Gilad Atzmon: Apropos ‘Peace Talks’

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Needless to mention, I don’t hold my breath for the outcome of the current ‘peace talks’. As I mentioned many times before, Israelis are not interested in peace as they fail to grasp what peace is all about or what it stands for. Shalom, the Hebrew word for peace, is interpreted by Israelis and most Jews as ‘security for the Jews’. Shalom therefore has nothing to do with reconciliation or living amongst others. Shalom is a judeo-centric concept, it conveys an image of hope to one people only. The Israeli Palestinian conflict can never be resolved by a ‘shalom initiative’. Shalom is there to split the land and  separate the people. It is there to deny the Palestinians of their elementary rights such as  the Right of Return.

But let us assume for a second that I am completely wrong in my reading of the Israelis and their cultural and political understandings. Let’s for that purpose look into an imaginary scenario in which an Israeli PM wakes up one sunny morning with the unusual determination to bring about true peace. In the wee small hours, wisdom embraces him or her. He or she realises that Israel is in fact Palestine: it is stretched over historic Palestine at the expense of the Palestinian people, their livelihood and their history. He or she grasps that the Palestinians are the indigenous people of the land, and the rockets they shoot from time to time are nothing but love letters to their stolen villages, orchards, vineyards and fields.

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Monzer Zimmo: Palestinian recognition of Israel, a Jewish state – Why?

http://alcanaanite.wordpress.com/2010/09/07/palestinian-recognition-of-israel-a-jewish-state-why/

Why do Benjamin Netanyahu, Avigdor Lieberman, and other Zionist leaders insist that “without Palestinian recognition that Israel is the state of the Jewish people, there will not be peace”?  They have declared themselves as such.  They enjoy the support of most European nations, United States of America, Canada, Australia, and many other countries in the world that have no problem whatsoever in describing the state of Israel as such.  Many Arab countries – with leaders suffering from near-sighted vision – would have no problem going along with that concept.  Almost every country with significant military, economic, or diplomatic power and influence either fully agrees with the description of the state of Israel as the state of the Jewish people or has no real problem with it.  So, why does the Israeli leadership insist on demanding that recognition from the powerless, penniless Palestinian leadership?

Here are some thoughts in that regard:

Some say that the likes of Netanyahu and Lieberman enjoy humiliating Palestinians.  Insisting on that demand gives the Israeli leadership the opportunity to further add the insult of surrender to the 62-year old injury of the open wound of the Palestinian people.  Gaining such recognition or not is of little relevance.  Continuing to insult the Palestinian people and to humiliate its leadership is what matters to those Israeli leaders; for that is their aphrodisiac.

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Lauren Booth: An Al Quds day letter to Tony Blair. From Lauren Booth, in Iran.

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Gilad Atzmon: I guess that Tony Blair’s  sister in law, Lauren Booth, could easily use the phone and tell Tony what she thinks of him, his politics and his new memoir. However, being a peace activist she decided also to share it with the rest of us.  

An Al Quds day letter to Tony Blair. From Lauren Booth, in Iran.

By Lauren Booth
3 September 2010


Dear Tony,

Congratulations on your political memoir becoming an instant bestseller. I’m in Iran and have the only copy in the country.  I can tell you, its so fiercely fought over, it’s worth its weight in WMD’s. Note to Random House; have ‘A Journey’ translated into Farsi and Arabic asap, it’ll fly off the shelves in this part of the world.
Tony, yesterday I went the Al Quds day protest in Tehran. You may have heard of it? It’s the rally where Iranians gather to protest against Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, including the Holy city of Jerusalem.

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Gilad Atzmon: Bloody Memoir

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Tony Blair, a man who launched a criminal war with no end, declared once again today that “Radical Islam is the world's greatest threat”

He made the remark in a BBC interview marking the publication of his memoirs.

Mr Blair said radical Islamists believed that whatever was done in the name of their cause was justified - including the use of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons.

