Zionists Out of the Peace Movement

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".

Source: "The Silencing of Gilad Atzmon" by Oren Ben-Dor in CounterPunch, March 15-17, 2008.

Labels: anti-Zionism, holocaust, identity, Jews

This is the second part of a two-part post on a quartet of Zionist letters to the editor that recently appeared in the Ann Arbor News. Read the first part here.

The last of the quartet of Zionist apologies is from new president of the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County, David S. Shtulman. Shtulman is a dual US-Israeli citizen, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) veteran, and, in all likelihood, a current IOF reservist. Just a few days into the Hanukkah Massacre, Shtulman proclaimed poor Israel to be "under attack."

In his letter (AAN 2/13/09), Shtulman writes:

It always strikes me as strange that 20 percent of Israel's citizens are Arab Muslims, while the Palestinians insist that every Jew must leave any territory that will become part of the Palestinian State, and yet it is Israel that is accused of apartheid. Or that Israel publicly advocates for a two-state solution ...

This is a classic case of psychological projection - a defensive psychological ploy to attribute to others one's own behaviors, impulses and traits. The 20 percent of Israeli citizens who are Arabs (not all of them Muslims) are the survivors, and their descendants, of the violent Jewish ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948 or Nakba. Before the Nakba, there were 650,000 Jews and 1.3 million Arab Palestinians in Palestine and Jews owned less than 6 percent of the land. By the end of 1948, Jewish forces had taken control of 78 percent of Palestine and expelled 84 percent of the Palestinians living on that land. As the founder of the Palestine Land Society, Dr. Salman Abu Sitta, wrote in 2006: "Today the Palestinian population is about 10 million (9.650). Two thirds are refugees, the largest ratio among any people in the world. If you add those displaced in 1967, fully three quarters of the Palestinians are deprived of the normal human right to live at home."

If Shtulman wants to convince any reasonable person that he favors the peaceful coexistence of Jews and Palestinians then he can start by publicly declaring his support for the return of the millions of Palestinian refugees to their homes. Every serious scholar of the history of the Jewish domination of Palestine knows that the status of Palestinian refugees has always been a primary obstacle to any political solution for the simple reason that Jews like Shtulman want Jewish demographic and political supremacy to be maintained and Palestinians naturally don't want to give up their homeland or their right to return to it. Shtulman will never support the Palestinian right of return because he wants an apartheid state like the one Jews have now--one where Jews are running the show and Palestinians are fourth-class citizens or, worse, stateless people living under the Israeli military occupation as in the West Bank and Gaza.

As for Shtulman's allegation that "the Palestinians insist that every Jew must leave any territory that will become part of the Palestinian State," it is more accurate to say that Israel insists that every part of Palestine inhabited by Jews remain under the control of the Jewish State. Undoubtedly, Shtulman's complaint here is that Palestinians do not want Jews to be allowed to stay on land they occupy illegally in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. In this, Palestinians are in accord with international law. As the International Court of Justice opined in the "Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory":

As regards these settlements [i.e. the "Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian Territory (including East Jerusalem)"], the Court notes that Article 49, paragraph 6, of the Fourth Geneva Convention provides: "The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies." That provision prohibits not only deportations or forced transfers of population such as those carried out during the Second World War, but also any measures taken by an occupying Power in order to organize or encourage transfers of parts of its own population into the occupied territory.

In this respect, the information provided to the Court shows that, since 1977, Israel has conducted a policy and developed practices involving the establishment of Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, contrary to the terms of Article 49, paragraph 6, just cited.

The Security Council has thus taken the view that such policy and practices "have no legal validity". It has also called upon "Israel, as the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously" by the Fourth Geneva Convention and:

"to rescind its previous measures and to desist from taking any action which would result in changing the legal status and geographical nature and materially affecting the demographic composition of the Arab territories occupied since 1967, including Jerusalem and, in particular, not to transfer parts of its own civilian population into the occupied Arab territories" (resolution 446 (1979) of 22 March 1979).

The Council reaffirmed its position in resolutions 452 (1979) of 20 July 1979 and 465 (1980) of 1 March 1980. Indeed, in the latter case it described "Israel's policy and practices of settling parts of its population and new immigrants in [the occupied] territories" as a "flagrant violation" of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

The Court concludes that the Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (including East Jerusalem) have been established in breach of international law.

