Bribery in Israel – Press TV

 

This is probably the best televised expose of corruption in Israel. At the moment Israel’s longest-serving leader is indicted for bribery, fraud and breach of trust. Netanyahu becomes first sitting prime minister in Israel’s history to be charged with bribery. This episode goes into detail on bribery charges against Israeli officials.

source: https://www.presstv.com/Detail/2019/11/27/612216/Bribery-In-Israel


My battle for truth and freedom involves some expensive legal and security services. I hope that you will consider committing to a monthly donation in whatever amount you can give. Regular contributions will enable me to avoid being pushed against a wall and to stay on top of the endless harassment by Zionist operators attempting to silence me and others.

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Gilad Atzmon on The Public Space

June 01, 2019  /  Gilad Atzmon

I discussed with Jean-Francois Gariépy a wide range of issues to do with Israel, Jewish ID Politics, Nationalism and Race. Though JF and myself disagree on some fundamental matters, this one hour discussion is fascinating, enlightening and most important, open and tolerant.

If Israel were a State

May 17, 2018  /  Gilad Atzmon

Background:  Yesterday I was  in San Diego having fun at the beach. For a while I sat on the shore with my feet in the water reading The Diary of a Young Girl. Then a miracle happened. A score of  little bottles reached land  and assembled in between my bare feet. I could see that each was sealed and contained a short note. I picked up the bottles carefully and moved them to safety. I collected the notes and tried to assemble the lines into a cohesive  message. I understand that this text, as put together by me, may be  offensive to some. If you can think of a different arrangement of the messages that offers an alternative meaning, please share it with me and I will consider publishing it.

san diego.jpg

If Israel were a State

A poem assembled by Gilad Atzmon

If Israel were a state (and Jews a people like all other people) it would have deployed policemen at the Gaza border instead of snipers with live ammunition.

If Israel were a state (and Jews a people like all other people) it would invite the indigenous people of Palestine to return to their land.

If Israel were a state (and Jews a people like all other people) it would apologize for making Gaza into the biggest open-air prison known to man.

If Israel were a state (and Jews a people like all other people) it would, by now, live in peace under the sun.

But Israel is a Jewish Ghetto (and Jews are somehow different…)

If they want to burn it, you want to read it!

Being in Time – A Post Political Manifesto,

Amazon.co.uk , Amazon.com and  here (gilad.co.uk).

In for a Penny, in for a Pound?

netangeddon

By Richard Edmondson

In the lead-up to this year’s Super Bowl–which, of course, was held this past Sunday without incident–a number of websites and videos (here, here, and here, for instance) speculated on the possibility of a false flag attack, possibly nuclear, occurring at the event.

This of course is not new. Similar speculations were posited leading up to previous Super Bowls–in 2014, 2013, and probably earlier years as well.

Though the predictions didn’t prove true this year either (and most of those who made them, I would guess, are glad they didn’t), there is nonetheless cause for concern, and the idea that Israel might do something totally insane, like attempting to pull off a nuclear false flag attack, is by no means an absurd or irrational fear.

Israel and its supporters in Western countries have enormous amounts of capital invested in perpetuating certain beliefs long held by the public–and when acceptance of these beliefs erodes or begins to erode, as we see happening now, and as more and more people discard them as they begin sorting through lingering questions as to why certain things are the way they are, an unsettling sense that the house is collapsing is likely going to set in for Zionists.

For Israel and its Jewish supporters in Western countries this can, and will, eventually lead to feelings of desperation. Losing one’s long-held grip on the world is not a comforting thought. It’s not a loss some people are able to take lying down, and as Israel sinks further and further into the status of world pariah–and as perceptions of Jews continue to change, in part as a result of that–the odds that somebody in power is going to make a decision to do something insanely stupid go sharply up.

There is an old saying: “in for a penny, in for a pound.” It means a person who undertakes an enterprise is intent upon completing it–no matter what the cost. A philosophy like that held by someone with a growing sense of desperation makes for a rather dangerous person, one you’d want to avoid if at all possible.

Getting the public to retain certain beliefs is vital, and astute observers will have long been aware that prodigious amounts of Jewish time and effort seem to be poured into the endeavor of shaping public perceptions. Not surprising, then, that the Hebrew language gives us the word “hasbara.”

Certainly a number of myths go into perpetuating the current status-quo, myths such as the conviction that the United States works to spread freedom and democracy in the world, or that US leaders act in the interest of the majority of Americans. These are myths that are coming unraveled now at a rather fast-paced clip, yet at the same time, continued widespread acceptance of them is not critical to maintaining Zionist suzerainty over the political systems of the US or other Western governments.

There are, however, four beliefs, in the main, which do rank as imperative, and which Zionist Jews must labor diligently to sustain and propagate–four beliefs whose endurance is requisite, and which must continue to be accepted as fact by the overwhelming majority of the population, failing which the whole house of cards is in danger of collapsing.

The beliefs are that: a) Muslim terrorists carried out 9/11;  b) six million Jews died in the holocaust; c) Jews are patriotic and loyal to the countries in which they live; and d) pro-Israel lobbies in Western countries are no more powerful or influential than other lobbies.

These four principles have shaped popular perceptions of Jews to an astounding degree, and in the case of the holocaust have been held as sacrosanct. Should one or more of them be set aside or eschewed by a large majority of the public, Jews could be facing a crisis of unprecedented proportions.

It is perhaps for this reason that French comedian Dieudonné has triggered such a visceral reaction among Jews, not  only in France but in the US as well.  Last year the Washington Post published what could politely be classified as a hit piece in which the comedian was rather effusively reviled.

“I am not an anti-Semite,” French comedian Dieudonné M’bala M’bala says with a devilish grin near the start of his hit show at this city’s Théâtre de la Main d’Or.

Then come the Jew jokes.

Normally the mainstream media’s response to “anti-Semites” is to ignore them, but Dieudonné’s following has of course become so large he can no longer be ignored–as the video below shows. Note, close to the beginning, the size of the audience as the camera pans out over the crowd:

The Post article, published well before the Charlie Hebdo attacks, mentions that French Jewish leaders are “decrying the worst climate of anti-Semitism in decades,” and it goes on to describe Dieudonné’s growing popularity as “a sign of the times.”

Indeed, many people now are questioning all sorts of aspects about the holocaust, including where the six million figure came from. Recently blogger Greg Bacon posted a link to the Library of Congress and its collection of digitized newspaper articles dating back to the nineteenth century. Bacon typed the words “6,000,000 Jews” into the site’s search function, and turned up 138 results dating from the mid 1800s up to the early 1920s.

Bacon’s post also includes–or did include–a video showing a 3-D tour of Auschwitz, particularly an area of the camp where Jews were said to have been herded, en masse, in groups of up to 2000 at a time, into an underground room, gassed, and subsequently taken to a second room to be burned in crematory ovens. Indeed, there were some ovens, it seems–a total of 15, each designed to hold one body at any given time. Bacon put up the post on January 28. The video has since been removed from YouTube.

But it isn’t only the holocaust narrative that is being widely questioned. The official account of what took place on 9/11 is also taking a battering. Last year the website Rethink911 published the results of a poll showing that 38 percent of Americans have “some doubts” about the official story. Ten percent do not believe it at all, while 12 percent are “unsure” about it.

But here’s the real kicker: Nearly half of those polled were unaware of the collapse of a third building. When informed about it, and actually shown video footage of the collapse of Building 7, opinions changed dramatically. Forty six percent were “sure or suspect” the collapse was caused by controlled demolition. This compares with 28 percent who were “sure or suspect” it was caused by fires, and 27 percent who had no opinion.

The poll results were published in September of last year, this as a digital billboard, showing the Building 7 collapse, was sponsored by the group Architects & Engineers for 9/11 Truth and put on display in Times Square.

A number of other 9/11 researchers have noted that technology making it possible to fly passenger jets by remote control already existed in 2001–and some have pointed out that Rabbi Dov Zakheim, comptroller of the Bush Pentagon, had previously served as CEO of SPC International, a subsidiary of System Planning Corporation. The parent company was involved in producing “flight termination” technology (remote control technology which can be activated in the event a pilot becomes incapacitated) for the Pentagon, and is today considered one of the largest “support contractors” for the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA.

Zakheim holds dual Israeli-US citizenship, and in 2000 he helped produce a report which envisioned a “catastrophic and catalyzing event — like a new Pearl Harbor” as being necessary to garner public support for a US war in the Middle East. That report was published by the Project for a New American Century, a think tank founded by William Kristol and Robert Kagan, both Jewish.

Currently a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, Zakheim has been described as the bionic Zionist, and is also believed to have been responsible for unaccounted-for Pentagon funds totaling $2.3 trillion which were reported missing or misplaced one day before 9/11. You can click here to view a video which delves somewhat into his family history (he is descended from Russian and Polish Jews), and which asserts that, “Of all the Zionists in Washington, Zakheim is considered the king.”

This and other evidence pointing to possible Jewish involvement in the 9/11 false flag, along with, of course, the existence of pro-Israel lobbies in virtually every Western country, has led many people to question the loyalty of Jews in general to their countries of residence–and that, too, is a disaster waiting to spring.

Jewish allegiance to the state of Israel is abundantly apparent everywhere you look these days. It doesn’t necessarily mean an absence of allegiance for countries of residence, but it does fuel endless questions in peoples’ minds about “dual loyalties” and the like. In some respects the mainstream media, albeit inadvertently, are providing fuel for the fire.

Recently the New York Times published an article headlined, Jewish American Pilots Fighting for Israel, concerning a documentary about Jewish fighter pilots who secretly fought in the 1948 war in Palestine (H/T Ariadna). The film is produced by Nancy Spielberg (sister of Steven Spielberg), and you can go here to view a trailer, which includes excerpts of interviews with some of the now-elderly pilots as well as some brief footage of devastation. “These fond recollections of derring-do hail from a different era,” says the Times, and while it is true we’re talking about events that occurred 67 years ago, one would also wonder whether this “different era” in question might also entail certain similarities in terms of Jewish tribal loyalties.

It might give us pause to also wonder: what is the difference between those who flew the planes in 1948 and those who  remotely-controlled the airliners in 2001? Is the difference merely one of degrees? Is it that the airmen of 1948 attacked targets in Egypt and Syria while those of 2001 chose a target in America? Was the motivating factor, in any event, loyalty to Israel in both cases?

The question of Jewish loyalty has long been a topic of heated debate but has especially come to the forefront since the publication in 2007 of the book The Israel Lobby and US Foreign Policy by professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer. The authors did not address the issue of Jewish loyalty; their focus was solely upon the Israeli lobby and how its objectives are often at cross-purposes with US strategic interests. But by the very nature of the subject matter it covered, the book, almost by default, raised two very  important and unavoidable issues:

A) That AIPAC is not like any other lobby in Washington–since one would be hard pressed to point to any other interest group that has successfully lobbied the US government to act against its own interests; and,

B) That questions about the loyalty of Jews who support AIPAC, including Jewish members of Congress, must be regarded as legitimate areas of concern

And it is probably for these very reasons that the book triggered–not unlike that which befell Dieudonné in terms of its general style and substance–a visceral and monumental reaction from Jews and the Zionist media (visceral reactions can be anticipated anytime any one of the four key beliefs are called into question), leading to attacks upon the authors and even calls for them to be stripped of their university teaching positions.

