Gilad Atzmon on Egaliteet Reconciliation
Introduction by GA: I believe that the following is a very interesting interview. Very intelligent questions. I touch upon multiculturalism, patriotism, nationalism, Jewish Left and Progressive spin. I also refer to future Palestinian solidarity in the light of growing Liberal Zionist intervention.
Gilad Atzmon on Egaliteet Reconciliation
E&R: Your last album, « Songs of the Metropolis, » seems to be a rejection of multiculturalism, yet you are often seen as a symbol of multiculturalism. Do you agree with the above and if so, how do you experience what could be seen by some as a contradiction?
GA: I totally agree. I am hailed as the victorious emblem of multiculturalism and yet, from my very early days as an artist I have been critical of multiculturalism, which I see as an attempt to flatten differences, creating a fictitious and phantasmic image of equality. I instead believe that differences must be celebrated. It is the variety, the inaccessibility and foreignness that make the human landscape into a cheerful event. Instead of us reacting to different forms of self-censorship á la political correctness, we better delve into the real meaning of being in the world, ethical thinking and true tolerance, while celebrating differences
E&R: When you decided to leave Israel for good, as a jazz artist, I guess the first destinations of your choice were probably New York, London or maybe even Paris; what made you choose London over the others?
GA: At the time I decided actually to take a break from music. I was determined to spend some quality time reading philosophy. I had to choose between Chicago, London and Berlin. Chicago was windy, Berlin was too exciting and London in the early 1990s looked like a decaying extended village. It was calm and friendly. It was a very smart choice to come over.
E&R: How do you manage in your everyday life in London to be one of the most fervent opponent of Jewish power? Do you encounter a lot of troubles?
GA: For sure, I am harassed daily by tribal operators, mainly Jewish ‘anti’ Zionists, i.e., Anti-Zionist Zionists (AZZ). But I learned to love it: the fact that they chase me 24/7 only proves that I touched the raw nerve. In fact, I am probably the only person to touch Jewish identity politics in such a manner since Bernard Lazare. I understand their despair, I formed an anti-racist method to encounter Jewish secular supremacy and Jewish progressive racism in particular.
E&R: What can you tell us about the state of freedom of speech in Britain?
GA: I am pretty troubled by what I see. But rereading Orwell’s "1984" recently helped me to grasp that it is actually the so-called left that is, unfortunately, responsible for the vast deterioration of our most precious liberties. It can be easily explained – the progressive stance is, at large, a form of secular chosenness; it is righteous, yet, it also entails that someone else must be ‘reactionary’. Progressiveness is basically a supremacist discourse, and supremacy is always intolerant.
The Staggering Cost of Israel to Americans (read it & spread it!)
Israel has a population of approximately 7.7 million, or a million fewer than the state of New Jersey. It is among the world's most affluent nations, with a per capita income similar to that of the European Union.[1] Israel's unemployment rate of 6.3% is much better than America's 8.2%,[2] and Israel's net trade, earnings, and payments is ranked 146th in the world while the US sits at a dismal 193rd.[3]
Yet, Israel receives more of America’s foreign aid budget than any other nation.[4] The US has, in fact, given more aid to Israel than it has to all the countries of sub-Saharan Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean combined—which have a total population of over a billion people.[5]
And foreign aid is just one component of the staggering cost of our alliance with Israel.
Given the tremendous costs, it is critical to examine why we lavish so much aid on Israel, and whether it is worth Americans' hard-earned tax dollars. But first, let's take a look at what our alliance with Israel truly costs.
Before the Iraq War in 2003
Direct Foreign Aid
According to the Congressional Research Service , the amount of official US aid to Israel since its founding in 1948 tops $115 billion, and in the past few decades it has been on the order of $3 billion per year.[6] (In 2013, for example, this amounted to over $8.5 million every single day.)
But this money is only part of the story. For one thing, Israel gets all of its aid money at the start of each year, rather than in quarterly installments like other countries.[7] This is significant: It means that Israel can start earning interest on the money right away – interest paid by the US since Israel invests these funds in US Treasury notes. In addition, because the US government operates at a deficit, it must borrow money in order to give it to Israel and then pay interest on it all year. Together these cost US taxpayers more than $100 million every year.
