so-called Second Lebanon War was the capture of two IDF soldiers and the killing of eight in the border zone between Lebanon and Israel. This is the Israeli Government version of the war. Therefore, untold death and devastation is a normal and acceptable price to pay for the lives of a Human being (and Jew) wearing an IDF uniform? We know how many innocent Human beings were killed in the war Israel started. This is the page of the Israeli deaths, and this is a listing of all the casualties. Take a look at it carefully. The civilian casualties are 1,233+ (the plus meaning countless and unknown numbers of those whose death was not immediate, and we can probably add a great deal more to this list, given the situation of utter devastation that Israel created in Lebanon. The civilian wounded tops 5,089 people. The military deaths are 438 - 888+ (given the variable reports) and more than 512 wounded. The situation of devastation caused over one million people (human beings, as far as I know) to have been temporarily made into refugees, “with an unknown number of missing civilians in the south”, as was stated in several articles referenced but no longer available in an online version. It is important to mention that the southern zone of Lebanon, a residential area, was cluster bombed, meaning, the resettlement of humans is quite unlikely, due to the remote possibilities of returning to a land that has been wilfully disseminated with unconventional (and illegal, even in an activity as unholy as war) weapons that will bring about devastation for years to come. These weapons were dropped there precisely for that inhumane purpose by the Israeli army.
So, are we to deduce from all of this that you are only a Human being if you wear an IDF uniform? Or if you are a Jew? Is calling for carnage and devastation to other Human beings a proper response to the capture of a soldier? Judging by the “humanitarian” mode of thinking by those who support the Free Gilad Shalit campaign, I think we can come to some of our own conclusions.
One thing is clear, and that is that we are anaesthetized into thinking that if it is a Jewish activist, campaigning as such, calling for action, be it to “fight anti-Semitism”, “bring down Zionism” or to collectively punish millions of non-Jews (non-Humans?) it is something “normal”. It is indeed not something normal, and it is about time we started to stop expecting people to think in pre-masticated ways, expecting them to assume that a Jew certainly should know better or act in a way that is beyond judgment. This is a call for the end, once and for all, of ethnically based campaigning. It’s just another aspect of racist campaigning, and it treats us all like we are racists and need to be told what is right and what is wrong.
Labels: activism, anti-Semitism, Atzmon, call to action, gatekeeping, Gaza, good news, hasbara, human rights violations, Israel, jewish identity politics, Lebanon, military, propaganda, Zionism
Wednesday, January 9, 2008
Brighton Rocked - Gilad Atzmon event a success
by Francis Clark-LowesGilad Atzmon's talk to 'Invitation to Learn' in Brighton last night (7th January) was a great success. He spoke on 'The Primacy of the Ear - The Road from Music to Ethics (An Alternative Take on the Israeli Palestinian Conflict)' to an audience of around sixty, just over half of them face to face and the remainder watching on a video link downstairs. The meeting had been moved to my private residence - a small terraced house - following intimidation by Tony Greenstein of the Brighthelm Church and Community Centre, where the event was originally booked. As Gilad mentioned, the confined space into which we had been squeezed reminded one of the siege of Gaza, the common factor being the oppressive use of Jewish power. Gilad illustrated his talk with extracts of jazz and Arabic music. He told us that his encounter with the latter had taught him the 'primacy of the ear'. In order to 'get' Arabic music he had had to learn to listen properly. By extension, what the West, and particularly Israelis, needed to learn was how to listen to the other.
The local newspaper in Brighton, The Argus, asked me to write a Comment piece of 800 words on the whole episode of my invitation to Gilad and the opposition to it (see below). When I submitted it, the editor said that he had changed his mind and no longer wanted to publish our article on this subject. One can imagine what pressure had been brought to bear to bring about this volte face.
The whole proceedings, which lasted over two and a half hours, began with a twenty minute introduction by myself, and ended with an hour long question and answer session, was recorded and will be turned into a DVD.
The Article (that the Argus decided to not publish, after their beefy campaign to smear!)
My Fears for Free Speech and the Palestinians
by Francis Clark-Lowes
In their book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007), John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, two well-respected American academics, illustrate the kind of intimidation used against those in high places who do not conform to an Israeli view of the world. I know what it feels like, because I have just experienced something similar – except that in this case my leading opponent, my old friend Tony Greenstein, is an anti-Zionist Jew, someone who rejects the very idea of Israel.
When I announced yesterday’s Invitation to Learn meeting, at which the well-known jazz musician and ex-Israeli, Gilad Atzmon, spoke on ‘The Primacy of the Ear: The Road from Music to Ethics’, all hell broke loose. In particular, Jean Calder, almost certainly prompted by Greenstein, wrote a comment column in The Argus of 29th/30th December in which Atzmon was presented as a racist of the worst order. He is nothing of the sort. Moreover she suggested that the Brighthelm Centre should not host such an event. Shortly thereafter Greenstein was found sticking up posters at the Centre advertising a picket of the event.
