THE WALL a play by Douglas Watkinson – reviewed by Gilad Atzmon

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The Wall is a thought provoking new play based on Douglas Watkinson’s own experiences. 

At the age of sixty, David visits a British military cemetery in Israel. For the first time in his life he is about to call upon the grave of his father Ralph who was blown up in 1947 at the age of twenty five by the Jewish Stern Gang.

The play is a unique encounter between David, a middle-aged Englishman, and his dead father Ralph, a young English Corporal at the time of the British Mandate. It is a meeting through which we, the audience, can 'witness' six decades of Israeli brutality, through the eyes of a dead British Corporal buried in foreign soil along side thousands of his peers. The play is a cleverly constructed dialogue between a sixty year old son: a man who grew up in post WWII Britain, an indoctrinated gentleman  and a liberated dead father who is free to call things what they actually are.

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Gilad Atzmon: British PM Resigns as patron of the Jewish National Fund

The Guardian reported today that British PM David Cameron has stepped down as a patron of the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in a “move pro-Palestinian campaigners claim is a result of pressure.”

The JNF was originally a Zionist fund set up to buy land in Palestine to establish Jewish settlements before the creation of the state of Israel. Since 1948 it has been operating as a global charity specialising in planting trees over Palestinian stolen land and eradicated villages.

Sofiah Macleod of the UK-based Stop the JNF Campaign told the Guardian that it was  the organisation's lobbying that had led Cameron to withdraw. "There has been a change in public opinion and awareness about Israel's behaviour and there was specific pressure on [Cameron] to step down from the JNF," she said. "

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London Concert: Tahrir Square to Jerusalem

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Amal Murkus joins a host of artists celebrating the work of Juliano Mer Khamis and the power of art in the struggle for freedom. An imaginative production that will transport us from Tahreer Square through Jenin and to the heart of the new Jasmine Revolution sweeping the Arab world (all profits go to the Freedom Theatre in Jenin). 

It’s curfew in Palestine. “The Army surrounds our neighbourhood. I sit on my bed writing a poem, the tank outside my window is probably reading this over my shoulder, I keep writing…” says a poet from Tulkarm.

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Gilad Atzmon: A Warning From The Past

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Netanyahu's successful speech before the American joint houses was an extravaganza of Jewish power: there can be little doubt that as far as American elected politicians are concerned, Benjamin Netanyahu actually appears to be far more popular than even the American president himself.

Yet, you may want to ask yourself -- are Netanyahu and the Jewish State really popular amongst the American people? Do the American people approve of their elected politicians being AIPAC’s puppets? Are the American congressmen and senators serving American interests by aligning themselves so subserviently to AIPAC’s goals -- or are they increasingly  being subjected to pressure from a foreign state’s lobby?

It is all becoming pretty much like watching the way power operates in a totalitarian regime: American politicians are submissively obeying 'the call of Zion' as they stand up and applaud Netanyahu at all the ‘right moments.' And they clearly realise, all too well, that failing to do so would mean immediate political annihilation.

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