In any event, the question is fully out in the open now, with the issue of Jewish dual-loyalty being discussed by Gentiles, and even in some case by Jews, although many, particularly in the latter community, still refuse to recognize a divergence between US and Israeli interests.

But this should probably not come as a surprise. And as Kevin MacDonald reminds us, “Psychological research shows quite clearly that people with strong ingroup loyalties are likely to suffer cognitive distortions that would bias their attitudes and their policy recommendations.”

Of course at the same time there is no such thing as uniformity of thought amongst any  people. Jews are no exception. Here are two Jews who hold that the very words “dual loyalties” are the equivalent of an “anti-Semitic slur,” while another, here, concedes that for Jews living in countries other than Israel “one’s loyalties are inevitably divided,” but that this is not a particularly big deal or anything to worry about.

And then there are those anti-Zionist Jews who express the view that Zionists themselves could be deliberately fomenting anti-Semitism (see here, here, and here ), with the motive of “ghettoizing” Jewish populations in Western countries, thereby inducing greater support for, and immigration to, Israel.

In some respects maybe it’s a moot point. The real issue is that the suspension bridge holding aloft the four key beliefs has a major fissure in it. Should the bridge collapse altogether, it will set the stage for a major sea change in public perceptions and attitudes toward Jews. For most Jews this would be a disaster in the making, although there are a few who perhaps will sense opportunity in it.

In any case, conditions of turmoil and uncertainty give rise to feelings of despair and acts of rashness, and as this happens the chances of a major, “world-changing” false flag event go up.

A Personal Note On Jewish Statistics

January 19, 2015  /  Gilad Atzmon

By Gilad Atzmon

The British political establishment is in a state of panic. A poll revealed last week that

“a quarter of Jews in Britain have considered leaving the country in the last two years and well over half (58%) feel they have no long term future in Europe.”

This could be a potential disaster for British political parties. Eighty per cent of the Tories are members of the pro Israeli lobby, The Conservative Friends Of Israel (CFI), and a similar percentage of Labour and Libdem MPs have vowed their allegiance to Israel through their respective Jewish Lobby groups.  The Jews are clearly a vital source of funding for British politicians. In fact, it has become hard to imagine what British politics would look like without Jewish Lobby’s money.  Though the vast majority of British MPs are friends of Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, it has not been established how many of our MPs are friendly with Manchester and Hartlepool.

Apparently a recent poll found that anti-Semitic beliefs are widely prevalent among the British public with 45 percent of Britons agreeing with at least one of these ‘anti-Semitic’ sentiments: a quarter of Britons believed “Jews chase money more than other British people,” one in six agreed that

“Jews think they are better than other people” and “Jews have too much power in the media.”

However, if Jewish leaders want to focus on statistics, they surely know how to scientifically verify whether there is an element of truth in these bizarre baseless arguments that apparently 45% of Brits hold about their Jewish citizens. It would be simple to determine whether, in fact, Jews are over represented in the financial sector or in the media or politics. If Jewish leaders are concerned about the safety of their community members, it would be a good idea to examine these questions closely and think about how to address the issue. Clearly, labeling 45% of the Brits as ‘anti Semites’ is not going to make Jews feel safer in Britain.

I have lived in London, one of the most diverse cities on this planet, for about 20 years. I am surrounded by people from all over the world. Some communities occasionally prefer to voluntarily segregate themselves.  Many communities are subject to harsh and manifested hatred but, somehow, it is always the Jewish community that measures statistically how unlovable the Jews are. Not the Portuguese, not the Afghans, not the Albans, not the Iranians or the Colombians. It is the Jewish leaders who choose once a month to shove in our faces the ‘numbers’ that reveal that anti Semitism is on the rise. I believe that this happens for a reason.

Jews are obsessed with measuring their unpopularity because Jews are involved collectively, and sometimes against the will of many individuals, with some very unpopular acts. The crimes committed repeatedly by the Jewish State are a problem for the Jews. The overwhelmingly forceful Jewish lobby in Britain and America is a problem that reflects badly on Jews. Even the Epstein/Dershowitz/Prince Andrew’s minor sex scandal makes Jews feel uncomfortable because Alan Dershowitz has been the prime Zionist mouthpiece for the last four decades in the USA.

I was born in Israel in the 1960’s, I am a product of a patriotic Israeli education and I am confused by all of it. In Israel in the 1970’s we were taught that Jews being despised and hated by their neighbours wasn’t something to brag about. Jews being hated filled us with shame. We believed that Jews could be reformed and become subject of admiration. We didn’t need Home Secretary Theresa May to vow to fight our haters. We believed that we could earn genuine respect through our own merits.

It took me thirty years to understand that this adventure in reform wasn’t simple at all. Israel and Zionism failed to rescue the Jew or Jewishness; quite the opposite.  It took me a long time to grasp that I couldn’t become a better person unless I dropped the Jew in me and started a lifetime journey to Goy-zone. I mention my own choice because I realised that there was no collective answer to the Jewish Question. If Jews want to save their souls and their ethics, if they want to look in the mirror with pride, they must leave the collective and find their own personal way toward liberation. 

Must Watch: Hjernevask-Race

Hjernevask (Brainwash) is a Norwegian popular science documentary series that aired on Norwegian television in 2010. The series was produced by Harald Eiaand Ole Martin Ihle, and was completed in seven episodes consisting of interviews with Norwegian and foreign researchers who have different views on some controversial topics related to the world we live in and the human landscape.

And here is my take on the Bell Curve and cognitive partitioning:

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

JERUSALEM AND ATHENS

GA: the following is a comprehensive review of The Wandering Who and the  controversy around it. It also includes an extended appendix of commentaries re the book both positive and negative.

Jerusalem and Athens

On Gilad Atzmon’s Book “The Wandering Who” and the Reactions

Anis Hamadeh, October 4, 2014


http://www.anis-online.de/1/ton/78.htm

The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity politics and Jewish Power in particular – available on Amazon.com  &Amazon.co.uk

Gilad Atzmon’s book “The Wandering Who” about Jewish identity politics has, since its publication three years ago, sparked most different reactions as well as particularly lively debates, as a glance on the controversial author’s Wikipedia page shows. Some view him as an inspired fighter for justice, as an undaunted source of ideas and impulses, even a prophet, while others despise him as an “anti-Semite” and demonize him as a soul catcher in the quagmire of extreme right-wing ideas. What’s in this prophetic devil’s book? What do people say about it? What is to make of it?


PART 1: WHAT’S IN IT?

What happens on the 202 pages between the two covers resembles an elaborate jazz piece in its composition: Themes are employed and varied, circles closed, biographical details interpolated. At the heart of the study are – in a nutshell – two major theses: that there is a political ideological “Jewish-ness” which by far exceeds the boundaries of Zionism, and that, in this context, there is a deep gap between tribal interest politics and universal standards within the range of Jewish opinions: Jerusalem versus Athens, known from the problem of the Jewish vs. the democratic state. In 22 chapters, organized in four parts and supplemented by diverse fore- and afterwords, the author analyzes the heterogeneous Jewish collective from which he originates, often in a context with the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians. The self-critical impulse at the root of his criticism can be understood while reading the epilogue, where Gilad Atzmon recounts an episode from his school days in Israel: On a visit to Yad Vashem the fourteen-year-old asks the teacher why so many Europeans loathed the Jews so much and in so many places at once. The subsequent punishment did not silence the querist; apparently, similar scenes were to follow. Thus the author self-assesses not to look at Jews or Israelis, but in the mirror (p 94). This is essential for understanding his motivation.

Atzmon is a dissident, someone who, during his time in the Israeli army, discovered lies and inconsistencies he started to consequently pursue, as he describes in the introductory part of “The Wandering Who”. What did the first Israeli president mean when he spoke about a Jewish “primary quality” (p 16f) that ranks higher than civic commitments of Jews toward a diaspora country? Atzmon analyzes Victor Ostrovsky, a deserter ex-Mossad agent (p 18ff), and his description of “sayanim”, diaspora Jewish helpers for the Jewish cause. What enabled Wolfowitz, Greenspan and others to mobilize the USA for Zionist interests? It was in any case no conspiracy, writes Atzmon, for everything was in the open and public (p 30).

In the philosophical excursion of chapter 3 he examines the relationship between minority identities and mainstream and finds the case that minority policies are “there to retain the negation” (p 33). Zionism would be retained by anti-Semitism in the same way. In the actions of minorities like Zionism or lesbian separatism he detects abstract identifications rather than authentic identities and illustrates this thesis by comparing the typical Sabra, i.e. Jew born in Palestine, with a Jewish settler in the West Bank (p 45f). Whereas the Sabra displays the rather artificial “identification with a newly-born Jewish archetype” the settler would overcome separatism, reaching a new Jewish identity. Yet all of them, as politically acting Jews, would be defined by being “against something, or set apart from something else” (p 48). A lack of self-reflection is what Atzmon attests in regard to his former in-group, shown also in the benevolence toward positive Jewish stereotypes like Anne Frank; negative ones, like Shylock, however, were rejected (Chapter 5). According to Gilad Atzmon, the haskalah, the Jewish enlightenment, was defective. He views Moses Mendelssohn’s call: “Be a Jew at Home and a Goy on the Street” (p 55) to be symptomatic. This duality with its intrinsic contradiction was co-responsible for the misinterpretation of both the right and the left in the Jewish discourse who believed in the Zionist creed “that, due to their homecoming, Jews would be able to replace their ‘traditional traits’ with aspirations towards sameness” (p 56). Atzmon sums up: “As long as Jews insisted on being like ‘all people’ they would always fail to be themselves” (p 60). The same Zionism was to blame for the attempt to supply secular Jews with an identity within its system, and yet, “the notion of peace, reconciliation and harmony entails a collapse of the politics of negation” (p 64).

Here ends part 1, “Identity vs. Identifying”, and part 2 begins: “Unconsciousness is the Discourse of the Goyim”. Atzmon talks about the difficulties in defining “Zionism” and the overlap with what he recognizes as “Jewish ideology” (p 69). Especially after the establishment of the Jewish state there were no more common aims to define the concept other than the upholding of tribal interests and, significantly, “prevention of assimilation” (p 70). As an example for non-believing anti-Zionist Jews, who, due to a “tribal orientation” (p 72) still call for acceptance in the Jewish community (p 72), thus recognizing it implicitly as a (political) authority, Atzmon analyzes over several pages the case of journalist Julia Ward. If it was a Zionst game one might be able to detect roles in certain people, and the respective individuals are not necessarily aware of those roles (p 76). He describes Zionism as a successfull “global project with no head and a lot of hands” which “sets out a template for Jewish tribalism by incorporating all elements into a dynamic power, and transforms its opposition into a productive force.” (p 76). As an example, the author mentions the episode of Sharon’s Kadima party success in 2005, followed by Olmert’s war in Lebanon. He comments: “As much as Zionist Jews want to be protected by walls and by the nuclear deterrent, they also want to be ‘citizens of the world'” and continues to diagnose a “schizophrenic ideology” (p 78).