Let's see Shtulman come out in favor of granting dual Israeli citizenship, like Shtulman enjoys, to any Palestinian who wants it. Let Shtulman come out in support of the three goals of the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign:

1. Ending [Israel's] occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall;
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Don't hold your breath waiting for Shtulman to support any of these goals, folks.

In another case of dissembling and projection Shtulman complains "Hamas advocates publicly for the destruction of Israel." But, in his article "Likud has a Charter which does not recognize the right of Palestine to exist," Frank Barat writes:

... What was the official reason given by the Israel and the International community for not recognizing Hamas?

The reason they gave was that Hamas refused to recognize Israel and had a Charter calling for the destruction of the Jewish state.

Everyone (politicians and corporate media leaders) accepted this without asking a few important questions. Which Israel should Hamas recognize? Israel has not yet stated what its international borders are. Should Hamas recognize the Israel of 1948? The Israel of 1967? The Israel of 2009 with its apartheid wall, settlements (settlements building raised by 60 percent in 2008, the year of the Annapolis "Peace Process", according to a Peace Now report), second class Arab citizens and with East Jerusalem annexed?

Any astute observer could also have objected by reminding people that Hamas (through Haniyeh and Meshal) had said many times over that it was willing to accept Israel as a political entity on the 1967 borders. You do not have to look hard for this, it was stated in the Guardian, Washington Post, amongst others, meaning that Hamas was now in line with most of the international community, accepting a two-state solution.

The next Israeli prime minister will be Likud leader Netanyahu. Unlike Hamas, Likud is a party which has actually held the reins of a powerful, sovereign nation-state. As Barat writes:

... With Netanyahu and his right-wing party ready to take over, it is only fair to find out a bit more about them.

In the "Peace and Security" chapter of the Likud Party platform, a recent document (1999) it says initially that:

"Peace is a primary objective of the State of Israel. The Likud will strengthen the existing peace agreements with the Arab states and strive to achieve peace agreements with all of Israel's neighbors with the aim of reaching a comprehensive solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict."

But then it says about settlements:

"The Jewish communities in Judea, Samaria and Gaza are the realization of Zionist values. Settlement of the land is a clear expression of the unassailable right of the Jewish people to the Land of Israel and constitutes an important asset in the defense of the vital interests of the State of Israel. The Likud will continue to strengthen and develop these communities and will prevent their uprooting."

Therefore annihilating the slightest chance of a two-state solution.

On Palestinian self-rule it says:

"The Government of Israel flatly rejects the establishment of a Palestinian Arab state west of the Jordan river. The Palestinians can run their lives freely in the framework of self-rule, but not as an independent and sovereign state. Thus, for example, in matters of foreign affairs, security, immigration and ecology, their activity shall be limited in accordance with imperatives of Israel's existence, security and national needs"

Therefore annihilating any chance of seeing a Palestinian sovereign state.

On Jerusalem:

"Jerusalem is the eternal, united capital of the State of Israel and only of Israel. The government will flatly reject Palestinian proposals to divide Jerusalem, including the plan to divide the city presented to the Knesset by the Arab factions and supported by many members of Labor and Meretz."

Therefore annihilating any chance for future peace negotiations because east Jerusalem as capital of a future Palestinian state is non-negotiable for any Palestinian.

We have therefore established that the Likud party charter does not recognize Palestine and will not accept a sovereign Palestinian state. The soon-to-come non-recognition of Likud by the international community and an implemented blockade on Israel should therefore not come as a surprise for Israelis.

Where is Shtulman's outrage and concern that the ruling Likud Party is opposed to any realistic implementation of the much-hyped "two-state solution," which is, in any case, the very epitome of apartheid?

Finally, Shtulman asks: "Will boycotting the Batsheva Dance Company or UMS in general help the Palestinians?" Shtulman answers: "I don't see how." Of course he doesn't, but one doubts that Shtulman is so visually impaired when it comes to the protests and boycotts of the Russian Bolshoi Ballet, etc. over the matter of "Soviet Jewry" in the 1970s and 1980s.

In any case, Omar Barghouti has written on the subject of the efficacy of BDS. In response to critics of BDS, he says:

Boycott is counter-productive?

