SWP sticks to invitation for Gilad Atzmon

Submitted by AWL on 8 June, 2005 - 1:32

According to e-mails circulated on left e-lists by Tony Greenstein - an activist who vehemently denounces AWL as "Zionist" - "The SWP are happy to have someone who not only associates with fascists and anti-Semites, but himself distributes Holocaust Denial material, come to their annual 'Marxism 2005'...."

"My first reaction to the email was that it was a spoof, but apparently not.

"I think serious consideration should be given to a picket or leaflet of the event".

The person whom the SWP has invited, and insists on upholding the invitation for, is Gilad Atzmon, who (see below) denounces Greenstein and other leftist (and strongly anti-Israeli) Jews as "undercover Zionist agents of influence".

This is the correspondence between Tony Greenstein and SWP National Secretary Martin Smith.

Dear Martin,

This is utterly outrageous. I don't ask, I demand that you withdraw the invitation to Gilad Atzmon in WHATEVER capacity he has been invited to Marxism 2005. Are you really saying that you are happy to have someone who openly admits to circulating Holocaust Denial material perform at 'Marxism' 2005? What kind of Marxism is this? I understand that David Irving is quite good at blowing his own trumpet. Will you invite him too?

In case I did not distribute Atzmon's reply to my e-mail, asking him to dissociate himself from both Israel Shamir and Paul Eisen (the author of a Holocaust Denial tract), I enclose the relevant quotation below. He admits that he only has 'slight' differences with Eisen.

We may have our political differences, but I find it hard to believe that we can have any differences when it comes to treating with fascists and their sympathisers. What has become of the SWP, of which you are I understand the Secretary, when it says 'Never Again' one day, and invites to its annual event someone who believes it Never Happened?

Tony Greenstein

TG: I understand that you have been distributing Paul Eisen's most recent The Holocaust Wars which denies, in the course of defending Ernest Zundel, that there ever was a holocaust or extermination of European Jewry by the Nazis.

G: Mr Greenstine, True I circulated Paul Eisen's paper. I do believe that argumentative texts must be circulated as widely as possible. I am sure that in case you have a counter argument to suggest Paul will be delighted to address it. By the way, my take on the subject is slightly different than Paul's one and yet, i found Paul very attentive to my criticism. Furthermore, Let me assure you that if I ever see a great text written by yourself I ll be the first to circulate it. This is my way, that is what i believe in.

Martin Smith wrote:

Dear Tony,

I can confirm that Gilad Atzmon will be performing at Marxism 2005.

Martin Smith

----- Original Message ----- From: tony greenstein
To: enquiries@swp.org.uk
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 1:55 AM
Subject: Re Gilad Atzmon

To the Central Committee of the Socialist Workers Party

Dear Comrades,

I understand that at Marxism 2005, a certain Gilad Atzmon has been invited. I am not sure in what capacity he has been invited and I assume it is in respect of his undoubted musical accomplishments.

Nonetheless, Mr Atzmon, who penned the little witicism below with its play on the title of the Protocols of Elders of Zion, is a close associate of Israel Shamir, a notorious Swedish/Russian Anti-Semite who openly works with white supremacist organisations. Shamir's website openly lauds a Paul Eisen's The Holocaust Wars, which denies, in the course of defending Ernst Zundel, currently incarcerated in Canada for holocaust denial. Atzmon is distributing Eisen's works.

I must therefore demand that Atzmon's invitation is withdrawn from Marxism 2005 with immediate effect. I look forward to receiving confirmation that this has happened as soon as possible, as it is in all our interests that the Zionists and others are not aware of this invitation.

Fraternally,

Tony Greenstein

Dear Mr Atzmon,

I note that in the tirade below, you accuse Jews Against Zionism and myself of being 'undercover Zionist agents of influence'. No proof is provided for this calumny nor can any ever be provided. Please therefore withdraw this accusation.

I understand that you have been distributing Paul Eisen's most recent The Holocaust Wars which denies, in the course of defending Ernest Zundel, that there ever was a holocaust or extermination of European Jewry by the Nazis. Not that this should be any surprise given your association with Israel Shamir, who makes a habit of supporting and defending white supremacists. After all, there is an old saying that when you lie down with a dog you get fleas.

