TRNN and Intellectual Integrity

by Kim Petersen / Dissident Voice

Gilad Atzmon was slandered in a TRNN interview with senior editor Paul Jay and guest Max Blumenthal. At having his chance for rebuttal denied Atzmon seemed (and rightfully so) angry, saying: “Because, above all, Jay is a coward and must have realised that he doesn’t stand a chance of countering my ideas in front of a camera, not even in his own studio.”

Atzmon called Jay an “anti-Zionist Zionist,” which is going overboard. Jay is obviously opposed to Zionism. He takes exception to Atzmon’s “ideology.” That is fine. But Jay cast a dismal shadow over his own and The Real News Network’s journalistic integrity. If you are going to openly defame someone on your program, I submit that it is only fair to invite the defamed party on air to defend himself. Jay obviously disagrees. He opened a door to discussion and he closed it. Arguably, Jay leaves himself open to gatekeeping charges.

I contend that my closing paragraph when I first analyzed the video is still valid.

Consequently, since TRNN has allowed its program to be used as a vehicle for character assassination, it is incumbent on an ethical, professional, self-respecting, viewer-respecting news organization to allow the maligned Gilad Atzmon a chance at an on-air rebuttal.¹

TRNN, by not allowing viewers to hear all sides of the discussion, is marginalizing a viewpoint. It is demonstrating a lack of commitment to intellectual integrity. It is biasing its coverage to views it determines are suitable for viewers. It is behaving in much the same way as the corporate media that it seeks to distinguish itself. Jay believes that Atzmon’s views are anti-Semitic. While Palestinians find themselves under siege, their orchards are plowed under, and their land is confiscated to build Jewish colonies, Jay raises anti-Semitism? Why? Sometimes TRNN guest Noam Chomsky contended, “Anti-Semitism is no longer a problem, fortunately. It’s raised, but it’s raised because privileged people want to make sure they have total control, not just 98% control.”²

Does Jay believe that views he determines to be unsavory should be ignored, left in the dark? Or does Jay believe that light should be shone on darkness to reveal the darkness for what it is? TRNN, and Jay, it appears, would rather bury their ad hominem video piece, a piece to which Jay has heaped further ad hominem. TRNN is disrespecting its viewers by keeping them in the dark.

I cannot grant Atzmon a video rebuttal, but I want to grant DV readers the opportunity to hear Atzmon elaborate on his “ideology.”

*****

Kim Petersen: Jay writes, “In your book The Wandering Who, you define Jewish ideology as someone [sic] who politically identifies as a Jew, ‘Jewishness is an ethno-centric ideology driven by exclusiveness, exceptionalism, racial supremacy and a deep inherent inclination toward segregation’.” At face value what you wrote is a definition of Jewishness and not of a Jew. I assume that Jewishness, as you define it, befits a Jew only insofar as that person embraces this Jewishness.

Gilad Atzmon: Hi Kim, I was also perplexed when I read the above paragraph in Jay’s piece. It revealed to me that the man is uniquely lame and may even fail to understand what ideology stands for.

Jay wrongly suggested that I define ‘ideology’ as “someone who politically identifies as a Jew” but then, just a second later, he quoted me correctly saying that “Jewishness is an ethno-centric ideology driven by exclusiveness, exceptionalism, racial supremacy and a deep inherent inclination toward segregation.” Obviously these are my words and this is how I define Jewishness and Jewish Ideology.

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Tribal Wars Explored

As the Jewish Lobby is pushing for a war and the  'progressive' media outlets are working hard to disguise this embarrassing fact,  my latest book The Wandering Who is becoming more on more relevant and popular.

I just came across this new Amazon five star review.. 

The Book That Should Shake the World, September 6, 2013

By 

Partial to Truth "PT" (USA) -  The Wandering Who (Paperback)

As another reviewer remarked, this is a book that needs to be read thoroughly more than once. Although written in an accessible, often witty style, it is dense with ideas, profound questions and above all it is a comprehensive analysis of Jewish identity and its politics.