Israel is also the only recipient of US military aid that is allowed to use a significant portion annually to purchase products made by Israeli companies instead of US companies. (The costs to Americans caused by this unique perk are discussed below.)
In Bed With Bibi
By Gilad Atzmon
Once again we see a familiar pattern: our united 'progressives' -- a veritable synagogue, a collective of great humanists -- lend their support to the oppressed. This time it is the ‘Syrian people’ whom they wish to liberate and their enemy is obviously Bashar Al-Asad.
It is a pattern we know only too well by now. Ahead of the ‘War Against Terror’ we witnessed years of intensive progressive Feminist and Gay’s rights groups campaigns for women’s rights in Afghanistan. The Progressive type also disapproves of the current state of the Iranian revolution. Too often he or she would insist that we must liberate the Iranians. This week, once again, we see a united front made by Tariq Ali, Ilan Pappe, Fredric Jameson, Norman Finkelstein and other very good people. They clearly want us to ‘liberate the Syrians’.
A Very Important Project!!! They Need your support.
New Routes: Photostories from young people across Gaza
A collaborative project with young people across Gaza to create photostories and hold exhibitions in Palestine and the UK.
This is not simply about getting young people in Gaza to take photos but enabling them to apply multiple layers of meaning to those photographs and thereby their surroundings.
New Routes is a photostory project that will explore the lives of young people across the Gaza Strip. This project will collaborate with young people and enable them to create stories of their everyday routes and endeavors. In other contexts this type of approach has helped highlight undocumented issues, break stereotypes, and reveal new routes forward.
Through a series of workshops young people will generate their own themes, learn composition skills, and write narratives to accompany their photographs. The project aims to work with six diverse groups each containing between ten and fifteen young people. Results from the different workshops will be put together in an exhibition in Gaza and the UK.
I designed this project in response to a ‘knowledge transfer’ initiative launched by a group of Palestinians living in Southampton and civil society groups in Gaza. The creative process is punctuated with the exhibition and in subsequent dialogue generated by the photostories.
A brilliant team of volunteers has already spent many hours advising, creating, and designing material for use in publicity and workshops. The necessary permissions to access Gaza have been granted and we will arrive in June. All that is now required are the funds for equipment and materials.
Welcome To The Jewnited Kingdom
THE EXILING OF MY FILM , “EXILE A MYTH UNEARTHED”, IN THE BBC
By Ilan Ziv
As some of you know, my film EXILE, A MYTH UNEARTHED, which examines the myth of the Jewish EXILE and its political impact on both Israeli Jews and Palestinians in the Middle East, was going to be shown on the BBC Thursday April 25th. It was pulled out of the schedule only a few days earlier.
Since than I was flooded by dozens of emails of angry and concerned viewers asking what happened. To be honest I debated whether to tell the story of what I think had happened. I have worked with the BBC in the past on some programs that were deemed controversial and I never had any political censorship. On the contrary I was impressed by the integrity and fairness of the people I dealt with.
So based on my past experience, I was going to wait patiently until the BBC programming executives would solve the internal drama that apparently has begun to brew inside the BBC. “The film is gorgeous, courageous and fresh, “ I was told several times by the programming executives. I was promised that the cancellation was temporary: “Given the short timescale and your workload, we have decided to delay transmission until we’ve had the chance you’ve had the chance to go through it in detail”.
I naively believed and decided to wait quietly. But things have their own momentum and as I learned more, I realized that the story of “EXILE” in the BBC is far more complex.
On FRIDAY - CAFE PALESTINE Vs. FREIBURG UNIVERSITY
On FRIDAY: CAFE PALESTINE FREIBURG e. V. versus THE UNIVERSITY OF FREIBURG before the ADMINISTRATIVE COURT FREIBURG
On Friday, 3 May 2013 at 09:30 a.m. the Administrative Court in the German city of Freiburg will hear Cafe Palestine Freiburg e.V.'s application against Freiburg University. This application has been filed in order to expose the University’s discriminatory action against Cafe Palestine Association. We are going to point at Freiburg University's impartiality, its attitude towards freedom of speech, ethics and the Palestinian plight. We will provide the court with gross evidence of double standards, false accusations and defamation on the University’s part.