The gap between Jewish self-image and reality clearly showed, according to Atzmon, during the attack on Gaza in 2008, when Israel saw itself via al-Jazeera and Press TV through the eyes of the “other” (p 81f); the “ghetto malaise” (p 84) would also be obvious in the 2009 Coen brothers movie “A Serious Man” in which protagonist Larry is more afraid of being caught doing something unethical than of actually doing something unethical (p 82-84). As an escape from the ghetto or shtetl, respectively, of Jerusalem’s insularity, towards the openness of the metropolis of Athens, the author sees three routes: total segregation, return to orthodoxy, or the (favorable) overcoming of what he calls “Jewish-ness” (p 86f), i.e. Jewish interest politics, and with it the detachment from the tribal obligation.

In an excursion of eight pages (Chapter 11) Atzmon analyzes a thesis by Otto Weininger, a forgotten anti-Semite and woman-hater, according to which opposites like man and woman complete each other when the match is in the relation of e.g. 70:30 / 30:70 and positively not in the distribution of 100 % man and 100 % woman. One could only understand those things in other people that one carried with him or her. This would be one of the causes for the “collapse” (p 92) of the multiculturalism discourse after 9/11 and the failure of the western left to grasp the transformation within the Arab world (p 92). Tribal Jewish politics is to be distinguished from Zionism which is an obsolete concept in Israel, anyway (p 98). Atzmon’s criticism aims at the “invention” (p 100) of the Jewish nation and the fact that both Zionsts and anti-Zionists give it an identity through supremacist behavior and the promotion of hateful images (p 102). That what sounds self-determined and emancipated was only pretence (p 104) in the tribal discourse. Lenin rejected the self-determination of the Jews because they were no nation to begin with (p 107), while e.g. Palestinians did not need to imitate authentic self-determination (p 106). This pretence of universalism concerned the “progressive” socialist Matzpen and the “reactionary” (p 109) neo-conservatives alike, both of whom justified, among other things, “the destruction of Arab regional power and Islam” (p 109) and thus were “two sides of the same shekel.” (p 110).

In chapters 14 and 15 he continues his thoughts on right/left-orientations in the Jewish discourse. First he analyzes some quotes by the economist Milton Friedmann who predicted “that the short phase of Zionist ‘pseudo-socialism’ was foreign to Jewish culture” (p 117). The current financial catastophes, according to Atzmon, were largely in the responsibility of “his own intellectual heritage” (p 119). After mentioning several quotes of violence from the Book of Moses and after poiting to the countless violent passages in the Bible, the author concludes that “the lethal spirit of the scriptures has infused the essence of modern Jewish political discourse” (p 122) and was also exercized against the Palestinians – this time not in the name of God, but “in their own name, in the name of self-determination, (…) in the name of ‘democracy’.” (p 123).

Part 3 is entitled “Historicity & Factuality vs. Fantasy & Phantasm”. Here, the author presents the Pre-Traumatic Stress Syndrome (Pre-TSS) which “is a fundamental tenet of Jewish and Israeli culture” (p 130). In such instances, the trauma does not need a concrete experience and refers to an “imaginary future” (p 130), e.g. in the shower scene in “Schindler’s List” when, instead of Zyklon B, water pours down on the heads (p 130); or in the routinely uttered fear of Israeli politicians of the “nuclear Shoa” (p 132). The “imaginary terror threat” in the killing of nine peace activists at the Gaza shore also belonged in this category (p 134). This phenomenon was even captured in the realm of humor; a Jewish telegram reads: “Begin Worrying, Details to Follow.” (p 134).

Studies by Shlomo Sand (“The Invention of the Jewish People”) as well as Yeshayahu Leibowitz’ thesis about the Holocaust religion are reviewed to further explicate the phenomenon of Pre-TSS. The myth of the Jewish nation with its kingdom, exile, wandering and return (p 139) would only exist since 1820, and the Zionist kidnapping of the Bible originally was a desperate Jewish answer to German Early Romanticism (p 140). After concurring with Shlomo Sand that, ironically, it was probably the Palestinians who succeeded the first Jews in lineage, Atzmon returns to the issue of defining “Jewish-ness” (p 147f) and argues with Leibowitz that the genocide was the only thing that united the Jews. This would not be about a historical narrative, for if it was it would not need the protection of laws and politicians (p 149). The Holocaust became an “ideological interface” (p 151) for Zionists, Marxists and humanists who flock to the holy core-narrative, the trauma, and this not after 1945, no, since biblical times. The author summarizes: “That which maintains the Jewish collective identity is fear” (p 156).

As old as the Book of Esther (Chap 19), the basis of the Purim holiday, was the Pre-TSS story, as the book deals with an attempted judeocide, and how Jews saved themselves by infiltrating the corridors of power. The scientist Medoff recognizes this scenario with its distributed roles to be similar to the situation in the USA in the 1940s, and Atzmon even sees it as a paradigm that also works with the characters of Obama, Ahmadinejad and Cheney (p 162). This is also why Lenni Brenner’s critique of the cooperation between Zionists like Rabbi Joachim Prinz and the Nazis was inadequate, as such collaborators acted in the spirit of the Book of Esther (p 162f). But: “In order to live out its promise, Zionism had to liberate itself from Jewish exilic ideology, and from the Holocaust religion. Yet it has failed to do this.” (p 165). Only via “Donations, Think Tanks and Media Outlets” (Chap 20) it was able to retain its influence.

With this thought the summarizing closing part 4 begins: “Connecting the Dots”, in which the Jewish mainstream discourse is reproached with a lack of understanding history, e.g. in the example of the ADL (Anti-Defamation League) when in 2007 it recognized the massacre against the Armenians as genocide, but soon discarded this assessment (p 173). Atzmon explains: “In the Jewish intellectual insular world, one first decides what the historic moral is, then one invents ‘a past’ to fit.” (p 174). The Holocaust, that hit the author’s family, too, was indeed bad and tragic, “but not that different from the fate of many millions of Ukrainians” (p 175), and in this context he also mentions German civilians, Japanese, Vietnamese and Iraqis. He demands: “The Holocaust, like every other historical narrative, must be analysed properly.” (p 175), for as soon as three years after the end of World War II Palestine fell prey to a Jewish ethnic cleansing (p 177), raising many questions. It was inherent to history that it is constantly questioned and that it does not become an “extended present” (p 179) in which “the past is sealed” (p 180). The dismissal of temporality, according to Atzmon, is an explanation for walls, barbed wire, phosphorus and death in the Middle East. Atzmon closes with the remark that, next to Israel, The USA and Great Britain managed to banalize and simplify history, making the “war against terror” possible (p 183). He summarizes: “To identify politically as a Jew and to wonder what is ‘good for the Jews’ is the true essence of Jewish tribal thinking” (p 184). Atzmon does not expect solutions from “peace talks” (p 187), as he mentions in the epilogue, rather from a “de-Zionisation of Israel” (p 188) and an “honest process of self-reflection” (p 189).

Regarding the German translation of the book it has to be stated that it is a desaster for the reader, starting with the title. If a publisher is able to integrate so many mistakes of all kinds in a single publication they should think about introducing an editor.

PART 2: WHAT DO PEOPLE SAY ABOUT THE BOOK?

In the appendix below I have assembled a list of 79 reviews of the “Wandering Who”, including some supplementing material like interviews. A first glimpse shows that the big discussion started with the publication of the book three years ago, in September 2011. Everything is linked to, so everybody can build their own opinion. The scope of this little study is too tiny for analyzing the details of the discourse. As stated above, feedback ranges from the labels prophetic to satanic. Highlights are the articles in Counterpunch (Sep 2011 and Feb 2013), and, on another level, the public collective rejections/disavowals in March 2012, here filed under Abu Khalil and Abunimah.

Criticism is largely boring when it concerns the notorious reproach of anti-Semitism that routinely finds volunteers to utter it as soon as criticism of Israel is on the table. Just as boring is the complementary repertoir, ranging from applause from the wrong side over the potential nurturing of prejudice over to entanglements in conspiracy theories and an overall disturbed personality that would normally disqualify the author, if, yes if he was not at the same time a jazz saxofonist of world-class which makes the nobel enterprise impossible. There is a thread in the discourse amounting to nothing more than such superficialities, offering little of substance.

The backers often laud the author’s courage to tackle inconvenient truths and taboos. They also tend to summarize and comment on some major theses dealt with in the Wandering Who, namely those of Sand, Leibowitz and Finkelstein, which covers a good part of the feedback. This camp tends to regard his criticism of Jewish mainstream beyond Zionism as an eye-opener.

The known German right-wing extremist veteran Horst Mahler took an especially huge effort writing a (kind of) review that is longer than the Wandering Who itself. In the Brandenburg prison, where he is currently detained for sedition and incitement, Mahler seemed to have had the necessary leisure for this little masterpiece that tapers off to a rhetorical firework: “Cleansed from the traces of Jewish Lies the German Volksgeist will shine in new splendor.” And: “Germanity, due to its spiritual substance, is devoted to the world as the apparition of God.” This must be the result of a long phase of epiphany and very difficult to capture in words. As the media outlet Die Welt reported, Mahler managed to smuggle this gem into freedom on USB sticks.

PART 3: WHAT TO MAKE OF IT?

Gilad Atzmon won the battle – and it has surely been a battle – against his former collective, not by virtue of his arguments or something he said, but by showing that he, in fact, accomplished the emancipation he criticizes to be lacking in his ex-group: authenticity rather than futile attempts to live up to an abstract image or semi-conscious pattern.

The questions Gilad asks are worth, often necessary, to be asked, like: Who are those people that commit violence with Jewish symbols in the name of the Jews? Or: Why are Jews overrepresented in political bodies like in the UK and the USA? Whether or not the answers and references he provides are sound is another matter. Gilad springs into the eye of a taboo, namely criticism of the Jewish mainstream the mere mentioning of which is problematic, immediately noticable when I replace “mainstream” with e.g. “collective”. It conjurs up dark shadows of the past, looming over the intellectual capacity of numerous observers.

To the merits of the book belongs the insight that the concept of Zionism does not cover the whole scope of the problem. Gilad himself does not come to a conclusion about where Zionist ends and something else starts, as he states in his summary: “For the Jewish state to lead a peace initiative, Israel must be de-Zionised – it should first stop being the Jewish State.” (p 188). Yet despite some contradictions he recounts convincing evidence for the fact that Zionism is not such an important point in the Israeli discourse today, and that the creation of Israel logically led to a post-Zionist situation. As Professor Norton Mezvinsky put it: Gilad “expresses some thoughtful and creative ideas that should be seriously considered, regardless of agreement or disagreement.”

