Harry's Place

Stupid is as stupid does.

Ooppppss! I screwed up. I thought I was a victim but apparently its suicide.

As you ask… The Cambridge Forum is one of the least offensive, least contenscious progressive groupings you might come across normally. It is essentially a monthly meeting with some left/liberal topic – quite often on an environmental theme. The last controversy it had was a couple of years ago when it basically had a pro-nuclear environmentalist speak about climate change… and it’s stretching it to really call that a controversy.

It’s not a campaign group or part of a political party – and generally seems to set speakers by who’s willing to organise one (although this may have changed recently, don’t know)

However the Atzmon thing is different and I’ve had quite few conversations with people in Cambridge before the debate about it – personally I didn’t go (but I haven’t been for some time so shouldn’t be seen as a boycott as such) but I know a number of people were worried about the fact he was due to speak. I had more than one distressed phone call on the theme, although I can’t speak to how well he went down on the night.

One last thing just noticed this in the text: “Clearly, and this must be said, Jews are not necessarily Zionists. They can also be… ordinary human beings” Wow! Jews? Human beings! That’s amazing.

That’s quite a big admission …

I recommend reading Norman Geras on Shaw. He simply shreds him. Great stuff.

Jim Jay, thanks for your info on The Cambridge Forum.

http://www.cambridgeforum.org/cfweb/cfschedule.html

Looking into it, I cannot believe that they (a) they hosted Gilad Atzmon at all, and (b) they let him get away with the crap that he came out with.

Check this one out:

“Interestingly enough, Michael Howard, the ex-Tory leader, though being a Jew, never had come across as a Zionist or a Jewish tribal operator. He was a proud Jew, he would even pepper his political arguments with some Yiddish family tales and the odd misery schmaltz, however, as a political leader he went beyond it all. He was an ordinary man like many other Brits. It never appeared as if he was about to sacrifice the interests of Britain to serve some foreign tribal interests. Blair, on the other hand, is not a Jew, but he consciously sacrificed the interests of Britain while being financed by Levy and his proxy tycoons. Bush did the same by implementing the mantra of his Greenspans and Wolfowitzes.”

The Cambridge Forum seems a worthy, serious-minded affair. It records its speakers for public radio broadcast. Did they really broadcast Atzmon’s speech? Unbelievable.

Would you follow up with the Cambridge Forum and let me know who I can talk to about this event?

Davidt.harryblog@gmail.com

Oxford:

Do you have a link?

Nice to see that the greatest economic turmoil in three generations hasn’t affected this blog’s focus on the all-important issue of demonizing insignificant idiots like Atzmon or laying into the dullard Trots of the SWP. Perhaps one day this wannabe, piss-poor excuse for a tabloid muck-raker will actually attempt to become what it claims to be, a forum for political discussion. We can live in hope, not the least that its regular contributors will receive the urgent medical help they so obviously need for the online OCD.

This is outrageous – isn’t this the 21st century?

I feel, reading this, as though I’ve stepped backwards in time, into the Dark Ages, into the worst days just before WWII – when once again, even the so-called intelligentsia were openly antisemitic.

In combination with other article posted here, about the extremists and the British MP’s, and of course our own dear Jesse Jackson, and of course the horrific UN – where people applaud the Hitlerian Ahmadijenad – this is not something that can be lightly ignored or brushed aside as unimportant fringe blather anymore. It’s becoming mainstream.

There’s another aspect to this kind of hate and it’s showing up here in the US, in the form of mob incitement by the McCain campaign. Up until recently one would have said the far left blogosphere was the site of the worst bigotry and irrationality – of course they often unknowingly overlap with the equally awful far right, like the KKK and Stormfront. One theoretically leftist “artist” portrays Jews morphing into Hitler and he too appears to be pushing the idea that the US, including its economy, is controlled by Jewish power – a classically far right wing concept. Unfortunately his work appears on theoretically progressive websites.

Recent news clips have shown angry, guttural mobs growling epiteths about Senator Obama, it’s a picture of irrational raw hate and ignorance that chills my blood. People in one clip angrily demand that Palin and McCain stop the “socialist”, in others Sarah Palin accuses Obama of “palling around with terrorists,” he is introduced as “Barack Hussein Obama,” as though his middle name were a curse – and there have been open threats against his life, shouted from the crowd.

I don’t care if you are a Democrat or a Republican, if you a thoughtful human being this should scare you. It should be openly condemned.

And meanwhile, I’ve got to ask our British cousins – good lord – how did it get this far?

Recent news clips have shown angry, guttural mobs growling epiteths about Senator Obama

No they haven’t, recent clips have shown just one person, at one rally, being a jerk. A jerk who has been roundly condemned for his bigotry by supporters of McCain.