None of the data presented are Atzmon's "discoveries." Indeed the references are all solidly documented work done by others before him, albeit often in fragmentary patches or concentrated in narrower perspectives than his universal humanist bird's eye view. Nevertheless to think that his ideas taken individually are not "original" is tantamount to failing to grasp that even though all the colored chips are contained in the kaleidoscope all the time, a twist of hand, a change of angle rearranges them to create a completely new pattern. Atzmon's merit is to have pulled together historical information, contemporary events and facts into a whole that makes sense, mostly a tragic sense and as a whole it is new.
The Jewish supremacist tribal identity coursing in a millenary continuum appears in a self-condemning and perpetually self-punishing struggle with itself and the world, trapped in a pathologic reflex to seek reinforcement of its dark world view and isolationism at all costs.

The book has been praised by some of the most esteemed intellectuals and academics of our time and ineffectually bashed by Jewish supremacists, "Israel right or wrong"propagandists and "leftist progressives" (the "anti-Zionist Zionists) in ad hominem attacks.
It is decidedly one of the most important books of our time precisely because, as the author says, Jewish identity politics is bound up with some of the most serious problems of our time.

The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics, available on Amazon.com  & Amazon.co.uk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFjejrGxFY4

AIPAC Is A Grave Threat To World Peace

By Gilad Atzmon

Israeli Ynet reports tonight on AIPAC’s relentless efforts to push America into a war.

“Though US Congress is pressured by the American public to vote against a US military intervention in Syria, Israel’s most ardent supporters in AIPAC urge Congress representatives to vote in favor of an intervention”.

Ynet writes that in the past Israel has “refrained from pushing US into war, and Jerusalem and AIPAC have thus far kept silent regarding Syria, but in recent days Israel decided to voice its support of an attack.

Ynet reveals the operative plan. “Some 250 Jewish leaders and AIPAC activists, intend to storm the halls on Capitol Hill beginning next week to persuade lawmakers that Congress must adopt the resolution authorizing US strikes against Syria.”

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How To Buy An American War

Bloomberg.com published a few days ago a summary of current Jewish Lobby pro war activity.  

Here are some of the highlights:

“For our credibility, we have to do something,” said Morris Amitay, founder of the pro-Israel Washington Political Action Committee.

"The pro-Israel community contributed $14.5 million to federal campaigns for the 2012 elections, according to the Center for Responsive Politics. That’s more than the $11.1 million in donations by the defense aerospace industry, one of the biggest and most consistent political contributors."

"While most of the Jewish groups’ donations lean Democratic, (Jewish Republican Billionaire ) Sheldon  Adelson alone transformed the 2012 Republican primary when he and his wife used $15 million in private funds to sustain the unsuccessful candidacy of former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and then poured $53 million into groups advancing Republican nominee Mitt Romney. In all, Adelson and his wife donated $93 million to Republican causes in the 2012 campaign, center data shows."

"The Republican Jewish Coalition, which counts Adelson as a board member, yesterday sent an 'action alert' to its 45,000 members, directing them to tell Congress to authorize force. “This is not a partisan issue,” the coalition said in its message."

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Resurrection — a novel by Anthony Ashton (Lawson)

I can't wait to read it...

http://www.amazon.co.uk/

Jeff Blankfort on Zio Con wars, Palestine and Paul Jay

Following is Jeff Blankfort's email to Paul Jay (The Real News Network) after reading his 'deconstruction' of my work. Jeff allowed me to publish his straight forward and illuminating  text.

Paul,

I am writing this late in the evening because I am now only just getting to my email having spent a good part of the day watching the House Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the Syrian war resolution, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee meeting to vote out their own pro-war resolution, and most of an hour and three quarter CSPAN recording of a Jewish Inst. of National Security Affairs panel, featuring Dennis Ross, and chaired by the NY Post's Morty Zuckerman, which focused on the importance of attacking Syria on Israel's behalf because "we" need to send a message to Iran that it will be next.  That was a recurring theme in all the hearings.

What does this have to do with your refusal to give Gilad a chance to respond to Max Blumenthal's vilification of him on TRNN?