Is it? Who is to judge? A Call signed by more than 170 Palestinian political parties, unions, NGOs and networks, representing the entire spectrum of Palestinian civil society -- under occupation, in Israel, and in the diaspora – cannot be "counter-productive" unless Palestinians are not rational or intelligent enough to know or articulate what is in their best interest. This argument smacks of patronization and betrays a colonial attitude that we thought -- hoped! -- was extinct in liberal Europe.

Pragmatically speaking, the BDS process has proved over the past few years that it is among the most effective forms of civil, non-violent Palestinian resistance to Israeli colonial and apartheid regime. The sheer breadth and depth of support this Call has garnered among major trade unions, academic associations, church groups, and other grassroots organizations in South Africa, the UK, Ireland, Canada, Norway, Sweden, and even the US, among others, attest to the efficacy and enormous potential of this campaign in resisting Israeli injustice. For the first time in decades, many movements in Europe, for instance, that have supported peace with justice in Palestine through demonstrations, public appeals and -- mostly marginal -- media work, discovered a process that they can actively and effectively contribute to and that promises to bring about concrete results on the ground, as proved to be the case in the struggle against apartheid struggle in South Africa. Judging by results so far, and as our South African comrades have told us repeatedly, our BDS campaign is moving at a faster pace than theirs ever did.

So, while Shtulman and pals spread their lies and disinformation, human rights activists and other people of conscience will continue to work on BDS--the Bathseva Dance Company protest is only part of a growing campaign.

Labels: anti-Zionism, boycott, critical thinking, David Shtulman, holocaust, University of Michigan

This is the first part of a two-part post on a quartet of Zionist letters to the editor that recently appeared in the Ann Arbor News.

One of the complaints that opponents of the Palestinian boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel frequently make is: "Boycotts aren't effective." Ruth R. Gretzinger's "why bother?" response (Ann Arbor News 2/12/09) to Henry Herskovitz's letter (AAN 2/3/09) is a fine example of this class of fallacious reasoning. Herskovitz wrote in favor of boycotts against Israel, generally, and in favor of boycotting the Batsheva Dance Company (BDC), in particular. The giveaway, of course, is that Gretzinger does "bother" because her fear is precisely that boycotts against Israel will be effective.

So, with such an inauspicious start what is Gretzinger to do in the rest of her letter? Why, personally attack Herskovitz and then spread falsehoods, naturally. First, she accuses Herskovitz of being a "well-known rabble-rouser." In reality, Gretzinger has just paid Herskovitz a high compliment, for rousing the "rabble" from their Zionist-induced complicity, ignorance, indifference, and defeatism is precisely what Henry seeks to do.

As George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart) says in It's a Wonderful Life to the villainous Henry Potter (Lionel Barrymore), a slum-lord and the richest man in Bedford Falls: "Just remember, Mr. Potter, that this rabble you're talking about, they do most of the working and paying and living and dying in this community." And so it is that Gretzinger and her fellow Zionists want the "rabble" to remain asleep-- to keep quietly working and letting Washington DC send their tax money to Israel at the tune of $6.8 million per day and to keep sending their children to die on foreign battlefields for the sake of Israel.

Next up, Gretzinger tells her readers that BDC members "are dancers, not soldiers" when, in fact, some of the dancers are soldiers. In an October 2006, Dance Magazine interview BDC Director Ohad Naharin said: "It seems to me that in Israel more of the young dancers are likely to have had military experience than in the U.S. In Israel when people really want to dance, they will find a military service that will allow them to dance. We have two soldiers in our junior company." Naharin is himself an Israeli Occupation Forces veteran.

Then Gretzinger strikes up the "art, not politics" tune. David S. Bach (AAN 2/12/09) joins in with: "To suggest a boycott of this dance troupe for the political actions of their government is to suggest that the world should have boycotted all things American for the last eight years." In response, it will suffice to quote Rabbi Tovah Shalom's online comments to Bach's letter:

It would have been a good thing to "have boycotted all things American for the last eight years." In fact, it's not a bad idea now and some people are doing just that. The fact is that almost all Americans are, to varying degrees, responsible for the actions of the US government. An effective boycott campaign might have motivated Americans to prevent the illegal invasion of Iraq and it might help end the illegal ongoing occupation of that country, not to mention Afghanistan.

An effective boycott of the US might restrain Obama, who wants increase the number of US combat troops. In his first week in office he authorized illegal missile strikes on Pakistan--a sovereign nation and, ostensibly, a US ally, at that--that killed two dozen people.

