Jazz and Jihad

April 16, 2007

By Gilad Atzmon

Speech given at University of Denver, 13 April 2007

Ladies and Gentlemen,

For many years I considered America as my promised land. As a young Jazz musician I was pretty convinced that sooner or later I would end up living in NYC. My Jerusalem was Downtown Manhattan and of course my holy scriptures were the old Blue Note vinyls. My Rabbis were named Coltrane, Bird, Miles, Duke, Dizzy, Bill Evans and naturally, there were many others. I was convinced of this reality for a while, and in fact, it took time before I realised that Jazz was far more than mere music. It took a while before I gathered that Jazz was something else, that it was actually a form of resistance. Nowadays I realise that Jazz is no different from Jihad, accordingly, playing Jazz is my personal Jihad. I do grasp that some people in this room may already find my ideas nostalgic, some may even be convinced that I am either totally deluded or just out of my mind. I can live with it. I do realise that ‘things have changed’, they’ve changed for you as much as they’ve changed for me. I do realise that Jazz is not exactly a form of resistance anymore. May I mention that America isn’t my promised land either. In fact, at the time of writing this talk, I wasn’t even sure whether I would be allowed entry into your country. As much as Jazz, the classical music of America, has been a call for freedom, America is not a free place anymore. I often argue that before liberating others, it is the American people who should first liberate themselves. I am pretty sure that sooner or later they will.

Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine

I have been participating in some public debates lately concerning the common denominator between Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan. I’m glad to mention that it is rather noticeable that more and more people are now happy to admit what some of us realised years ago. The Palestinians, the Iraqis and the Afghanis are paying a very dear price for the Ziocentric shift within the Anglo-American decision-makers circuit. Seemingly, Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine are just the aperitif for an endless feast. The Ziocons have some big appetite to satisfy. The same lobbies that led America towards this disastrous invasion in Iraq and Afghanistan are now doing whatever they can to push America towards intervention in Iran and Syria. For those few who still fail to realise it, America has been operating officially as an Israeli mission force. It currently fights the last sovereign pockets of Muslim resistance.

Often enough, the true aim of the Zionist lobbies is concealed. Instead the Zionist lobbies promote some righteous phoney humanitarian alternatives. The American Jewish Committee (AJC), for instance, is aggressively lobbying against human rights abuse in Iran and Darfur. Since human rights issues are really close to my heart, I find myself wondering whether the Jewish organisation shouldn’t rather be concentrating on the colossal war crimes that are daily repeated by Israel in Palestine. Rather occasionally we read about AIPAC equating Iran and Syria with Nazi Germany. Again, someone should remind the Zionist lobbyists that actually it is Israel, the “Jews Only State”, that happens to be the one and only ideological remnant of racist nationalism.

Three weeks ago the Palestine Chronicle made an on-line poll. It asked the following question: ‘Does the Israel Lobby control US policy on the Middle East?’

Needless to mention, no one would even have dared raising such a question five years ago. Now this question is asked repeatedly and as it seems, people aren’t shying off from telling what they really think. 80% said yes, 15% said no, and 4% were not sure. Looking at these results points to the reality many want us to deny. The vast majority of English-speaking Palestinians, Palestinian solidarity campaigners and anti-war activists are now ready to admit that the Israel Lobby controls US policy in the Middle East. We are ready to accept the fact that America operates as an Israeli mission force. America straightens the line with Israeli interests and sacrifices its sons and daughters maintaining Israeli regional hegemony.

But here is an interesting twist. I do not intend to talk to you about Zionised America. I want to believe that the majority of Palestinian supporters and anti-war activists in this room know far more about it than me. I would like to try taking the discussion further. I would like to elaborate on the notion of solidarity and empathy.

Those who are familiar with my writings know that I am not exactly a political scientist. I am not interested in politics and I am even far less interested in politicians who, generally speaking, evoke nothing but a strong sense of repulsion in me.

Rather than politics per se, it is humanity and the notion of humanism that I am interested in. Often I find myself wondering what being in the world may entail. And I better admit it; I am puzzled by the fact that as a society, as a collective bunch of individuals, we have managed to continuously fail to act for the people of Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan. I think that this very collective failure is in itself an alarming message. Thus, rather than looking into the crimes committed by Blair, Bush and the Ziocons, I am becoming gradually interested in the general Western apathy. To be more precise, I would argue that the common denominator between Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine is our collective indifference to a crime that is committed on our behalf and in our names.

As some of us may remember, in the days leading to the doomed illegal invasion of Iraq, the anti-war movement was extremely successful in mobilizing millions of people into protest. We saw them in every capital. They were calling Blair and Bush to withdraw their military plans. Millions of people questioned the sickening Anglo-American intelligence hoax. We could all see through the lies, we could all foresee the emerging crime, we were outraged, and we were convinced that we were doing the right thing. Yet, strangely enough, just four years later, with hundreds of thousands dead, with millions of casualties, with many millions of displaced people, when it is clear that everything went as wrong as it possibly could, when it is openly established that “the danger of Iraq’s WMDs” was nothing but a lie, not very many care about it all anymore. Now when the grim prophecy turns into reality of genocide with no end, we are collectively sinking into apathy. What are the logos behind this collective indifference, why did we lose interest? Why don’t we fight? Why aren’t we a mass movement?

I am not so sure whether I have the exact answers at my disposal, yet, I may be able to throw some light on the issue.

Cultural Clash

I am inclined to admit that the notion of Cultural Clash has indeed some deep meanings especially when it comes to the discourse of solidarity. Naturally, we tend to expect the subject of our solidarity to endorse our views while dumping his own. As much as Blair and Bush insist upon democratising the Muslim world, we, the so-called left humanists have our own various agendas for the region and its people. In Europe some archaic Marxists are convinced that ‘working class politics’ is the only viable outlook of the conflict and its solution. Some other deluded socialists and egalitarians are talking about liberating the Muslims of their religious traits. The cosmopolitans within the solidarity movement would suggest to Palestinians that nationalism and national identity belongs to the past. Noticeably, many of us love Muslim and Arabs as long as they act as white, post-enlightenment Europeans. In other words, we love Muslims as long as they stop being Muslims.