However every dog should be given one bite and I am therefore offering you a chance to retract the nonsense below as well as to dissociate yourself from Shamir and all his works.

Tony Greenstein

The Protocols of the Elders Of London - a document compiled by Gilad Atzmon

Introduction

In a very small segregated cyber shtetl somewhere in the north west side of yahoo (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/justpeaceuk/ ), a tiny cell of so-called 'liberal' Jews meets in the wee small hours. Night after night they are trying to save the Palestinian people from those who devote their lives to the Palestinian cause. There is one man who they really detest, his name is Israel Shamir (http://www.israelshamir.net/). An ex Jew, Shamir is a very civil and peaceful man and probably is the sharpest critical voice of 'Jewish power' and Zionist ideology.

Among Israel Shamir's many sins, he is a member in the Board of Advisors of DYR (Deir Yassin Remembered, an organisation founded with the purpose of commemorating the victims of the Deir Yassin massacre). DYR is engaged in promoting reconciliation between Arabs and Jews. The liberal Zionist cell, as we are going to read, cannot really take it. They demand the cleansing of Shamir. They insist upon ruining his intellectual career or at the very least, his reputation. They would use any possible manipulative strategy to have him thrown out of DYR, which is the first step towards sending him beyond the pale.

The following extracts are available on-line (for the time being) at Just Peace UK's official cyber shtetl: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/justpeaceuk/.

The extracts reveal a horrifying image of modern Jewish secular intolerance. It is a glimpse into the abusive, assertive and violent world of Zionist lobbying. It is a glance into the milieu of the people who try to determine the correctness of other people's world views. When reading these extracts,
just bear in mind that the authors behind them regard themselves as the forefront of Jewish moral thinking and universal humanism.

Let's let them introduce themselves

We shall start with what is the authentic voice of the Marxist Tony Greenstein. Greenstein suggests that "anti-Zionist Jews, maybe under the banner of Return or JAZ, should sign an open letter to the PLO/PSC etc. insisting that they categorically repudiate Shamir and all his works and calling on Deir Yassin Remembered to break its links. What is important is that those Jews who sign are seen, without any qualification or equivocation, to be opposed to Zionism root and branch AND opposed to Shamir". (Tony Greenstein) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JustPeaceUK/message/15068

Reading those lines by Greenstein, I wonder whether I am allowed to guess that 'anti-Zionist Jews' are basically a bunch of 'Just Peace UK' (a left Zionist group). If this is the case we should never take JAZ seriously again. If this is the case, Jews Against Zionism are operating as undercover Zionist agents. If true, and I still suspect it, it is very disappointing but not really surprising.

Orna Neumann doesn't like Shamir either, but unlike Greenstein who pleas for the help of his brothers, Neumann expects the Arab world to fight her Zionist wars. Neumann stresses that they (the cyber shtetl Just Peace UK) should "ask the Arab Media Watch and Affif and the PSC (Palestinian Solidarity Campaign) to denounce him (Shamir)". (Orna Neumann)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JustPeaceUK/message/15063

I may get it wrong here but when she mentions 'Afiff' she is probably referring to none other than Afiff Safieh, the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK. The fact that Neumann uses informal language calling Ambassador Safieh by his first name is in itself slightly unusual. Is Ambassador Safieh her
close friend? Is he an active member in this Liberal Zionist cell? I am sure he isn't. For those who don't know, Afiff Safieh is the supreme Palestinian diplomatic representative to the UK. It seems as if Elder Neumann is trying to portray an image as if some informal trading is possible with the ambassador. As if the ambassador is a Zionist collaborator. Having had the honour of watching Ambassador Safieh speak on behalf of the Palestinian people, having seen him and his wife sitting in front row seats at the DYR event. I am pretty confident that Neumann was searching for support in the very wrong place.

Roland Rance, a revolutionary socialist and an alleged devoted peace lover isn't far better. Like Neumann, Rance refers to the ambassador, applying similar informal language, but then, unlike Neumann, Rance doesn't ask Ambassador Safieh to intervene, he gives him orders. See for yourself:

"So we should not ask people like Afif and PSC to denounce Shamir because of his anti-Jewish rantings; we should insist that they join us in rejecting his whole approach as an obstacle to any progressive political strategy". (Roland Rance) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JustPeaceUK/message/15062

Sometimes I ask myself what Rance and his elder friends mean when they say 'progressive political strategy', Surely they mean silencing the voices of their political and ideological foes. I find myself wondering what is so progressive about silencing other people?