The “mobs” you speak of were made up by the likes of Daily Kos and you are simply parroting what you have read there. You readily accept the wet-dream nightmares of these liberal bigots because they fit your own prejudices to a “T”.

Yeeeeeah. I’m sure many of us here have been waiting for the antisemitic explanations of the current financial state to trickle through to the average twat. Thing is it’s not too small a deal Dawn Chorus cos this stuff gets into the consciousness of potentially nice people, and they believe it. The public’s skepticism over the obvious truths about 11th September 2001 should worry you enough. When people are prepared to believe any old shit, you must admit it’s worrying when, once again, they believe that the Jews are to blame.

Thing is it’s not too small a deal Dawn Chorus cos this stuff gets into the consciousness of potentially nice people, and they believe it.

If by “potentially nice people” you mean the ordinary Joe in the street, I think you are wrong. Antisemitism of this kind has very little influence there. But certainly amongst the political Left it has had a great impact, because they are already predisposed to see the world as a conspiracy by a minority against the people. That’s why the so-called “socialism of fools” was remarked upon by the likes of Bebel as far back as the 19th century. What is difficult to explain is why “potentially nice” left-wingers imagine it could ever be anything different, given the centuries-old deep grooves that their limited trains of thought move along.

What utter nonsense. I was at the Cambridge talk. Atzmon is a revolutionary thinker and an emotive orator. Since then I follow his writings with google alert. This is how I happened upon your vile neocon den. It is about time you realise that neocon racists calling a humanist a ‘neo Natzi’ just doesn’t cut it. I just checked Atzmon’s Credit Crunch paper on google and it appears on over 4000 entries which, as far as I can see, are all leftist humanist sites. If I were you I would graciously admit defeat.

However, you want to know how the talk went? Atzmon addressed a full room with a 1 hour talk, followed by questions. Atzmon addressed every single question with the utmost respect and disentangled the differentiations between Jews and Zionists. There was not a whiff of racism in a single remark. None of us had the slightest doubt that the man is humanist. Some of us even followed him to the train station.

I would suggest to you that the amount of bile and energy you expunge on Atzmon is a tragic waste. His popularity is growing by the day, in his concerts, talks and readership.

Good luck, Shana Tova and Gmar Hatima Tova (I happen to have a Jewish wife)

Wow, you learn something new every day…

… Up to now I had no idea that the Icelanders, who seem to have spent all my money, were all Jews.

sorry the other thread is dead. Perhaps davidt will offer a response:

#This is a tendency common to certain white liberals, Islamists, and out and out Islamophobes. They read a piece that, coming from a Christian, Jew, athiest – even Hindu or Sikh – they’d find repellent. However, if it comes from a Muslim, they treat it as the mark of authenticity.

It is noble savagery.
#

The Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph ran the following stories:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-560231/Public-pool-bars-father-son-Muslim-swimming-session.html

Public pool bars father and son from its ‘Muslim-only’ swimming session

A father and his five-year-old son were turned away from their local swimming pool because they were the wrong religion.
David Toube, 39, and his son Harry were told that the Sunday morning session was reserved for Muslim men only.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1895962/%27Non-Muslim%27-father-banned-from-London-pool.html

‘Non-Muslim’ father banned from London pool

By Graham Tibbetts
Last Updated: 2:24AM BST 21 Apr 2008

A father has described his anger after he and his son were refused entry to their local swimming pool because they weren’t Muslims.

The pool also has sessions only for Haredi jewish women

“David Toube is experiencing great problems trying to go for a swim with his son at Clissold Leisure Centre at Stoke Newington, North London. He turned up one Sunday morning only to find that the pool operated a women only policy on Sunday mornings, mainly to meet the needs of Haredi Jewish women. ”
http://athinkingman.wordpress.com/2008/04/20/pandering-to-apartheid/

Now DavidT (David Touble) intially the story appeared in the Jewish Chronicle and concerned your wife- somehow the link to the Jewish Chronicle story stated “page not found”. You also write for the Jewish chronicle.

Could I ask if you cynically engineered the story about being refused entry to swimming pool becuase you were not a muslim after you wife had been refused intially, given you did not report or make a fuss about not being allowed entry to swimming pool becuase you were not a haredi jewish women?

Perhaps you can link to the story that appeared in Jewish chronicle about your wife and the swimming pool or explain why the link states page not found?

here is the link to JC and the first story:

http://www.thejc.com/home.aspx?ParentId=m11s18&SecId=18&AId=57632&ATypeId=1

David T in “stunt worthy of Galloway” shocker!

I think, to be frank, that we have reached a point at which the thesis that Jews control international finance, foreign governments, communism, and the media, has again become mainstream in parts of the Left.

The variation of this theory – like most conspiracy theories – has the world’s Jews divided into conspirators and dupes. The conspirators are described as ‘Zionists’.

