By Gilad Atzmon

Yesterday we learned that Israeli right-wing activists threw a free barbecue outside a military prison in the West Bank, where Palestinian inmates are currently taking part in a mass hunger strike. Such a barbarian act is pretty revealing. It points to the Israeli activists’ complete lack of human empathy and compassion.

But this fascination with the political impact of burning meat is not exactly a Jewish right wing domain. Bill Weinberg, a NY Jewish ‘progressive’ activist, has been campaigning together with his miniature prog-tribal cell for the last ten days in a desperate attempt to cancel a literature event featuring Stanley Cohen, Prof. Norton Mezvinsky, Michael Lesher and yours truly at Theatre 80 on April 30. Bill Weinberg mounted immense pressure on Theatre Owner Lorcan Otway, to no avail. Otway, a staunch defender of free speech, declared that he won’t surrender to pressure and that the event would go ahead.

Bill Weinberg decided to picket the event and Eugene Onegin*, an alleged ‘Palestinian supporter’, set the Facebook event for the little demo. On top of the utterly violent language, Onegin and Weinberg have been using, like the right wing settlers, the BBQ as a political vehicle. However, as the picture below reveals, it is me whom Onegin prefers to grill.

Why would a ‘Palestinian Supporter’ set a fellow human being into a blaze, why would he symbolically put an author into flames? Why would he perform the ugliest Zionist symptoms? Probably for the same reason west bank settlers are having a BBQ in proximity to hunger strikers. We are, sadly, dealing with a continuum of severe lack in human empathy.

Maybe this is why the conference at Theatre 80 is so important. It is empathy, I presume, that made Lesher, Cohen and Mezvinsky into dissident voices. Similarly, it was the search for compassion that made me into a goy.

https://theatre80.wordpress.com

The Post Political Condition

Trump, Brexit, the Middle East… What Next?

5 pm an extended panel discussion, then a jazz concert from 9 pm

5pm Sunday, 30 April

Theatre 80, 80 St. Marks Place
New York, NY 10003
USA

*Eugene Onegine- probably a FB virtual character named after Pushkin's protagonist...