Apparently, some of the cell member are slightly more intellectually developed than others. For instance, Stephen Marks, is no doubt a strategically concerned one:

"I think" he maintains, that "the approach should come from a broad range of people, so Shamir cannot muddy the waters by claiming it is 'the jews' who are after him. The fact is that the zionists have been 'crying wolf' over anti semitism for so long that some people who have not read his material will be vulnerable to the argument that attacks on him are simply a reprise of the old Zionist chorus". (Stephen Marks) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JustPeaceUK/message/15064

Marks confesses here that Shamir is an internal Jewish problem but he insists upon finding a way to present Shamir as a threat to the world. But let us confront some facts here. It is the 'liberal' Jews who attack Shamir. Admittedly those left Jews are quoting two Palestinian writers (Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish) who denounced Shamir a while ago and yet I have never come across an orchestrated Palestinian campaign against Shamir. If anything, it is the other way around. Shamir is repeatedly praised by Palestinians and many of their supporters. From time to time you may come across an eloquent critique of Shamir's ideas. At other times, he is considered as an opinionist and treated as such. If anything, it proves beyond doubt that the Palestinian solidarity campaign expands and becomes more and more colourful. This is probably something that we miss in the protocols of the Elders of London. When I was collecting these extracts I found out that not 'many' Palestinians are engaged in
any dialogue within their cyber shtetl. If to be accurate, as a matter of fact I didn't find a single Arab that might hypothetically save their honour.

G-D Save the Queen

Ladies and gentleman, I assume that by now you are ready to meet the queen of the shtetl, Lady Deborah Maccoby. As we are going to see, Queen Maccoby is concerned not only with the Palestinians, in fact she tries to save the Christian world from regression. At the end of the day, to be a Shtetl Queen is a great responsibility.

" .the problem is that DYR has now become mixed up with anti-Semitic regressive Christian ideas and is being exploited as a means of demonising Jews and is seen not just as a symbol of massive injustice - acknowledgement of which can lead to reconciliation - but of a kind of cosmic sin. I know most of the people at the commemoration will not have seen it as such" (Deborah Maccoby)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JustPeaceUK/message/15099?expand=1

Being myself an active participant at the DYR event I cannot recall any 'anti Semitic regressive Christian ideas'. But if to be honest, I do not know what 'Christian regressive ideas' are. Does Maccoby refer here to the old accusation of Jews being Christ's killers? Maybe, but then, surely she should know that it has nothing to do with regressive Christianity; it is rather a historical narrative. However, in the DYR event no one blamed the Jews for killing Christ. If anything, it was the Zionists who were blamed for cleansing the Palestinian people as well as 'killing them'. But may I stress at this point that Maccoby's suggestion is in itself an outrageous insult to Christianity and Christian people. She really wants us to believe that Christianity is a shaky and fragile spiritual compound of dark beliefs, she wants us to think that it is she and her disciples who can save the Church from regression.

But we are not finished yet, it isn't only Christianity that must be saved, it is the foul Goyim who need saviours. Please show your respect to the 'gentile soul expert' Brian Robinson. Following the great tradition of Jewish analysts, Brian enlightens his fellows with some deep insights into the gentile psyche.

"If much of what Shamir writes strikes deep chords within people, let's say people whose primary motivation for involvement in this issue is an unacknowledged, and denied, antisemitism, then in attacking Shamir's writings we're attacking that hidden - but probably deeply cherished - part of those people's personalities. And they'll muster all the narcissistic defences they can - denial, projection (It's not us, it's you lot).

And maybe they've got us in a double bind - if we win the argument we lose it, and the better we win, the worse we lose ..." (Brian Robinson) http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JustPeaceUK/message/15103

Funnily enough, Robinson is right, you can never win, you can only lose..

As one might guess, so far the battle against Shamir is far from being a great success, DYR's Board of directors ignored the outrageous demand to spit Shamir out. And so did the Palestinian Ambassador and all the other respectable supporters of the Palestinian struggle. The DYR event was an astonishing spiritual gathering. Many Palestinians performed and many others attended.