There was no time to counter Greenstein’s and Calder’s arguments to the satisfaction of the manager of the venue. The lurid depiction of Atzmon tapped into well-worn narratives about anti-Jewish prejudice, and under these intimidating circumstances I felt it my duty to save the Brighthelm Centre further embarrassment by cancelling the booking and transferring the venue to my house.
Ironically last night we found ourselves besieged and overcrowded in much the same way as the Palestinians in Gaza as we witnessed Atzmon’s moving account of his political journey through the medium of his encounter with Arabic music. His message was crystal clear: that we need to listen to the other.
The Palestinians are suffering as a result of a settlement programme which started in the late nineteenth century and continues apace today. If they had been granted equal status with the newcomers peace might have been possible. But it was clear from the beginning that Zionism aimed at removing the native population.
The received wisdom is that Zionism is a Jewish national movement growing out of the persecution of Jews. But since Zionism arose at a time of Jewish emancipation is it not at least as credible, as the Jewish-Israeli writer Akiva Orr has suggested, that Zionism was an attempt to rescue Jewish identity at a time of declining religious practise, and consequently of assimilation and intermarriage?
If this is right, then mainstream secular Jewish identity has become Zionism. Any criticism of Zionism is, therefore at risk of being labelled ‘anti-Semitism’. This is what Atzmon thinks has happened. Of course we both recognise that others take a different view. All we ask is that the subject be on the agenda, rather than dismissing it as racism.
For if we are correct in what we think, it would radically change our view of how to help the Palestinians. It would then be frankly recognised that a collective of non-Israeli Jews (read all the usual caveats) act to preserve Israel not only from undue criticism, but more importantly, from any effective international sanctions. It is rare indeed for its main backer, the US, to put serious pressure on the Jewish state. As Mearsheimer and Walt point out, the pressure is often the other way around.
Invitation to Learn, the organisation I set up a couple of years ago, exists to encourage unrestricted thought and discussion and to express solidarity with oppressed peoples. We should not be prevented from thinking about issues because some people would prefer we didn’t. ‘Well, would you invite members of the BNP then?’ I have been asked. Concern for the oppressed is not, I believe, a major plank of the BNP, and so the answer is no.
Nevertheless, I believe that arguments which are accepted by a sizeable section of British society should be honestly engaged with rather than simply dismissed out of hand. It is all too easy to distort the arguments of those with whom we disagree for propaganda purposes. This is what Greenstein does with Atzmon.
Your correspondent James Stephenson (7th Jan) rightly points out the absurdity of regarding Jews and Arabs as separate races – many Jews are indeed Arabs. But for the conflict to be resolved there needs to be a proper understanding of how the Palestinians have been, and continue to be, oppressed. And that means looking at the power exerted by Jews internationally – for the sake not only of non-Jews, but also of Jews. Some will call this the old conspiracy theory, but if we are over careful to avoid old stereotypes we may enable the behaviour portrayed by them.
by Francis Clark-Lowes
In their book, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy (2007), John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, two well-respected American academics, illustrate the kind of intimidation used against those in high places who do not conform to an Israeli view of the world. I know what it feels like, because I have just experienced something similar – except that in this case my leading opponent, my old friend Tony Greenstein, is an anti-Zionist Jew, someone who rejects the very idea of Israel.
When I announced yesterday’s Invitation to Learn meeting, at which the well-known jazz musician and ex-Israeli, Gilad Atzmon, spoke on ‘The Primacy of the Ear: The Road from Music to Ethics’, all hell broke loose. In particular, Jean Calder, almost certainly prompted by Greenstein, wrote a comment column in The Argus of 29th/30th December in which Atzmon was presented as a racist of the worst order. He is nothing of the sort. Moreover she suggested that the Brighthelm Centre should not host such an event. Shortly thereafter Greenstein was found sticking up posters at the Centre advertising a picket of the event.
There was no time to counter Greenstein’s and Calder’s arguments to the satisfaction of the manager of the venue. The lurid depiction of Atzmon tapped into well-worn narratives about anti-Jewish prejudice, and under these intimidating circumstances I felt it my duty to save the Brighthelm Centre further embarrassment by cancelling the booking and transferring the venue to my house.
Ironically last night we found ourselves besieged and overcrowded in much the same way as the Palestinians in Gaza as we witnessed Atzmon’s moving account of his political journey through the medium of his encounter with Arabic music. His message was crystal clear: that we need to listen to the other.