Some of the Wandering Who’s insights are inspiring, like the thesis that you can only understand in others what you carry in your self, although I don’t understand why one would choose to schlepp an individual like Weininger all the way to this point. The Pre-TSS theme is also interesting, it reminds me of my family from whom I learned everything I know about Israel – Mum had always been so concerned that I could fall into depression after a creative high that she acted out of fear, like in Gilad Atzmon’s Pre-Traumatic Stress Syndrome. The family “feared” I could do harm to myself or others and lived in the expectation of the catastrophe until they finally used violence. They invented a dogmatic group history to their advantage and thought they had special rights. This made them incredibly ruthless. I mention this because my family is not Jewish, and they know nothing about the Book of Esther, either. My point is that Gilad (again) came up with incidences of group behavior and power struggles, trying to sell it as specifically or typically Jewish.

As far as I can see, there is no pioneering book yet on power and group behavior from a socio-psychological perspective, classifying the kinds and levels of groups, like family, school class, peers, corporation, office, interest group, army etc. and specifying typical situations, scapegoat practices, mechanisms that lead to leadership, control of the mainstream opinion, competitive behavior as a product of group pressure, identity-building via enemy-making, initiation rituals, intentional vs. unconscious group behavior, the role of loyalty, the role of silence and hypocrasy, and all the other things that go without saying. In this book one would find elaborations on most of Gilad’s interesting remarks. But can’t those remarks still be applied to a Jewish mainstream? I’d say of course, this is what the fictitious deep group analysis is for, it summarizes individual cases. The primal object of observation, though, is group mechanisms and can never be the “essence” of a group. Gilad is not completely unaware of that, as he states at the end of his book: “However, Israel is not alone. As tragic as it appears to be, America and Britain have managed to willingly give up on temporality” (p 183) – after having defined “temporality” and having fitted it into his Jewish-ness theory.

There are important issues missing in the Wandering Who. As the principle question is what specifies Jews as a group and as part of larger societes one would expect the mentioning of the Christian ban on interest that enabled Jews to develop traditions in the financial sector while often being denied whole branches of alternative working opportunities. And when the subject of minority politics is touched upon in chapter 3 it solely reflects upon how (some) minorities (in a given situation) behave vis-à-vis the mainstream and not upon mainstream behavior towards minorities, like scapegoating, double standards or using the minority as a projection screen in self-denial. (Many argue that the fact is missing that the German industrial and systematic murder of the Jews is incomparable. Atzmon would with some right argue that this claim is one of the dogmas of the Holocaust religion and a symptom for the loss of temporality.) Israel Shamir points out: Atzmon “claims that Jews did not write any histories until the 19th century. This is not true: Abraham Zacuto produced his History of the Jews (‘Sefer Yohassin’) in the last decades of the 15th century, and this book is available on Amazon.”

As both Gilad and me are musicians, literary writers, free thinkers and Middle East analysts, our paths have crossed several times in the last decade and a half. There is a remark on page 134: “I guess that ‘turn the other cheek’ is a valid way to defy the Old Testament’s ‘eye for an eye’. Turning the other cheek is commonly realised as a means to counter an aggressor. However, it maybe the only possible measure to dismantle the ‘terror within’, that aggression that brews inside us as we become vindictive. It can also be very effective in defusing our anger at an imaginary threat. We replace it with acceptance, we disarm ourselves. We give peace a chance.” The remark made me ask Gilad if he had adopted pacifist attitudes now. He answered in an email: “I see myself as a devoted follower of Christ, and turning the other cheek is the essence of de-judification. I am not a pacifist. I support resistance. But I would argue that turning the other cheek is a privilege kept to the stinger.” – I sat there mouth open, when I saw this fascinating contradiction. Where will Gilad go from here? He obviously digested a lot of input, and his definitions have become refined and more cautiously chosen over the years, see e.g.: “The notion of ‘Jewish Power’ could be confusing and misleading: it needs elaboration. When I discuss Jewish Power, I am strictly referring to the ability of Jewish interest groups to mount political pressure.” (Silvia Cattori interview Sep 2011).

Gilad’s leitmotif lies in the demand for opening the discourse, and this is indeed a central issue, especially when one considers the media situation in the awareness that war is always better for the media than peace because conflicts and power struggles simply sell better. Yet when in a long online talk last March the interviewer John Friend repeatedly talked about the “alleged Holocaust” Gilad did not object to this choice of words. His respective responses, however, presupposed the existence of the Holocaust. In the same interview he ascribed – half as a joke – special abilities in the field of self-marketing to Jews, listing some examples, among them, strangely, himself who is supposed to have left all these things far behind.

The most interesting thing about the Wandering Who in my opinion is on a meta-level, it is what the book catalyzed and the significance of the polarization. Gilad brought about a crisis, with all the insightful mirror criticism and hysteria that go with it. Depending on your sense of humor, a review of the Wandering feedback can be quite entertaining, especially as Gilad spells “free thinker” with a capital F, as can be observed e.g. in Danny Yee’s remark: “Just to make sure he will have no friends anywhere, Atzmon also works in some criticisms of other forms of identity politics, notably of separatist feminists and the gay identity movement.”

“Mirror criticism” is my expression for projections of self-criticism onto others. When, for instance, someone tries to dominate the discourse by accusing others of dominating the discourse. Or when you exclude (disavow) someone on the allegation that this person excludes people. Or when someone fixated on “anti-Semites” blames someone else for being fixated on “Jews”. Some are hurt in their egos and, surprise, they see Gilad’s big ego. Those, who allude to Atzmon’s confusion, often are confused by his demand to not confine criticism on Zionism when discussing Jewish identities. What we get here is an unfettered view into the eco system of the Middle East discourse. Let’s learn from that!

The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity politics and Jewish Power in particular – available on Amazon.com  &Amazon.co.uk