For those who fail to realise, I may as well mentioned that ‘working class politics’ has nothing to do with Palestine, Iraq or Afghanistan. For those who fail to see the obvious truth, I may as well mention that the industrial revolution has never made it to Gaza. Furthermore, the landslide victory of the Hamas proves beyond doubt that Palestinians are not exactly on the verge of dropping Islam. The million Shias that protested in Najaf last Monday were not exactly secular Arabs either. It is crucial to mention that the Palestinian struggle is a national struggle. The million Iraqi Shias who followed their Cleric Muqtada al-Sadr last Monday were overtly burning American flags while raising their own Iraqi ones as high as they could. In other words, we have good reason to believe that they may hold a consistent and genuine nationalist vision of their conflict and its resolution. Again, to expect Palestinians or Iraqis to become secular, cosmopolitan and working class ideologists is to expect Arabs and Muslims to act as European Marxists. It has noting to do with solidarity; it is actually nothing but projection. We project our solipsistic worldviews on others.

Self-centred Activism

In Lacanian terminology, love means loving oneself through the other. At large, our notion of solidarity is not much different: we run a constant risk of performing solidarity with ourselves through the suffering of Palestinians and Iraqis. We are at risk of using Palestinians and Iraqis as an approval of our greatness. Alternatively I would suggest that to support the other means to accept otherness, to accept that which you may never grasp. To accept otherness is to let in the unknown and the unfamiliar. To support Palestine is to back the Hamas and to support Iraq is to back the Iraqi resistance and liberation struggle. Simply speaking, to show solidarity is to support and accept other people and their will.

But somehow, instead of doing just that, in most cases we happen to transform our subject of solidarity into a fetish. We self indulge with peace ideologies at the expense of other people’s pain. We instrumentally use the cry of the other as a reassurance of our own goodness. This may explain why so many of us have lost interest in Iraq and Palestine. If all we are interested in is just making love to ourselves, Iraq, Palestine, Afghanistan, Iran and Syria are more than replaceable. As it happens, once in a while we may show up in mass demonstrations and then just fade away into apathy for a decade or so.

We Get Away with It

Why do we fade away? Because we get away with it. Legally speaking, America and Britain are responsible for the colossal carnage in Iraq. Bearing in mind the fact that America and Britain are democracies and adding the embarrassing fact that the people of these two ‘great democracies’ have re-elected war criminals, leaves no other option but admitting a collective guilt. To a certain extent, every American and British citizen is liable for the crimes in Iraq, Palestine, Lebanon and Afghanistan. Yet this state of criminality means very little to most of us. Americans and Brits at least for the time being simply get away with it.

America has lost 3,000 of its sons and daughters in the Iraqi war. As much as I feel sorry for those who lost their beloved, for a superpower the size of America, such a scale of loss is nothing but a negligible casualty rate. In comparison, on D-Day, America lost more or less the same number of combatants in a few hours. In modern warfare, superpowers are mainly engaged in killing innocent people from afar. America doesn’t risk its soldiers. It doesn’t provide occupied Iraq and Afghanistan with even elementary security. Seemingly, the American Generals realise that this would cost lives of their troops. How come the Americans fail to provide security? They simply get away with it. Why are we sinking into apathy? More or less because of the same reason, we get away with it.

A Bridge too Far

As I am getting to the end of my talk, I may conclude that supporting Muslims and Jihad is probably a bridge too far for most Westerners. The typical Westerner doesn’t know how to bridge the gap between ‘materialism’ and ‘Jihad’ or between ‘self-loving’ and ‘martyrdom’. We happen to regard our lives as a precious gift with an immense value. We submitted to the post-enlightenment notion of individuality and individualism. Succumbing to the school of orthodox rationalism we believe in the ultimate power of reason. We adore science and admire technology. We are libidinally aroused by electronic gadgets.

Seemingly, spirit and beauty means very little to us unless attached to a commodity. In our Americanised reality, existence means market value. Yet, spirit of resistance and beauty are invaluable. I may suggest that we will never be able to fully understand what the Palestinian and Iraqi struggle means to its people unless we liberate ourselves from our narrow material vision of reality. We can never grasp people who sacrifice the ultimate unless we acknowledge that there is far more to life than just life. We can never understand Iraqi insurgency and the Palestinian liberation struggle unless we try to understand what soil may mean to people who refuse to get drunk on Coca-Cola.

The search for the meaning of solidarity is a personal issue. I believe that the meaning of solidarity is probably a very dynamic notion. I am starting to realise that within the current structure of affairs, the left who was pretty effective in mobilizing anti-imperial campaigns for years, may not provide anything for Palestine, Afghanistan and Iraq. The left, being a rational, post-enlightenment outlook, has its problem to solve with Islam and religious devotion. I hope that I am wrong here. I can see some isolated islands of left dialectic thinkers are ready to acknowledge that Muslim resistance may as well convey an alternative vision of reality and resistance.

I can speak for myself. For me, Jihad and Jazz are very similar forms of commitment. For me, the generations of Black Americans who sacrificed everything for the sake of beauty and resistance were actually engaged in a holy war. For me it was Bird, Max Roach, Dizzy, Coltrane and others who went far beyond the American dream of materialism and market value. Jazz was their voice of freedom. Jazz was their call for a change. Jazz was an ideology, a spirit, and a way of living as well as dying. To be a Jazz musician is to fight for beauty, to create and recreate, to construct and deconstruct, to question while knowing that answers may not be available for a while. To play Jazz is to get lost deliberately. To play Jazz is to leave the self behind.

Gilad Atzmon is an internationally acclaimed jazz musician whose CD Exile was selected by the BBC in 2003 as Album of the Year. He was born in Israel and served in the Israeli Defense Force (IDF), and is now living in self-exile in the UK. Visit his web site at: www.gilad.co.uk. He can be reached at: gilad@gilad.co.uk

Silence All Around on the War, Save for One Movement

March 22, 2007

Leonard Fein
On March 12, the Union for Reform Judaism became the first national Jewish organization to take more than a tongue-clucking position on the Iraq war. It did what the U.S. Senate has been unable to do: It voted overwhelmingly to oppose President Bush's "surge" of new troops, and it called on the president to set and announce a specific timetable for the phased withdrawal of troops.