We would like to thank all our supporters who wrote protest letters to the University, comments and who posted our case on their websites. Your support gives us hope and strength to continue this battle.
Cafe Palestine Freiburg e. V.
Apologists for Israel take top posts at BBC
Apologists for Israel take top posts at BBC
http://21stcenturysocialism.com/
Tony Hall, whose role as director-general commenced on 2 April, is a former BBC director of news and can boast a total of nearly 30 years working at the corporation. As such, he is well-versed in the BBC’s values — he knows what the BBC wants.
Soon after his own appointment, Hall named James Harding as the BBC’s new director of news and current affairs. Until December, Harding was editor of The Times, an avowedly right-wing, pro-Israeli paper owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News International group.
In 2011, Harding spoke at a media event organized by The Jewish Chronicle, telling his audience: “I am pro-Israel. I believe in the State of Israel. I would have had a real problem if I had been coming to a paper [The Times] with a history of being anti-Israel. And, of course, Rupert Murdoch is pro-Israel.”
Glee
The strongly Zionist Jewish Chronicle reprinted those words with glee as news of Harding’s BBC appointment broke. And it also took the opportunity to remind its readers that, during the Israeli massacre in Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009, when more than 1,400 Palestinians were slaughtered, Harding wrote a Times editorial titled, 'In defense of Israel'.
Now bringing his pro-Israel biases into the top ranks of the BBC, Harding will be in charge of its flagship news and current affairs programs including Today, Newsnight, Panorama and Question Time. He will also be responsible for daily news bulletins on the BBC’s main television channels and radio stations.
According to the Guardian, Harding now holds “arguably the most important editorial job in Britain”.
The news of his appointment to the £340,000 ($518,000) per year post comes just a fortnight after the former Labour Party minister James Purnell took up his new position at the BBC as director of strategy and digital.
Purnell, who was one of Hall’s first appointments, served for two years while in Parliament as chairman of the Westminster lobby group Labour Friends of Israel. Hugely influential, Labour Friends of Israel has drawn support from senior figures within the party, including the former prime ministers Tony Blair and Gordon Brown.
ESPECIAL ANNUR NOTICIAS:Gilad Atzmon en Argentina - Part 2
I believe this is very important interview. I am talking about the phantasmic nature of the the Jewish past, Shlomo Sand, the Exile, the Holocaust. Yet, one question remains open, why Jews face so many Shaos? I argue that Jewish historians always fail, they look onto particularities but turn blind eye to essentiality and the grand narrative. Time is ripe to deal with true meaning of Jewish identity politics. If Israel is the Jewish State, we must ask what this title entails.
The Wandering Who? A Study Of Jewish Identity Politics and Jewish Left's spin particular Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk
IDF trains dogs to attack Muslims
MK Ahmad Tibi - IDF soldiers train dogs to attack any Arab who says "Allah Akbar!"
Look at this
and this
Italy (mini Tour) next week
Gilad Atzmon: tour italiano a maggio
http://ap0ti.blogspot.co.uk/2013/03/gilad-atzmon-tour-italiano-maggio.html
Ecco le date del tour italiano di Gilad Atzmon. Vi invitiamo a visitare regolarmente questa pagina per aggiornamenti.
