Shahram Vahdany: King of the Jews

                 

The magical and yet extremely subtle gift that Gilad Atzmon offers through his personal journeys in The Wandering Who? is the wisdom of disillusionment; the gift of not floating above water, but having to take an insightful dive into a shrouded underworld of appearances and disappearances.

The Wandering Who?: intelligent, bold, unapologetic.

At a certain stage, around 2005, I thought to myself that I might be King of the Jews. I have achieved the unachievable, accomplished the impossible. I have managed to unite them all: Right, Left, and Centre. The entirety of the primarily-Jewish British political groups: the Zionists, the anti-Zionists, Jewish Socialists, Tribal Marxists, The Board of Deputies, Jewish Trotskyites, Jews for this and Jews for that, for the first time in history all spoke in one single voice. They all hated Gilad Atzmon equally.

Gilad begins his book, The Wandering Who? with a brief story of his childhood and the tremendous influence of his grandfather on his adolescence. He writes “my grandfather was a charismatic, poetic, veteran zionist terrorist. A former prominent commander in the right-wing Irgun terrorist organization …” He writes about his attraction to jazz, his enlistment in the IDF (Israel Defense Force), and finally being sent to the first Lebanon war.  He writes of his experience in Lebanon saying:

I studied the detainees. The looked very different to the Palestinians in Jerusalem. The ones I saw in Ansar were angry. They were not defeated, they were freedom fighters and they were numerous. As we continued past the barbed wire I continued gazing at the inmates, and arrived at an unbearable truth: I was walking on the other side, in Israeli military uniform. The place was a concentration camp. The inmates were the ‘Jews’, and I was nothing but a ‘Nazi’. It took me years to admit to myself that even the binary opposition Jew/Nazi was in itself as result of my Judeo-centric indoctrination.

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Gilad Atzmon: Israel Better Think Twice

As the rift between Israel and Turkey deepens,  the Israeli media is preparing its crowd for another  possible exciting bloody conflict.
 
Israel’s leading news outlet Ynet, published yesterday a detailed comparison between Israel’s and Turkey’s military capacity - it outlines the size of the air force, navy, ground forces in the respective countries. “Turkey”, it says, “posses much bigger navy but our air force is larger.’
 
I guess that this is what one would expect from Israel, a morbid collective driven by war enthusiasm and some bizarre craving for bloody conflict.

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Paul J. Balles' Book review: The Wandering WHO?

 

The Wandering WHO? navigates between thought-provoking personal experiences, historical and philosophical issues.

Gilad Atzmon, scholar, prolific writer and leading jazz saxophonist has authored the book The Wandering WHO? In it he astutely explores the identity crisis he himself experienced and one faced by many Jews.

Gilad struggled with the conflict between his early experiences as an Israeli Zionist and his awakening as a humanist.

His book reveals an innate ability to switch between the qualities of a down-to-earth artist (the successful sax player and word-smith) and the knowledgeable philosopher.

Without doubt, The Wandering WHO? will awaken many readers– pleasing some and disturbing others.

The pleased will include those who have experienced similar awakenings or resolved identity crises by continuously asking questions.

The book will also find welcome readers among those who have sought honest answers to the many contentious issues involving Jewish identity, Jewish politics and Israel.

The disturbed will include those Gilad might refer to as “separatist Jews…kind of a bizarre mixture of an SS commander and a Biblical Moses.”

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Jewish Girl Prank Calls Her Parents..

A Jewish girl away from home at college prank calls her parents and tells them she started dating an Italian guy. The father threatens to kill the guy and the mothers comments are priceless.

Gilad Atzmon: Machine of Israel

 

'Machine of Israel' is the name of the following cartoon.  The short clip is openly critical of Israeli politics but it is also critical of Israel as a whole. The organisation behind the clip left a short note on youtube. It says in Hebrew “rather than (politicians) changing chairs, let’s change the system.”

Israelis are unhappy with the ‘Israeli impersonal oppressive reality’. But for some reason, they fail to grasp where the real problem is. They complain about the system but they are yet to admit or even realise what their ‘system’ is all about.