Alas, the URJ decision is very much nonbinding.

What's surprising -- bordering on astonishing -- is that the URJ, joined since by the Reconstructionist Rabbinical Association, which passed a similar resolution last week, was the only major national Jewish group to have spoken out so decisively on this misbegotten and misconducted war. I say "astonishing" because the American Jewish public, which is represented by a broad array of organizations, has very clear views on the war.

At the end of February, the Gallup organization conducted a poll of more than 12,000 Americans. Overall, it found that 52 percent of Americans think the war a mistake, and 46 percent do not. But the same poll found that 77 percent of Jews called the war a mistake, while 21 percent support it.

It was a strange week for Jews to express themselves quite so decisively.

It was, after all, the same week in which Vice President Dick Cheney, speaking at the annual convention of American Israel Public Affairs Committee, said: "My friends, it is simply not consistent for anyone to demand aggressive action against the menace posed by the Iranian regime, while at the same time acquiescing in a retreat from Iraq that would leave our worst enemies dramatically emboldened, and Israel's best friend -- the United States -- dangerously weakened."

This was reportedly received with considerably less than the enthusiasm Cheney is accustomed to when he addresses AIPAC. Perhaps what the AIPAC people now know is that it is exactly because of the wicked policies of the president and vice president that America has already been dangerously weakened.

Not to be outdone, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert also weighed in on the subject last week to AIPAC via a video link from Jerusalem to echo Cheney.

No serious person can take pleasure from the very sour pickle in which the United States now finds itself. Never mind that the Bush administration have mixed the brine themselves; their comeuppance is hardly adequate compensation -- not for the dead, not for the wounded, not for the chaos, and not for the cost to America's treasury and dignity.

All that's left these days are bad choices.

Among them, President Bush has, predictably, seen fit to pick the very worst -- a creeping open-ended escalation that resolves nothing.

Among these bad choices, the major American Jewish organizations -- save only the Union for Reform Judaism -- take a pass.

Questions of war and peace are properly the provenance of religious institutions. In the case at hand, because Israel's security is so directly at stake, America's Iraq policy would seem to be of immediate interest to all the single-issue pro-Israel groups in the Jewish firmament, as also to all those -- American Jewish Committee, American Jewish Congress, JCPA and others -- that so often opine on matters of less immediate Jewish relevance. What can account for their timidity?

Some organizational leaders likely support the war; roughly 10 percent of Jews are of the Republican pro-war persuasion, and we may surmise that these, typically wealthier, are disproportionately represented in the ranks of Jewish leadership.

But more prevalently, I believe, many "leaders" are curled up in a little ball in the corner, seeking to hide from the headache of taking a stand. These same leaders frequently fret out loud about Jewish continuity, about their own failure to attract young Jews to their ranks.

Might it, this time around, occur to them that it is they who have opted for the irrelevance to which growing numbers of Jews consign them?

Tomorrow, they will again flood their fundraising appeals with talk of the imminent threat from Iran. But what of the war that is being waged today? Their silence on Iraq is a feckless evasion of responsibility.

Leonard Fein is a Boston-based columnist.

The American Jewish community's pretence of consensus on Israel is crumbling

Cracks in the wall

February 10, 2007 11:00 AM

Richard Silverstein

Reading the Independent Jewish Voices manifesto and other posts written by signatories, I've been struck by the similarity in themes and similarity of political developments within the American and British Jewish communities.

Over the past six months, two notable developments have set Israel and diaspora Jewry adrift. The first was Israel's war in Lebanon, whose failure caused grave paralysis both in the military and within the government. The second was publication of the Walt-Mearsheimer essay about the Israel lobby's influence on US Mideast policy.

This has become a multi-front war now, with new fronts emerging in seemingly spontaneous fashion. One of the new fronts is Jimmy Carter's new book, which Old Guard Jewish organisations seem to have in their shorthairs. Another is an essay, sponsored by the American-Jewish Committee, purporting to analyse the phenomenon of the "new" anti-semitism professed by liberal Jews who criticise Israeli policies. On yet a third front, three American Jewish peace groups, Peace Now, Israel Policy Forum, and Brit Tzedek, fought an epic battle against an AIPAC-sponsored Congressional bill to criminalise contact with Hamas - the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Bill.

Perhaps realising the importance of this victory, George Soros and other wealthy liberal Jews have been meeting for months to plan for the establishment of an independent Jewish lobby that will counter AIPAC's strident nationalist advocacy.

AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Jewish Committee have enjoyed virtual hegemony as the voice of American Jewry on Israel. It is why presidents, senators and Congress members have voted AIPAC's way (until recently) on virtually all legislation of interest to the group.

But now, if you put your finger to the wind, you can sense a change. Jimmy Carter's book is a sensation, having sold 200,000 copies as of January 14. The more Jewish greybeards attack it, the more it sells. The book seems to have struck a chord.

The old Israel "consensus" and leadership approaches are ineffective. When AIPAC speaks, politicians no longer salute quite as crisply as they once did.

Enter a relatively obscure recent internal political battle within a group called the Israel Campus Coalition. The group is composed of American Jewish groups active on college campuses. The liberal Union of Progressive Zionists hosted a national tour by the Israeli refusenik group, Break the Silence. At its speaking engagements, the refuseniks criticised the occupation.

The hard-right Zionist Organisation of America took special offence that Israeli soldiers who supposedly had shirked their responsibility to serve their country were telling Jewish college students that Israel behaved badly. The group moved to have UPZ expelled from the ICC. Last week, after wide coverage in the Jewish media, ICC voted not to expel UPZ.

On the heels of this, Israel's consul general in Los Angeles, Ehud Danoch wrote a foreign ministry report attacking not only Break the Silence, but another refusenik group currently touring the US, Combatants for Peace. Announcing the report, Yediot Ahronot claimed (only in the original Hebrew version of the story) that the refusenik tours were "funded by US Palestinian organisations." Further, the report stated that such tours "damaged Israel" and "must be stopped". The most incendiary language was eliminated from the English version of the story published at Ynetnews.