I can’t make up my mind whether Blair’s remark is amusing or tragic for not a single  Islamic leader has ever used “chemical, biological or nuclear weapons”. If anything it is Britain and the USA who deployed weaponry that contained depleted uranium. A recent  study reveals that the Cancer rate in Fallujah, Iraq is worse than Hiroshima or Nagasaki.

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James Petras:The State and Local Bases of Zionist Power in America


Introduction
    Any serious effort to understand the extraordinary influence of the Zionist power configuration over US foreign policy must examine the presence of key operatives in strategic positions in the government and the activities of local Zionist organizations affiliated with mainstream Jewish organizations and religious orders.
    There are at least 52 major American Jewish organizations actively engaged in promoting Israel’s foreign policy, economic and technological agenda in the US (see the appendix).  The grassroots membership ranges from several hundred thousand militants in the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) to one hundred thousand wealthy contributors, activists and power brokers in the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).  In addition scores of propaganda mills, dubbed think tanks, have been established by million dollar grants from billionaire Zionists including the Brookings Institute (Haim Saban) and the Hudson Institute among others.  Scores of Zionist funded political action committees (PAC) have intervened in all national and regional elections, controlling nominations and influencing election outcomes.  Publishing houses, including university presses have been literally taken over by Zionist zealots, the most egregious example being Yale University, which publishes the most unbalanced tracts parroting Zionist parodies of Jewish history (Financial Times book review section August 28/29 2010).  New heavily funded Zionist projects designed to capture young Jews and turn them into instruments of Israeli foreign policy includes “Taglit-Birthright” which has spent over $250 million dollars over the past decade sending over a quarter-million Jews (between 18-26) to Israel for 10 days of intense brainwashing (Boston Globe August 26, 2010).  Jewish billionaires and the Israeli state foot the bill.  The students are subject to a heavy dose of Israeli style militarism as they are accompanied by Israeli soldiers as part of their indoctrination; at no point do they visit the West Bank, Gaza or East Jerusalem (Boston Globe August 26, 2010).  They are urged to become dual citizens and even encouraged to serve in the Israeli armed forces.  In summary the 52 member organizations of the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations which we discuss are only the tip of the iceberg of the Zionist Power Configuration:  taken together with the PACs, the propaganda mills, the commercial and University presses and mass media we have a matrix of power for understanding the tremendous influence they have on US foreign and domestic policy as it affects Israel and US Zionism.
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Gilad Atzmon: The Lowest of the Low

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Millions of ballot papers have been sent out yesterday to those eligible to vote in the Labour leadership election. Symbolically enough, this happened the day Tony Blair, the British PM who launched the criminal war in Iraq, published his controversial memoirs.

I am not holding my breath for the Labour party to make the right decision. Clearly, the same party failed to curtail Blair’s militant enthusiasm, even when it was plainly clear that the argument for the Iraq war was grounded in a dodgy dossier.

Considering the scale of the atrocities we are all complicit in thanks to the Labour government, it is my duty to remind the Labour party members who their leading candidate is, what he stands for and what interests he may serve.

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All That Jazz-an interview with Chema Garcia Martinez

Last week ahead of my Ibiza Jazz Festival's concert  I had a short email  exchange with  Spanish writer Chema Garcia Martinez (El Pais). We discussed topics to do with  Jazz,Culture,  USA, Palestine, Israel and  Jewish identity. I guess that the followers of my writing  and music may find it interesting. 

update:

To read Chema's article on El Pais

 

Q: Is there any reason to keep on playin´ jazz in 2010?

GA: I don’t play Jazz for a ‘particular reason’; I am not committed to this form of music ideologically or religiously. I just love it. I am entertained by the idea of reinventing myself on a daily basis and Jazz allows it to happen. However, the collapse of the music industry allows us to look at music in broader terms. While in the past we had to play within a defined style just to make sure that the record company knows how to shelve it in the record shop and in the market place, nowadays the boundaries are disappearing. At last we are free.

Q: What does the word “jazz” mean for you?