APPENDIX: LIST OF REVIEWS 

AbuKhalil, As’ad, et al (Mar 2012): Not Quite “Ordinary Human Beings”—Anti-imperialism and the anti-humanist rhetoric of Gilad Atzmon,http://threewayfight.blogspot.de/p/atzmon-critique_09.html
Abunimah, Ali, et al (US Palestinian Community Network, 13 Mar 2012): Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon, http://wp.me/p1SPLk-jv
Alcott, Blake (3 Feb 2013): To Shun or Bury the Hatchet? The Case of Gilad Atzmon, http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/02/01/the-case-of-gilad-atzmon/
Atzmon, Gilad (21 Mar 2012): Right of reply: Gilad Atzmon responds to Palestinian writers, www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=469992
Balles, Paul (4 Sep 2011): Book review, www.veteranstoday.com/?p=136893
Barrett, Kevin (28 Sep 2011): Gilad Atzmon’s The Wandering Who – a joyous affirmation of the end of identity politics,http://truthjihad.blogspot.de/2011/09/gilad-atzmons-wandering-who-joyous.html
BBC Persian (9 Aug 2013): Interview with Gilad Atzmon, 30 mins,http://youtu.be/Ei0bC1s2Mqw
Bell, Collin (1 Jan 2012): Sometimes the truth causes discomfort – a book review. www.gilad.co.uk/the-wandering-who/2012/1/1/collin-bell-sometimes-the-truth-causes-discomfort-a-book-rev.html
Bell, Rosie (1 Oct 2011): Warm Endorsement,http://rosiebell.typepad.com/rosiebell/2011/10/warm-endorsement.html
Bernstein, David (14 Mar 2012): Gilad Atzmon Update,www.volokh.com/tag/brian-leiter/
Boyd, Soraya (5 Oct 2011): Courageous, fearless and creative,www.gilad.co.uk/the-wandering-who/2011/10/5/soraya-boyd-courageous-fearless-and-creative.html
Bradley, Colin (30 Sep 2011): False accusations,http://chicagomaroon.com/2011/09/30/false-accusations/
Carmody, Robin, et al (26 Sep 2011): Zero Authors’ Statement on Gilad Atzmon, www.leninology.co.uk/2011/09/zero-authors-statement-on-gilad-atzmon.html
Cattori, Silvia (27 Sep 2011): Gilad Atzmon talks about his latest book “The Wandering Who?”, www.silviacattori.net/article2070.html
Coates, Andrew (30 Sep 2011): Atzmon and the Confederacy of Zionist Dunces, http://tendancecoatesy.wordpress.com/2011/09/30/atzmon-and-the-confederacy-of-zionist-dunces/
Cohen, Ben (1 Feb 2012): The Big Lie Returns,www.commentarymagazine.com/article/the-big-lie-returns/
Cook, William A. (Counterpunch, 16 Sep 2011): Tearing the Veil From Israel’s Civility, http://www.counterpunch.org/2011/09/16/tearing-the-veil-from-israels-civility/
Cook, William A. (19 Mar 2012): PCN — “Disavowal” of Gilad Atzmon ? The Truth be damned!, www.deliberation.info/pcn-disavowal-of-gilad-atzmon-the-truth-be-damned/
Corseri, Gary Steven (24 Mar 2012): Who Is Gilad Atzmon and Who Are We? A review of The Wandering Who?, http://dissidentvoice.org/?p=43539
CST (15 Nov 2011): Gilad Atzmon: what you see is what you get,http://blog.thecst.org.uk/?m=201111
Darab, Walid (7 Sep 2014): The Greed for Ilm Podcast. EP 87 – Gilad Atzmon, https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/the-greed-for-ilm-podcast/id632342938?mt=2
Davidsson, Elias (14 Nov 2011): Book review, www.arendt-art.de/deutsch/palestina/Stimmen_Israel_juedische/davidsson_elias_atzmon_the_wandering_who.htm
Dershowitz, Alan (4 Nov 2011): Why are John Mearsheimer and Richard Falk Endorsing a Blatantly Anti-Semitic Book?,www.newrepublic.com/article/politics/97030/atzmon-wandering-who-anti-semitism-israel, also: www.alandershowitz.com/gilad_atzmon.pdf
Dysch, Marcus (19 Oct 2011): Fury over distribution of ‘racist’ Gilad Atzmon book, www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/56632/fury-over-distribution-racist-gilad-atzmon-book
Endorsing blurbs in the book; quoted from www.gilad.co.uk/the-wandering-who/ in September 2014: Professor Richard Falk, Professor John J. Mearsheimer, Professor Francis A. Boyle, Professor Norton Mezvinsky, Professor William A. Cook, Marc H. Ellis, Gauden Sarasola (El Pais), Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh, Greta Berlin, Ramzy Baroud (Palestine Chronicle), Karl Sabbagh, Dr. Samir Abed-Rabbo, Robert Wyatt, David Rovics, Eric Walberg (Al Ahram Weekly), Jonathan Moadab, Lauren Booth (Press TV), Greg Felton, Dr. Anthony Löwstedt, Jeff Blankfort, Professor James Petras, Dr. Makram Khoury-Machool, Gary Corseri, Inge Etzbach, Nahida Izzat, Dr. Oren Ben Dor, Kim Petersen (Dissident Voice), Dr. Kevin Barrett, Kathleen Christison, Dr. Paul Balles, Gordon Duff, Jeff Gates, Professor Garrison Fewell, Sameh Habeeb (Palestine Telegraph), Neil Berry (Arab News), Silvia Cattori, Professor William T. Hathaway, Dr. Paul Larudee, Rainlore’s World of Music, Ken O’Keefe, Shahram Vahdany (MWC News), Richard A. Siegel, Sunny Singh, Roy Ratcliffe, Sheldon Richman
Farber, Seth (May 2012): The Gilad Atzmon Conundrum,http://thestruggle.org/who_faber_review.htm
Fewell, Garrison (30 Sep 2011): On The Wandering Who,www.gilad.co.uk/the-wandering-who/2011/9/30/garrison-fewell-on-the-wandering-who.html
Finkel, David (Apr 2012): Atzmon’s Mistaken “Identity”, www.solidarity-us.org/node/3542
Friend, John (24 Mar 2014): The Realist Report (Audio) – Gilad Atzmon: Jewish identity politics, www.therealistreport.com/2014/03/the-realist-report-gilad-atzmon-jewish.html
Gabriel (Blogger) (29 Sep 2011): A few points on the occasion of the Atzmon saga going mainstream, http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.de/2011/09/few-point-for-occasion-of-atzmon-saga.html
Gabriel (Blogger) (26 Nov 2011): Commentary on the “Philosophical Thinking” of Gilad Atzmon,http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.de/2011/11/commentary-on-philosophical-thinking-of.html
Gardner, Mark (3 Oct 2011): From The Wandering Jew to The (new) Jewish Question, http://blog.thecst.org.uk/?p=3056
Gardner, Mark (24 Nov 2011): Raise Your Banners & Karl Dallas: You’re All ‘Zionists’ Now, http://blog.thecst.org.uk/?m=201111
Geekesque (Blogger) (26 Sep 2011): John Mearsheimer does his best to prove critics right, www.dailykos.com/story/2011/09/26/1020371/-John-Mearsheimer-does-his-best-to-prove-critics-right
Godfrey, Neil (6 Sep 2011): The Wandering Who?,http://vridar.org/2011/09/06/the-wandering-who/#more-21499
Goldberg, Jeffrey (23 Sep 2011): John Mearsheimer Endorses a Hitler Apologist and Holocaust Revisionist,www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2011/09/john-mearsheimer-endorses-a-hitler-apologist-and-holocaust-revisionist/245518/
Greenstein, Tony (5 Dec 2011): A Worthless Book – Devoid of All Originality,http://azvsas.blogspot.de/2011/12/review-wandering-who.html
Halily, Yaniv (14 Nov 2011): The protocols of Gilad Atzmon,www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4147243,00.html
Hathaway, William T. (19 Dec 2011): The Last Jewish Prophet,www.opednews.com/articles/The-Last-Jewish-Prophet-A-by-William-T-Hathawa-110915-368.html
Heller, Stanley (2012?): A Review of “The Who”,www.thestruggle.org/review_who.htm
Holland, Adam (26 Sep 2011): John Mearsheimer’s Disturbing Connection to a Notorious Anti-Semite http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/142058
Jazz Man (Blogger) (27 May 2012): Book Review; Gilad Atzmon “The Wandering Who?”, www.thejazzmann.com/features/article/book-review-gilad-atzmon-the-wandering-who/
Johnson, Greg (7 Oct 2011): The Self-Exterminating Jew: Gilad Atzmon’s The Wandering Who?, www.counter-currents.com/2011/10/the-self-exterminating-jew-gilad-atzmons-the-wandering-who/
Kahn-Harris, Keith (Jewish Quarterly, 31 Jan 2012): Non Jewish Jews,http://www.kahn-harris.org/my-recent-review-of-the-atzmon-and-landy-books-in-the-jewish-quarterly/
MacDonald, Kevin (3 Oct 2011): A Dissident Meditation on Jewish Identity: A Review of Gilad Atzmon’s “The Wandering Who?”,www.theoccidentalobserver.net/2011/10/a-dissident-meditation-on-jewish-identity-a-review-of-gilad-atzmons-the-wandering-who/
MacVie, Ezra (Inconvenient History Vol. 4/1, 2012): Review,http://inconvenienthistory.com/archive/2012/volume_4/number_1/the_wandering_who.php
Mahler, Horst (3 Jan 2013): Das Ende Der Wanderschaft. Gedanken über Gilad Atzmon und die Judenheit (235 pp),http://de.scribd.com/doc/126974147/Horst-Mahler-Das-Ende-Der-Wanderschaft
McGrew, Lydia (9 Jan 2012): Dr. Seuss meets the blood libel,www.whatswrongwiththeworld.net/2012/01/dr_seuss_meets_the_blood_libel.html
McKinney , Cynthia (18 Mar 2012): Cynthia McKinney Interviews Gilad Atzmon about Israel, Zionism, and Jewish Identity Politics,http://youtu.be/zMsWt7G6nSc
Mezvinsky, Norton (May 2012): Washington Report on Middle East Affairs: Gilad Atzmon and The Wandering Who?, www.silviacattori.net/article3176.html
MusicIsRubbish (YouTube-Channel) (7 Jun 2013): Identity politics – Gilad Atzmon vs Ray Keenoy, 90 mins, http://youtu.be/mdiAr7Rw3gk
Nahida (exiled Palestinian) (16 Mar 2012): Disavow with no mercy? Not in my name!, http://uprootedpalestinians.blogspot.de/2012/03/disavow-with-no-mercy-not-in-my-name.html
Neuer, Hillel (25 Dec 2013): Disgraced UN rep trying to meet anti-Semite for Christmas lunch in London, http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/disgraced-un-rep-trying-to-meet-anti-semite-for-christmas-lunch-in-london/
Niles, Alexander (2 Mar 2012): The Wandering Who? By Gilad Atzmon. Reviewed, with added comments,www.focusonfacts.com/forums/view_topic/1268/1/#post_1314
Proyect, Louis (29 Sep 2011): The Gilad Atzmon controversy ,http://louisproyect.org/2011/09/29/the-gilad-atzmon-controversy/
Qumsiyeh, Mazin (4 May 2012): The dysfunctional ideology of Jewishness,www.shoah.org.uk/2012/05/04/review-of-gilad-atzmons-book-the-wandering-who-a-study-of-jewish-identity-politic/
Rebecca (Bloggerin) (23 Sep 2011): Who else endorsed Gilad Atzmon’s “The Wandering Who?”, http://mystical-politics.blogspot.de/2011/09/who-else-endorsed-gilad-atzmons.html
Redscribe (Blogger) (2 Oct 2011):The Blundering Who?,http://redscribblings.wordpress.com/2011/10/02/the-blundering-who/
Redscribe (Blogger) (3 May 2012): The Vindication of Gilad Atzmon (including Norton Mezvinsky), http://redscribblings.wordpress.com/2012/05/03/the-vindication-of-gilad-atzmon/
Shamir, Israel (Dec 2011): Wondering about the Wandering Who,www.israelshamir.net/English/Gilad-Review.htm
Seattle Community Media (25 Mar 2012): Jewish Identity Politics! – a book review of “The Wandering Who” by Gilad Atzmon, https://archive.org/details/scm-27342-jewishidentitypolitics
Singh, Sunny (3 Sep 2011): Gilad Atzmon’s The Wandering Who: Incisive, Provocative and Sometimes Dangerous to Read,http://sunnysinghonline.blogspot.de/2011/09/gilad-atzmons-wandering-who-incisive.html
Soral, Alain (26 Mai 2014): Gilad Atzmon – Les Juifs et les Autres, 120 minshttp://youtu.be/OByKUIXpAfs
The American Interest, (23 Sep 2011): John Mearsheimer Dances With the Dark, www.the-american-interest.com/blog/2011/09/23/john-mearsheimer-dances-with-the-dark/
Theokopoulos, Ariadna (10 Apr 2013): Gilad Atzmon Who?,www.boldfacenews.com/gilad-atzmon-who/
The Plane Truth (Channel) (18 Jun 2014): The Plane Truth PTS3102 (Audio Interview), http://tfrnewshub.com/alternative-news/gilad-atzmon-the-wandering-who-a-study-of-jewish-identity-the-plane-truth-pts3102/
Ungar-Sargon, Eli (18 Mar 2012): “The Wandering Who?” Gilad Atzmon and Jewish Identity, http://jewschool.com/2012/03/18/28058/the-wandering-who-gilad-atzmon-and-jewish-identity/
UN Watch (25 Dec 2013): UN’s Richard Falk meeting anti-Semite in London, condemned by Palestinian activists for racism,http://blog.unwatch.org/index.php/2013/12/25/uns-richard-falk-meeting-anti-semite-in-london-condemned-by-palestinian-activists-for-racism/
Vahdany, Shahram (12 Sep 2011): The Wandering Who? Gilad Atzmon, King of the Jews, Hated by All Jews, www.aljazeerah.info/Opinion%20Editorials…
Vidal, Dominique (11 Apr 2012): Les protocoles de Gilad Atzmon,http://blogs.mediapart.fr/blog/dominique-vidal/110412/les-protocoles-de-gilad-atzmon
Vogel, Heidi (25 Oct 2011): The Wandering Who-Book Review, www.salem-news.com/articles/october252011/wandering-who-hv.php
W, Joseph (19 Sep 2011): Atzmon’s literary agents: John Mearsheimer recommends “Wandering Who”, http://hurryupharry.org/2011/09/19/atzmons-literary-agents-john-mearsheimer-recommends-wandering-who/
Walberg, Eric (Al-Ahram Weekly, 22 Sep 2011): Jezebel’s legacy,http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2011/1065/cu7.htm
Walt, Stephen M. (26 Sep 2011): Mearsheimer responds to Goldberg’s latest smear,http://www.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2011/09/25/mearsheimer_responds_to_goldbergs_latest_smear
Warner, James (5 Jul 2012): David Mamet, Gilad Atzmon and identity politics, https://www.opendemocracy.net/james-warner/david-mamet-gilad-atzmon-and-identity-politics
Watzal, Ludwig (16 Nov 2011): The Wandering Who?, http://between-the-lines-ludwig-watzal.blogspot.de/2011/11/wandering-who.html
Weinberg, Bill (30 Sep 2011): John Mearsheimer and the “weaponizing” of anti-Semitism, http://newjewishresistance.org/blog/john-mearsheimer-and-weaponizing-anti-semitism
Woodward, Paul (17 Mar 2012): The campaign to silence Gilad Atzmon,http://warincontext.org/2012/03/17/the-campaign-to-silence-gilad-atzmon/
Yee, Danny (Nov 2011): Book review,http://dannyreviews.com/h/Wandering_Who.html

Israel: African immigrants ‘threaten Jewish identity’

REHMAT’s World

On September 9, 2014, the US-based Human Rights Watch (HRW), one of pro-Israel lobby groups, reported that the Zionist regime has illegally coerced almost 8,000 African migrants, mostly Sudanese and Eritreans into returning to their native countries where some faces persecution.

The report documents how Israel’s convoluted legal rules thwart Eritrean and Sudanese asylum seekers’ attempts to secure protection under Israeli and international law. Israeli authorities have labelled Eritreans and Sudanese a “threat”, branded them “infiltrators,” denied them access to fair and efficient asylum procedures, and used the resulting insecure legal status as a pretext to unlawfully detain or threaten to detain them indefinitely, coercing thousands into leaving. Read the 83-page HRW report here and watch a video below.