Both UPZ and Brit Tzedek affirm they have neither sought nor accepted funding from Arab organisations for their tours.

The consul general's report also takes the unusual step of criticising Hillel by name for hosting events on the Break the Silence tour because "the willingness by Jewish communities to host these groups and even fund them is painful". It is highly unusual, and some might say inappropriate, for Israeli diplomats to single out American Jewish organisations by name for criticism.

The report reserves its harshest judgment for Israelis:

These refuseniks are cynically using their reserve soldier status and causing damage to the state of Israel. It's possible that these organizations aren't aware that they have turned, over time, into tools in the hands of North American Muslim campus organizations and that they have crossed the line between their aspiration to be an influential force within Israel to becoming a clearly anti-Israel force causing Israel great damage in the world.

One wonders what political purpose was fulfilled by the internal Israeli publication of these spurious charges. I think it's an issue of the political powers that be losing their footing and no longer being able to place their political priorities in proper perspective. They are deeply afraid of the potential moral power of the refusenik message of saying "No" to the current policy of endless conflict. They ascribe more power to this movement than it has and more danger than it represents.

Recently, Joel Beinin, a Stanford University Mideast specialist, was to speak at a San Jose school. The Silicon Valley Jewish Community Relations Council got wind of the program and enlisted school parents and students to protest. Beinin's invitation was rescinded the day before he was to speak.

The JCRC director explained her opposition to Beinin's presentation by saying that the professor "opposed Israel's existence". Any presentation he gave must be balanced, on the same programme, by a countering perspective. The Israeli-Arab conflict, she contended, is too complicated to allow such an "extreme" perspective to go unanswered.

This is an impoverished view of the Israeli-Arab debate. I call it the "balance syndrome": people are allegedly so prone to the blandishments of the anti-Israel crowd that its every public utterance must be monitored and countered by someone representing the "right" perspective.

The Beinin incident mirrors Tony Judt's cancelled speaking engagement at the New York Polish consulate where he was due to talk about the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Such strong-arming makes Jewish pressure groups look weak and frightened. They do a great disservice because the ideas espoused by Judt, Beinin, Carter or Israeli refuseniks are debated freely within Israel itself.

Why must we here be treated as if we are invalids in need of spoonfeeding when it comes to policy debates about Israel?

What are we afraid of? Do we not do Israel an injustice by viewing her as so delicate that entertaining a few "unpopular" ideas will lead to her extinction? The Israel I know and love can withstand such debate. In fact, I believe that Israel is only strengthened by the free exchange of ideas.

A new weapon in the battle for that free exchange of ideas has been a burgeoning culture of American Jewish blogs devoted to Israeli-Arab peace. Tikun Olam (my own blog) and Muzzlewatch broke several of the stories mentioned above.

These blogs and a score of others - because they are independent of communal consensus or pressure - have proven to be a useful tool in questioning the established order of American Jewish leadership and its priorities.

Click here for a full list of articles in the Independent Jewish Voices debate.

U.S./Israel: The dual-loyalty question is being mainstreamed

the new york observer

Another Achievement of the AJC: 'The New Republic' Joins Me on Dual Loyalty Issue

A few weeks back I brought up the charge of dual loyalty with respect to the neocons who claim that Israel's interests and the U.S.'s interests are identical. A very sensitive question, yes, and a lot of people got upset with me, including friends.

Well now in The New Republic, John Judis has joined me in legitimizing this question. Here is the money quote:

On the one hand, Rosenfeld, Harris, and others want to deny that American Jews and American Jewish organizations like AIPAC suffer from dual loyalty in trying to influence U.S. foreign policy. It's anti-Semitic or contributes to anti-Semitism, they say, to make that charge. On the other hand, they want to demand of American Jewish intellectuals a certain loyalty to Israel, Israeli policies, and to Zionism as part of their being Jewish. They make dual loyalty an inescapable part of being Jewish in a world in which a Jewish state exists. And that's probably the case. Many Jews now suffer from dual loyalty--the same way that Cuban-Americans or Mexican-Americans do. By ignoring this dilemma--and, worse still, by charging those who acknowledge its existence with anti-Semitism-- the critics of the new anti-Semitism are engaged in a flight from their own political selves. They are guilty of a certain kind of bad faith.

This is intellectually valiant work, Judis should be applauded; and TNR praised for running the piece. As for the demand made on Jewish intellectuals to be loyal to Israel, it is one that anyone who has worked for the New Republic (I did it once, and carried Marty Peretz's anti-U.N. water for him) has experienced.

Wow, I'm just stunned by this. It's another achievement of the AJC report, which Judis's piece addresses (and of Walt-Mearsheimer, who broke the whole thing open). Don't you see what is happening? The dual-loyalty question is being mainstreamed. The degree to which neocons and neolibs and American Jewish journalists generally have been recruited in passive/unconscious identification with Israel is, as I've said here before, a legitimate issue. The suppression in the American Jewish community of any alternative discourse to Zionism—well, thanks to the AJC, the bridges are being dynamited...

FILE UNDER: Neocons, Politics, Culture, Religion, U.S. Policy in the Mideast

Posted by Phil Weiss on February 8, 2007 12:42 PM | Permalink
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Editor's note: Going after the dual-loyalty thing is gutsy. Recall Herr Chertoff is an Israeli.

Here's an excerpt of a thread from one of my postings today which is relevant to the "anti-semitism" construct used to bludgeon critics:

"I see some people are still playing the enemies game by acknowledging the political term "anti-semitism".

Once again:

Antisemitic is a word that the zionists carefully chose to accomplish several goals: It denigrates their opposition, it implies a unified philosophy between Hebrews, jews, zionists, and sabbateans, and most importantly, it usurps the Semitic bloodline for exclusive use by european ashkinazics and sephardics with the implied usurpation of the land and biblical blessings promised to the Semitic children of Abraham.

I completely reject that word because it is a political tool, not a verb, noun, or adjective. I refuse to use it or acknowledge it."

Are we all anti-semites now?

February 8, 2007 01:00 PM

The 'new' anti-semitism doesn't necessarily involve a bigoted view of Jewish religion, Jewish people, or Jewish anything else.

