Jeffrey Blankfort to Ali Abunimah (must read)

I know you have great ambitions, Ali, but Abe Foxman does not plan to retire yet although you do give a very good imitation of him as grand inquisitor. Perhaps, he will hire you as the ADL's expert on "anti-Semitism" in the solidarity movement since at the moment you seem to be doing the job for free. After reading what you have written about Greta Berlin, one of the leading activists in the struggle for justice in Palestine and the Free Gaza Movement, in particular, you obviously did not learn any lesson from your earlier scurrilous denunciation of Gilad Atzmon.

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Gaza’s Ark Statement regarding Greta Berlin and the Free Gaza Tweet

http://www.gazaark.org/2012/10/05/gazas-ark-statement-regarding-the-free-gaza-tweet/

______________________________________________________________________________

An unfortunate mistake resulted in a message – perceived as antisemitic rhetoric – being sent on Free Gaza’s official Twitter feed.  The sender of the message was Greta Berlin, co-founder and board member of Free Gaza.

It was later revealed that the message being tweeted was taken out of context.  It was a personal Facebook message intended for a private discussion among a group of people exchanging about propaganda and racism.  Greta’s Facebook account was linked to the Free Gaza Twitter feed which resulted in the message being tweeted unintentionally and, more importantly, out of context.

Gaza’s Ark is disturbed by this mistake that should not have happened and believes that measures should be taken so such a mistake would never be repeated.

This said, we are satisfied by Greta’s apology and explanation.  We have known Greta for many years, we have never witnessed any sign of racism or antisemitism in her work and we appreciate her many contributions in the struggle for justice and human rights. These contributions and years of work cannot be wiped out because of such an incident.

Meanwhile we are dismayed by the way some media took the issue out of context, ignored Greta’s explanation and tried to smear her and any group she is or was affiliated with, unjustly.

We assert that we denounce in the strongest terms all forms of antisemitism, racism and/or hate mongering. It is our raison d’être as a movement to stand firmly against such ills that are the root cause behind most suffering on earth.

We urge all people of conscience to focus on the real issue at hand: ending the suffering and misery for all peoples and making the world a better, safer and more just place.

Gaza’s Ark Steering Committee

Relevant information:

Greta’s statement: http://www.freegaza.org/en/home/56-news/1369-statement-from-greta-berlin

Free Gaza’s statement: http://www.freegaza.org/en/home/56-news/1367-apology-regarding-tweet

Human Rights Watch: Abusive System – Failures of Criminal Justice in Gaza

Human Rights Watch: Abusive System – Failures of Criminal Justice in Gaza

 http://othersite.org/human-rights-watch-abusive-system-failures-of-criminal-justice-in-gaza/

Introduction by Dr Gabi Weber: Readers of this new report by Human Rights Watch may take into consideration the fact that  HRW is funded by George Soros´ Open Society Foundation as some Zionist right wing sources reveal.

You should also bear in mind that many of the NGOs operating in Palestine are also heavily supported by Soros´ Open Society and similar organisations.

If you want to learn more about Open Society Foundation´s goals in the Middle East (Arab Regional Office) click here. You will then be able to find out what are the liberal Zionist´s plans for the people of Arabia.

This is what interventionism is all about.

Gabi Weber

 

Human Rights Watch Report

Summary

This report highlights the failure of the criminal justice system in Gaza under Hamas rule, including security forces, prosecutors, and judges, to uphold the law and protect the rights of detainees and criminal defendants and hold those responsible for serious abuses accountable.

Based on interviews with former detainees, lawyers, human rights groups, and reviews of case files and court judgments the report documents how Hamas security services in Gaza routinely conduct arrests without presenting warrants, refuse to promptly inform families of detainees’whereabouts, deny detainees access to a lawyer and torture detainees in custody.

In August 2008, Abdel Karim Shrair was arrested by members of the al-Qassam brigades, Hamas’s armed wing, which detained and allegedly tortured him at an unknown location for three weeks before transferring him to the custody of the police. The military prosecutor then ordered Shrair’s detention and interrogation by the Internal Security service, and later charged him with collaborating with Israel, in part on the basis of information that his lawyer alleged was obtained under torture. Internal Security interrogators also tortured Shrair, his family said, and prevented them from seeing him until October. Shrair’s mother said that when she was first able to see him, his legs and face were bruised, his feet were swollen, his hands and arms had rope marks and his chest had burn marks. The military courts did not adequately address Shrair’s claims of torture. The courts held that the prosecutor, by subsequently ordering Shrair’s detention and interrogation, had retroactively “corrected” prior gross violations including Shrair’s warrantless arrest and incommunicado detention. Shrair was sentenced to death and executed by firing squad in May 2011. His mother said that Hamas authorities had prohibited the family from burying him, and that police beat her when she tried to hold his body during the interment.

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Arthur Billy - Parts of Beautiful Palestine, Haifa, Akka, Bahaullah, Paradise, 10-5-12

Stay Human -Must Watch

Screening: Gilad & All That Jazz + Q&A Frontline Club, London

Book early,,, it will be sold out!