Any attempt to protest or question this thesis will merely endorse it. It will show how Jews use false claims of racism to silence this ‘truth’.

You can expect absolutely no assistance in fighting this racism from groups like Unite Against Fascism, because they also subscribe to a variant of this thesis.

Now, how is it that this marginal neo Nazi managed to be invited as an honoured guest to an apparently middle of the road left-liberal group like this?

This is entirely the consequence of Atzmon’s promotion in the US by journals like Counterpunch, and the SWPs advocacy of Atzmon over the past 4 years.

The SWP will never ever admit this.

But it is true.

Anybody else here want to argue that Atzmon isn’t a Nazi?

Koppers -
it’s the link posted by David:

http://normblog.typepad.com/normblog/2008/10/on-the-furthest-shaw.html

Jim

I’m not sure what point you are making, but I fear you may be a lunatic.

Well, well, well… what else is there to say?

Capitalism´s collapsing.

George and Gilad are Socialists

I don’t know; cant think of anything else to say Fabian.

will any SWPer be bold (or revolutionary) enough to admit that Gilad Atzmon is a complete anti-Jewish racist?

I doubt it

that site and comments thread are very weird, like neo-nazi central on heat

Perhaps somebody could ask Professor Shaw if he identifies this as the anti-semitism that he thinks is absent in Palestinian solidarity politics?

Nice to see that the greatest economic turmoil in three generations hasn’t affected this blog’s focus on the all-important issue of demonizing insignificant idiots like Atzmon or laying into the dullard Trots of the SWP.

Well, kindly fuck off, then and find one of the myriad news outlets on the Internet which is.

David T,

you might also ask if these people will still be supporting Atzmon’s racism?

http://sabbah.biz/mt/archives/2008/02/09/petition-support-gilad-atzmon-and-mary-rizzo/

The following presentation is an effort to disentangle the horrifying tribal plot that accidentally led towards the destruction of the American Empire and Western financial hegemony.

Can’t see any disentangling only a row of unproven assertions that there is a mysterious conspiracy by Zionists, a rather incoherent rambling.

One does wonder how the destruction of the American Empire and Western financial hegemony benefit the Zionists tribal plotters.

At the very least, it is contradictory about the myth of Jewish capitalists financing the Bolsheviks. Why on earth would they do that, since the Bolshevik Revolution expropriated both gentile and Jewish capitalist property alike, and made them the property of the Soviet state?

Because they’re manipulative, devious buzzards who just 25 years later sacrificed millions of the fellow Jews for political gain? Do try to keep up!

In other news, Zhang Ziyi is to marry Israeli venture capitalist, Avi Nevo. China and Zionists? What does Andy Newman think?

How exactly do you ‘demonize’ a demented antisemite?

And … I suspect if Shaw has been unable to spot antisemitism by now, he’ll never spot it. And even if he does, he’ll never admit it, for obvious reasons.

Nearly, Tutu’s anti-fascist credentials are a damn sight stronger than yours. Don’t think we haven’t noticed your going from lover or appeaser of antisemites to demented antisemite himself.

Oh, different thread! Sorry, it’s so hard to tell the difference between Nearly’s individual screeds.

“I would suggest to you that the amount of bile and energy you expunge on Atzmon is a tragic waste. His popularity is growing by the day, in his concerts, talks and readership.”

And he’s really helping us through the credit crunch by slashing the price of his records.

David, isn’t it time to ask Alec, ever so nicely, to post less or even to bugger off completely? You must have noticed how he follows me from thread to thread, and posts personally abusive stuff about me in response to my perfectly innocuous comments. I do understand that he has nothing else to give meaning to his sorry life, but even being humane to such creatures must have its limits, surely …
Just a modest proposal, of course.

Another Jewish plot!

Incidentally, there’s also a theory spreading online that Lehman sent billion to Israel, and that’s why it collapsed

Please don’t feud online. Thx.

Oh, put a sock in it, you stupid little child. Your repellent, abusive rants have become simply pathetic.

I notice how you deftly changed the subject when I asked if you were Mick Napier; coming out with an non-sequitur about your having lived in Israel. Granted I will have missed some of your comments, but I am certain you would have touted this more than once had it been true or had you thought of it before. What you forget is that at HP we’re well accustomed to the histrionics of mediocre lecturers (even those who worked for 20 years in two countries) who probably ain’t even research active. We know bullshitters when we see them.

Although you do have the same social skills, and tendency to pepper your posts with abusive epithets, as John Wight, he at least posts under his real name. Napier, as I recall, avoided committing to e-mail like the plague and was a former English lit (?) lecturer for BAe.

Of course, your actual name doesn’t matter. However, I have got the strong impression that you home in on me with a particular passion, as the time Wight asked me out. Furthermore, you are so consistently wrong on everything you opine on, so bombastic in your certitude that it is pertinent to wonder if you’re for real. It’s possible, I suppose, that you’re for real, and simply an ill-mannered, dim tosser as opposed to a deceitful, ill-mannered, dim tosser.

