Show #62 - Controversy of Zion: Interview with Gilad Atzmon

[Breton]

This was a totally awesome show! I have listened to it twice now.

You all managed to explore this topic from some very excellent new angles that really pushed my brain to think about this topic much deeper than a mere "conspiracy" of an elite of zionists. Of course there is that, but there is much more to think about, as the interview with Gilad Azmon showed.

Great job!

 

[l apprenti de forgeron]

Thank you very much for another great show! Very enjoyable.

Gilad had some really interesting points. From what I've read in Controversy of Zion and Israel Shahak's Jewish Religion, Jewish History, the Jews were kept in ghettos by the Rabbinate and were only ever emancipated by non-Jews.

Very interesting. It's really good to know that Gilad managed to see so many things about Judaism. Since that the Jews are trained to not see anything (like most religions), anyone who can think for himself beyond the pathological rabbinic traditions with their mutilations (in every sense) is always commendable. Although I thought (and I can be very wrong) that he does not have much information on psychopathy, anyway he has also succeeded in capturing, perhaps instinctively, of what is the Zionist elite. Very meritorious!.

 

[Voyageur]

Just finished Gilad Atzmon's book, The Wandering Who?, which he extrapolates from in the ST Show. Similarly to what the hosts though of his book, though Gilad's book just a fascinating read, a read that I'm very glad I did not miss in this lifetime in helping to understand, what he coins as his study of Jewish Identity Politics.

Gilad sets out his direction right away, and than follows the path with some excellent discussion. Interestingly, osit, he was looking at a "categorical understanding" of what fuels Zionism, it terms of philosophical and metaphysical and not, as he says, sociological and psychological. The only comment that seemed not well developed were the psychological aspects that fuels the followers from different quadrants of this religion. I understand what he was getting at, yet the propensity to psychopathology at the heads of these groups did not seem to enter the framework, or at least in the language - it seems he was making hints. Perhaps Gilad just did not want to go there, as what he offered on its own were linkages for better understanding.

Nonetheless, for a goyam, I really appreciated his help in deconstruction things for me I had never thought about. I can only conclude that through his unfettered courage to write this book, it is a must read for every religion and society. As for the Jewish faith, Gilad has offered pearls which should be examined with objectivity that just might lead to some realizations, such as he and others of the Jewish faith have had.

Thank you again SotT Talk for featuring Gilad, and thank you Gilad for your important work!

 

[Voyageur]

Came across a discussion between Gilad Atzman and his friend, Paul Eisen. Eisen wrote an essay 'Jewish Power'
_http://www.righteousjews.org/article10.html which is discussed in the interview and which he was criticized for writing; as one can imagine. He is also on the board that is trying to recognize the Village of Deir Yassin, which was the home village for many Palestinians murdered April 9th, 1948.

Interview link _http://vimeo.com/37403450

An insightful conversation between Gilad Atzmon and Paul Eisen. It takes a deep look into their minds and the troublesome relationship they hold with 'Jewish identity politics', 'Jewish ideology','Jewish power' and Jewish history alongside their prolonged intellectual and political activism.

Eisen struggles with identity, yet he is trying to see with new eyes. Of the numerous interesting points discussed, in one such, Eisen mentions he is trying to lose his fear and mentions his many times at Yad Vashem (Holocaust museum) growing up, whereby he seems to be saying that he did not understand the view at the exit until later in life (he mentions architectural purpose of this?). For all exiting Yad Vashem, there is a beautiful looking view of the landscape from this vantage point, yet lost on most is that in the distant focal view is the Village of Deir Yassin, the Palestinian village mentioned above. Basically he says, a person sees the beauty and assigns it to "their" Jerusalem. Even if in true recognition, you could only look at Palestinian suffering through Jewish suffering - this is one of many, often unsaid/hidden message within their ethnocentric reasoning.

Atzmon brings up the question of Jewish "specialness" (collective specialness) and what would be left after that inferred specialness was stripped away - identity crisis?

While referencing the above, here also in Eisen's blogspot _http://pauleisen.blogspot.ca/2012/01/blog-post.html and within was noticed the film documentary 'Deir Yassin Remembered - The Film' (4 short parts).

What this film describes is the Stern Gang and Irgun's original April 9th blood-feast, and all that has followed since, including the global effort to keep the memory of Deir Yassin alive through education of what really happened to the people living there.