GA: Jazz is innovation, it isn’t just beauty, it is beauty in its making. Jazz is freedom. It is freedom to think and the freedom to express. Jazz is a celebration of one’s symptoms. For me Jazz is the ultimate art form. Yet I hear Jazz in Bach and even Palestrina, I can read Jazz in poetry, in visual art and architecture. Jazz is the attempt to constantly define and re-define the notion of itself. From that perspective Jazz is similar to philosophy. For philosophy is also engaged in an attempt to redefine itself through the act of philosophizing.

Q: Is it necessary for a jazz musician in 2010 to play in the US?

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I love his directness.

Here are a few words by Ken O'keefe, a solidarity hero: a man who embodies the true spirit of resistance.

 

You are among the conscious minority who can see amid the collective insanity of the masses who are blind.

You have a heart and you use it for so much more then the simple necessity of pumping of blood.

You are truly blessed yet this blessing is often lost in the illusions of popular culture.

You have been given the greatest gifts of all, the gifts of life & humanity… and you are wise enough to exercise and nurture them.

You are often ignored or vilified or imprisoned or worse, yet you are who you are, you are human.

You are the conspirator and co-creator of a better world, a just and peaceful world.

You are the ancestor of those yet unborn.

You are my brother, my sister, my family, and we are one.

We are Truth, we are Justice, we are Peace,

And we are indomitable!

Ken O'keefe

One Democratic State in Palestine

Introduction by Gilad Atzmon: 

Living in a world dominated by relentless Zionist lobbying, I am far from being captivated by the current state of Western democracy. I am not impressed at all by the lethal enthusiasm to democratize the World in the name of ‘moral interventionism’. I am sickened by the murderous zeal that led the USA and Britain into a criminal war that left already more than 1.5 million Iraqi fatalities….

And yet, democracy can also be a genuine universal call. As it happens, it is the Palestinians who are teaching us what democracy is all about, what it stands for and why we favoured it in the first place. Read the Declaration of the Movement for One Democratic State (ODS) in Palestine. I assume that moral interventionists better visit the ODS conference in October so they gather that democracy is actually a humanist call.

Instead of an ethno-centric exclusive ‘Jews only democracy’ we are talking here about an inclusive multi ethnic state of its citizens.

For more information: http://www.onedemocraticstate.com/

Declaration of the Movement for One Democratic State in Palestine

Vision of the Movement 

1. The entire territory of Palestine between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River is one country that belongs to all its citizens including all those who live there and all those who were expelled over the past century and their descendants. The country shall be constituted as an independent sovereign State in which all citizens enjoy equal rights and all can live in freedom and security.

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An open letter to Israel From: Lauren Booth, UK

“This morning I set out to write a piece about the looting of the aid Flotilla to Gaza, by your soldiers. As you may have read, an Israel Defense Forces officer, has been remanded by a military court, suspected of stealing laptop computers from passengers. Interestingly, Haretz newspaper, now refers to the fleet as an ‘aid flotilla.’ Which it was. Rather than the ‘terror’ fleet your leaders would have had you call it.  But I digress.
So,  there I was, all ready to write my piece, when I came across an article on ynetnews. It sought to spell out the shock perhaps felt by some about the looted goods. A senior Israel Defense Forces officer said of the flotilla thefts: ‘there must be a serious problem in the IDF in terms of values." 
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Gilad Atzmon: United Against Knowledge

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The Guardian reported today that two Israeli groups have set up training courses in  subversive Wikipedia editing aiming  to 'show the other side' of the Jewish State.

Those who lend their pen to the Palestinian cause know about Wikipedia Jews, a term that was coined a few years ago. It refers to a bunch of rabid and crypto Zionists who constantly vandalise encyclopaedia entries to do with Palestine, Palestinian activists and Israeli atrocities.

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Gilad Atzmon: BBC Panorama, An Exemplary Work of Clumsy Journalism

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BBC’s Panorama failed yesterday in its attempt to cover the Israeli Massacre on the Mavi Marmara. 'Death on the Med' is an exemplary work of clumsy journalism. It broadcasted video footage stolen  from peace activists on board. It repeated Neocon terminology by referring to Islamic driven political activism as 'Islamism'. It promised to provide some new evidence. But, instead, it recycled footage presented by the Israeli military that has long since been proven (and admitted as) faked.  

