Henry Herskovitz: Atzmon Tours Toledo and Ypsilanti

We have learned a secret about jazz musician and philosopher Gilad Atzmon in the last few days: the man only has two speeds, 100 mph (that's 161 kph for the Brits reading this) and zero. His energy wore out a crowd of 25 folks in Ypsilanti, Michigan Friday evening and about 50 listeners in Toledo, Ohio Thursday, yet at last sighting he was going strong.

Though leaving his audiences without a clear path of "what to do", he certainly provides a lot of thought-provoking ideas for the uninitiated to chew upon. So much so, that a Jewish doctor and friend stormed out of his Friday delivery midstream, shocked, shocked at the idea that an examination of Jewish collective behavior could possibly be helpful in understanding the actions of others. Gilad waxes nostalgic over the loveable bigot Archie Bunker, whom he describes as the last free self-expressing person and urged those in his audience to give up the shackles of political correctness and speak our minds. Patriotism, he instructed, is the ability to admire our surrounding rivers, valleys, mountains while using and preserving our First Amendment rights.

 

He expounded on the nature of Jewish Power for us -- it is the invisible hand that forbids us from speaking about Jewish Power. He claimed that AIPAC (American-Israel Public Affairs Committee) is *not* an example of Jewish Power, but the power resides in Jewish leaders of the peace movement who – like the anti-aircraft batteries protecting a military target – provide cover for targets like AIPAC. As such, Gilad identifies for us these leaders – Medea Benjamin of Code Pink and Rebecca Vilkomerson of Jewish Voice for Peace to name just two - who place Jewish tribalism and a faux focus on "anti-Semitism" at primary levels in the peace movement, while the effort to actually liberate Palestine remains secondary. This observation is now being questioned by Atzmon supporters like Paul Larudee in his recent piece, "The Palestine Liberation Movement is not about Anti-Semitism".

 

Gilad at JWPF Vigil

 Mr. Atzmon slowed down just long enough to join ten members of Jewish Witness for Peace and Friends at our May 25 vigil in front of the Zionist Beth Israel Congregation. Following that, after a quick breakfast with JWPF vigilers, he was hustled off to Detroit Metro airport to head east for his NYC and Washington DC appearances. Thank you, Gilad for recognizing the importance of our weekly vigils.

My Latest Production

Here is a  trailer of "Looking For Melody", a film about the making of an upcoming album of the music of Serge Gainsbourg which I musically produced at Abbey Road and Eastcote Studios with the Orient House Ensemble and other great people. It is a very unique project...


My 50th Birthday Tour Starts Today

I landed in London this morning after months on the road. My son is taller than me, and he is only 12! How depressing. And here is the schedule for my 50th birthday tour: it starts today!!!

May

30 - Gilad Atzmon & The OHE @ The Spin, Oxford

31 - Gilad Atzmon & The OHE @ Wakefield Jazz Club, Wakefield

June

3 - With Nick Hill Trio @ The Bedford Arms, Bedford

4 - Film and Debate: GILAD AND ALL THAT JAZZ followed by a debate  Gilad Atzmon vs. Ray Keenoy, ALBION BEATNIK BOOKSTORE, 34 Walton Street, Oxford OX2 6AA

8 - 50th Birthday party, celebrating with OHE and guests @ the 606 Jazz Club.  

9 - Gilad Atzmon lunch time gig @ The Green Dragon • 58-60 High Street, Croydon, London

12 - Gilad Atzmon & OHE @ No.1 Shakespeare Street Bar & Grill, Stratford Upon Avon

14 - Concert + Screening - Gilad Atzmon & the OHE @ the Vortex Jazz Club, London + Screening of Gilad and All That Jazz ahead of the concert

15 - Gilad Atzmon & the OHE @ the Vortex Jazz Club,  London

20 - Gilad Atzmon, Frank Harrison 4tet The Bloomsbury, 209 Staines Road, Twickenham TW2 5BB

22 - Gilad Atzmon & Frank Harrison, PIANO DI PRIMO AL PRIMO PIANO, Allschwil/BL  Switzerland.

27 - Gilad Atzmon & The OHE @ Norwich Art Centre

28 - Jazz Baroque Fusion, Gilad Atzmon with Jennifer Bennett (violin and viola de gamba) & Yair Avidor  (lute & theorbo) @ Harwich Festival

29 Gilad Atzmon & the OHE  St. Mary's church hall, Felpham, Bognor Regis

30 - Off to Italy to play with Mauro Grossi,  details soon 

July

4 - Gilad Atzmon & The OHE @ NC Jazz, The Castle,  North Hampton 

5 - Gilad Atzmon & The OHE @ Birmingham Jazz.

The Palestine Liberation Movement is not about Anti-Semitism

by Paul Larudee

I don’t disagree that the cowardly removal by Aljazeera of everything written by Joseph Massad is a travesty of justice and journalism and that their reinstatement is justified.  But why was Massad trying to defend Palestinian rights based upon them being “the last of the Semites?”