 

[Voyageur]

On Atzmon's website _http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/gaza-israel-and-human-shields.html , noticed this article by Sarah Gillespie, titled 'Gaza, Israel and 'Human Shields'

Friday, July 25, 2014 at 2:37AM Gilad Atzmon

What does it mean to use human shields? Employed by the Germans and Japanese in the second word war, the tactic is premised on an underlying trust in your enemy's humanity. It appeals to the compassion and mercy of the combatant that they not slaughter the innocent in order to avenge their target. The 'shield' is not the human bodies surrounding the 'guilty' party, the shield is the clemency that mankind instinctively affords the innocent. The shield evaporates only when confronted by an enemy who is not merely a fellow solder locked in a power battle, but a psychopath unconcerned with the pain of others. Such is the case with the Hamas. They are faced with an enemy who is willing to obliterate pregnant women, babies, kids, handicapped people, schools and crowded hospitals in order to smash their target. The Israelis repeatedly demonstrate a pathological disregard for any life that is not a Jewish life, and it is for this reason alone, that the Hamas are utterly incapable of ever using 'human shields.'

However, Netanyahu, pro Israeli media and Zionist supporters can't resist endlessly recycling their trope that the Hamas use civilians to guard their rockets. They are clearly flummoxed as to why this assertion does nothing to quell the snowballing international outrage at the massacres they are committing. Their argument attempts to plant in our minds the notion that the Hamas actively invite the Israeli military to slaughter and maim innocents and, in doing so, prove that their savagery deserves to be annihilated. Paradoxically therefore, according to the twisted logic of Zionists, the more innocent Palestinians that die, the worse the Palestinians are. As a collective they are guilty of being innocent.

But this propaganda ploy doesn't work. Not only does it not work, it boomerangs completely. Every time a Zionist apologist repeats their 'human shield' accusations they merely advertise their own deficit of basic humanity. They tell us 'the Hamas think we have empathy for our fellow human beings, but if you look at the casualty figures, you'll see how mistaken they are.'

The other issues at play here are the rights of the Palestinians to defend themselves and the pragmatics of warfare in a refugee camp. Israel is extremely fond of telling the world that they have the right to defend themselves. They enjoy a nuclear arsenal, cutting edge American weaponry and the formidable Iron Dome technology. Yet, although Israel constantly brags about its own egalitarian credentials, for some reason Israel refuses to grant the Palestinian people this same intrinsic right to defense that it demands for itself. Palestinians are not allowed to protect themselves. They are not allowed to fight. Instead we are invited to imagine that it is somehow acceptable for the Palestinians to have no weaponry whatsoever, no army, no solders, no rights. We are lead to believe that the only way for Palestinians to prove their integrity, is to lie down like lambs and quietly live out the unspeakably miserable lives of squalor, poverty and despair that Israel has designed for them. In short, Israel wishes the Palestinians were suicidal but, inconveniently, they keep proving to us that they are not.

Obviously asking a people to passively embrace their own ethnic cleansing is implausible. One would hope that the Jews, more than anyone, might be capable of grasping such a fundamental truth - but sadly not. Given then, that the people of Gaza, like any other human beings, have right to defense, where exactly should they store their weapons? In the rolling valleys and tumbling hills of Haraat al-Daraj? Amid the fauna-filled acres of Shuja'iyya? Gaza is home to approximately 1.8 million people, it is 25 miles long by 5 to 7 miles wide and sealed by both an Egyptian and Israeli blockade. It is the most crowded open air prison on earth. The only place to feasibly store weapons is inevitably in the proximity of the people forced to live there cheek by jowl. Israel has now ordered some 43% of the territory to be evacuated. But where to? The Kafka-esque request to insist people go, knowing there is nowhere to go to, is clearly there to benefit Israeli PR, not save lives. And it doesn't fool anyone. There are currently hundreds of thousands of displaced. The schools that have opened to receive those fleeing are already overflowing and Palestinians that endured the bombings of schools during Operation cast Lead, know that even a so called 'refuge' can not guarantee safety. Lets be clear: the only people putting the Palestinians in danger are the Israelis. The only people killing innocent people are the Israelis. The Hamas may not be the party that the chattering classes of the West would want to govern them, but they are democratically elected and they have as much right as Israel, Britain, France and America to fight against an oppressor that quite literally wants to 'wipe them off the map.' They face a tough job, but one thing they can't do is use human shields against an enemy that doesn't recognise them as human.