The Palestinians are suffering as a result of a settlement programme which started in the late nineteenth century and continues apace today. If they had been granted equal status with the newcomers peace might have been possible. But it was clear from the beginning that Zionism aimed at removing the native population.
The received wisdom is that Zionism is a Jewish national movement growing out of the persecution of Jews. But since Zionism arose at a time of Jewish emancipation is it not at least as credible, as the Jewish-Israeli writer Akiva Orr has suggested, that Zionism was an attempt to rescue Jewish identity at a time of declining religious practise, and consequently of assimilation and intermarriage?
If this is right, then mainstream secular Jewish identity has become Zionism. Any criticism of Zionism is, therefore at risk of being labelled ‘anti-Semitism’. This is what Atzmon thinks has happened. Of course we both recognise that others take a different view. All we ask is that the subject be on the agenda, rather than dismissing it as racism.
For if we are correct in what we think, it would radically change our view of how to help the Palestinians. It would then be frankly recognised that a collective of non-Israeli Jews (read all the usual caveats) act to preserve Israel not only from undue criticism, but more importantly, from any effective international sanctions. It is rare indeed for its main backer, the US, to put serious pressure on the Jewish state. As Mearsheimer and Walt point out, the pressure is often the other way around.
Invitation to Learn, the organisation I set up a couple of years ago, exists to encourage unrestricted thought and discussion and to express solidarity with oppressed peoples. We should not be prevented from thinking about issues because some people would prefer we didn’t. ‘Well, would you invite members of the BNP then?’ I have been asked. Concern for the oppressed is not, I believe, a major plank of the BNP, and so the answer is no.
Nevertheless, I believe that arguments which are accepted by a sizeable section of British society should be honestly engaged with rather than simply dismissed out of hand. It is all too easy to distort the arguments of those with whom we disagree for propaganda purposes. This is what Greenstein does with Atzmon.
Your correspondent James Stephenson (7th Jan) rightly points out the absurdity of regarding Jews and Arabs as separate races – many Jews are indeed Arabs. But for the conflict to be resolved there needs to be a proper understanding of how the Palestinians have been, and continue to be, oppressed. And that means looking at the power exerted by Jews internationally – for the sake not only of non-Jews, but also of Jews. Some will call this the old conspiracy theory, but if we are over careful to avoid old stereotypes we may enable the behaviour portrayed by them.
Labels: activism, Atzmon, friends, gatekeeping, good news, jewish identity politics, UK
Wednesday, November 14, 2007
Who Are the Palestinians
Adib Kawar sends this beautiful reflection:
من هم الفلسطينيون
"نحن الفلسطينيون تماماً كالزهور التي أراها الآن من نافذة غرفتي, مهما تدنت الحرارة في صقيع الشتاء وثلوجه ستتكسر، ومها ازداد قيظ الصيف وحرقت ورقاتها ويبست، ومهما تناثرت في رياح الخريف، سيأتي يوم عندما تتفتح وتينع من جديد، ندية، يانعة، شابة وجميلة."
I am just sharing this quote which I just read. Author is anonymous.
"We Palestinians are just like the flowers that I see now from my window. No matter how in the cold and harsh winter they are broken, no matter how in the hot summer they are burned and dried, no matter where in the autumn wind they are scattered, a day comes when they bloom again, fresh, young and so beautiful."
من هم الفلسطينيون
"نحن الفلسطينيون تماماً كالزهور التي أراها الآن من نافذة غرفتي, مهما تدنت الحرارة في صقيع الشتاء وثلوجه ستتكسر، ومها ازداد قيظ الصيف وحرقت ورقاتها ويبست، ومهما تناثرت في رياح الخريف، سيأتي يوم عندما تتفتح وتينع من جديد، ندية، يانعة، شابة وجميلة."
I am just sharing this quote which I just read. Author is anonymous.
"We Palestinians are just like the flowers that I see now from my window. No matter how in the cold and harsh winter they are broken, no matter how in the hot summer they are burned and dried, no matter where in the autumn wind they are scattered, a day comes when they bloom again, fresh, young and so beautiful."
Labels: friends, good news, Palestine, somoud
Thursday, November 8, 2007
The Gatekeepers lose another one! Indymedia UK rejects censorship demand
Some who read this might ask themselves what it's all about. Why should a board that is focused on issues of Palestine and opposition to militarism, interventionism and occupation publish frequently about "internal issues" relating to publishing and activism? I believe the response is very simple. There are many news and analysis sources that one can refer to in order to learn more about the issues, to understand them better and to decide what kind of involvement one chooses to have in his or her approach. There are many forums where one can discuss, and in the recent years, there has been a great deal of networking between activists, in order to organise and participate in information and action campaigns. This often means that things become personalised, we get to know one another, and we start to see cracks in some reasoning that without deeper analysis might have seemed unimportant. We not only refine our ideas, but we are called upon to come to our own conclusions on the spectrum of ideas that we are presented with and the genuine dedication to the cause. We also end up being involved in clashes that end up being extremely aggressive.