As for the insipid claim that "Through the arts and through cultural exchange come understanding." Well, Hitler and Stalin would have loved that one. Only someone incredibly ignorant of history could make such a claim. Ever heard of the Reichskulturkammer, Triumph of the Will or Arno Breker? How about the Proletkult, Socialist Realism, Bulgakov, or Solzhenitsyn? Every modern, repressive regime has been keenly aware of the importance of culture and promoted some works and artists while suppressing others. And the approved art has never found a shortage of "little Eichmanns," to quote John Zerzan, and dupes to lap it up. The monstrous Jewish state is no different and, thus, we have the Batsheva Dance Company and its fans.

Attorney and former city council member Joan H. Lowenstein, Zionist shill and past president of the Jewish Federation of Washtenaw County, weighs in (AAN 2/13/09) with some classic guilt-by-association. Curiously, she starts out with something that, while perhaps an overstatement, is demonstrably true. An unsourced quote she attributes to "Iranian cleric Hojjatoleslam Ali Maboudi" says: "The Zionists brought Obama to power to help America pass through its current challenges."

Zionists certainly did play a major role in getting Barack Obama elected. As Shmuel Rosner, Chief U.S. Correspondent for Ha'aretz wrote in a blog post entitled "Obama supports Israel. Period.":

It is no secret that Jewish money plays a big role in the Democratic Party. "They don't have the number [of voters], but have the means to get the voters," a prominent Democratic operative told me last week. That's why I told the told the NY Sun that "I don't think his real motive is to win votes. It's, of course, Jewish money."

Not coincidentally, after the major party nominees were selected, a spokesman for the most visible component of the Israel Lobby gloated: "AIPAC is pleased that both parties have selected four pro-Israel candidates."

After being elected, the "first Jewish president" wasted no time in appointing Rahm Israel Emanuel as his Chief of Staff, the highest-ranking member of the Executive Office of the President of the United States. Emanuel once served the Israeli Occupation Forces as a civilian volunteer and as Ali Abunimah notes, "Emanuel is one of the most hard-line supporters of Israel in the Congress and has been for many years." No wonder Obama backed Israel's Hanukkah Massacre in late December and January that killed over 1,300 Palestinians and left over 5,300 injured.

In the rest of her letter, Lowenstein lumps Herzkovitz with Bishop Richard Williamson and Hizbullah Deputy Secretary General Naim Qassem. As Lowenstein makes clear, these men have violated one or more of the nine commandments of the "Holocaust Religion" identified by Israeli journalist Shraga Elam. Though the offending Herskovitz quote is only: "Join the worldwide boycott against Israel."

Lowenstein helpfully instructs us that "It is not paranoid or alarmist to say that there is a resurgence of anti-Semitism - and of acceptance of anti-Semitism - in the world today" thereby suggesting that, yes, it is paranoid and alarmist. At times like these, the words of Dr. Norman G. Finkelstein are apt. In Beyond Chutzpah (p. 85) he writes:

Wrapping themselves in the mantle of The Holocaust, these Jewish elites pretend—and, in their own solipsistic universe, perhaps imagine themselves—to be victims, dismissing any and all criticism as manifestations of "anti-Semitism." And, from this lethal brew of formidable power, chauvinistic arrogance, feigned (or imagined) victimhood, and Holocaust-immunity to criticism has sprung a terrifying recklessness and ruthlessness on the part of American Jewish elites. Alongside Israel, they are the main fomenters of anti-Semitism in the world today.

In The Holocaust Industry, (p. 3) Finkelstein argues:

"The Holocaust" is an ideological representation of the Nazi holocaust. Like most ideologies, it bears a connection, if tenuous, with reality. The Holocaust is not an arbitrary but rather an internally coherent construct. Its central dogmas sustain significant political and class interests. Indeed, The Holocaust has proven to be an indispensable ideological weapon. Through its deployment, one of the world's most formidable military powers, with a horrendous human rights record, has cast itself as a "victim" state, and the most successful ethnic group in the United States has likewise acquired victim status. Considerable benefits accrue to this specious victimhood--in particular, immunity to criticism, however justified.

The second part of this two-part post will respond to the letter (AAN 2/13/09) of David Shtulman. Click here to read the second part of the post.