Amongst the audience and the performers you could find people from every religious group, class and ethnic origin. The Palestinian Ambassador honoured the event while sitting in the first row. Everyone was there except Deborah Maccoby and her clan of liberal Zionists.

Facing the apocalyptic aspects of the ensuing catastrophe, Orna Neumann is already getting ready for the worst case scenario:

"Has anyone seen his publication the flowers of the Galillee (Shamir's book)?" she asks and then continues, "Hitler also started from words....". For Neumann Shamir is the new Hitler, he is no longer just an ordinary anti Semite. He is now just about to liquidate the entire Jewish people. Ask
yourself why? Like Hitler, Shamir wrote a book. Undoubtedly, she puts her very strong logical skills to the service of the cause; let me tell you, dear Neumann, not only did he write a book (more than one), he has a small moustache.

London Underground

Confronting a clear defeat, Queen Maccoby and Goyim-expert Robinson have realised that the smear campaign was found to be counter effective; they have decided to go under.

"Just Peace UK list is at the end" Maccoby wrote "with all our messages on it (including this one!) Which means we should continue these discussions off line". (Deborah Maccoby)
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JustPeaceUK/message/15080

If this coded message isn't clear enough, Robinson is here to help:

"Deborah, you have a good point about continuing the discussion, but how? One way is to establish a small email group -- I suppose to join such a group needs a central person to co-ordinate e-addresses - yourself?? http://groups.yahoo.com/group/JustPeaceUK/message/15083

As we can clearly see, the liberal Jews of North West Yahoo are withdrawing back to the ghetto practicing their old exclusive tactics. May I suggest something? What about the Israeli embassy in London, surely, they must have a secure concealed room, they would be happy to help you all. This is exactly what they are there for.

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Sat, 11/06/2005 - 19:21

Does it really matter that he is jewish?
G.Atzmon poisoned Internet with his anti-jewish articles while posing as Official Good Jew ..

Here is nothing to discuss - everybody knows that Atzmon is a classical jew-hater.. Not surprizing that he's website linked to Israel Shamir (in fact swedish neo-nazi who actually exposed as a fake'jew').
Gilad Atzmon is not a 'left' at all, as he's accuses jews of 'bolshevism'.
It's enough to read Gilad's article
'Zionists and Christ killers' to realize that.he is an antisemite.

http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/nl305.htm

quote-
." In fact, putting anti-Semitic words into Jews' mouths is an age-old tactic of pogromists from around the world, the most infamous example being The Protocols of the Elders of Zion"

http://www.web.apc.org/~ara/documents/news/HLI.html

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 13/06/2005 - 08:13

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Whatever one may think of Israel Shamir, it is a fact that he is an Israeli living in Haifa (though born in Russia and lived onc in Sweden, I believe). Since the "Swedish neo-Nazi" story is false, it can only boomerang on Shamir's critics in the long run.
Also, it is my understanding that Gilad Atzmon does not pose as an "Official Good Jew" but as an ex Jew or non Jew, much as anticlericals do not pose as "Catholic atheists", but as "former Catholics" or "non Catholics".

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 13/06/2005 - 17:39

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Mon, 20/06/2005 - 20:11

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

This lie about Shamir was disproved long ago. Everybody can visit Shamir (though in Jaffa, not in Haifa), and a lot of people do. For instance, he was recently visited for talks by Noel Ignatiev who wrote a piece about him. This Monitoret and Searchlight and other "antifascist' magazines are all subsidised by ADL, and they do not even hide it: you can read it on their list of donors. So naturally they spread their silly lies. If you doubt, write to shamir info@israelshamir.net and arrange for meeting him in Jaffa.
As for 'fake Jew', this is a racist comment.

Submitted by Anonymous (not verified) on Tue, 21/06/2005 - 21:18

In reply to by Anonymous (not verified)

there is a lot of anti-semite and other rightwing crap on israel shamir's website (which is of course no problem for believers in conspiracy theories like you) and a link to the russian fascist paper zavtra ... another artikel about him here: http://www.socialistviewpoint.org/sept_04/sept_04_22.html

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