This blog has been active for three years, and I am happy that I've been able to present the situation in all of its complexity (despite limited time, given that I'm heavily involved in several other editorial, internet and street activist projects). Peacepalestine has documented major events, but also, the vicissitudes of the activist world itself, and more specifically, that of the group I believe I have belonged to all my life, the "movement" that is dedicated to the Palestinian people and their liberation, from a humanist, radical left progressive perspective. Included in the values of this "group" is the importance of service, ie, we are here not for ourselves, but to render service in any way we can to the people of Palestine. We may not always get it right, but Palestinians remain the absolute priority. Another important value is that of conservation of freedom - freedom of thought, freedom of speech, freedom of belief, because radical views have almost always been the first to have been sacrificed to Power. There is an enormous need for those who have power to crush those who don't have power, but are part of "the masses". Yes, there is a weapon we have, and we tend to forget how important it is: to quote a punk band, Anti-Flag, "You've got the guns, We've got the numbers". We actually have MORE power than those who are the oppressors, we just need to put it to good use, once we remember that we are the ones who can decide to think and act according to our morals. If we want to be VERY left, we call it "Change from Below".
This is why it becomes of vital importance for activists first of all to ask themselves two things: At whose service are we? How effective are we? If we are turning the light on about the atrocities of Zionism, Colonialism and Imperialism, we are of service to those who are VICTIMS of these criminal philosophies and the actions that derive from them. In order to turn on the light, we have to be able to communicate, to be allowed the liberty to declare that there is a mindset, a worldview and an ideological position behind all of these things. This is the analytical element of activism. Things aren't born from a vacuum, they have a history, they have some kind of meaning. We have to be willing to reject the "news" that is often filtered through to us, and we have to appeal to the Humanist part of our commitment, and this means a certain kind of approach. If our primary interest (as activists for justice and peace in Palestine) is anything but justice for the victims of Zionism, we are not of service to Palestinians. It couldn't be put any simpler.
As to being effective, obviously, we are not making many inroads. There are many reasons for this, and in the coming days I will analyse a few more of them, but for the moment, one of the greatest obstacles is precisely getting our message across. There are a lucky few who are courageous, some amazing sites that never compromise, all isn't lost. In fact, there is actually more than a little reason to be cheerful.
Everyone who is a habitué of this blog knows that Gilad Atzmon is the major featured writer. Obviously, I like what Gilad writes, and I believe that he is a genuine (one of the most genuine, and in 27 or 28 years of activism, I've met my share) supporter of Palestinians. His dedication is without shadow of a doubt, and besides, he comes with a new and interesting approach.
While many believe politicians have a lot of influence, they really don't know much about the issues. While some journalists are very good at what they do, they ultimately, (most of them) are serving someone before they are serving the cause they support, be it their editor or advertisers or political parties. Philosophers are in a completely different position. They have total intellectual autonomy. Gilad has been attacked, (and naturally, anyone who supports his ideas and believes that they are worthy of widespread dissemination is attacked just as much) by certain sectors of the "movement". There have been calls by some in this extremely marginal group of people (both in number and in relevance) to have Gilad Atzmon banned, boycotted, picketed, harassed, and most frequently, CENSORED. The latest had been documented here, here and here. Well, the demands of Tony Greenstein, acting for Moishe Machover, had been rejected by IndyMedia UK. Here is the letter from one of the moderators, explaining to Tony that not only was Tony's diatribe going to be "hidden" (something that Tony had asked to be done to Gilad's article, if they couldn't out and out censor it), but that his proposition was rejected.
I've stopped keeping count of the various humiliating defeats Tony and his cronies have had in trying to 1) tell Palestinians who is good for them and who is bad for them, 2) tell other activists that certain "elements" had to be silenced (yes, there have been even attempts to have me voted off a discussion forum! Not even a political party!!!) 3) determine priorities for the movement that are not essential to the Palestinian Rights Campaign, ie, the focus on Fighting Anti-Semitism as one of the major issues, if not the determining one, 4) convincing everyone that the tunnel vision to which he is a victim is the only correct approach to discussion of the Israel-Palestinian problem, and this vision dictates the precise direction which any discussion must go, as well as the certification of all those who are dedicated to the Palestinian struggle into the parametres he has set, which obviously have major intellectual and ethical holes in them.