(Monty, are you aware that the First Lady of Iceland is a Bukharian Jew?)

Wight asked you out?

Was he paying?

Nah, he’s a cheap date. He asked me round to the next SPSC stall. He did call me an arsehole, which I thought was sweet.

“Atzmon addressed every single question with the utmost respect and disentangled the differentiations between Jews and Zionists. There was not a whiff of racism in a single remark. None of us had the slightest doubt that the man is humanist. Some of us even followed him to the train station.”

Atzmon,

“Clearly, and this must be said, Jews are not necessarily Zionists. They can also be humanists, universalists, ordinary human beings, plumbers, musicians, shopkeepers and even shoplifters. However, the Zionists amongst the Jews are very easy to trace. They always operate politically as Jews. They run Jewish lobbies, think tanks and pressure groups. For that matter, Jewish American Committee (JAC), AIPAC, Jews For Peace and Anti Zionist Jews are all different forms of Jewish tribal national politics. They are all different forms of racially orientated tribal pressure groups and for that matter they are all rabid Zionists who are set to serve what they regard as Jewish tribal interests.”

btw, does your “Jewish wife” know you whore her out for your own cheap racism?

David T,
Either your update about Lehman Brothers didn’t work, or you didn’t finish entering the text.

But I suspect it was going to say that a load of toxic debt was offloaded onto Lehman UK overnight.

I suppose that Atzmon is just waiting a while to blame the Great War and WW2 on Jews, for a full house and free membership of David Duke’s ranch?

there isn’t much more that Atzmon can say? even the dimmest SWPer must surely see the racism implicit in Atzmon’s comments?

Why is the Prime Minister of Iceland called Keir Hardie, and what do you suppose he has done with all my money?

“I suppose that Atzmon is just waiting a while to blame the Great War and WW2 on Jews, for a full house and free membership of David Duke’s ranch?”

A member of the SPCS started expounding to me a theory of the Rothschilds’ responsibility for the Great War.

KB,

you’re kidding?? right ?

cos the idea that Jews started the Great War is a hard core neo-nazi belief

Yup, this is where we are.

Communists can no longer explain the world in terms of class theory. It has lost confidence in its own ideas, as a product of the collapse of the Soviet Union. Therefore, swathes of it are turning to anti-semitism.

The reaction that this will get on the Left will be a combination of the following:

- Jews are making this up, for their own nefarious purposes
- This is merely criticism of Zionism not Jews
- Mearshiner and Walt have explained that Jewish Power is at the root of the USA’s problems. You cannot criticise Zionism without understanding the Judaic mind.
- It is anti-semitism, but the fact that nobody takes it seriously is the fault of the Zionists for crying wolf.
- How can you talk about anti-semitism at a time at which programmes like Undercover Mosque or the various terrorism trials are a calculate effort to whip up Islamophobia against billions of Muslims?

At the moment, this is what these parts of the Left are saying and publishing in online fora. You’ll soon see this in journals like the London Review of Books.

I’m not kidding Mod. However as soon as he started on this theme instead of staying schtum and listening to the whole theory, asking him where he had got it, and was that what he and his mates discussed at SPCS I told him to shut up as that kind of talk makes me very angry.

Incidentally, we’re just looking at this from a UK perspective.

This is a phenomenon that is a worldwide one.

We know that Atzmon and Shamir (and others of a similar ilk) contribute to Counterpunch in the USA

Obviously, this is standard fare in the Arab world.

Atzmon also has his articles translated into a variety or languages, and they’re spread worldwide.

Here, for example, is a piece on me, accusing me of being an Islamophobe, on what apparently is a pro-Chavez (and possibly Government related) website in Venezuela

“Atzmon addressed every single question with the utmost respect and disentangled the differentiations between Jews and Zionists. There was not a whiff of racism in a single remark. None of us had the slightest doubt that the man is humanist. Some of us even followed him to the train station.”

There is something vaguely disquieting about enthusiasts encouraging Jews onto trains, but it temporarily slips my mind…

#Jim

I’m not sure what point you are making, but I fear you may be a lunatic.#

No what you fear is your double standards being exposed.

Did you DavidT do a story about Haredi jewish women only pool sessions in the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph and you being refused access becuase of them?

Tell us why the story featuring one group (muslims) made it on the pages of Daily Telegraph and Daily Mail and not the other group?

In the link from the above article that David gives us, look what I FOUND!

Harry’s Place – Front Page Magazine UK?
A few days ago we posted a link to an article by Julie Burchill from Ha’aretz, in which she described Muslims as “big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads”. This was taken up at Pickled Politics, where it was suggested that Burchill should join the BNP, who share her predilection for racist slurs of that sort. We have our differences with PP, but at least they can recognise a piece of offensive bigotry when they see it.