Israel defines itself as the ‘Jewish State’ and as such, it regards itself as the state of the ‘chosen’. The Israeli system is fuelled by ‘choseness’  because ‘choseness’ is the true pragmatic meaning of the Jewish State and Zionism. If Israel wants to ‘change its system’ it must first drift away from tribalism, chauvinism and supremacy. It may as well be possible but once it happens, Israel wouldn’t be the Jewish State anymore.

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You can now pre-order Gilad Atzmon's New Book: The Wandering Who? on Amazon.com  or Amazon.co.uk

Ode to Boycott

It is encouraging and cheering to find out that those who are daily engaged in gatekeeping, silencing and harassing  people within the Palestinian Solidarity movement can also be poetically creative and musically productive.

Well done!!!

A PROMS performance by the Israel Philharmonic Orchestra was taken off air  yesterday after it was  interrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters.

For more info http://londonbds.org/

On a further note, I may as well admit that, regardless of the  politics involved, it takes some boldness to stop a symphonic orchestra playing a violin concerto. I certainly cannot imagine myself engaging in such an act in million years.  Regardless of the legitimacy of such a non-violent  act, which I do not doubt, I have to agree that the people who stopped the Israeli  orchestra, weren’t at all ordinary. I hope that their action will lead Israelis towards self-reflection, but I actually doubt it very much.

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Farrakhan Exposes The ZioCon plan for the Middle East (must being watched and internalised)

Minister Louis Farrakhan delivered a press conference on May 3, 2004 at the National Press Club in Washington DC and exposed to the world the hidden forces guiding America and her wicked policies.

Freiburg Conference Update

CONFERENCE 'PALESTINE, ISRAEL, GERMANY- THE BOUNDARIES OF OPEN DISCUSSION'

Facebook event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=204880796235445

A message from Dr Gabi Weber-Cafe Palestine Freiburg

Dear All,

as time goes by, things are getting more and more interesting in tiny little Freiburg.

One of the organising groups of the "Counterevent" against Palestine Days Freiburg
is German-Israeli Society (DIG).
Weeks ago Cafe Palestine sent an invitation to DIG and asked for a proposition concerning one or
two persons who could represent them in the conference.
Until now we didn´t get an answer - but they organised the counter-event.
At least they are operating in the open, in contrast to certain Jewish"anti-Zionists"

One part of the counter-programme is a  demonstration against our
conference on Sunday, 11/9/11 in front of the conference venue.

For those among you who speak German - here is a radio interview
with one of the persons who are part of the counter-event. I don´t have to tell you that
most of the accusations are simply not true.
http://www.freie-radios.net/42825

On Saturday afternoon Cafe Palestine will  organise an information desk in the city of Freiburg.
Gilad Atzmon will support us with  STREET MUSIC!!!

Many greatings
Gabi Weber, Freiburg

Gilad Atzmon: The End of Innocence Revisited

Introduction: The following piece is a commentary I wrote and circulated amongst friends on the 15^th  of  September  2001, just four days after 9/11.   At the time I didn’t regard myself as a writer. I was a jazz musician preparing for the publication of my debut  novel.

During that time I didn’t know a single editor, journal or media outlet. My commentary was circulated on the net via emails.  Eventually, nine months later, it was published by Counterpunch.  This commentary was, in fact, my first attempt to comment on world affairs, ethics and politics.

I am slightly embarrassed about some of my early formulations. I want to believe that I am a better writer now.  I am certainly more succinct and yet, I somehow managed to predict, already then, in September 2001,  that the fate of the west was doomed and the collapse of  Anglo-American strategy was inevitable. This paper is ten years old but its message may even be more devastating today.

The End of Innocence by Gilad Atzmon

15th September 2001

http://www.counterpunch.org/2002/08/03/the-end-of-innocence/

In the light of the tragedy and the devastating images from New York City, in the shadow of embarrassingly stupid remarks made by the major western ‘free world’ leaders and in the light of the call for a western jihad against a faceless enemy, I feel obliged to expose the lie that stands in the center of the current liberal democratic militant enthusiasm.

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