The utter irony of it all lies in this: the aggression aimed towards Gilad (which it is necessary to mention, is always unprovoked. Gilad uses his capacity to think and write, others use theirs to publish and disseminate and comment on, and Tony and Co. turn it into a highly charged battle against the PERSONS, to which the persons involved at times feel they would spend time responding to) began with an analysis of a group of people that were attempting to smear, defame and silence others by their "demerits" or "affiliations". It was a classic example of a lobbying measure used by a group of people who identify themselves as "Anti-Zionist Jews" to silence other Anti-Zionists who, oddly enough, were all of Jewish origin, but refuse to identify themselves primarily as Jews and act under that name. It was a classic example of gatekeeping. I would say that the paper that Gilad wrote on it then, almost three years ago, is just as valid today as it was then. It seems they just can't win. It seems they just can't move on and start getting their energies committed to Palestinian people!
For your pleasure, edification and information:
[Imc-uk-features] A response to Tony Greenstein's hidden article
From one of the moderators of the Indymedia board
Wed Nov 7 04:38:01 PST 2007
Dear Tony
Your article of last night has been hidden, as it is essentially a complaint about moderation, and our editorial guidelines (http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/static/editorial.html) (which I note you quote)
state:
"Concerns about editorial guidelines or queries about moderation are dealt with on the imc-uk-features list. These issues are not dealt with through the newswire, and newswire posts on these topics will be hidden."
In your email to contact, you stated:
"On most occasions accusations of anti-Semitism, especially by Zionists against those supporting the Palestinians are a form of defamation."
ie you advised that claims of anti-semitism are not to be taken at face value, as the term is often misused in order to defame critics - especially those who support Palestinians.
You then go on to say:
"In this case they are unfortunately true."
ie you claim that we can trust you to have got it right.
However, there is a glaring error in your email:
"In most 'Knuckes' contributions like the above Atzmon purports to suggest that he is not Atzmon. However in a post at 00.04 of 23.10.07. he forgets his alias and both writes in the first person and signs off as Atzmon:"
Yet, the comment is clearly entitled:
"Gilad Atzmon - an open comment to JSF"
and the opening lines are:
"Gilad Atzmon’s open comment to JSF
http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2007/10/gilad-atzmon-open-comment-to-jsf.html"
If you click on the link, it takes you to the exact same text that appears underneath, and it is signed:
"ATB
Gilad Atzmon"
So, rather than 'knuckles' forgetting his alias, it appears to be knuckles posting the text from Peace Palestine.
In other words, it would appear that you are capable of making mistakes, or getting the wrong end of the stick, so to speak. At best your evidence is extremely circumstantial, and disputable.
Now, you have DEMANDED that Indymedia do what you say - which is, in any case not even our usual practice, ie to delete the post from our server, so that it would be unreadable to anyone, as would the comments.
However, in the full awareness that there is a high level of antagonism between you and Gilad, that this has been going for several years and that you have several times attempted to have him banned from places, I think that it would be a bad move on our part to automatically take your side on this matter. It is better in the long run, for all of us, if the kneejerk response to calls of anti-semitism is relaced with an informed decision.
So, contrary to your claim that the collective has done nothing about your demand, there has been a debate about the issues that you have raised.
You can read the archived discussion at:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-features/2007-October/thread.html#start
and
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-features/2007-November/thread.html#start
You have already used the comments section to make your objections to the article known, and the list is an open one.
You offer up 2 partial quotes from the article:
From one of the moderators of the Indymedia board
Wed Nov 7 04:38:01 PST 2007
Dear Tony
Your article of last night has been hidden, as it is essentially a complaint about moderation, and our editorial guidelines (http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/static/editorial.html) (which I note you quote)
state:
"Concerns about editorial guidelines or queries about moderation are dealt with on the imc-uk-features list. These issues are not dealt with through the newswire, and newswire posts on these topics will be hidden."
In your email to contact, you stated:
"On most occasions accusations of anti-Semitism, especially by Zionists against those supporting the Palestinians are a form of defamation."
ie you advised that claims of anti-semitism are not to be taken at face value, as the term is often misused in order to defame critics - especially those who support Palestinians.
You then go on to say:
"In this case they are unfortunately true."
ie you claim that we can trust you to have got it right.
However, there is a glaring error in your email:
"In most 'Knuckes' contributions like the above Atzmon purports to suggest that he is not Atzmon. However in a post at 00.04 of 23.10.07. he forgets his alias and both writes in the first person and signs off as Atzmon:"
Yet, the comment is clearly entitled:
"Gilad Atzmon - an open comment to JSF"
and the opening lines are:
"Gilad Atzmon’s open comment to JSF
http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/2007/10/gilad-atzmon-open-comment-to-jsf.html"
If you click on the link, it takes you to the exact same text that appears underneath, and it is signed:
"ATB
Gilad Atzmon"
So, rather than 'knuckles' forgetting his alias, it appears to be knuckles posting the text from Peace Palestine.