On December 17, 2012 HRW fired one of its directors, professor Richard Falk (Jewish) without proper notification for exposing Israel’s war crimes. The firing was the result of a letter sent to Kenneth Roth (Jewish), executive director HRW by Hillel C. Neuer, executive director UN Watch, a Geneva-based pro-Israel Jewish lobby group.

In May 2012, Zionist prime minister Netanyahu declared these African migrants who were used as an anti-Khartoum PR earlier as threat to Israel’s Jewish identity.

Gerry Simpson, the Jewish author of the report said HRW saw Israel’s policy as amounting to “coercive measures” and part of a policy of “unlawful forced return, torture and other serious harm, affecting thousands of Eritreans and Sudanese. The report also criticized the Zionist entity for granting refugee status to just 0.1 percent of Eritrean asylum seekers, compared to 83 percent of Eritreans accorded that status worldwide.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Homeless in Gaza

By Stephen Lendman

Thursday, 04 September 2014 13:32

Homeless in Gaza

Source

UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine refugees in the near east (UNWRA) Commissioner-General Pierre Krahenbuhl called for ending Gaza’s blockade. Otherwise, reconstruction will take over a decade, he said. Others estimate much longer. Shelter Cluster is an Inter-Agency Standing Committee involved in helping people affected by natural disasters or conflicts. Rebuilding Gaza will take 20 years under Israeli-imposed restrictions, it said. Palestinian officials estimate a cost of at least $6 billion to do so

Krahenbuhl estimates at least 20,000 homes destroyed as well as extensive infrastructure destruction. He called it “imperative for the international community and for the people of Gaza to reconstruct after the devastation.” Israeli aggression bears full responsibility.

“I visited Gaza three times during the recent conflict and the impact of the fighting on individual human lives, particularly the young, is palpable and profound,” he said.

“Hundreds of thousands of children are deep in trauma. We estimate that of the 3,000 children injured, 1,000 will have disabilities for life.” UNWRA will do all it can to restore human dignity to a (population) that has suffered enough.”

Krahenbuhl expressed concern for “more than 50,000 people” still living in UNWRA schools because Israel destroyed their homes. “We need to do all we can to find alternative accommodation for these people,” he said.

A new UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) report covered the late August through September 4 period. It highlights the problem.

Israel’s Operation Protective Edge (OPE) created a humanitarian disaster. OCHA estimates around 108,000 Palestinians lost their homes or had them severely damaged. Only 10% of Gaza’s population gets water once a day . Electricity is spotty at best. Eighteen-hour outages continue in most areas. The scale of destruction and damage across Gaza is “unprecedented.” About 13% of its housing affected.

Pre-OPE, a 71,000 housing unit deficit existed. Providing temporary accommodations for Palestinians in need is one of the major challenges vital to address.Another is dealing with Explosive Remnants of War (ERW). Palestinians returning home face serious hazards. ERW are strewn throughout Gaza. They include unexploded tank shells, missiles, bombs, and rockets, as well as bullets, shrapnel, fuses, gas canisters, and flechettes.

They contaminated homes, gardens, roads, fields, agricultural lands, shelters, schools and other structures. Before OPE, UNWRA estimated having to provide shelter for up to 50,000 Palestinians for a limited period. Currently it’s six times this number for an undetermined extended time. It’s “unprecedented in the Agency’s 64-year history in Gaza,” it said.

During the height of OPE’s onslaught, about 500,000 Palestinians were displaced. Currently, UNWRA’s 60 shelters accommodate 52,000 Palestinians.

Actual numbers of displaced persons aren’t known. At least 108,000 remain homeless longterm. According to OCHA:

Factors delaying the return of displaced persons include “the pervasive presence of ERW, lack of belief in a permanent ceasefire, lack of availability of basic services, and the destruction of livelihoods as a result of hostilities.” During more normal times, Gaza’s public services are inadequate to meet demand. OPE added “extreme strain” to their capabilities, said OCHA.

Water and electricity networks were destroyed or severely damaged. At least 14 electricity, water and waste water technicians employed by local utilities were killed. At least 10 others were injured. After the open-ended ceasefire agreement, Gaza Electricity Distribution Company (GEDCO) teams began repairing damage. So far little progress was achieved in hardest hit areas. Scheduled power cuts across Gaza continue for up to 18 hours daily on average.

For Gaza city, it’s 20 hours. The Strip’s Coastal Municipalities Water Utility (CMWU) estimates around 75% of Gaza’s water network functions. Yet only 10% of the population has water availability for no more than eight hours daily. Around 80% of waste water services, 70% of waste water treatment plants, and 60% of desalination plants now function at less than full capacity. Damaged or destroyed schools prevented nearly half a million Gazan children from returning to primary and secondary classes this week.

The new academic year was delayed. Once begun, it’ll be severely overstretched. Schools used as shelters need rehabilitation. Destroyed schools are unavailable. Damaged ones require extensive repairs. Unexploded ordnance must be cleared. UNWRA is coordinating a three-phase plan with Gaza’s Ministry of Education. It includes psychosocial activities, enhancing learning skills, and returning children to available school buildings.

OCHA calls its key humanitarian priorities:

  • providing displaced Palestinians with “temporary shelter and housing solutions;
  • keeping border crossings open as well as removing restrictions on construction and other materials needed to rebuild;
  • removing ERWs as quickly as possible; and
  • providing fuel for power needs, potable water, improved sanitation, and other essentials of life and well-being.

Many thousands of Gazans need everything imaginable and then some. Since December 2008, Israel waged three wars of aggression against them.

The Goldstone report following Operation Cast Lead “conclude(d) that the Israeli military operation was directed at the people of Gaza as a whole, in furtherance of an overall and continuing policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population, and in a deliberate policy of disproportionate force aimed at the civilian population.”

“The destruction of food supply installations, water sanitation systems, concrete factories and residential houses was the result of a deliberate and systematic policy which has made the daily process of living, and dignified living, more difficult for the civilian population.”

“Repeatedly, the Israel Defense Forces failed to adequately distinguish between combatants and civilians, as the laws of war strictly require. Pursuing justice in this case is essential because no state or armed group should be above the law.”

Failure to do so “will have a deeply corrosive effect on international justice, and reveal an unacceptable hypocrisy.”

“As a service to hundreds of civilians who needlessly died and for the equal application of international justice, the perpetrators of serious violations must be held to account.”

The post-Cast Lead UN Human Rights Council report called it “clear to the Committee that the IDF had not distinguished between civilians and civilian objects and military targets.”

“Both the loss of life and the damage to property were disproportionate to the harm suffered by Israel or any threatened harm. Israel’s actions could not be justified as self-defense.”

“The IDF was responsible for the crime of killing, wounding and terrorizing civilians (as well as) wonton(ly) destr(oying) property and that such destruction could not be justified on grounds of military necessity.”

The HRC called IDF crimes so grave, “it was compelled to consider whether (genocide) had been committed.” Its conclusion was that Israel “committed war crimes, crimes against humanity and, possibly genocide in the course of Operation Cast Lead.”

Cast Lead lasted 22 days. Operation Protective Edge continued for 51. It was Cast Lead on steroids. It’s just a matter of time before more Israeli aggression is launched. Palestinians are wrongfully blamed for its crimes.Israel remains unaccountable. Palestinians remain isolated on their own. Western leaders do nothing to help. Washington supports Israel’s killing machine. Both nations partner in crime. Palestinians are frequent victims. Gazans suffer most of all.

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights spoke for likeminded groups saying:

It “condemns Israel’s continuous violation of the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and Israel’s violent, unlawful enforcement of the prolonged occupation of the occupied Palestinian territory.”  “Ending this decades-long conflict and halting Israel’s serious violations of international law cannot be anticipated without first achieving a just settlement that guarantees the individual and collective rights of the Palestinian people.”

The international community failed to protect Gaza’s population, property and infrastructure. Its support for Israel permits the highest of high crimes against peace. The Jewish state takes full advantage. Palestinians pay the highest price.

The late Edward Said called Palestine an isolated prison. An entire population is being suffocated out of existence, he said.

Israel impoverishes, starves and slaughters noncombatant men, women and children.. Artillery, tanks, F-16s, helicopter gunships, and banned terror weapons target them. Others are assaulted, arrested, imprisoned, tortured, humiliated, and/or otherwise abused.

For decades, Palestinians endured every imaginable indignity, degradation, and crime against humanity. A cycle of violence persists. Slow-motion genocide haunts them.

Their only defense is resistance. Liberation requires longterm struggle. It remains a distant dream.

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

HAARETZ EDITORIAL: ISRAEL MUST UNDERGO CULTURAL REVOLUTION

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon:

Back in November 2010, I briefly attended a One State Conference in Stuttgart.

In my address, I pointed out that unless we elaborate on Jewish culture within the context of Israeli politics, any discussion on ‘reconciliation’ or ‘One State’ would be a complete waste of time.

A few days after the conference, I learned that Palestinian activist Ali Abunimah was outraged by my comment.

He denounced me suggesting  that political actions ‘have nothing to do with culture or heritage.

Apparently, today’s Haaretz editorial is in full agreement with me. “Israel Must Undergo a Cultural Revolution,” it suggests. I genuinely want to believe that since 2010,  Abunimah and his friends within the Jewish ‘Left‘ (Mondoweiss & Co) have matured a bit and are now ready to grasp the real meaning of the conflict within the appropriate cultural context.

Haaretz Editorial – informationclearinghouse.info

WITHOUT A REVOLUTION BASED ON HUMANIST VALUES, THE JEWISH TRIBE WILL NOT BE WORTHY OF ITS OWN STATE.

The Israel Police was quick to label the murderers “Jewish extremists,” meaning they aren’t part of the herd, they are outliers, “wild weeds.” This is the police’s way of trying to justify a sin, to “make the vermin kosher.” But the vermin is huge, and many-legged. It has embraced the soldiers and other young Israelis who overran the social media networks with calls for revenge and with hatred for Arabs. The vermin was welcomed by Knesset members, rabbis and public figures who demanded revenge. Nor did it skip over the prime minister, who declared “Vengeance for the blood of a small child, Satan has not yet created.”

Abu Khdeir’s murderers are not “Jewish extremists.” They are the descendants and builders of a culture of hate and vengeance that is nurtured and fertilized by the guides of “the Jewish state”: Those for whom every Arab is a bitter enemy, simply because they are Arab; those who were silent at the Beitar Jerusalem games when the team’s fans shouted “death to Arabs” at Arab players; those who call for cleansing the state of its Arab minority, or at least to drive them out of the homes and cities of the Jews.

No less responsible for the murder are those who did not halt, with an iron hand, violence by Israeli soldiers against Palestinian civilians, and who failed to investigate complaints “due to lack of public interest.” The term “Jewish extremists” actually seems more appropriate for the small Jewish minority that is still horrified by these acts of violence and murder. But they too recognize, unfortunately, that they belong to a vengeful, vindictive Jewish tribe whose license to perpetrate horrors is based on the horrors that were done to it.

Prosecuting the murderers is no longer sufficient. There must be a cultural revolution in Israel. Its political leaders and military officers must recognize this injustice and right it. They must begin raising the next generation, at least, on humanist values, and foster a tolerant public discourse. Without these, the Jewish tribe will not be worthy of its own state.