Quite a bit because, you see, none of what I have written, none of what went on today, will be commented on by the leading Jewish spokespersons of the Palestine solidarity/antiwar movement, Noam Chomsky, Phyllis Bennis, and Norman Finkelstein. In the tradition of Left Jewish activists, they will continue to ignore what was described in yesterday's NY Times (until it was pulled from its online edition), "the 800 pound gorilla in the room," namely AIPAC.

Paul, I have been active on the Palestinian issue since spending 4 1/2 months in Lebanon and Jordan in 1970, and the biggest obstacles to my work has not been AIPAC or the ADL, which I successfully sued, but Jewish leftists, from the members of the Communist Party and fellow travelers who were ready to lynch me then they heard I had been with the Palestinians, to all of the left groups, CP, Line of March, Socialist Workers Party, Socialist Action, etc., who combined their efforts to keep the Palestinian issue off of the movement agenda during two major marches in 1985 and 1988, the first in opposition to US intervention in Central America and the latter, for "peace, jobs, and justice," four and a half months into the first Intifada.

Whereas Jewish activists were prominent in the Central American movement and instrumental in getting Congress to vote down $15 million for the Contra (at a time when Israel was getting that much from the US every day), every effort to raise the issue of stopping aid to Israel was blocked by the Jewish activists who dominated the movement groups.

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Joshua Blakeney: Against War in Syria: The Great Parliamentary Revolt of 2013

This video, introduced by journalist Joshua Blakeney, offers a selection of the best anti-war speeches delivered during the House of Commons debate on Syria that took place on August 29, 2013. The Con-Dem Coalition had proposed taking Britain into yet another war to help destabilize one of Israel's adversaries, Syria. However, unlike in 2003 with the Iraq war, a sufficient amount of British MPs were able to see through the war propaganda and voted to refrain from deploying UK forces to flight against the people of Syria.

Paul Jay: Portrait of an Anti-Zionist Zionist

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon:

A few weeks ago some of us were rather amused to see Max Blumenthal, in conversation with Paul Jay (The Real News Network), deliver the usual anti-Zionist Zionist (AZZ) spiel. After the program many Palestinian solidarity and anti-war commentators were outraged and demanded that Jay provide me with a right to reply. So Jay approached me, asked to clarify a few issues and promised to come back to me shortly with an answer. I didn’t hold my breath because since the incident I had learned a little about Jay’s political affiliations and motivations. 

Yesterday, he came back with his answer (see below) which he manages to stuff with a pile of confused and jumbled arguments that convey profound intellectual ignorance and are riven with a host of embarrassing contradictions. But one thing was for sure. Gilad Atzmon would not be appearing on Jay’s show. Why? Because, above all, Jay is a coward and must have realised that he doesn’t stand a chance of countering my ideas in front of a camera, not even in his own studio.

I define Jewish Power as the power to divert the attention from Jewish Power and Paul Jay clearly engages in just such an endeavour. In fact, my main contribution to this discourse is probably my capacity to expose this very power and the manner in which it is wielded (Actually, all I do is hand the microphone to my detractors and let their symptoms speak for themselves).

But Jay’s muddled text cries for attention because it is an invaluable glimpse into the deeply corrosive and dishonest attitude that currently contaminates Palestine solidarity, the anti-war movement and the entire peace movement.

Jay attempts to build  his entire argument around the notion that I am an ‘anti Semite’ only to eventually admit that actually I am not. “Since the late 19th century the term (anti Semitism) has been used to mean hatred of Jews….Do I believe you (Gilad) hate all Jews? No. But your theory leads to that”

Well, I have some news for Jay & Co. ‘Theories’ do not hate, ideas do not kill, it is people who hate and people who kill. My ‘theories’ are there to enlighten people, including Jews.  My ideas offer Jews, even the so-called progressive Jews such as Jay himself, an opportunity to self-reflect and, hopefully, to correct that which needs correction. But here we have a problem. As I explore in The Wandering Who, Jewish identity politics is a general state of blindness, a detached collective mind-set which Jay himself proudly exhibits. We know that the Israelis will accept no criticism and their Jewish so-called  opponents react exactly the same. Time after time, they kill the messengers - or at least attempt to do so. This is why I am not at all angry with Jay, in fact I feel for him. He is trapped - metaphysically, spiritually and intellectually. Jay’s plight is the Jewish tragedy - a disastrous tale I explore fully in my writing. From a  psychoanalytical perspective  the man is in ‘denial’ and, like other progressive Jews, he, for the time being,  resists therapy. 