Not so the neo-con bloggers at Harry’s Place, which of course claims to be a leading component of the “decent Left”. Burchill’s disgraceful statement has been cited in a comment criticising a post by “Marcus” that depicts Burchill as part of the feminist vanguard in the struggle against Islamo-fascism.

To which “Brownie” replies: “The paragraph in which Burchill writes about ‘big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads’ doesn’t mention Muslims, only Islamists. Her phraseology is, at worst, a little ignorant, but racist or bigotted it ain’t.”

Yeah, right. I can imagine what the response at Harry’s Place would be if someone posted a comment condemning “hook-nosed Zionists with their ridiculous skull-caps” and then rejected charges of anti-semitism on the grounds that they had referred to Zionists not Jews.

In the interests of transparency, I think it would helpful if Harry’s Place abandoned the pretence that they have anything to do with the Left, or indeed “decency” of any sort, and fessed up to what they really are – a bunch of right-wing racist scum. Perhaps they should consider changing their url to http://frontpagemag.co.uk?

Postscript: I see that David Hirsh, not to be outdone by his Euston Manifesto pals at Harry’s Place, has actually reproduced Burchill’s Ha’aretz piece on the Engage website, with evident approval. (Hat tip: JustPeaceUK.) Yes, that’s the same David Hirsh who has indignantly accused the Mayor of London of “low-level racist abuse against a Jewish journalist”.

Posted on Monday, August 14, 2006 by Martin Sullivan in Right Wing, UK |

This one is good too:

Nazis recommend Harry’s Place
Yes, when it comes to hysterical articles about the supposed threat posed by shariah law, the white supremacist forum Stormfront evidently finds much to admire at the self-styled voice of the “decent left”. Given the readiness of the increasingly unbalanced David T to label political activists from the Muslim communities as fascists, it’s interesting to see how much common ground he and his friends at HP have with actual fascists.

Posted on Friday, June 20, 2008 by Martin Sullivan in UK, Far Right Racists |

Hey, looks as if 92 entries for Harry’s Place on Islamophobia Watch aren’t enough to kind of be good evidence to accuse David T of Islamophobia.

But then again, you persons are the only ones who view yourselves as leftists… so go figure that out.

Jim, the answer is obvious. It’s part of the Jewish Zio-neocon control of the media plot.

Accuse David Toube of Islamophobia? Goodness why? Taking a tour of the link cited in the article David linked here, one need only plug in Harry’s Place to get 92 appearances, including these tasty bits:

Nazis recommend Harry’s Place
Yes, when it comes to hysterical articles about the supposed threat posed by shariah law, the white supremacist forum Stormfront (link) evidently finds much to admire at the self-styled voice of the “decent left”. Given the readiness of the increasingly unbalanced David T to label political activists from the Muslim communities as fascists, it’s interesting to see how much common ground he and his friends at HP have with actual fascists.

Posted on Friday, June 20, 2008 by Martin Sullivan in UK, Far Right Racists |

and
Harry’s Place – Front Page Magazine UK?
A few days ago we posted a link to an article by Julie Burchill from Ha’aretz, in which she described Muslims as “big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads”. This was taken up at Pickled Politics, where it was suggested that Burchill should join the BNP, who share her predilection for racist slurs of that sort. We have our differences with PP, but at least they can recognise a piece of offensive bigotry when they see it.

Not so the neo-con bloggers at Harry’s Place, which of course claims to be a leading component of the “decent Left”. Burchill’s disgraceful statement has been cited in a comment criticising a post by “Marcus” that depicts Burchill as part of the feminist vanguard in the struggle against Islamo-fascism.

To which “Brownie” replies: “The paragraph in which Burchill writes about ‘big swarthy men with tea-towels on their heads’ doesn’t mention Muslims, only Islamists. Her phraseology is, at worst, a little ignorant, but racist or bigotted it ain’t.”

Yeah, right. I can imagine what the response at Harry’s Place would be if someone posted a comment condemning “hook-nosed Zionists with their ridiculous skull-caps” and then rejected charges of anti-semitism on the grounds that they had referred to Zionists not Jews.

In the interests of transparency, I think it would helpful if Harry’s Place abandoned the pretence that they have anything to do with the Left, or indeed “decency” of any sort, and fessed up to what they really are – a bunch of right-wing racist scum. Perhaps they should consider changing their url to http://frontpagemag.co.uk?

Postscript: I see that David Hirsh, not to be outdone by his Euston Manifesto pals at Harry’s Place, has actually reproduced Burchill’s Ha’aretz piece on the Engage website, with evident approval. (Hat tip: JustPeaceUK.) Yes, that’s the same David Hirsh who has indignantly accused the Mayor of London of “low-level racist abuse against a Jewish journalist”.