 

[Voyageur]

Was following a video interview featuring Stanley Cohen, Michael Lesher, Professor Norton Mezvinsky and Gilad Atzmon. It was here that I became aware that Atzmon has released his new book 'Being in Time: A Post-Political Manifesto' and is a sequel to the 'Wandering Who' published a number of years ago.

Here is what it says if interested:

Being in Time: A Post-Political ManifestoPaperback – May 24, 2017
by Gilad Atzmon (Author)

https://www.amazon.com/Being-Time-Post-Political-Gilad-Atzmon/dp/191107220X/

The events of 2016 - Brexit and Trump - broke the mould which shaped ideas of democracy, politics and social identity. In this book Gilad Atzmon argues that Left and Right have become indistinguishable and meaningless in the post-political universe in which we now live, and much of humanity has been reduced to serving the interests of big money and oligarchies. The freedom to think openly is now just a distant memory. Our Western liberal 'utopia' has turned into an Orwellian catastrophe, and the people are left bewildered and impoverished, and out in the cold. Being in Time is a courageous attempt to grasp the intellectual developments that led towards the current dystopia. The book delves into the bankruptcy of the ideological grand narratives. It explores the colossal failure of the media, academia and politics to detect and address the events that led us towards destitution. It identifies the ideologies that have planted Identitarian politics and the tyranny of political correctness in our midst. We, the people, have been demoted into mere audience in a Greek tragedy that happens to be the story of our own destruction. The time is ripe to understand it all.

The main point of this post was to actualy highlight the video talk (it is 3 hours + and I've not seen it all). Atzmon speaks after Stanley Cohen on the subject of The Tyranny of Correctness – deconstructing identity politics and understanding its origin. On the main link you can click the link by each talk and it brings you to the speaker.

The full interview is here https://youtu.be/II5FYZngN98

Lorcan Otway & Tom Kiely – Opening Words
Stanley Cohen: The Insular View of the American Left (starts here)
Gilad Atzmon: The Tyranny of Correctness – deconstructing identity politics and understanding its origin (starts here )
Michael Lesher – Jewish Identity vs. Jewish Religion (starts here)
Professor Norton Mezvinsky: The Quagmire of Current Political Terminology in U.S. Society (starts here)

Here is some of what Atzmon said (or was getting at) below in no particulate order:

He draws a parallel with the series about, Archie Bunker. And for people who do not know who he was (many would know from the 70's era or as syndicated later in the West), he was one of the main characters on a weekly American sitcom 'All in the Family' – yet what Atzmon is getting at is the neoliberal left was in a slow transformation that can be seen in Archie's son-in-law, Michael Stivic, or better know on the show as Meathead, a sort of endearing name coined by Archie. It is the "Meathead" idea that Atzmon discusses - we have and are becoming a society of meatheads.

- “The cultural revelation was taking place under your radar.”
- The CIA co-opting the anti war movement – (reference to the show and its creator) and we were "transformed to the new progressive while drinking beer, eating popcorn and playing with our kids." – "Genius" (Atzmon said).

A few other things he discusses in The Tyranny of Correctness – deconstructing identity politics and understanding its origin is that:

"We have to understand what is happening here, and its fascinating, its fascinating for me. I’m not talking about the Jews; I try to understand this culture. What is Jewish power? Jewish power is the power to silence criticism of Jewish power. Is it APAC? Is it Dershowitz? Is it Bibi Netanyahu? No, no. It is actually ‘Democracy Now,’ 'Real News,' 'Mondoweiss,' JVP, the Chomsky’s, that go out of their way in an attempt to divert attention from the “J” system, from Jewish power. Where Mearsheimer and Walt where invited by Amy Goodman to discus the 2006 book on the Israeli lobby, Amy Goodman didn’t invite them in, instead of inviting them, Mearsheimer and Walt, the both of them, she invited Chomsky to criticize the book. This is not how America should operate, not how the leftist should operate."[…]

{You can read the John J. Mearsheimer, Stephen M. Walt university pdf publication, The Israel Lobby And U.S Foreign Policy here: http://mearsheimer.uchicago.edu/pdfs/IsraelLobby.pdf or the book on amazon or elsewhere}

Atzmon discusses Athens (capital of reason and logos), Jerusalem (city of revelation) split...

Humorously, he said "Hillary Clinton is a Jerusalemite. Teresa May is a Jerusalemite. Jesus Christ wasn’t."

‘Being in Time’ suggests "the West is ill because Jerusalem has been at its helm for too long."

If you are progressive, someone else must be reactionary - the Goy/Jew split.