06/05/13: Trieste - bookstore/cafe Knulp, via madonna del mare 7/a: presentazione del libro L'errante Chi? prima del concerto (duo con il pianista Angelo Comisso) - ENTRATA LIBERA
07/05/13: Venezia - Università Ca' Foscari, Teatro ai Frari; presentazione del libro L'errante Chi? alle 16:00 con il professor Luigi Vero Tarca; concerto a seguire (con il pianista Angelo Comisso) - ENTRATA LIBERA
08/05/13: Chiavari - Modà-Cafè, via Rivarolo 44 (Centro Storico): trio con Max Rolff & Enzo Zirilli - Clicca qui per maggiori informazioni
10/05/13: Torino - Folk Club, trio con Max Rolff & Enzo Zirilli
Prevendita biglietti (a breve) sul sito Maison Musique; tel. +39 011 95.61.782 - Fax +39 011 95.54.546. E-mail: info@maisonmusique.it
11/05/13: Genova - presentazione L'errante Chi? nel pomeriggio, alla libreria Books in the Casba, vico del fieno 40r. Concerto al Count Basie, vico Tana, 20r: trio con Max Rolff & Enzo Zirilli - Clicca qui per maggiori informazioni
Pappe's Discomfort
By Gilad Atzmon
Ilan Pappe is an important voice. One of those courageous historians, brave enough to open the Pandora box of 1948. Back in the 1990s Pappe, amongst a few other Israeli post-Zionists, reminded Israelis of their original sin - the orchestrated, racially-driven ethnic cleansing of the indigenous people of Palestine - the Nakba.
But like many historians, Pappe, though familiar with the facts of history, seems either unable to grasp or reluctant to address the ideological and cultural meaning of those facts.
In his recent article, When Israeli Denial of Palestinian Existence Becomes Genocidal, Pappe attempts to explain the ongoing Israeli dismissal of the Palestinian plight. Like Shlomo Sand, Pappe points out that Israeli President Shimon Peres’ take on history is a “fabricated narrative.”
So far so good, but Pappe then misses the point. For some reason, he believes that Peres’ denial of the Palestinian’s suffering is a result of a ‘cognitive dissonance.’ i.e. a discomfort experienced when two or more conflicting ideas, values or beliefs are held at the same time.
But what are those conflicting ideas or values upheld by Israelis and their President which cause them so much ‘discomfort’? Pappe does not tell us. Nor does he explain how Peres has sustained such ‘discomfort’ for more than six decades. Now, I agree that Peres, Netanyahu and many Israelis often exhibit clear psychotic symptoms, but one thing I cannot detect in Peres’ utterances or behavior is any ‘discomfort’.
I obviously believe that Pappe is wrong here – expulsion, ethnic cleansing as well as the ongoing abuse of human right in Palestine, are actually consistent with Jewish nationalist supremacist culture and also with a strict interpretation of Jewish Biblical heritage.
Jüdische Allgemeine Exposed By Evelyn Hecht-Galinski
Introduction by GA: In the following article, German author and commentator Evelyn Hecht-
Galinski exposes Jonathan Scheiner and the Jüdische Allgemeine as Hasbara operators.
Jüdische Allgemeine Exposed
By Evelyn Hecht-Galinski
(Translated by Elisabeth Lauck-Ndayi)
Yet again we have evidence of how the Jüdische Allgemeine (JA) deals with any criticism of Israel. In JA on April 4th, 2013 you can find a peculiar article titled “Self-hatred and Saxophone“(1), writhen by Jonathan Scheiner.
Scheiner’s article consists of false accusations that indicate that not only has he failed to consider Gilad Atzmon`s writings on music, politics and philosophy but that he also has probably not read Gilad Atzmon`s book. So straightaway, let me recommend each reader and interested person read Gilad Atzmon’s new book: “The Wandering Who”, published in 2012 by Zambon Verlag.
In the first paragraph Scheiner writes “Gilad Atzmon is yet to be denied an entry permit to Germany“ and only then does he mention Atzmon’s current European jazz tour. This alone reveals Scheiner’s true face. Is it not the Israeli regime that punishes critics of Israel with the denial of an entry permit? Think of Noam Chomsky, Norman Finkelstein or even Gilad Atzmon - all denied entry to Israel. Is there any other lobby except the Jewish one which creates such ‘shit lists’ against its critics?
Jonathan Scheiner admits that Gilad Atzmon is an exceptional saxophonist, one of the greatest jazz artists of our time and that it is no surprise that Atzmon’s current world tour, as he travels from Argentina to Germany with his Orient House Ensemble, is indeed very successful, ..