Matthew Yglesias

As a Jewish person with a not-so-Jewish last name who occasionally criticises the policies of the Israeli government (or, more frequently, the policies of the United States vis-a-vis Israel), I've been known to spend some time pondering how to work the fact that I'm Jewish into my writing. After all, you don't want to be called an anti-semite. The good news, then, is that the American Jewish Committee says I don't need to bother any more.

The group, one of the oldest, largest and most respected Jewish organisations in the America, recently published a pamphlet by Alvin Rosenfeld on the subject of 'Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism - a shot across the bow of those of us who thought being Jewish might be a defence against charges of anti-semitism.

But, according to the essay, the distinguishing characteristic of the "new anti-semitism" seems to be that, unlike the old anti-semitism, it doesn't necessarily involve a bigoted view of Jewish religion, Jewish people, Jewish culture, or Jewish anything else.

It's not, in short, anti-semitism. Which perhaps explains why so many Jews - the essay names Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen, historian Tony Judt, poet Adrienne Rich, and playwright Tony Kushner, among others - are guilty of it. How does the paper pull this off? By starting out with a transparent fraud: identifying anti-semitism - hatred of Jewish people - with anti-Zionism, or the belief that Israel should not exist as a Jewish state.

The latter view, while not something I agree with, simply is not anti-semitism. One could imagine applying the latter label to someone who proposed the physical destruction of the Israeli population. But the supposed sins of the "new" anti-semites don't even come close.

Judt's crime was simply to call for the creation of a single, binational, secular state encompassing all the territory west of the Jordan River. "Unrealistic" is a good label for this proposal. Anti-semitic is an absurd one. Cohen, for his part, went even less far, arguing simply that, in retrospect, the establishment of Israel was "a mistake" - and not even a mistake that should be undone.

Equating such sentiments with anti-semitism is perverse. The concept of Zionism was extremely controversial within the Jewish community when first proposed; it remains at least a little controversial today (especially in the retrospective form in which Cohen raised the issue); and it has nothing to do with hatred of Jewish people.

This idea, so quickly lost in discussions of Israel, is so easily grasped in other contexts. Those who oppose breaking up Belgium into separate Flemish and Walloon entities are not Flemish-hating racists, nor are those who advocate the breakup of the Belgian people animated by racist loathing of Walloons.

Quickly, though, Rosenfeld dances past this point to make an even less legitimate one, when he writes:

The Israel that emerges in [the highly critical book] Radicals, Rabbis and Peacemakers - a country characterised as "amoral", "barbaric", "brutal", "destructive", "fascistic", "oppressive", "racist", "sordid", and "uncivilised" - is indistinguishable from the despised country regularly denounced by the most impassioned anti-semites.

This point is simply a logical fallacy: agreeing with an anti-semite does not make one an anti-semite (all ducks are birds, but not all birds are ducks).

The writing that Rosenfeld condemns is simply strongly-worded rhetoric. In context, some of it may well be accurate. (Would it really be anti-semitic to observe that, say, Israel's efforts to bomb Hizbullah offices in the southern suburbs of Beirut last summer were destructive? Bombs, one assumes, are intended to destroy.) And some of it may be unfair. Every country, however, is regularly subjected to unfair or ill-informed criticism without anyone leaping to the conclusion that the critic is a racist.

One doubts that any actual progressive Jews will find any of Rosenfeld's argument persuasive. That, however, is hardly the point. Rather, the existence of strident Jewish criticism of Israel poses a threat to the taboo on non-Jews criticising Israel. After all, one might think, if Jews are saying it, surely a non-Jew can say it, too - and without being accused of anti-Semitism. Thus comes the AJC essay, a brief shot across the bow to warn the goyim that nothing will spare them from being smeared.

Click here for a full list of articles in the Independent Jewish Voices debate.

Matthew Yglesias is staff writer at the American Prospect and author of an eponymous blog. His writing has also appeared in Foreign Policy, Slate and the New York Times Magazine.

Prominent Jews call for open debate on Israel

· Pinter and Farhi among signatories to open letter
· Institutions accused of not representing community

Julian Borger
Monday February 5, 2007
The Guardian

Harold Pinter is among 130 signatories calling for freer debate about the Middle East within the Jewish community. Photograph: Graham Turner

A group of prominent British Jews will today declare independence from the country's Jewish establishment, arguing that it puts support for Israel above the human rights of Palestinians.

Independent Jewish Voices will publish an open letter on the Guardian's Comment is Free website calling for a freer debate about the Middle East within the Jewish community. Among the more than 130 signatories are Stephen Fry, Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh, Jenny Diski and Nicole Farhi, as well as leading academics such as Eric Hobsbawm and Susie Orbach.

"We come together in the belief that the broad spectrum of opinion among the Jewish population of this country is not reflected by those institutions which claim authority to represent the Jewish community as a whole," the letter says. Jewish leaders in Britain, it argues "put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people" in conflict with Jewish principles of justice and compassion.

The statement does not name the institutions it is criticising. But one signatory, Brian Klug, an Oxford philosopher, writing an accompanying article on Comment is Free, singles out the Board of Deputies of British Jews for calling itself "the voice of British Jewry" while devoting "much of the time and resources of its international division to the defence of Israel".

Mr Klug also criticises Britain's chief rabbi, Sir Jonathan Sacks, for telling a pro-Israeli rally in London last year: "Israel, you make us proud."

"Others felt roughly the opposite emotion," Mr Klug writes.

The emergence of the group, which calls itself a "network of individuals" and can be found at www.ijv.org.uk comes at a time of ferment over attitudes towards Israel, stoked by the war in Lebanon and the bloodshed in the occupied territories. The question of whether radical opposition to Israeli policies necessarily amounts to anti-Semitism is central to the debate.

The row was brought to a head in recent weeks by the resignation of board members of the Institute of Jewish Policy Research (IJPR) after it emerged that its director, Antony Lerman, had voiced support for the merging of Israel with the Palestinian territories into a single bi-national federation and a repeal of the "law of return" giving the right of anyone of Jewish descent to Israeli citizenship.