The term “Semite” was born of the assumption that all the languages of the world are the result of the sons of Noah – Shem, Ham and Japheth – going to different parts of the globe after the flood and creating different language groups: Semitic, Hamitic and Japhetic.  The sons of Noah?  Are we seriously entertaining such nonsense?

To make matters worse, this absurdity was extended to fictitious “races,” not just languages.  “Anti-Semitic” therefore is descriptive of the Hamitic and Japhetic races turning on the descendents of Shem, the third brother.  No one seriously speaks of Hamitic and Japhetic races.  Is it not time to recognize the absurdity of the Semitic “race” as well?

Even more absurd is the attempt to use such mythological concepts to measure the virtue of the Palestinian cause.  The Palestinian cause has nothing to do with Jews, Semites, anti-Semitism, God, Abraham, Jesus, Mohammed, Moses, Noah, Jacob, Ishmael, Shem, Ham and Japheth, whether you believe in them or not.  It has nothing to do with the Holocaust, colonialism, the Romans, the Byzantines, the Arabs, the Crusaders, the Turks or the British.

It has everything to do with the expulsion of Palestinians from their land and with denial of their right to sovereignty, to self-determination and above all their Right to Return.  It does not matter who expelled them.  It is their land and they have the right to return.  It does not matter who denies their existence.  They have a right to return.

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United Against Scholarship

By Gilad Atzmon

In the last few years we have been witnessing the emergence of a self-gratifying populist culture in the midst of the Palestinian scholarly discourse. Two years ago we watched Ali Abunimah's lecture about ‘culture’ and politics setting a new record of intellectual ignorance.  We then came across  ‘anti’ racist Israel boycott campaigner Omar Barghouti preaching in favour of  biological determinism. This week I came across Columbia Professor Joseph Massad’s Last of the Semites, a talk on Zionism and anti-semitsm the Professor delivered in Stuttgart last month. Unfortunately Massad repeats the exact same pattern.

Watch Massad's Lecture: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqtnY3aYuOo

Let’s us examine  some of Massad’s ideas. Towards the end of his talk Massad concludes that  “whereas Israel insists that European Jews do not belong in Europe and must come to Palestine, the Palestinians have always insisted that the homelands of European Jews were their European countries and not Palestine.” Nice set-up of conflicting views but made up out of whole cloth by Massad.  I can’t think of any Palestinian, including Massad himself, who has been brave enough to boldly suggest to Europeans Jews where they really belong. In fact, the only person who was courageous enough to express such a simple and truthful idea was American hero Helen Thomas. So the next question to ask is who are the ‘Palestinians’ Massad has in mind? Do they exist outside of his solipsistic universe?

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Gilad Atzmon on free speech, self-censorship, and the legacy of George Orwell

Gilad Atzmon on Kevin Barrett's Truth Jihad

http://truthjihadradio.blogspot.com/2013/05/gilad-atzmon-on-free-speech-self.html

Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon, who will be performing tonight in Madison, Wisconsin, says the loss of freedom in today's world is being driven not just by overt power grabs, but by a sort of Orwellian self-censorship that is pervasive on the left.  His latest project is a re-reading of George Orwell - who, Gilad says, saw it all coming.

http://truthjihadradio.blogspot.com/2013/05/gilad-atzmon-on-free-speech-self.html

The Role of the United States in Israel

 

 

By Samir Abed-Rabbo: Zionism

Introduction:

Israeli apologists would like us to believe that Zionism, the political ideology guiding Israeli policies and practices since its establishment of Israel in Palestine in 1948, is God’s chosen national movement for the re-establishment and maintenance of a “Jewish homeland” in “biblical lands”. Moreover, they want us to accept that Zionism is Judaism and that present-day Israel is the Jewish “promised land”. As a religion, Judaism considers the return of Jews to Palestine before the coming of the Messiah a sacrilege.

God has never been involved in real estate transactions; neither has the Bible ever been considered a source of International Law governing relations between modern states nor a reliable source of human history or archeology. If the world were to be re­established according to the Bible, the United States, Europe and most modern states would not exist. Furthermore, there are no eyewitness accounts or scientific evidence linking current Israeli Jews to the ancient Hebrews. Some historians and archeologists even dispute that Jews ever had a significant presence in the area.
 
 

A Brief Analysis:

Israel was established by a European racist and settler colonial ideology through the use of carefully and deliberately fabricated myths. Unlike classical settler colonialism, Zionism and Zionists do not maintain an umbilical cord to a mother European country nor plans to exploit local natives and resources.  Zionism and Zionists argue for close cooperation with disposable surrogate superpower(s), complete control of resources, and the expulsion of the indigenous population, the Palestinians.  Zionism and Zionists claim that Palestine was desolate and the Palestinians never existed. The clear motive behind the myths is to justify the establishment of Israel in Palestine as a Jewish state and the gathering of Jews therein. Myths that are often repeated give ways to delusional mindset. Zionism and Zionists concluded that Palestine will become a home for the Jewish state regardless of the wishes of the Palestinians and in order to achieve this objective, the inhabitants will be ethnically cleansed. There are two main lies that the Zionists regurgitate: Palestine was desolate and there is no such a thing as Palestinians. Was Palestine desolate? Did the Palestinians exist in history?