But after the praise for the genius musician comes the usual poison - a totally misleading comparison between Atzmon and Richard Wagner - an attempt to equate Wagner’s loathing of Jews with Atzmon’s loathing of Zionism and Jewish politics. .
So, let us ask ourselves why Gilad Athmon lives in exile in London and why he criticizes Israel. Did he not experience events during the first Lebanon War that opened his eyes and made him a harsh critic of Israel? So would it not have been terrible if, after all he had witnessed, Gilad did not act as he does? Do not all us critics of Zionism and Israel reflect on our experience and draw a lesson from it? Scheiner writes, “His anti-zionism rather often turns to ordinary hatred of Jews.” Here, Scheiner clearly positions himself at the forefront of Hasbara as, in the usual way, he conflates and confuses terms like ‘anti-Zionism’, ‘antisemitism’ and now even the new notion of “hatred of Jews“. And this false portrayal is made deliberately in an effort to silence Israel’s critics. Once again, the JA is proved to be Israel’s “Stürmer”.
Silvia Cattori With Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon: “With true music I want to go back to those kinds of unique feelings of authenticity”
.23 April 2013
Silvia Cattori: Is your new album Song of Metropolis different from previous projects?
Gilad Atzmon: To start with, I have been touring with the Orient House Ensemble for more than 12 years. Until now our music was an attempt to integrate the oriental sound into Jazz and vice versa. Songs Of The Metropolis is a completely different project; it is an attempt to find the sound, the colors that remind us what home is all about.
In the last three decades we have been invaded by globalism, by big monopolies, those who tell us what car to drive, what music to listen to, what clothes to wear, and I am really tired of it all.
We have seen too many people who rather than exploring their authentic self, they for some reason prefer to identify with one sort of margin or another. They speak ‘as a Jew’, ‘as a black’, ‘as a gay’, ‘as a woman’, ‘as a musician’. Rather than thinking for themselves, they prefer to identify with something else. I really thought that music is the way to knock it down; to try to remind you of the colors that make you (as yourself) cry, make you feel, make you love, make you hate; every city in Europe has a bell, a unique bell. If you travel a thousand miles but suddenly you hear the bell of the church of your home town you feel like home, you are at home. That is what I try to do. I try to bring to light different bells. Look at us, I am here with you having breakfast in Thalwil [village in the German part of Switzerland], and everything we eat here is from here; and if I do a blind test when I am in America, you put Gruyere cheese on my plate it would feel for me like Switzerland.
I want to celebrate authenticity; not to be afraid of patriotism; not to be afraid of national feelings; to learn how to celebrate nationalism but not at the expense of anyone else. The problem that we have with nationalism is that many times in the past it has been celebrated on others’ expense. Zionism was celebrated at the expense of the Palestinians. Nazism was celebrated at the expense of the rest of Europe. But at the moment this is not unique to nationalism. Because when we look at liberal democracies such as America and Britain we see a clear repetition of the same pattern. They are clearly celebrating their symptoms at the expense of the entire Arab world.
With music and beauty I want to go back to that kind of unique feeling of authenticity. However, it is not very simple; I play a tune from Buenos Aires and I am not Argentinean. I play a tune from Berlin and I’m not German. I am under an imminent danger of becoming a Zelig. This in itself is a clear Jewish phobia that I have to deal with. I believe that my humor is there to rescue me when I surf too close to the wind. You witnessed it yesterday; people are really having a great time listening to this music. It is a lot of fun to watch.
In Germany a lot of people complained about my Berlin tune. They say: “How is it possible that you gave Argentina ten minutes and for us you give just two”. They say that it is kind of Germanism, they complain that I reduce Germany into a Weimar cabaret. And they are actually correct. For some reason this is how I connect with the ‘German sound’. Interestingly enough, the people who produced that type of Weimar Cabaret were largely Jewish. There must be a subconscious bond here that I myself fail to grasp yet. After all, I was a Jew for the first 30 years of my life.