Stanley Kalms, the former head of the Dixons Group, stepped down as the IJPR's honorary vice president, saying Mr Lerman's views made his position "untenable". Writing in the Jewish Chronicle, Lord Kalms called his views "dangerous and unacceptable" and "contrary to my concept of the role of the diaspora - to support the State of Israel, warts and all".

The row has brought furious exchanges to the Jewish Chronicle's letter pages. "Some of our biggest mailbags lately have been prompted by prominent Jewish public figures voicing dissenting views of Israel, which typically provokes angry rebukes from other members of the community," David Rowan, the editor, said.

A parallel struggle is under way in the US where the American Jewish Committee published an article accusing liberal Jews such as the historian Tony Judt of fuelling anti-Semitism by questioning Israel's right to exist. The essay by Alvin Rosenfeld said that "one of the most distressing features of the new anti-Semitism" was "the participation of Jews alongside it".

Prof Judt told the New York Times: "The link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is newly created." He feared the two would become so conflated that references to anti-Semitism and the Holocaust would be seen as "just a political defence of Israeli policy".

Denounced, but Jewish dissent grows

Related
Presidential Contenders and AIPAC Cash
American Jewish Committee Report Goes After Liberal Anti-Semites Scroll down
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Antony Loewenstein
February 6, 2007

In a recent essay published by the American Jewish Committee, reflecting widely shared attitudes, Jews who criticised Israel and its policies were accused of stirring anti-Semitism. The executive director of the committee said "those who oppose Israel's basic right to exist, whether Jew or gentile, must be confronted".

It is clear, however, that a growing number of concerned Jews in the United States and Britain are no longer staying silent in the face of Israeli policies in Palestine and Lebanon.

A new organisation has just been launched in Britain giving voice to such Jews, for example. Independent Jewish Voices includes prominent British figures such as the historian Eric Hobsbawm and the Nobel Prize-winning playwright Harold Pinter. Hobsbawn told the Independent: "It is important for non-Jews to know that there are Jews who do not agree with the apparent consensus within the Jewish community that the only good Jew is one who supports Israel."

For too long, Jews in many Western nations have shunned and intimidated fellow Jews who speak out against the illegal settlements or the cruelty of the 40-year occupation. However, uncritical allegiance to Israel by its "supporters" is arguably a greater cause of anti-Semitism than the dissent they seek to suppress.

The recent release of a book by the former US president Jimmy Carter, Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, has ignited similar debates in the US. He says occupied Palestine is comparable to apartheid South Africa. Carter told Newsweek "the plight of the Palestinians - the confiscation of their land, that they're being suppressed against voicing their disapproval of what's happening, the building of the wall that intrudes deep within their territory, and the complete separation of Israelis from the Palestinians" - is a guarantee of further bloodshed between Israel and the Palestinians.

His book, a bestseller, generated fierce discussion in the US. Carter wrote in the Los Angeles Times that for the past 30 years "I have witnessed and experienced the severe restraints of any free and balanced discussion of the facts". He blamed the Zionist lobby for its success in bullying politicians and the media into obedience.

Since the book's release, David Horowitz has called Carter a "Jew-hater, genocide-enabler and liar". Alan Dershowitz calls the book "biased" and "indecent". Deborah Lipstadt says Carter is giving comfort to anti-Semites. Some Jewish members of the Carter Centre's advisory board have resigned and rabbis of America's largest synagogue cancelled a scheduled appearance at the centre.

More measured responses have appeared from Israelis, such as the Knesset member Yossi Beilin who wrote in the newspaper Forward that Carter's words "are simply not as jarring to Israeli ears, which have grown used to such language, especially in respect to the occupation". Although he rejects Carter's claims of racism against the occupation - it is "rather a nationalist drive for the acquisition of land" - Beilin says Israel's path almost guarantees turning the Jewish state into an international "pariah". Indeed, soon after the conclusion of the recent Lebanon war, Ha'aretz admitted the existence of an "apartheid regime" in the territories.

Despite Israel's denials of expansionist policy, the Israeli peace group Peace Now says about 40 per cent of settlements have been built on private Palestinian land. Such moves are illegal and do not provide more security as claimed. Furthermore, in towns such as Hebron, hundreds of fundamentalist Jews are allowed to live freely while tens of thousands of Palestinians suffer daily indignities.

The controversy surrounding Carter's book is designed to avoid discussion of such matters. The smears against Carter are similar to the reception of two US academics, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, who released a paper, The Israel Lobby, which was critical of that lobby in the US. It sparked a furore. The Zionist lobby has not realised playing the man no longer works.

While the settlements continue to expand, the Israeli Prime Minister, Ehud Olmert - who recently praised the Iraq war as bringing "stability" to the Middle East - has appointed a far-right extremist as deputy prime minister. Avigdor Lieberman has called for the bombing of Iran and Egypt and the murder of Arab Knesset members who talk to Hamas.

How can a democracy in the heart of the Middle East support a man who campaigns for the forced separation of Jews and Arab in Israel proper and the occupied territories?

Now that a growing number of concerned Jews are raising their voices publicly despite their community's pressure, there is a hopeful sign for more dialogue and thereby wider public understanding.


Antony Loewenstein is the author of My Israel Question, published by Melbourne University Publishing.
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Antony Loewenstein » Welcome. This is the website of Antony Loewenstein, a Sydney-based journalist, author and blogger.

AJC is the new Anti-Semite

From the "I am a Liberal Jew and I am Pissed" blog:

Wednesday, January 31, 2007

While it is cute that the little disclaimer on the cover page states that the “American Jewish Committee protects the right and freedoms of Jews the world over,” it doesn’t protect or support the rights of Jews who disagree with their regressive political and social stances.

After reading this pseudo-academic 30 page diatribe, I have come to this conclusion: the AJC is the new Anti-Semite.

While they do point to the extremes of the left-wing Jewish thinkers, all while making a nice and shinny “think piece” for their donors, they neglect to point out that because of the work of progressive and liberal Jews the world over Israel exists and is working towards peace. They neglect to mention the ten or so people whom they quote are not mainstream progressive or liberal thinkers. They are extremists.