Labels: anti-Zionism, BDS, boycott, critical thinking, Henry Herskovitz, holocaust, Norman G. Finkelstein, Obama, University of Michigan

The story below from Friday's Detroit News brings together three foul ideas: Islamophobia, the Holocaust Industry, and Zionism.

Friday, February 8, 2008
Holocaust Center ends MSU prof's Islam talk
Gregg Krupa / The Detroit News

FARMINGTON HILLS -- The Holocaust Memorial Center this week canceled a Feb. 26 appearance by a Michigan State University professor after Muslims expressed concerns that Indrek Wichman and the group that was sponsoring his appearance, The Michigan State University Young Americans for Freedom, are intolerant of Islam.

Wichman was warned by the university in 2006 after he sent an e-mail to members of the Muslim Student Association on campus defaming Islam and urging Muslims to "return to your ancestral homelands."

The Michigan State University Young Americans for Freedom have sponsored campus events such as "Koran Desecration Day," a contest in which students were asked to hunt down illegal immigrants and an initiative that urged the giving of "blankets infected with small pox" to Native American students.

The organization -- which is sanctioned by the university as a student activity, although it is listed as a "hate group" by the Southern Law Poverty Center -- also sponsored a trip to the United States by a nationalist British politician who has publicly denied the Holocaust.

At the event in the Holocaust Memorial Center, Wichman was to speak on the topic of Muslims and free speech.

"At the beginning, I'm sure we did not know all that this was about," said Gail Cohen, a coordinator at the Holocaust Memorial Center.

PM: Oh my, yes, I'm sure you just never, ever suspected that a talk sponsored by the thoroughly racist Zionist Organization of America and YAF on "Muslims and free speech" would be about bashing Islam. I mean, who would have thunk it?

"When we found out what kind of group it was, we said, 'No, no, no!'  "

Cohen said that Mark Siegel, of the Zionist Organization of America, brought the Young Americans for Freedom event to the Holocaust Memorial Center. Repeated attempts to reach Siegel were unsuccessful.

Wichman, was not available for comment. Kyle Bristow, chairman of the MSU Young American for Freedom did not return phone calls.

"We welcome the Holocaust Memorial Center's decision not to sponsor anti-Muslim bigotry at a location that symbolizes the grave consequences of hatred and intolerance," said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American Islamic Relations-Michigan.

Labels: holocaust, Islam bashing, Zionism

As I pointed out two weeks ago on this blog, Arun Gandhi is under the gun for speaking truth to power and holding up a mirror to the Jewish community. Echoing the remarks of Idith Zertal and other Israeli Jews, Gandhi said "Jewish identity in the past has been locked into the holocaust experience ..." and "We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity." I closed my post by saying: "Let's hope he stays strong and keeps speaking truth to power."

Now, comes news from The Telegraph of Calcutta, India that "America’s omnipotent Jewish community has forced Mahatma Gandhi’s grandson, Arun Gandhi, to resign from the institute he founded in the US 17 years ago to spread the message of the Father of the Nation." The Telegraph goes on to note the global aspects of the row:

New Delhi cannot afford to even tangentially annoy the American Jewish community because successive Indian governments have relied on this community for at least 15 years to bring Indo-US relations to its present health. The nuclear deal between India and the US would not have got to its present phase of implementation without the active involvement of the American Jewish community in its favour.

Arun’s offer to resign follows several days of grovelling apologies by him, by the moderators of the online discussion on the Post website and defensive statements by University of Rochester president Joel Seligman for having associated with the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Non-violence.

Hundreds of messages assailing Arun and The Washington Post were posted on the website, most of them clearly by Jews. The powerful American Jewish Committee’s executive director David A. Harris pre-empted any Indian reaction by hinting in a statement that India was being ungrateful for all that his organisation did for New Delhi.

“We are proud at the American Jewish Committee to have played a vital role in nurturing the India-Israel bilateral relationship, as well as strengthening the bonds between American Jews and Indian Americans,” Harris said.

Sadly, the AP confirms yesterday that Gandhi's resignation was accepted and that he has capitulated to the Shylocks clamoring for a pound of his flesh.