Posted on Monday, August 14, 2006 by Martin Sullivan in Right Wing, UK |

brrrrrr

Instead of ‘plantation westworld’ banging on about the descriptive language used concerning Muslims, why doesn’t he or she actually deal with the real world? Explain why it is necessary for Muslims to blow up their fellow Muslims, 26 this evening in Pakistan, earlier today 15 where blown up by a bombmule near the Afghanistan border etc etc. I’d just like to know why they have to kill their fellow religionists like this?

HP=BNP, or whatever you’re calling yourself, I find it nigh on impossible to distinguish between your conjecture and citations. Please demarcate text and provide URLs where available.

Nazis recommend Harry’s Place

Better than HP recommending Nazis.

(Sue, Bob Pitt will be reassured that they’re killing only one another far away.)

KB, not too different from blaming them and the Hanoverian gold-merchants, with their fly-blown phylacteries and shibboleths, for the Boer War.

Okie, Gilad tends to make an appearance in these threads. Is he Spencer? When is he going to start to pretend to be his mum?

Well, Jim

I wrote about both experiences, a few months apart, on this blog.

The first was picked up by the Jewish Chronicle, which as you can imagine, has an interest in disputes involving Jews.

The second was picked up by the Hackney Gazette. From there, it was picked up by the Telegraph and the Mail. It was also picked up by Channel 4.

I expect that the nationals picked up the former story rather than the latter, because what Haredi Jews do in swimming pools is really not of particular interest to anybody other than Jews and secularists, while there are a number of local boroughs which have introduced Muslim Only events. There is also more interest in Muslim segregation rather than Haredi segregation, because there are a relatively small number of Haredim, who largely keep themselves to themselves, and who live in hermetically sealed communities: while Muslim segregation has also an association with radicalisation.

When I was approached by the press over this story, I agreed to participate on the condition that they included the following information:

He added: “I spoke to a number of Muslim friends, and none of them had heard of a religious prohibition on swimming with non-Muslims.

“One friend was so disgusted with Hackney for trying to segregate Muslims and non Muslims that he suggested that he take his little daughter swimming with us, just to prove the point.”

However, Dr Taj Hargey, chair of the Muslim Education Centre of Oxford, said it was not true that Muslims could not swim with non-Muslims.

“There is no Koranic verse or any statement from the sources of Islam that says different religions should be segregated,” he said.

“The only requirement is that when women swim they should be modestly clad.”

The Prophet Mohammed is recorded as saying that it is a Muslim’s duty to learn to swim as it could save his or her life.

What I wanted to do was to turn this story from one about radicalised Muslims demanding special privileges, to one about an over-zealous council, imposing on Muslims and non Muslims, a ghettoisation that nobody wants.

In fact, I do now attend this swimming session, regularly. The participants are of all ages: predominantly but not exclusively Muslims, and including a couple of Haredi Jews. It is early in the morning, so it does not prevent non religious families swimming together. I should add that both sessions contain extremely nice people, swimming with their children. Both contain Muslims: the second session includes a number of Turkish families.

Now, I’m assuming that you’re the Jim who runs the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, who recently engaged in a battle with the zany Tony Greenstein, over a pretty slanderous piece on him by Atzmon-Shamir supporters. Therefore, I guess you’re part of the far Left that has embraced anti semitism and other conspiracy theories. So I fear the answer that you’ll give to the following questions, but here goes:

Could I ask if you cynically engineered the story about being refused entry to swimming pool becuase you were not a muslim after you wife had been refused intially, given you did not report or make a fuss about not being allowed entry to swimming pool becuase you were not a haredi jewish women?

What on earth do you mean “cynically engineered”? How precisely are you suggesting that I managed to control which stories are picked up by which papers? Is this some suggestion that I have the ability to control the national and local press? Why on earth would you think that I possess this power…… oh.

Perhaps you can link to the story that appeared in Jewish chronicle about your wife and the swimming pool or explain why the link states page not found?

Right, I see. I control the Jewish Chronicle. And I ordered this story removed because… What is it you think I hoped to achieve by doing this?

Hint: The JC has just redesigned its website. I expect that’s your explanation.

You’re a Professor, for god’s sake, man!

Have you been drinking?

Makes you wonder who is financing Atzmon, doesn’t it but I don’t want to get conspiratorial…

David, you claim that:
“the thesis that Jews control international finance, foreign governments, communism, and the media, has again become mainstream in parts of the Left.”

Apart from old Dalyell’s mad mutterings about a “Jewish Cabal” and the SWP, who until recently have been welcoming and defending Atzmon as an “anti-zionist” (and it seems they to have finally now dropped him – one of his outspoken critics Mike Rosen was the chosen performer, instead of Atzmon, at the Cultures of Resistance gig that closed Marxism this year), where else has this thesis appeared “in the left?”