In other words, it would appear that you are capable of making mistakes, or getting the wrong end of the stick, so to speak. At best your evidence is extremely circumstantial, and disputable.
Now, you have DEMANDED that Indymedia do what you say - which is, in any case not even our usual practice, ie to delete the post from our server, so that it would be unreadable to anyone, as would the comments.
However, in the full awareness that there is a high level of antagonism between you and Gilad, that this has been going for several years and that you have several times attempted to have him banned from places, I think that it would be a bad move on our part to automatically take your side on this matter. It is better in the long run, for all of us, if the kneejerk response to calls of anti-semitism is relaced with an informed decision.
So, contrary to your claim that the collective has done nothing about your demand, there has been a debate about the issues that you have raised.
You can read the archived discussion at:
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-features/2007-October/thread.html#start
and
http://lists.indymedia.org/pipermail/imc-uk-features/2007-November/thread.html#start
You have already used the comments section to make your objections to the article known, and the list is an open one.
You offer up 2 partial quotes from the article:
The first is this:
"‘Within the Judaic worldview, history and ethics are often reduced into a banal single binary opposition principle…"
What you don't quote is the qualification:
"But let’s face it, it isn’t just the Israelis who personalise conflicts. Thanks to the Neocons and their tremendous current influence within the Anglo-American political realm, we are all subject to some oversimplification and personalisation of almost every Western conflict"
In other words, it is all of us who are subject to this behaviour.
The second is this:
"the Jewish state and the sons of Israel are at least as unpopular in the Middle East as their grandparents were in Europe just six decades ago’."
which you assert means that Atzmon blames the Jews for the Holocaust.
However, if it is true that there was rampant anti-semitism in Europe 6 decades ago, then there is some truth in the claim that Jews were unpopular - to say that someone is a victim of racism does not automatically imply that it is their fault.
It does appear that there are other ways of reading the text, and I have doubts about how objective a participant in a long running and mean-spirited dispute can be about their foes words.
That is why it is not as simple as you would like to it to be. We cannot just take it as gospel that you are correct and the article is anti-semitic. It is your interpretation, and there are reasons to be cautious about it.
We are still looking for consensus as how we should deal with claims of anti-semitism as a collective, and to be honest with you, it isn't going to be a quick process.
BTW, It doesn't help if you think you have the right to be rude to Indy volunteers, and it was out of order to single out someone, who tried to assist you, for attack in an article on the newswire.
If you wish to make a response to the collective, the right place to do it is through this list. However, it would be good if you could try and be civil in your posts, as incivility just tends to cloud issues.
ATB
ftp
Labels: activism, Atzmon, gatekeeping, good news, journalism
Wednesday, October 3, 2007
Gilad Atzmon's new Album and TV special
Gilad Atzmon's latest album is out. It's absolutely brilliant. But, please, don't take my word for it, see him play it live in the Special that was aired this week on Sky Channel. Divided into three parts, it shifts from interview segments and The Orient House Ensemble performing some tracks from Refuge. See for yourself what all the fuss is about! This is the first part of the three, the following two are: Gilad Atzmon and the OHE Presenting Refuge (pt2) and
Gilad Atzmon and the OHE Presenting Refuge (pt3) The Peacepalestine stream music player will be temporarily disabled for a few days.
GILAD ATZMON AND THE ORIENT HOUSE ENSEMBLE
THE REFUGE TOUR - AUTUMN 2007
ALBUM REVIEWS
"...this is his band's finest album to date and one that best captures the spirit and vitality of their live shows."
**** Jazzwise Magazine, October 2007
"...The individuality of the music is extraordinary."
**** Alan Brownlee, Manchester Evening News, August 07
"...the OHE is one of the most uncontrivedly versatile and unequivocally entertaining jazz units currently operating in the UK"
Chris Parker, The Vortex, September 07
"...Gilad Atzmon has earned a reputation as an original and creative musician and composer, and that is apparent again in the eight new compositions here."
***The Scotsman, September 07
"...each track on Refuge makes a statement."
**** John L Walters, The Guardian, September 2007
"...See Him Live and Buy His Albums."
*****Alan Cross, Amazon, September 2007
"...The new album is as passion-filled as ever."
Peter Bacon, Birmingham Post, September 2007
"...Atzmon has always been one of the most distinctive saxophonists on the British circuit."
Clive Davis, The Sunday Times, September 07
"...a brilliantly navigated combination of gentle, sensitive lyricism and precisely focused passion."
Chris May, All About Jazz, September 07
"...the album feels tranquil and meditative.."