The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish culture, Identity politics and Jewish Power in particular – available on Amazon.com  & Amazon.co.uk

 

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian   

The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Blog!

Jerusalem Residents Omitted From History

TOPSHOTSSnow covers the area next to a section of Israel’s controversial separation barrier in the West Bank village of Al-Ram on the outskirts of Jerusalem on December 14, 2013. (Photo: AFP – Ahmad Gharabli).
Published Thursday, December 19, 2013
As the Palestinian Authority negotiates on handing whatever is left of the West Bank to the Israelis, it remains suspiciously silent toward the systematic Judaization and demolition of Jerusalem. Israel carefully plans to expulse Palestinians from the city and replace them with Jewish settlers. If successful, such a plan threatens to erase Jerusalem from the collective memory of the Palestinian people.
In his article “Erased from Historical Narratives,” Palestinian-American professor Beshara Doumani explains that an obsession with land and the tools of struggle necessitate the omission of the Palestinian people from historical narratives. Such a discursive omission managed to deeply infiltrate both academic and ordinary texts in the 20th century and, ever since the 1920s, contributed to narrowing the scope of such writings, which became too focused on the official political conflict.
As this historical omission takes place, Jerusalem’s municipality has been putting forth Israeli laws that confiscated lands and expulsed residents in order to maintain a demographic advantage in the interest of settlers. Meanwhile the Palestinian Authority remained busy with negotiations. Such deliberate actions aim to turn 284,000 Jerusalem residents into future displaced people, ones that remain invisible in the Palestinian Authority’s official position, whenever it decides to denounce Israeli policy in Jerusalem.
As recently as October 31, the Jerusalem Municipality and Israeli forces delivered dozens of new demolition notices in the Ras Khamis and Shahadeh neighborhoods north of occupied Jerusalem. The municipality put up administrative demolition orders on 200 residential buildings, each having 20 to 40 apartments accommodating 15,000 to 16,000 residents.
These notices were maybe Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat’s twisted way of expressing his gratitude and warmth toward Beit Hanina residents who welcomed him with open arms just 10 days before.
On the same day, The Jerusalem Post published a story on its website on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s approval to build 1,500 new settlement homes in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood behind the green line in East Jerusalem. The Israeli government also approved adding new rooms to existing homes and establishing two new touristic destinations, one of them near the walls of old Jerusalem and the second in downtown’s Sheikh Jarah district.
The Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics estimated losses due to home demolition in Jerusalem at about $3 million, excluding the huge fines related to the so-called “building violations.” Also, Israeli authorities approve 3,000 new residential units every month in the settlements.
Further enflaming the situation, the separation wall completely isolates about 37 communities made up of over 300,000 people. Twenty-four of these communities – making up over a quarter-million people – are in Jerusalem, but the wall prevents about 50,000 holders of Jerusalem identification cards from accessing the city.
The obvious and rather deliberate lack of an official Palestinian Authority stand on the Israeli policy that seeks to take over Jerusalem only serves the Zionist position. This position combines the religious history of the city to justify setting new borders and making up artificial demographics.
Between 1967 and 2010, Israel revoked the residency permits of 14,000 Palestinians to preserve a demographic advantage for an estimated 200,000 settlers.
Systematic expulsions, demolitions, and the building of settlement homes all aim to reassure the Zionist mind. As Edward Said said, these violent actions seek to create a collective memory of the place that would meet the needs of invaders.
A Palestinian presence in the holy city threatens Torah geographic theories and raises doubts about inherited historical allegations that Palestine is the geographical territory mentioned in the Jewish holy books. By reinventing the place and creating a new geographic space named “Yerushalayim,” Israel gives little consideration to real geographic and demographic facts.
However, by omitting Jerusalem’s displaced people from its official position, the Palestinian Authority serves the Zionist reshaping of Palestine’s geography, allowing Israel to confiscate 35 percent of East Jerusalem for settlements.
They Want to Bury Us Alive
Abu Samer is a Jerusalem resident whose home was demolished in 2011. As Israeli soldiers were tearing down the house he built, he tried to sit on one of the falling stones and was refused.
“A soldier started yelling ‘move away,’” said Abu Samer. “You demolished the house and you don’t even let us to sit on its stones,” he told the soldiers.
Abu Samer’s testimony is not the first and it sure won’t be the last. There are thousands of similar stories about demolished homes in Jerusalem. Some displaced residents are now living in caves, like Khaled Zir al-Husseini and his family.
In a musty cave near Salwan Street in occupied Jerusalem, Husseini said, “We awoke at 6 am to the sounds of municipality bulldozers heading to our place. They gave us only five minutes to evacuate the house before it was demolished.”
This article is an edited translation from the Arabic Edition.

One story people will not hear about this Christmas is the desperate plight of the 2 million people trapped within the Gaza Strip

Source

The people of Gaza suffer genocide under the Israeli-Egyptian siege

Dees Illustration

Dylan Murphy Activist Post
“The world has forgotten Gaza, its women and children. The blockade is as bad as the war; it’s like a slow death for everyone in Gaza. We are paying the price for disputes between different powers. Isn’t that shameful? The world has lost its humanity,” – Attiyeh Abu Khousa resident of Gaza.
At this time of year the mainstream media abounds with stories of how ordinary people across the world are preparing for the upcoming Christmas holiday. One story people will not hear about is the desperate plight of the 2 million people trapped within the Gaza Strip where malnutrition, darkness, cold and suffering abound.
The people of Gaza are being crushed under the Israeli blockade which severely restricts essential supplies coming into the strip. Israel refuses to allow building materials into Gaza, meaning that people left homeless by successive Israeli military attacks cannot rebuild their homes. The number of food insecure people has risen dramatically from 44 % in 2011 to 57% in 2012.
The UN has been forced to halt building work on all but one of its 20 projects in Gaza due to the Israeli government’s ban on building materials. The UN building projects include 12 schools and a health centre. This has thrown over 5,000 Palestinians out of work.
“We are in now in the fourth week (in which) we are not allowed to bring in construction material,” Robert Turner, director of Gaza operations for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, said. “We do not know when we will be allowed to restart these projects.”
This has been compounded by the closure of the Rafah tunnels by the Egyptian army which has cut Gaza’s lifeline to the world following the military coup that overthrew the Morsi government.
Harry Fear a UK journalist residing in Gaza told me recently that the Egyptian army’s actions have, ”reduced the number of tunnels that were operational by about 95%. The price of importing goods from Egypt to Gaza has increased ten fold, according to one source associated with the tunnel industry.”

The tunnels used to bring up to 60-65% of its supplies. Their closure has forced about 20,000 people out of their jobs. The crossing to Egypt is often closed, tightening the siege even further.
At the beginning of November Gaza’s power plant was forced to shut due to a lack of fuel that used to come from Egypt via the tunnels. This has had a devastating effect upon the people of Gaza whose lives have been turned upside down by the power blackouts which last up to 16 hours a day. The power cuts are causing a collapse of public services and the basic infrastructure of Gazan society. According to Harry Fear the power cuts are also having, ”a damming impact on morale.”
Many families in Gaza cannot afford a generator so live by candlelight when evening comes. The power cuts have had forced people to change the way they live their lives. ”Everything stops,” says Daulat. “Electricity outages paralyse our entire life,” she explains. “I sleep when the electricity is off, and I wake up when it’s on.”
In the evening people walk the streets in darkness as street lights have been turned off while traffic lights have ceased to work.
The power cuts are affecting every aspect of life and pose a major threat to the health of the people. Water pumping stations have stopped working. Sewage treatment plants have closed. This has led to flooding. In Gaza City the district of East Zeitoun was recently flooded by 8,000 gallons of raw sewage which has caused illness amongst some children.
The Hamas-led authority in Gaza has been reduced to using donkeys to cart away rubbish. Due to the lack of fuel it has been forced to stop using its 50 strong fleet of garbage lorries.
Many small businesses have closed making the unemployment situation even worse. More worrying still is the closure of bakeries for a population already suffering from widespread malnutrition.
People’s lives are under threat in hospitals which are struggling to cope with the power cuts. The number of operations that are being carried out is being reduced while life-saving equipment is being not being used due to the power cuts. For example, at Shifa hospital’s renal unit five of the 40 kidney dialysis machines no longer work having been damaged by power cuts.
“This is the worst time I have known in the 18 years I have been in service,” said Dr Mohammed Al-Kashif, international cooperation director at Gaza’s health ministry. “It’s a disaster. We have stopped many elective operations in hospitals to cut down on the expenditure of drugs and disposable equipment.”
Children’s education is also being severely affected by the power cuts. Most schools are without electricity which is having a serious impact upon children’s education.
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) said in a recent statement,

Educational facilities in universities and educational institutions are suffering serious disorder, which led to the inactivity of many educational laboratories and the postponement of some educational assignments due to electricity shortage and lack of alternative power sources.

Abandoned by the international community the people of Gaza face a very bleak future. They are heavily dependent upon UNWRA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees) for their survival. UNWRA provides food aid to over 800,000 people out of the strips population of 1.9 million. It runs 245 schools provide education for 225,000 students. UNWRA runs 22 health centres that provide health care services to over 1.2 million Gazans. Yet UNWRA faces large shortfalls in its budget due to the reluctance of countries to make donations to its funds.
Looking to the future the people of Gaza face a desperate struggle to merely survive. Battered by incessant Israeli attacks that have caused billions of dollars worth of damage and left the infrastructure in ruins, there appears to be no limit to the suffering and misery that the people have to endure.
In a recent speech to the UNWRA 2014 pledging conference the Deputy Commissioner General Margot Ellis made the following statement, ‘

The United Nations predicts that by 2020, the scarcity of clean water resources and soaring rates of unemployment will render Gaza uninhabitable.’

I’ll leave the last word to Professor Illan Pappe of Exeter University. At the recent Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal Hearing on Palestine he gave testimony to the court. The comments of the UN about Gaza becoming ”uninhabitable” by 2020 confirm the analysis given to the court by Professor Pappe that the people of Gaza are victims of genocide. Professor Ilan Pappe said:

A genocide is taking place in Gaza. The inhuman living conditions in the most dense area in the world, and one of the poorest human spaces in the northern hemisphere, disables the people… . The [Israeli] leadership, and particularly the army, see it as a prison with the most dangerous community of inmates, which has to be eliminated one way or another.’

You can help make a hard winter a little easier by making a donation to Medical Aid For Palestinians at: http://www.justgiving.com/MAPChristmas

Ghetto Warsaw Uprising and Israel

by Roy Tov
Tuesday, May 29th, 2012

A new ghetto is rising, a phoenix emerging from the Holocaust ashes…

WarsawGhettoUprising
Warsaw Ghetto Uprising

There is no “Holocaust Day” in Israel; officially, the country commemorates the “Holocaust and Heroism Remembrance Day.” Outside Israel, the “heroism” part of the name is often overlooked; yet, within the electronics and cement walls surrounding the Zionist state, the “heroism” is well emphasized. There is no other option; this institutional celebration of death would be unbearably suffocating otherwise. Despite formally encompassing several events, the heroism refers mainly to the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising.