Now, before I let you read Jay own words, allow me to address some of his mistakes:

Jay fails to grasp the obvious distinction between ‘Judaism’ (the religion), ‘Jews’ (the people) and ‘Jewishness’ (the Ideology). In my work I concentrate on Jewish ideology and since I believe that every ideology and politics must be subject to criticism, this obviously includes Jewish identity politics. Jay, on the other hand, tries to block any criticism of Jewish politics and ideology. Is this because he believes that Jews are chosen? You be the judge.

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A Portrait that Tells Many Tales

A beautiful piece by Lasse Wilhelmson

http://lassewilhelmson.wordpress.com/2013/09/04/a-portrait-that-tells-many-tales/

Picture: writer Lasse Wilhelmson

This is a portrait of me in my writing corner with some of the many books I have bought over the past ten years, mainly off the internet; books that are about history, but not the history told by the victors of Europe’s two world wars. A portrait of a blue-eyed, curly-haired little boy can be seen too, along with an old Swedish country sideboard.

Four Books

You can identify them in the bookcase in the picture. The Jewish Century (2004) by Juri Slezkine, a Jewish-born American professor of history with roots in Russia. It is probably one of the most important books ever written, as he himself says, if you wish to understand 20th century history. According to Slezkine, this is impossible unless you comprehend the Jewish influence. Everything from the Russian ”revolution” to European education, culture and science is dealt with in this book which also includes many statistics.

The next book is The Israel Lobby, and US Foreign Policy (2007) by two of America’s most prestigious academics, John J Mearsheimer, professor of political science and Stephen M Walt, professor of international politics. It came to be the classic that broke the official silence surrounding all discussions concerning Israeli and Jewish influence on US foreign policy.

Between these two, is my own book  Is the World Upside Down? (2009). It contains a selection of my articles about the Palestinian issue, Zionism and the neocolonial wars waged in the first decades of the 21st century. They are arranged in order by time which makes it possible to follow how my earlier opinions, partly Jewish-Marxist, have changed as a result of a changing world and my in-depth studies.

The red book, The Wandering Who? (2011), is by Gilad Atzmon. He grew up in a rightwing Zionist home in Israel, where he did his military service; twenty years ago he chose exile in London where he now lives with his family. He has, perhaps like no other, deconstructed Jewish mentality which he sometimes calls Jewishness or Jewish ideology. Atzmon is also an informed philosopher and one of the world’s best jazz musicians, his favourite instrument is the saxophone.

Atzmon’s upbringing and experiences are very different from mine. I found him on the internet twelve years ago. I read one of his early articles and was astonished to find that I had a soul-mate, albeit several sizes larger than myself, apart from our ages. This was when I had just written my first long essay, perhaps my most significant, dealing among other things with Moses Hess and Karl Marx: Zionism – More than Traditional Colonialism and Apartheid.

The Swedish marxist Jan Myrdal had always been my intellectual role-model up until then. Now Gilad Atzmon replaced him.

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Simon Schama’s The Story of the Jews – History Vs. Chicken Soup

Review by Gilad Atzmon

On the day we learned that the BBC’s new Middle East editor, Raffi Berg, urged colleagues to downplay Israel's siege of Gaza, the British broadcaster launched Simon Schama’s The Story of the Jews.  I have only watched the 1^st episode of this new BBC 2 grandiose series. But I already learned from Schama about Jewish greatness, the formation of his people and the continuum between the ancient Israelites and their contemporary followers: Schama and his local reform Synagogue in North West London.  I also learned about Jehovah, the God that was invented by the Jews to choose them over all other people. 

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