The authors state that “criticizing [Israeli] policies and action is, in itself, not anti-Semitic” (Page 8). However they then jump to the conclusion in the next sentence that all progressive or liberal Jews who choose to point out the flaws in Israel and its government are calling Israel a Nazi state with Apartheid like governance. Patently false.

This piece of “academia” is bias and useless as the extreme pieces it addresses to explain the “new progressive anti-Semitism.”

AJC is flawed and is acting in the long tradition of Sinat Chinam – Blameless Hatred.

I applaud JTA for putting the report into the briefing today as apposed to only the reviews in the Times and such. Thank you for providing us with the background.

In the News: Sinat Chinam in the Arts Section of the NYTimes...

Beyond the Mask - The ADL Spy Scandal

FinalCall.com News - Refer This Page

Perspectives
Beyond the Mask - The ADL Spy Scandal
By Ashahed M. Muhammad
Updated Nov 24, 2006, 12:21 pm


The following is an excerpt from chapter 3 of the book "The Synagogue of Satan" by Ashahed M. Muhammad, published by the Truth Establishment Institute and available at
http://store.finalcall.com/misc/page1.htm.

Leaked ADL Memo: Internal Strategy for confronting Minister Farrakhan PDF (Secret ADL Strategy Document, 1994)


The ADL, was exposed in media reports across America for heading an international network of spies which – through clandestine operations – amassed files on over 1,000 civic, service, religious and political organizations and over 10,000 private individuals, including many Jewish leaders and members of Congress.

What appears the most troubling is the fact that the ADL collaborated with state, federal and foreign intelligence agencies to provide confidential information that could have led to the deaths of anti-apartheid activists in South Africa and Palestinian activists.


This information was gathered by the ADL by theft, surreptitious access to classified police intelligence files, as well as extortion using threats of blackmail aimed at individuals who would be coerced into becoming operatives for the ADL under fear of death or imprisonment.

The Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL), the American Jewish Committee (AJC), their student operatives – the Hillel Student Union, are for the purposes of this writing lumped in together as a result of their furtive and duplicitous actions.

They are not above reproach or rebuke. The ADL, AJC and Hillel Student Union should be held up for analysis, examination and correction as all other groups and organizations.

Of course they would not want to be judged or measured by the same barometer they use for others.

If that were the case, then the ADL, given their well-documented history of spying on leaders and organizations, smear campaigns and character defamation, would be classified as anti-everything that is not Jewish, and in many cases, they are speaking out against other Jews who do not share their methods or views.

The ADL’s thought policing policies are evident and typical of their extensive history of manipulation.

Their 1999 report titled: "Poisoning on the Web: Hatred Online" points to the continuance of this agenda with the goal to raise money, establish control of thought through emotional manipulation, and to apply pressure on others resulting in unquestioned support for Zionism and Israel. Much of this takes place through public press releases and lies through phantom and specious claims of anti-Semitism.

Regarding the ADL, and their operations, ask yourself these questions:

Why are the ADL and AJC distributing their propaganda kits to newspapers and radio stations all across America and abroad in an attempt to shape the views of those who report the news? Because they know the masses of the people are too lazy to investigate and conduct research on their own.

Most prefer to be told what to do and how to think, which is why the world is in the condition it is in right now.

Why does any civic organization refusing to bow to the whims of the ADL or other elite Jewish groups generate immediate retribution and retaliation?

Because those organizations and leaders are those who are challenging the seemingly ubiquitous power of the members of the Synagogue of Satan.

These attacks are aimed at organizational leaders with the goal of preventing the establishment of operational unity between those who have identified the tremendous amount of influence they wield.

As you will see later in this book, The ADL and Hillel Student Union work in collaboration advising college and university administrators to prevent student groups from bringing speakers and other organizational leaders to their campuses.

A student organization can freely obtain money to sponsor "Girls Gone Wild" on a college campus. Money can be obtained to sponsor female students at a university pose for the "Collegiate Cuties" issue of Playboy magazine, however, having a speaker come to the school with a message of elevated consciousness is prohibited.

Is the Hillel Student Union spying on student activists and stifling attempts at free expression on college campuses nationwide?

Are the ADL and AJC threatening to withhold finances from organizations that rely on their monetary support?

When these undeniable facts are pointed out and it is clearly demonstrated that they seek to control the minds and agendas of others they bristle and deny the charges claiming that anti-Semitism is at the root.

"Ye are of your father the devil, and the lusts of your father it is your will to do. He was a murderer from the beginning, and standeth not in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he speaketh a lie, he speaketh of his own: for he is a liar, and the father thereof." - John 8:44

They have done these things in the past, and are experimenting and developing new and more effective strategies to reach others and eliminate opposition every day.

They have become masters of cloaking their spying and mischief-making activities by masquerading as a civil rights and human rights organization. They are public affairs charlatans capitalizing on the insecurity, guilt and fear of others in order to establish and maintain control while simultaneously forcing their agenda and lobby disguised as legislation.

In appendix II of this book, you will find a listing of the significant amount of money contributed to political campaigns by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. (AIPAC)

They are aware that the dark shadows in which they once operated are now illuminated by shining light on their deceptive and manipulative practices. In their own documents, they have acknowledged:


Beyond low cost and availability, the Internet provides a new type of information distribution, since time and distance are compressed. Information posted there is available instantaneously, 24 hours a day, from anywhere on the planet. The World Wide Web creates the illusion that all information is present in the user's computer at the instant it is needed. Accessing information has never been easier. What's more, the Internet has done more than that, for it has turned every user into a potential publisher. It has never been easier for any individual to broadcast his or her ideas to the world.

Interestingly enough, it is for this very reason that the strength of the grip that they once had on information is now being broken.

For proof of their deceptive and ill-motivated practices, witness the frequency with which the ADL displays this paternalistic attitude as well as their desire to censor the expression of ideas by those with whom they disagree.

They claim to be against censorship. They claim to be at the forefront for free speech and expression. They claim to be at the forefront of the struggle for equality and justice, however, anything remotely resembling a less than complimentary analysis of actions conducted by, words spoken by or programs established by Jews and others who practice Zionism, results in one being branded an anti-Semite and their reputation forever tarnished.

This clearly shows hypocrisy and points to a hidden agenda and affiliation with the Synagogue of Satan.