In fact, the name “Warsaw Ghetto” is Jewish. The Nazis had created in October 1940 the “Jüdischer Wohnbezirk” or “Wohngebiet der Juden” (German), both translate as Jewish Quarter. Yet, the term “ghetto” is neither mistaken nor offensive, it was first used in Venice to describe the area where Jews were bound to live; nowadays, it is used in reference to a part of a city predominantly occupied by a particular group. The Warsaw Ghetto was the largest of all Jewish Ghettos in Nazi-occupied Europe during World War II.

The ghetto was established by the German Governor-General Hans Frank on October 16, 1940. Soon after its creation, the ghetto population reached 400,000 people, about 30% of Warsaw’s residents, while it occupied only 2.4% of the city’s territory. The ghetto was divided in two areas the “small ghetto,” inhabited by rich Jews and the “large ghetto,” where the poor lived; both were linked by a footbridge. On November 16, the ghetto was closed with a barbed wire topped wall. Armed guards overlooked it; escapees could be shot on sight. The division of the ghetto into economical classes is not casual; the internal administration of the area was performed by the “Judenrat” (Jewish Council), led by an “Ältester” (the Eldest). This administrative body was a close collaborator with the Nazis to the extent that it can be considered as an extension of the Nazi administration.

On January 18, 1943, after almost four months without forced deportations, the Germans entered the Warsaw Ghetto resolved to perform one. However, they found resistance that deteriorated into a long battle. The final struggle started on April 19, 1943, when several thousand Nazi troops entered the ghetto. Their approach was systematic, destroying all the buildings, block by block. Significant resistance ended on April 23, and the uprising officially ended on May 16, with the demolition of the Great Synagogue of Warsaw. The official Nazi report claimed more than 56,000 victims.

This struggle is the source of the “heroism” in the name of the Israeli remembrance day. Can you imagine growing up in a place where all your teachers keep saying that your grandparents—or those of the kid sitting next to you—were made into soap? Do you understand what such a kid sees whenever he uses a soap bar? Can you understand what happens when he discovers later in life that no human genes were ever found in those soap bars? Can you understand what he feels after finding that everything was an evil emotional manipulation performed by a control-freak regime interested in keeping its citizens frightened forever? In the Israeli Holocaust Day events, the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising is a counterbalance designed to give some hope—though of a very doubtful nature—in an otherwise unbearable day.

Israel’s raison d’être…

pokermap2
The Great Game 2012
Israel acknowledges that the
Holocaust
is its raison d’être. It doesn’t matter what happened there, the official version led to the UN’s Partition Decision and to the
incomplete independence declaration
of the State of Israel. Yet, style=”color: #114e63;”>Neturei Karta’s (an ultra-orthodox Jewish group) website displays documents clarifying the responsibility of Jewish leaders of the time beyond doubt.

In this context, the activities of the Judenrat were also obvious. Adam Czerniaków was the Eldest of Ghetto Warsaw; aware of his being part of the Nazi regime and in fact a traitor to his flock, he committed suicide.

The young state chose a bizarre path. Instead of resembling a modern state, it began recreating the Warsaw Ghetto. Israel is not a country in the Western sense of the word. It is not an entity defined by territory, or even by a legal system. That’s one of the reasons why the Knesset legislated the Law of Return, which gives automatic citizenship to every Jew landing in Israel, a law that would be defined as racist elsewhere. That’s why many Israeli denizens do not get citizenship even if marrying a citizen.

In 2012, Israel’s leaders—call them the Elders of Zion if you want—are closer than ever to achieving this questionable feat. Following the erection of legislative walls that created a social structure resembling the one in the Warsaw Ghetto, Israel is close to finally burying itself under ghetto-like walls; all the time while threatening the world with the Samson option, a suicidal nuclear second strike (see
Six Million Submarines
).

Judges 16:30 And Samson said, Let me die with the Philistines. And he bowed himself with all his might; and the house fell upon the lords, and upon all the people that were therein. So the dead which he slew at his death were more than they which he slew in his life.

 

Ich bin ein Berliner

“Ich bin ein Berliner” (I am a Berliner) said U.S. President John F. Kennedy while visiting Berlin on June 26, 1963. Soon afterwards, the Berlin Wall became an unchallenged fact of the Cold War. Since August 13, 1961, the German Democratic Republic (East Germany) began constructing a wall that cut off West Berlin from East Germany and from East Berlin. The Berlin Wall was officially referred to as the “Anti-Fascist Protection Wall” (Antifaschistischer Schutzwall) by the East German government. Related to it was the Inner German Border fence that demarcated the border between East and West Germany; both barriers were an important part of the “Iron Curtain” that separated Western Europe and the Eastern Bloc during the Cold War.
WestBankWallIchBinEineBerliner
Ich bin ein Berliner
Graffiti along the West Bank Wall
On August 22, 1989, the Berlin Wall was a solid reality; as solid as the walls constructed by Israel along its borders. It has been a solid reality since 1961. In January of the same year, Erich Honecker—East Germany’s leader—had predicted that the wall would stand for a “hundred more years.”
The next day, something important happened far away from there: Hungary removed its physical border defenses with Austria. Next month more than thirteen thousand East German tourists in Hungary escaped to Austria. By itself, the event had little importance; the East German authorities would have probably found a way of blocking this little hole in the dam separating the two sides of Europe.
The crossing from East Germany to Hungary via Czechoslovakia was closed, but then a similar incident happened in neighboring Czechoslovakia, which also was experiencing reforms. Eastern Europe’s reality was complex; it didn’t allow making linear assumptions.
The Soviet Union was facing a deep crisis; Gorbachev was planning significant reforms. Poland and Hungary were already making reforms. Protests broke out all over East Germany in September. Initially, people were chanting “Wir wollen raus!” (“We want out!”). Afterwards, they changed to “Wir bleiben hier,” (“We’re staying here!”). On October 18 Erich Honecker, resigned. The “Peaceful Revolution” of 1989 had begun. On November 4, half a million protestors gathered at the Alexanderplatz in East Berlin. On November 9, the East German government announced that all GDR citizens could visit West Germany and West Berlin, and the wall was brought down by a plethora of euphoric people from both sides of the Wall of Evil.

A notorious fact regarding the wall is that the most offensive side in the conflict was the one to build up the wall; the East German military forces were tarnished for their violence towards civilians attempting to escape. This is similar to what is happening in Israel nowadays. Its new walls resemble an odd mixture between the Berlin Wall and the Warsaw Ghetto Wall.

A new ghetto is rising, a phoenix emerging from the Holocaust ashes…

Egypt: In late 2012, Israel will finish building a new fortified fence between the countries. The mighty fence cannot be climbed and features electronic systems allowing the regional military headquarters to find breaches in real time. The construction of the fence was decided in 2010 by Prime Minister Netanyahu. “I took the decision to close Israel’s southern border to infiltrators and terrorists. This is a strategic decision to secure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character,” he said to the Hebrew media on January that year. Again, he ignored non-Jewish citizens.

newwallonblueline
New Wall Being Built by Israel
Between Israeli Misgav Am and Lebanese Kfar Kila
Lebanon: In April 2012, Israel began replacing the fence on its border with Lebanon with a 5 to 7 meter high cement wall between the Israeli town of Metulla and the Lebanese village of Kila; where the violent border clash between the countries took place in August 2010. It follows the design of the new fence along the Egyptian border. There are plans to upgrade the entire border fence with this new contraption.

West Bank: The West Bank Barrier is still under construction and facing a myriad of legal problems since Israel is not building it on its side of the border, but on the Palestinian one. The barrier is a fence with vehicle-barrier trenches surrounded by an on average 60 meter wide exclusion area along 90% of its length, and an 8 meter tall concrete wall along the rest. 12% of the West Bank area is on the Israeli side of the barrier.

Jordan: I
grew up
less than a mile from the Jordan River. Yet, seldom could I enjoy its views. When doing so, it was from above—the Jordan Valley features several steps—and at points that were very difficult to access. The feeble fence blocking the access to the river wasn’t the reason for the deprivation; simply minefields filled the entire lower step of the valley.

Syria: For many years, the fence along the Syrian-Israeli border was the best in Israel. Landmines and electronics secured it. Along the years, the equipment became obsolete. Following the violent events of Naksa Day 2011

(see
Casus Belli), when many Syrian citizens were killed in Syria by IDF soldiers shooting from the occupied Golan Heights, Israel began the reinforcement of the old fence.

Well done, New Judenrat! In a few months, you will finish the creation of the Israel Ghetto, the obviouslegal successor of the Warsaw Ghetto. The Israel Ghetto will be surrounded by state-of-the-art fences. Were they designed to block entrance, or to avoid escape? Considering the massive numbers of illegitimate workers in Tel Aviv—see
Terror in Tel Aviv
—there is little doubt the second option is the most important one. The New Judenrat wants control of its unwilling sheep at all costs.

Please let me end this article using the English language in the manner my
Thai
friends would. It is not the fashion favored by people like William Shakespeare; yet, I believe it is not less clear than his wise words: Warsaw Ghetto, Israel Ghetto; same, same.

WarsawGhettoFinalPicture
Warsaw Ghetto | Final Picture

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian
The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of this Blog!

What came first ?? The Jews or the Ghetto

Frustrated Arab’s Diary

  
Amsterdam Ghetto1938
 Amnsterdam Ghetto 2010
What came first ??
the chicken or the egg ??
I was not there when Nebucco came along
or when the Pharaoh took them away
Neither I have anything to do with the Spanish-Inquisition.
No sir  !!
I was born in 1948 and ever since, I try
to understand the world around me .
One of the many questions I asked myself
was whether the Jew came first or the Ghetto ??
For the last 35 years I am living in
the safest place on Earth for any Jew….
which is The Netherlands.
In those 35 years my city,Amsterdam,
has seen 4 Jewish Mayors.
And the Netherlands which contains 35.000 Jewish-persons
has had 6 or 7 Jewish Ministers and about 10 to 15
members of Parliament , not to forged the Jewish presence
on the Banking and Business stage
not to mention the Textile & Diamond-industry………..
etc.etc…
I came to live , accidentally , in the Jewish quarter of Amsterdam
which after 30 or 25 years moved away slowly
to another nearby neighbourhood.
Voluntarily and in an organised manner ,
my Jewish-co-citizens are gathering ( or re-gathering)
less than 2 kilometres away…..
in a new neighbourhood ….
or must I say a new-Ghetto !! ??
Why ??
I have no idea !!!
but I may conclude that this (new) Ghetto is Jewish-made
in a country where Jews and Judaism have always flourished.
So why this
eternaly-revolving-Ghetto-mentality  ??
This new-neighbourhood , is neither strategic , nor exclusive,
nor safer , nor prettier, nor having any other advantages…….
except that it is now , Jewish !!
Probably , my Dutch-Jewish-co-citizens
have again decided to be first Jewish and then to be Dutch !!
Or maybe they are hiding away from……..
the next Gert Wilders ???
Ik weet het niet precies !!
Raja Chemayel
a Dutch-Hommos-head !
Posted by Tlaxcala at 12:48 PM

River to Sea Uprooted Palestinian

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