Labels: Arun Gandhi, holocaust, identity, Jewish violence, Zionism

Arun Gandhi, grandson of Mohandas K. Gandhi and the president and co-founder of the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, is being raked over the coals for remarks he made recently on the Newsweek/Washington Post site, "On Faith." Gandhi opens the short reflection with "Jewish identity in the past has been locked into the holocaust experience ..." He might better have referred to the Jewish holocaust religion as he clearly violated its 7th commandment: Thou shall not criticize the leading Jewish organizations and the Israeli government!

This predictably drew the wrath of Chief Rebbe Abe Foxman's ADL. They zeroed in on Gandhi's observation that "We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity." The ADL called it an "outrageous libel of an entire people and of a country that wants nothing more than to live in peace and security." Gandhi was, of course, right to point out the global culture of violence and he might also have pointed to Judaism's very real Culture of Death, which via the West has also poisoned much of the world, esp. the US with its Neo-Cons and legions of Christian Zionists.

The Jerusalem Post also reports:

According to [Dr. Efraim Zuroff, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israel director], the notion that Jewish identity is "locked into" the Holocaust and causes resentment, coupled with the statement that "Israel and the Jews are the biggest players" in a "culture of violence [that] is eventually going to destroy humanity," clearly amount to anti-Semitism.

Furthermore, Gandhi's words reflect his grandfather's misunderstanding of the Jewish situation, Zuroff said.

"Sometimes people become obsessed with their own agenda to the extent that they think it's the solution to every problem," he said. "Even the great Mohandas Gandhi did not have a monopoly on wisdom, and the best proof of that was his suggestion that Jews engage in passive resistance against the Nazis. It's an absurd response in the face of absolute totalitarianism and a movement like Nazism. It's like saying the Indian army should disband and let the Taliban and al-Qaida and the Pakistanis overrun the country."

In fact, Gandhi was right to advocate nonviolent resistance against the Nazis by Jews. The fact is that Jews and others did employ such resistance in the form of an international economic boycott and it was working until Jewish leaders undermined the effort in order to cut a deal with the Nazis in support of the eventual Jewish takeover of Palestine.

So far, Arun Gandhi has pretty much failed to capitulate to demands of the Holocaust Industry/Religion that he recant. Let's hope he stays strong and keeps speaking truth to power. For some of Arun Gandhi's views on 9/11, the Taliban, and al-Qaeda, see "A Legacy of Nonviolence: The Satya Interview with Arun Gandhi."

Labels: Arun Gandhi, holocaust, identity, Jewish violence, Judaism, violence

The nine commandments of the "Holocaust Religion" below are developed in greater detail by the award-winning Israeli journalist Shraga Elam in his article, "Holocaust Religion and Holocaust Industry in the Service of Israel."

1. Remember what Amalek has done to thee!
2. Thou shall never compare The Holocaust with any other Genocide!
3. Thou shall never compare the Nazi crimes with those of Israel!
4. Thou shall never doubt the number of 6 million Jewish victims!
5. Thou shall never doubt the Nazi Judeocide!
6. Thou shall never doubt the right of Israel to exist as the Jewish state!
7. Thou shall not criticize the leading Jewish organizations and the Israeli government!
8. Thou must never criticize Jewish organizations and the Zionist leadership for abandoning the European Jewry in the Nazi era!
9. Thou shall not doubt the central Role of Hitler in the industrialization of the extermination of the Jews!

Also, in the same article Elam cites the Israeli historian Idith Zertal, a figure known to readers of this blog. Elam writes:

According to Zertal, the spectacular actions of the illegal immigration after the war, like the famous trip of the "Exodus", were mainly part of a very effective propaganda campaign. She quotes the Jewish welfare organization "Joint" that claimed at that time, that the total number of immigrants including the illegal ones was smaller than the British quota. This means that if the Jewish refugees had been transported to Palestine legally, under normal conditions, it would have been cheaper, more comfortable and safer for them than using the shaky illegal ships and their number would not necessarily have been lower. But by using this legal way, the JA [i. e. Jewish Agency] would have lost the propaganda effects of the pictures of British soldiers using excessive amounts of force against Jewish survivors.

See also: Atzmon on Jewish Religion

Labels: history, holocaust, Zionism

The expatriate Israeli musician and writer Gilad Atzmon published an essay last March that I have only today read. Called "From Esther to AIPAC," it deals with a number of subjects familiar to readers of this blog. Below are a couple of excerpts from the piece but I especially wanted to draw attention to one phrase which I think resonates with the more than 300-year-old remark of Benedict Spinoza on hatred as the glue of Jewish community.