Date: October 15, 2012 7:00 PM

The screening will be followed by a Q&A with director Gorliz Kolahi, producer David Alamouti and Gilad Atzmon will also be present to answer questions.

Watch trailer: https://vimeo.com/24659402

Gilad and all that Jazz [TRAILER] from David Alamouti on Vimeo.

Gilad Atzmon is a world renowned saxophonist, a well respected musician and a controversial public critic of Israel. Born into a pro-Zionist family and serving briefly in the first Lebanon War, Gilad had a dramatic turnaround. He quit the army, picked up his instrument and moved to London, declaring himself an enemy of the Israeli state.

Besides producing some of the modern era’s greatest Jazz albums he also published the controversial book The Wandering Who. He is blunt and outspoken in his political and philosophical ideas and his views on Jewishness provoke both the left and ring wing in Israel.

In Gilad and All that Jazz director Golriz Kolahi explores the music, ideas and motivations that drive Gilad Atzmon. Through interviews with supporters, opponents and admirers a complex picture is drawn that makes you wonder: "Should music and politics be mixed?"

Directed by Golriz Kolahi and produced by David Alamouti
Duration: 66'
Year: 2012

http://www.frontlineclub.com/events/2012/10/screening-gilad-all-that-jazz.html

TOUR DATES -October November

TOUR DATES

October

8 with Nick Hill @ The  Bedford Arms 

12 Gilad Atzmon & The OHE at  Ropetackle Arts Centre, Shoreham-by-Sea  

13 Gilad Atzmon &The OHE @ Marsden Jazz Festival

15  Screening: Gilad & All That Jazz + Q&A, Frontline Club, London http://www.frontlineclub.com/events/2012/10/screening-gilad-all-that-jazz.html

19 The Blockheads 35th Anniversary Tour, Waterside Arts Centre

20 The Blockheads 35th Anniversary Tour,  Mill Arts, Banbury 

21 The Blockheads 35th Anniversary Tour,  The Apex, Bury St Edmunds

26 Jazzys Café, 28 Shore Road, Sandbanks  

30 Valencia, Spain Gilad Atzmon Trio (+ book event)*

31 Madrid, Spain, Gilad Atzmon Trio (+ book event)*

 ---

November

1 Madrid, Spain, Gilad Atzmon Trio (+ book event)*

2 Workshop in Saarbrucken, Germany

3 Gilad Atzmon & the OHE , Gütersloh, Germany  

5 Gilad Atzmon & the OHE, Saarbrucken, Germany

6  Gilad Atzmon & the OHE , Inoui, Luxemburg, 

7 Gilad Atzmon & the OHE,  Böblingen, Germany

9 The Blockheads 35th Anniversary Tour, Concorde 2,  Brighton

10 The Blockheads 35th Anniversary Tour, Corn Exchange, Hertford

15 With Sarah Gillespie, Alexander Chester

16 The Blockheads 35th Anniversary Tour, Picturedrome, Holmfirth

17 The Blockheads 35th Anniversary Tour, The Flowerpot, Derby

18 With Sarah Gillespie at,The Pheasantry, The London Jazz Festival 2012

22 With Nicolas Meier Quartet, Wakefield Jazz

23 Gilad Atzmon & the OHE at the Vortex, London

 

24 Gilad Atzmon & the OHE at the Vortex, London

29 With Tali Atzmon and Yaron Stavi, Ajani Café, London

30 With Sarah Gillespie, Albion Beatnik Bookshop, Oxford

Pre-Show Talk - The Road To Bop

*Ahead of this concert, Gilad will give a talk about his first encounter with Jazz music and its impact on his ethical and philosophical stand. The talk will explore different aspects of music and their direct link with Gilad’s views on morality. A rare chance to engage with a star musician who is an equally popular writer and political commentator.

 

Gilad Atzmon's New Book: The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics is due on 30th September

Jewish identity is tied up with some of the most difficult and contentious issues of today. The purpose in this book is to open many of these issues up for discussion. Since Israel defines itself openly as the ‘Jewish State’, we should ask what the notions of ’Judaism’, ‘Jewishness’, ‘Jewish culture’ and ‘Jewish ideology’ stand for. Gilad examines the tribal aspects embedded in Jewish secular discourse, both Zionist and anti Zionist; the ‘holocaust religion’; the meaning of ‘history’ and ‘time’ within the Jewish political discourse; the anti-Gentile ideologies entangled within different forms of secular Jewish political discourse and even within the Jewish left. He questions what it is that leads Diaspora Jews to identify themselves with Israel and affiliate with its politics. The devastating state of our world affairs raises an immediate demand for a conceptual shift in our intellectual and philosophical attitude towards politics, identity politics and history.

You can now order the book on Amazon.com  or Amazon.co.uk

Mandating Indigenous Holocaust Education

Dr. June Terpstra

Historicle American icon, Christopher Columbus, and his brother Bartholomew,
mass murdered some two million of the Taino people on the island of
Hispaniola in just four years. In their quest to kill and torture as many people
as possible they built extremely wide gibbets, hanging victims with feet barely
touching the ground amidst fire caused a slow strangling burning death.