To Watch BBC Panorama;

Pt 1 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXrzF0IOQYE


 

Pt 2 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nfo91FQVr7M

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Gilad Atzmon: United Against Paintings

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Some British Jews are desperate to stop the truth about the Jewish state being spread around.  The Jewish Chronicle reported today that Jewish  “Community leaders are battling to stop an exhibition of paintings by children from Gaza being shown in schools in the North of England.”

Jewish campaigners say they have “no objection to the paintings, but have reacted with anger at a series of talks given to accompany them.”

The man behind the exhibition and the talks is  Rod Cox, 62,  who visited Gaza and the West Bank a few times in recent years.  The exhibition, Loss Of Innocence, has been on tour since September, visiting universities, town halls and, most recently, Manchester Cathedral. It was taken to a Quaker venue in Marple, Stockport, on Monday evening and plans are under way to take it to schools in the north west.

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Gilad Atzmon: The Jewish Division

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I guess it shouldn’t take us by surprise that the Israeli flag has become a common feature at the ultra nationalist English Defence League's (EDL) demonstrations and gatherings.

The EDL calls for taking action against the "Islamization of Britain" and “Muslim fundamentalists”. It is a magnet for extremist right-wing activists and is driven by  xenophobia and ethno centrism. Recently the organisation gained an ‘important’ addition to its coalition of hatred. It is called the "The EDL Jewish division." According to the Jewish Chronicle “hundreds of (Jewish) followers” joined immediately. Supporters include an ex-Community Security Trust volunteer who claims "a lot of Jewish guys want to get stuck in". Another follower wrote on Facebook "we are all Shayetet 13", the barbarian Israeli Navy commando unit that was directly responsible for the massacre and executions on the Mavi Marmara. It is also notable that this Jewish bloodthirsty ‘patriot’ didn’t say ‘we are all SAS, British Navy or RAF’. He for some reason preferred to affiliate himself with a foreign Navy, a Navy unit that fights Jewish wars rather than so-called British ones.

I guess that the English Defence League's leaders are not aware of the fact that their ‘Jewish Division’ is there to exploit the new organization.

Roberta Moore, a prominent persona within the Jewish Division admitted this week to the Israeli Haaretz that it is “actually the Jewish Division that exploits the EDL.”*

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In Loving Memory of Abu Obeida

Abu Obeida  was murdered two days ago in Houston Texas. I lost a friend. Palestine lost one of its best activists ever.

Obeida was a successful Palestinian business man. He organized and funded some very important solidarity activities in the USA and beyond. Obeida was a key element within the American Al-Awada movement.   I met Abu twice  last year. I learned a lot from the man.  I am going to miss him, we are all going to miss this incredible human being. We are all going to pray for Abu.

Gilad

 

 

Update:

The US Palestinian Community Network mourns Abu Obeida Omran, from the village of Burin


 
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We Need Your Vote!!!

Director: Dima Hamdan | Genre: Drama | Produced In: 2009

Synopsis: Gaza 2009. A massive Israeli assault is underway on Gaza. Mahmoud is in London, his mother is trapped in Gaza, and he is desperately waiting for her to call. He agrees to take part in a radio program about Gaza, but the producers take away his mobile. For the next few minutes, he has to endure listeners' questions, and a surprise guest who will reveal what has become of his mother. "Gaza-London" is an intimate portrayal of the helplessness and frustration many Palestinians felt as they watched from a distance while their loved ones lived the nightmare

Dima Hamdan's latest short film  Gaza-London is competing on the Culture Unplugged online festival, we need as many people as possible to see the film, vote for it (i.e: rate it) and post a good comment.

http://www.cultureunplugged.com/play/3465/Gaza-London

Dima is a  brilliant Palestinian  film maker.

In case you wonder, the music (soundtrack)  is mine.

Thanks for your support

Gilad