Near the end of his essay, Atzmon observes: "Being exilic to the bone, Zionism had to turn to antagonising the indigenous Palestinians in order to maintain its fetish of Jewish identity." Where Spinoza writes of hatred and I focus on death, throughout the article Atzmon discusses fear as the basis of Jewish identity. I don't see much difference here as hate, death, and fear are but different facets of the pathology at the heart of mainstream Jewish identity.

Here are the excerpts from Atzmon. On "The Holocaust Religion":

Philosopher Yeshayahu Leibowitz, the German born Hebrew University professor, was probably the first to suggest that the Holocaust has become the new Jewish religion. 'The Holocaust' is far more than historical narrative, it indeed contains most of the essential religious elements: it has its priests (Simon Wiesenthal, Elie Wiesel, Deborah Lipstadt, etc.) and prophets (Shimon Peres, Benjamin Netanyahu and those who warn about the Iranian Judeocide to come). It has its commandments and dogmas ('never again', 'six million', etc.). It has its rituals (memorial days, Pilgrimage to Auschwitz etc.). It establishes an esoteric symbolic order (kapo, gas chambers, chimneys, dust, Musselmann, etc.). It has its shrines and temples (Yad Vashem, the Holocaust Museum and now the UN). If this is not enough, the Holocaust religion is also maintained by a massive economic network and global financial infrastructures (Holocaust industry a la Norman Finkelstein). Most interestingly, the Holocaust religion is coherent enough to define the new 'antichrists' (the Deniers) and it is powerful enough to persecute them (Holocaust denial laws).

Critical scholars who dispute the notion of 'Holocaust religion' suggest that though the new emerging religion retains many characteristics of an organised religion, it doesn't establish an external God figure to point at, to worship or to love. I myself cannot agree less. I insist that the Holocaust religion embodies the essence of the liberal democratic worldview. It is there to offer a new form of worshiping. It made self loving into a dogmatic belief in which the observant follower worships himself. In the new religion it is 'the Jew' whom the Jews worship. It is all about 'me', the subject of endless suffering who makes it into redemption.

However, more than a few Jewish scholars in Israel and abroad happen to accept Leibowitz's observation. Amongst them is Marc Ellis, the prominent Jewish theologian who suggests a revealing insight into the dialectic of the new religion. "Holocaust theology," says Ellis, "yields three themes that exist in dialectical tension: suffering and empowerment, innocence and redemption, specialness and normalization."[4]

Though Holocaust religion didn't replace Judaism, it gave Jewishness a new meaning. It sets a modern Jewish narrative allocating the Jewish subject within a Jewish project. It allocates the Jew a central role within his own self-centred universe. The 'sufferer' and the 'innocent' are marching towards 'redemption' and 'empowerment'. God is obviously out of the game, he is fired, he has failed in his historic mission, he wasn't there to save the Jews. Within the new religion the Jew becomes 'the Jews' new God', it is all about the Jew who redeems himself.

The Jewish follower of the Holocaust religion idealises the condition of his existence. He then sets a framework of a future struggle towards recognition. For the Zionist follower of the new religion, the implications seem to be relatively durable. He is there to 'schlep' the entirety of world Jewry to Zion at the expense of the indigenous Palestinian people. For the Socialist Jew, the project is slightly more complicated. For him redemption means setting a new world order, namely a socialist haven. A world dominated by dogmatic working class politics in which Jews happen to be no more than just one minority amongst many. For the humanist observant, Holocaust religion means that Jews must locate themselves at the forefront of the struggle against racism, oppression and evil in general. Though it sounds promising, it happens to be problematic because of obvious reasons. In our current world order it is Israel and America that happen to be amongst the leading oppressive evils. Expecting Jews to be in the forefront of humanist struggle sets Jews in a fight against their brethren and their supportive single superpower. However, It is rather clear that all three Holocaust churches assign the Jews a major project with some global implications.

On Nazi collaborator Joachim Prinz:

... it is only natural that Rabbi Prinz later became the President of the Jewish American Congress. He became a prominent American leader In spite of his 'collaboration with Hitler'. Simply because of the obvious reason: from a Jewish ideological point of view, he did the right thing.

Labels: Benedict Spinoza, Gilad Atzmon, holocaust, identity, Judaism, Zionism