Phil Harrison, Time Out, September 07
"...Atzmon is an astonishing musician."
John Lewis, Metro, September 07
"Exciting stuff."
Roger Trapp, The Independent, September 07
LIVE REVIEWS
"More sophisticated, subtle and varied than anything else I've heard them do and . absolutely overwhelming.If you can possibly see them live, do."
Aaron Broadhurst Blog, St Ives gig Review, September 2007
"He makes a lovely liquid sound and produces beautifully formed rapid roulades with every note clean as a whistle."
Ivan Hewett reviews Gilad Altzmon at Brentwood Theatre, September 07
"...his phenomenal musical talent has gained him a sizeable and discerning following.The quality of the music was extraordinary...this was still a memorable and thrilling showcase for the talents of a passionate, intensely focused musician - and one which is unlikely to be forgotten in a hurry by those who attended."
Graham Williams, Live Review, Taliesin Arts Centre, South Wales Evening Post, September 07
For more information re live gigs please visit www.gilad.co.uk
Gilad Atzmon and the OHE Presenting Refuge (pt3) The Peacepalestine stream music player will be temporarily disabled for a few days.
GILAD ATZMON AND THE ORIENT HOUSE ENSEMBLE
THE REFUGE TOUR - AUTUMN 2007
ALBUM REVIEWS
"...this is his band's finest album to date and one that best captures the spirit and vitality of their live shows."
**** Jazzwise Magazine, October 2007
"...The individuality of the music is extraordinary."
**** Alan Brownlee, Manchester Evening News, August 07
"...the OHE is one of the most uncontrivedly versatile and unequivocally entertaining jazz units currently operating in the UK"
Chris Parker, The Vortex, September 07
"...Gilad Atzmon has earned a reputation as an original and creative musician and composer, and that is apparent again in the eight new compositions here."
***The Scotsman, September 07
"...each track on Refuge makes a statement."
**** John L Walters, The Guardian, September 2007
"...See Him Live and Buy His Albums."
*****Alan Cross, Amazon, September 2007
"...The new album is as passion-filled as ever."
Peter Bacon, Birmingham Post, September 2007
"...Atzmon has always been one of the most distinctive saxophonists on the British circuit."
Clive Davis, The Sunday Times, September 07
"...a brilliantly navigated combination of gentle, sensitive lyricism and precisely focused passion."
Chris May, All About Jazz, September 07
"...the album feels tranquil and meditative.."
Phil Harrison, Time Out, September 07
"...Atzmon is an astonishing musician."
John Lewis, Metro, September 07
"Exciting stuff."
Roger Trapp, The Independent, September 07
LIVE REVIEWS
"More sophisticated, subtle and varied than anything else I've heard them do and . absolutely overwhelming.If you can possibly see them live, do."
Aaron Broadhurst Blog, St Ives gig Review, September 2007
"He makes a lovely liquid sound and produces beautifully formed rapid roulades with every note clean as a whistle."
Ivan Hewett reviews Gilad Altzmon at Brentwood Theatre, September 07
"...his phenomenal musical talent has gained him a sizeable and discerning following.The quality of the music was extraordinary...this was still a memorable and thrilling showcase for the talents of a passionate, intensely focused musician - and one which is unlikely to be forgotten in a hurry by those who attended."
Graham Williams, Live Review, Taliesin Arts Centre, South Wales Evening Post, September 07
For more information re live gigs please visit www.gilad.co.uk
Labels: Atzmon, good news, music
Friday, September 28, 2007
Impressions from the Medical Aid for Palestinians Concert
Medical Aid For Palestinians Concert
Tues 25th September 2007
@ 606 Jazz Club
Dynamite modern jazz, Andalucían Flamenco, Arabic guitars, sultry vocals, gastronomic delights & surprise special guests! Book a table for dinner by calling the 606 Club 0207 352 5953 (90 Lots Rd SW10) http://www.606club.co.uk/ Entrance fee £15 to be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians. Menu includes vegetarian options.
Tues 25th September 2007
@ 606 Jazz Club
Dynamite modern jazz, Andalucían Flamenco, Arabic guitars, sultry vocals, gastronomic delights & surprise special guests! Book a table for dinner by calling the 606 Club 0207 352 5953 (90 Lots Rd SW10) http://www.606club.co.uk/ Entrance fee £15 to be donated to Medical Aid for Palestinians. Menu includes vegetarian options.