Duplicitous words in careful arrangement, mixing truth and falsehood to hide deceptive actions.

The ADL is a spy organization still with files and dossiers on hundreds of leaders and organizations. It has been almost a decade since the 1st District Court of Appeals ordered the ADL to turn over illegally disclosed and confidential information used to blacklist organizational leaders, and members of organizations with whom the ADL disagrees.

The ADL, AJC and Hillel Student Union are involved in a constant propaganda campaign against any individual or organization showing that they are not afraid to speak out against the power of the Zionist lobby.

Their desire for control is proven. It has been shown that the ADL will resort to lies to achieve their goals. The questions must then be asked, what other means would they use to achieve their goals?

In much of the "fact-finding research" of the ADL, there are misquotes and misinformation. There are never any apologies from the ADL. There are never any retractions even after it has been documented that their information is fallacious and therefore invalid. The misinformation is allowed to exist in the public domain and infect minds of the unassuming public.

Their leadership cadre continues to tell lies to the public while attempting to frame the debate on race relations, economics, politics, history or any other area in which their interests lie. All of this, they say, in the name of preventing another holocaust.

It has been stated in the past that an anti-Semite was one who did not like Jews, now an anti-Semite is anyone the Jews do not like.

This is the same type of censorship of free thought and expression that led to the unfortunate period of their history in which many Jews perished in Germany. The difference now is that they are the perpetrators.


What a role reversal! How incredibly ironic that the Jews who claim to have been persecuted, censored and made into scapegoats now become those who persecute, censor others and use others as scapegoats.


Is there another dynamic at work here? Surely the Jews do not feel that dissenting opinions and differing views are harmful, when deep wounds exist and animosity remains directed at others who could have spoken out in their defense but did not.


Despite recent apologies from the Catholic Church and the Swiss, they are still resented by many Jews for their lack of activism, intervention and protection during Hitler’s notorious rise in Nazi Germany.


In their quasi-religious fervor, they are so emotionally submerged in their claim of ownership of human suffering that they ignore human suffering going on in other parts of the world. Their claim of having lost six-million is so ever-present in their minds they cannot see the historical existence and significance of the holocausts and massive slaughter directed at others.

They claim to be defenders of human dignity yet practice slavery revisionist history by refusing to acknowledge their complete role in the establishment of the dehumanizing process of the creation of a slave mentality using the Hamitic Myth of Black inferiority.

They refuse to acknowledge their participation in the brutality of the Trans-Atlantic slave trade resulting in the contention between the races that exists in the United States and their responsibility for the economic, social and psychological effects of which continue to this day.

It is through their propaganda techniques that the minds of others are controlled. Newspaper editors, journalists and other organizations mindlessly print the ADL’s "objective" information without sifting through the information, or even attempting to verify it.

Once the mind is controlled all that is needed is the aim and focus of directed action. With their Internet studies, and "hate-filtering" software and their desire to control the minds of others. No credit is being given to the decision-making capabilities of fair-minded individuals.

A relentless war is being waged right now in the battle for the minds of the people. Slander and libel through innuendo and half-truths along with distortions, revisions and exaggerations of the historical record exist as standard operating procedures for the ADL, AJC, Hillel Student Union.

Many today are speaking the truth, and as a result, individuals are taking a second look and critically evaluating them.

As more of their deceptive practices are exposed, the fair-minded masses will increase their participation in Zionist containment strategies. Their power, influence and ability to impact others must be severely diminished.

Despite its reputation as a well-oiled and effective public relations organization, many consider the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith (ADL) to be one of the most dangerous organizations in the world.

With a reported average annual income through contributions topping $49-million dollars the ADL has often used its considerable clout and connections to silence any voices who dare to stand against their lobbying tactics.

The ADL has repeatedly capitalized on the fact that most Americans believe what they see and hear at face value by conducting some of the most vile and reprehensible smear campaigns ever.

Increasingly, with the use of the Internet many more scandalous and shocking revelations are being made known by individuals and organizations that care more about the principles of truth than they do about being labeled.

There aren’t many with in depth knowledge of the shady formation and unsavory characters involved in what is the modern representation of the ADL.

The San Francisco Spy Scandal in 1994 showed the public what many of us have already known, that the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith acts as a spy organization supplying intelligence data to foreign governments and delivering damaging information – often fabricated or intentionally altered – to enemies of those deemed to be their opponents.

More often that not, the opponents of the ADL are those who stand in defense of freedom of speech and are not afraid to criticize the ADL’s tactics, information gathering stratagem, or object to what we at the TEI refer to as specious claims of anti-Semitism hurled so effectively and indiscriminately by the ADL in defense of their selfish economic or political interests.

They were also said to be infiltrating countless law enforcement agencies, bribing law enforcement officials, and obtaining classified data on private citizens.

Far from being an isolated incident of impropriety, further research found the ADL to be guilty of providing information on anti-Apartheid groups to agents of the apartheid government of South Africa possibly resulting in the mysterious disappearance of many anti-Apartheid activists. The same modus operandi was used to harness Arab activism in America and abroad. Israeli authorities have repeatedly shown their propensity for violence through assassination of their enemies, and in some cases, their "friends."

Upon further examination, one promptly encounters details regarding the earlier referenced spying activities of the ADL focused on leaders and members of the Nation of Islam (NOI), African National Congress (ANC) as well as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) and the Arab-American Discrimination Committee (ADC) just to name a few.

It is truly baffling, to see how the NAACP, among other organizations, is so eager to establish a rapport with the ADL, when evidence has been uncovered detailing the fact that the ADL is spying on them and their members. It should come as no surprise that the ADL is involved in this activity given their history of spying on notable figures, such as the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., of the Civil Rights movement.

A strong link between philanthropy and gambling, labor racketeering, money laundering and narcotics has been established while the ADL was coming into prominence, and this aided them in obtaining the expansive power they wield today.

To varying degrees, the media has been used to promote the fantasy-filled victimization made popular by the ADL. In recent years however, they have also been used to verify previously alleged wrongdoing on behalf of ADL operatives.

© Copyright 2006 FCN Publishing, FinalCall.com

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