As for Atzmon – as well as dabbling in Jewish conspiracy theories he now regurgitates neo-nazi rubbish about jews financing the Bolshevik Revolution. His talent is that he can play his clarinet and talk out of his arse at the same time.

Mind you, back in the 80s I remember the Brtitish Movement stickers saying “Workers beware, the Socialist Workers Party is a Jewish Family Business!” and their other one “communism is Jewish” – (I didn’t know whether to tear that sticker down or write underneath – “Let’s keep it that way.”)

Atzmon, of course, is the Zionist’s favourite anti-Zionist.if he diudn’t exist they would have to invent him. – He hands them ammunition on a plate to throw at the left and critics of Israeli policy in general. As the principled Israeli anti-zionist Moshe machover says “With enemies like Atzmon, Israel doesn’t need friends.”

I imagine this will throw Islamists into a tizz. On the one hand they are overjoyed at the collapse of the Western economy, but then on the other, if they believe it’s all a Jewish plot, they must be a bit miffed as to what to think and how to react

Oh David, I’m so sorry that your concern with Atzmon is that he is giving good folk like you such a bad name. Darn, that must be so tough for you. You have my greatest sympathy.

#Now, I’m assuming that you’re the Jim who runs the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, who recently engaged in a battle with the zany Tony Greenstein, over a pretty slanderous piece on him by Atzmon-Shamir supporters. Therefore, I guess you’re part of the far Left that has embraced anti semitism and other conspiracy theories.#

Yes DavidT when all else fails accuse others of anti-semitism!

For your information I am not Jim who runs the Irish Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, who recently engaged in a battle with the zany Tony Greenstein.

So DavidT the JC did not cover the story about your wife and the swimming pool first?

Are you denying this?

#What I wanted to do was to turn this story from one about radicalised Muslims demanding special privileges, to one about an over-zealous council, imposing on Muslims and non Muslims, a ghettoisation that nobody wants. #

Yes you did that in papers known for whipping anti-muslim hysteria and the so called islamisation of Britain.

The stories only featured muslims in the Daily Mail and Daily Telegraph, what stopped you metioning the haredi community in regards to over-zealousness of the council in the stories in both newspapers?

The Prophet Mohammed is recorded as saying that it is a Muslim’s duty to learn to swim as it could save his or her life.

What, seriously? I thought there was a terror of putting to sea in the Koran, like Jonah ratcheted up a dozen times.

The Council wasn’t running Haredi only swimming. It was running women only swimming, until 12pm, on a Sunday morning.

I did mention the fact that I had previously had a battle over women only swimming, that catered exclusively for a small number of Haredi women, in the middle of a family weekend. However, as you can see, stories about explicitly religious segregated swimming are rather more newsworthy, than a scheduling problem with a Hackney swimming pool.

Now, look here. You’re a complete nutter. You have claimed that I have the ability to control what appears on the website of The JC, and insinuated that I have a similar power in relation to the content of the Mail and the Telegraph.

You’re a tosser. Fuck off.

How to spot an anti-Semite:

1) They defend blatant anti-Semites
2) They call everyone they don’t like a Zionist or neocon
3) They claim legitimacy by having ‘Jewish friends’.

Congratulations Mr E Spencer, come on down!

“Atzmon, of course, is the Zionist’s favourite anti-Zionist.if he diudn’t [sic] exist they would have to invent him.”

Well, they didn’t invent them, did they?

Indeed, judging from the number and nature of sites that this latest garbage has been posted (and commented on), far from being the Zionists “favourite anti-Zionist” he would appear, rather, to be the anti-zionist’s favourite anti-zionist.

Sorry, forgot to add……………..

palestinethinktank.com/2008/09/30/gilad-atzmon-credit-crunch-or-rather-zio-punch/

http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2008/10/credit-crunch-or-rather-zio-punch/

http://palestineblogs.net/aggregator/sources/176

http://www.palestinechronicle.com/links.php

http://www.ism-france.org/news/article.php?id=10034&type=analyse&lesujet=Sionisme

The list continues

Yes, I’m sorry David R for not responding.

Who is paying Atzmon? Well, he’s a successful and talented (if you appreciate this sort of stuff) Jazz musician. He will be paid from the proceeds of music and merchandise sales, and performance fees.

Why, who did you think was paying him?

What is the particular attraction of this species of conspiracy theory to you, and to Atzmon?

“where else has this thesis appeared “in the left?””

Oh, I dunno, Dave. It isn’t a million miles from Mearsheimer and Walt, and there are certainly a myriad of popular readings and understandings of their thesis which certainly is anti-semitic. You’ve got Baroness Tonge’s account of her misery at the hands of Zionists.