On yet another USA manufactured “holiday” where schools close to honor the savage conquistador, Christopher Columbus, who ushered into history the holocaust of approximately 11 million native north American “Indians” I propose a mandate for indigenous holocaust education, K-12. Like the new federal legislation introduced in congress to mandate education of the Jewish holocaust, I also propose we replace not only senior citizens arts and crafts but pre-school arts and crafts with education workshops developed to examine the denial of Indian genocide and removal; the denial of African Diaspora genocide and slavery, past and present; and, the genocide of Arabs and Muslims occurring in Palestine today.

Currently being reviewed by committees in the U.S. House of Representatives and Senate, the Simon Wiesenthal Holocaust Education Assistance Act – if passed – would provide select organizations nationwide with competitive grants to be used to develop Holocaust curriculum guides as well as training for teachers. http://www.libertyforum.org/
showflat.php?Cat=&Board=news_news&Number=295765930&page=
0&view=collapsed&sb=5&o=21&part=1

Never Forget

A common expression of white men and women in the USA regarding their barbaric history towards Africans and Native Americans is for “them to just get over it”! The sloganeering of remembering history in order to avoid extermination, removal, kidnapping, enslaving, lynching does not apply to non-Jews. Yet the history of Europe’s program of extermination of the Jews is now introduced in the US Congress to be mandated education in public schools with an official curriculum written and sponsored by Jewish historians. Mandated education on all holocausts only seems fair and right in the “democratic, truth loving land of equality”. Everyone should know the history of the mass murders and removals of Native Americans and the countless Africans killed through the middle passage and their slavery and savage treatment by the Euro-Americans. The truth about all genocides should be mandated education for everyone everywhere.

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Paul Larudee on the Abunimah - Berlin Affair

Dispel the Doubts?  What Doubts?
 
I am not going to waste my time trying to liberate Palestine by prosecuting Greta Berlin for the offense of – in essence – turning onto a one-way street against the traffic.
 
Doing so gets a lot of attention, and the drivers heading towards you will say a lot of nasty things.  However, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you secretly harbor a desire to sabotage the traffic or that you are part of a movement to end one-way streets.  It means that you weren't paying attention to the road signs.
 
Greta has apologized for the error.  According to Ali Abunimah, however,  “many people” want to “dispel the doubts” by having Greta publish the full conversation in which the offending video link occurs.
 
What doubts?
 
This is not a rhetorical question.  What exactly is the accusation, if any?  I have to stretch my imagination quite a bit to even guess the intention of this statement.  That Greta is a closet racist?  A spy?
 
Or is this just a fishing expedition?  A grand jury?  A House Unpalestinian Activities Committee investigation, looking for anything that might lead to an indictment?

What Ali and Co. are asking (to continue the analogy) is to know who else was in the car, what the contents of the trunk (boot) may have been, the car specifications and legal ownership, any outstanding liens, the time of day and weather conditions, etc.
 
I disagree with Greta on substantive issues and other real concerns, but that is just the point.  Let us disagree on and discuss substance, not this foolishness.  There is enough disunity already.  Can we please set these matters aside and just liberate Palestine?

Abunimah Did It Again

By Gilad Atzmon

Is it really possible that not a single Palestinian or Palestinian solidarity activist would stand for Greta Berlin, one of the founders of the Free Gaza Movement and its spokesperson for the last several years? Is it possible that not a single peace activist would rush to defend the person who was directly and physically involved in every naval attempt to break the siege on Gaza? Apparently, yes.

A few days ago Greta Berlin had been subject to a vile Israeli and Zionist smear campaign following her facebook post containing the following message: “Zionists operated the concentration camps and helped murder millions of innocent Jews”. Berlin also added to her facebook post a link to a video of a lecture by Eustace Mullins. I am not familiar with the work of Mullins but I guess that he is far from being a popular political thinker in Tel Aviv or Golders Green.

Zionists and Hasbara agents were very quick to slander Berlin. They tagged her as an ‘anti Semite’ and a ‘Holocaust denier’. But clearly there is no Holocaust denial in Berlin’s message. Furthermore, the views expressed by her are consistent with many experts including Jewish Marxist archivist Lenni Brenner who tells the same story in his book 51 Documents: Zionist Collaboration With the Nazis. Hanna Arendt also reached a similar conclusion in her invaluable epic book A Report On The Banality Of Evil. I guess that Greta Berlin has a problem, unlike Arendt and Brenner: she’s not a Jew, she is a Shiktze, and Shiktzes better keep quiet. They are not supposed to talk, let alone tell the truth.

It didn’t take much Zionist pressure before the Free Gaza Movement grovelled and published a humiliating apology. It also didn’t take much time for the usual suspects within the movement to disassociate themselves from one of the most dedicated solidarity activists on the planet.

Yet, one would expect that after his recent failed attack on myself and my work, Kosher Commissar Ali Abuminah, would think twice before he allies himself with the darkest Zionist and Israeli Hasbara forces around.

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