GILAD ATZMON & THE ORIENT HOUSE ENSEMBLEExplosive fusion of Arabic bebop, groovy jazz-noir & sweeping electronica from BBC Jazz Award winner Atzmon & the Orient House Ensemble: Frank Harrison piano, keys & electronics, Yaron Stavi, bass, Asaf Sirkis drums. Special guest Jordanian oud player & vocalist Nizar Al-Issa. A master…a jazz giant with a formidable international reputation. The Guardian Astonishing Time Out
Audiences are clearly bowled over with Atzmon's whirlwind approach ... dynamic, charismatic and ... exasperating! Jazz UK
ORQESTRA MAHATMAEclectic blend of folk tunes, gypsy jazz & wild percussive grooves from string virtuoso Stuart Hall & renowned drummer Paul Clarvis. One of British jazz's quirkiest groups. They're musical nomads mixing up tunes, melodies and rhythms from America to Macedonia and Arabia to Venezuela and beyond Time Out
ATTAB HADDADElectrifying combination of flamenco, jazz & Middle Eastern classical music performed on the Oud by Haddad featuring Graeme Blevins on sax & Genevieve Wilkins on Cajon.
SARAH GILLESPIEAnglo-American songstress fusing folk, jazz & gypsy feat: Ben Bastin, bass, Billy Adamson guitar, Andrea Mann backing vocals w Gilad Atzmon, accordion. Acoustically styled songs that shimmer with a resonant beauty & emotive hurt Time Out Infectious melodies & a voice so potent it will knock you to the wall Get Rhythm
Medical Aid For Palestinians (MAP) is a charitable company limited by guarantee: 038352 England. Registered charity no: 045315
Sarah Gillespie writes:
It's amazing what you can achieve for a good cause when you're not fighting off that pesky bunch of kosher ethnic-police who attempt to sabotage all they disagree with in the name of righteousness. Up they pop: picketing, protesting, shouting, blogging, terrified to the bone that someone might be permitted to campaign against the current genocide in Palestine without first lamenting the genocide of the Jews over half a century ago.
So it was that we managed to pull off a fundraising concert for Medical Aid in Palestine (MAP) last Tuesday at Chelsea's famous 606 Club completely without incident; a small miracle indeed. Perhaps it was Ahmadinejad's whirlwind US speaking tour that consumed their rage quota last week, or maybe it was the shame of Israel's expansionist and illegal air strikes in Syria that shut them up for a few glorious days, who knows? But somehow our concert was publicised in London's Metro, Time Out, The Evening Standard and the Guardian Guide without anyone racing to pick up their quill and compose letters demanding we be cancelled, or preferably culled.
Musicians from Kuwait, Israel, Egypt, Britain, Australia and America eagerly volunteered their talents for a marathon night of music that managed to raise over £2000.00 for people suffering in Gaza and the West Bank. The high octane Middle Eastern jazz blasted through the candle-lit club, packed to the rafters with punters of every denomination feasting on wine, goats cheese & homemade humus while throwing their hard earned cash into buckets touted around by volunteers. Others helped out on the door collecting money and breaking the news to disappointed hordes huddled outside that we simply couldn't fit one more single person into the club.
Indeed, it is slightly boring to generate such support and profit with so little effort. But such was the success of this event that we are considering developing it into a monthly fundraising gig. Inshallah the pseudo ‘peace lovers’ might one day lay down their placards and join in the fun. Watch this space.
So it was that we managed to pull off a fundraising concert for Medical Aid in Palestine (MAP) last Tuesday at Chelsea's famous 606 Club completely without incident; a small miracle indeed. Perhaps it was Ahmadinejad's whirlwind US speaking tour that consumed their rage quota last week, or maybe it was the shame of Israel's expansionist and illegal air strikes in Syria that shut them up for a few glorious days, who knows? But somehow our concert was publicised in London's Metro, Time Out, The Evening Standard and the Guardian Guide without anyone racing to pick up their quill and compose letters demanding we be cancelled, or preferably culled.
Musicians from Kuwait, Israel, Egypt, Britain, Australia and America eagerly volunteered their talents for a marathon night of music that managed to raise over £2000.00 for people suffering in Gaza and the West Bank. The high octane Middle Eastern jazz blasted through the candle-lit club, packed to the rafters with punters of every denomination feasting on wine, goats cheese & homemade humus while throwing their hard earned cash into buckets touted around by volunteers. Others helped out on the door collecting money and breaking the news to disappointed hordes huddled outside that we simply couldn't fit one more single person into the club.
Indeed, it is slightly boring to generate such support and profit with so little effort. But such was the success of this event that we are considering developing it into a monthly fundraising gig. Inshallah the pseudo ‘peace lovers’ might one day lay down their placards and join in the fun. Watch this space.
Medical Aid for Palestine Concert Tues 25th September 2007: Attab Haddad, Sarah Gillespie, Orquestra Muhatma, Gilad Atzmon & the Orient House Ensemble
Labels: activism, Atzmon, friends, good news, music, Palestine, UK