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Egypt to Gaza; The Gate and The Key

By: Lauren Booth Publication; OnIslam.net

It’s been exactly a year since I was last in Gaza.

In that time another terrible attack has been unleashed by the Israeli military and government on the trapped Palestinian populace.

On my previous visit, months after Egyptians elected the Muslim Brotherhood to power, there was little sign to the visitor of any real easing of the punitive behavior of officials at the Rafah crossing, towards Palestinians, wishing to travel to and from their homeland.

What changes would I see this time?

The team I work with at Peace 2012 stack our boxes of stationary and children’s toys onto trolleys at the dreaded crossing. ‘Dreaded’ because it has for decades been a symbol of the Mubarak regime’s ruthless willingness to carry out the dirty job of persecuting Palestinians at the behest of the Israeli government.

I remember feeling dumbfounded on my first visit to Gaza in 2006.

Read our interview with Lauren Booth during her visit to Cairo, Egypt:

- We’re One Body: Lauren Booth’s Message in Cairo

On hearing Gazan’s mutter bitterly that it was ‘better’ to fall into the hands of the Israeli soldiers, than Mubarak's boot boys. ’You expect things from your enemy but the violence of your brothers - this hurts in another way’ I heard many times.

Outside the Egyptian terminal, the same anarchy as always - a sea of clawing hands grabbing at our cases and boxes. Not to help us, certainly not! The hands here hijack your bags, walk them a hundred paces then menace you into paying as much as 60 US dollars, forcing a loud, near violent exchange, before we give up shouting and empty our wallets - of much much less! Same old, same old!

Laurenbooth222
Instead of a mocking faux interrogation (as in years gone by), today, all is tea and coffee pleasantness. Assurances are given that Palestine is at the heart of every Arab and every Muslim.

I am hoarse with shouting; ‘this is NOT Islam’ to the bemused, couldn’t-care-less, muggers.

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Arch AZZ Greenstein surrendered

By Gilad Atzmon

In the last few weeks we have witnessed more than a few humanists abandoning the Palestinian solidarity sinking dingy.

Veteran BBC celebrity Alan Hart, the person who devoted the last 3 decades to the Palestinian cause and provided us with some spectacular analysis, decided to call it a day. A week later we learned from Haaretz, that Prof’ Norman Finkelstein, possibly one of the most profound academic contributors to the discourse, was also tired of ‘Israeli bashing’. Stuart Littlewood, probably the boldest pro Palestinian writer in Britain, admitted that he is also close to take a similar decision. Hart, Littlewood  and Finkelstein expressed their  dismay for more than a while and their concerns, although varied, have been shared by many, at least in part, including your truly.

But our humanists are not the only one to manifest fatigue.  Even the AZZs are drifting away now. Apparently UK leading tribal operator Tony Greenstein has also given up.

Using his favourite colour (red) to announce his departure yesterday, Tony he wrote on his blog “As Anti-semitism in the Palestine Solidarity Movement has all but vanished the purpose of this blog has become redundant”

This is indeed a sad day. Tony was my favourite cyber stalker and he will be missed. I would love to use the opportunity to not only wish him the best but also to thank him from the bottom of my heart for all the hard work he invested into promoting my work and helping to make The Wandering Who into a best seller.  

Tony makes it pretty clear what led him to his regrettable decision. According to him, the Judeification of the Palestinian Solidarity has been completed. To a certain extent Tony is correct: the actions of UK PSC expelling Palestinians, and monitoring the BDS changing its goal statement in a clandestine manner just to appease the Jews suggest clear Judeification.  Watching Electronic Abunimah and BDS harassing truth tellers in accordance with Biblical Hebraic herem culture is another serious concern.

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Take It From the Rabbi’s Mouth

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon

Every so often we come across a secular Jewish ‘anti’ Zionist’  who argues that Zionism is not Judaism and vice versa. Interestingly enough, I have just come across an invaluable text that illuminates this question from a rabbinical perspective. Apparently back in 1942, 757 American Rabbis added their names to a public pronouncement titled ‘Zionism an Affirmation of Judaism’. This Rabbinical rally for Zionism was declared at the time “the largest public pronouncement in all Jewish history.”

Today, we tend to believe that world Jewry’s transition towards support for Israel followed the 1967 war though some might  argue that already in 1948, American Jews manifested a growing support for Zionism. However, this rabbinical pronouncement proves that as early as 1942, the American Jewish religious establishment was already deeply Zionist. And if this is not enough, the rabbis also regarded Zionism as the ‘implementation’ of Judaism. Seemingly, already then, the peak of World War two, the overwhelming majority of American Rabbis regarded Zionism, not only as fully consistent with Judaism, but as a “logical expression and implementation of it.”

In spite of the fact that early Zionist leaders were largely secular and the East European Jewish settler waves were driven by Jewish socialist ideology, the rabbis contend that “Zionism is not a secularist movement. It has its origins and roots in the authoritative religious texts of Judaism.

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Mideast Masters of Jazz: Gilad Atzmon & Zane Musa Quintet