Atzmon, Eisen and Shamir? Well, the SWP aside, you’ve got Counterpunch. You’ve got Uruknet, and their multiple iterations. You’ve got the former Chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. You’ve got Lord Ahmed, hosting Shamir. You can search through the archives. I’ve followed a proportion of Atzmon’s associations and influences. Go on. Look around yourself.

Your story about the SWP being a “family business” is basically what Atzmon says about your lot. He’s certainly no fan of the SWP at all.

Atzmon, of course, is the Zionist’s favourite anti-Zionist.if he diudn’t exist they would have to invent him.

Dave, mate. He DOES exist. This isn’t a game being played between Zionist and anti-Zionist Jews. This is a new paradigm. Or an old one.

Oh, one other thing.

You’ve been existing in a Bundist fantasy world, in which you and your comrades of all and no faith stand shoulder to shoulder against the wicked Zionists. Then along came the whole Deir Yassin Remembered project. Sue Blackwell took a principled stance and denounced Atzmon. He then threatened to sue her and she folder. But, have no fear, Tony Greenstein and Roland Rance rode in to the rescue! They were going to get the Palestine Solidarity Campaign to distance itself, formally, from Shamir, Eisen, and Atzmon. They’d even found a Palestinian who was prepared to speak out against antisemitism (luckily, he doesn’t live in Gaza!). But the PSC weren’t playing, were they? You weren’t actually standing shoulder to shoulder with your comrades. They hung you all out to dry, and Atzmon hasn’t stopped mocking you since.

You think that this is all about a huge fight against Zionism. It isn’t. That’s the sideshow. Zionism, for many of these people, is the same thing as Jewish Power. And Jewish Power, as Atzmon and Shamir explain, is what is wrong with the world.

That’s the battle. You’re on the wrong side, and you don’t get to choose. You don’t even get to define your politics here: you’re a Zionist to Atzmon, not an anti Zionist athiest Jew. You know this, from personal experience. Atzmon crapped all over your self-definition. And still, all you can say is “Somehow, I just know that the Zionists are to blame for all this…”. That’s an extraordinary reaction.

Anyhow, see you Sunday.

David t – thanks for elaborating – I notice that, SWP apart, no socialist parties/organisations are listed by you. Indeed everyone on the left that I meet (including various SWP members who don’t seem to read their own papers), from different groups/parties/campaigns often have never heard of him and certainly don’t hold these theories at all about Jews and international finance, and those that have heard of him regard him as somewhere on the spectrum that runs from complete nutter to complete arsehole.

Of course he needs to be exposed. And he needs to be opposed in a way that doesn’t feed his already very-inflated ego, but in a way that also keeps some perspective about his actual influence.

I am not particularly into conspiracy theories, but I do think it is legitimate to ask the question about whose interests are served by Atzmon’s interventions. I would have thought we could agree that that the interests of neither Jews nor Palestinians are served by his activity. Among other things he is a shit stirrer and given how destructive he is, I wonder whether it is an individual thing or whether he’s playing out someone else’s agenda

I am not particularly into conspiracy theories, but I do think it is legitimate to ask…

Er.

You are, though.

David T,

you are on a hiding to nothing here, even though you (and Engage) have accurately stated where this whole situation was headed, 2 or so years back, you’ll get no thanks

to some you are seen as the “Zionist” bogeyman and so won’t be listened to, even when you are proven to be 100% right on a topic

PS: KB, maybe you could post on the SPSC?

I’m glad to see this discussion here.

Now that a measure of perestroika is being forced on a Zionist-dominated ‘west’, is it too much to hope for glasnost as well?

History is a tangle of complex puzzles and mysteries, information and disinformation, documentated facts and post-hoc analysis masquerading as fact. There will, perhaps, never be a definitive version of history on many topics. But there is – and should be – ongoing debate abiout history and all other subject areas.

Free discussion, free enquiry and open debate are the tried and tersted ways of approaching the truth in all matters. These are basic foundations of western civilization.

Why not invite Atzmon to speak at one of your meetings, so you can debate with him?

Or do you prefer only to talk to people with whom you already agree? Your approach so far sounds very ‘McCain’. As you may have observed, it’s increasingly unpopular.

Some of us even followed him to the train station.

Well that swings it. Fuck HP. I’m in Atzmon’s snuff-pouch for the rest of my days…

Yes, when it comes to hysterical articles about the supposed threat posed by shariah law, the white supremacist forum Stormfront (link) evidently finds much to admire at the self-styled voice of the “decent left”. Given the readiness of the increasingly unbalanced David T to label political activists from the Muslim communities as fascists, it’s interesting to see how much common ground he and his friends at HP have with actual fascists.

If you are going to lie, it’s a good idea to do it in a way that you lies won’t be discovered so easily. Google every mention of HP on Stormfront.org and you get this. So, what were you thinking of? Maybe Stormfront’s support for Jenna Delich?

It is about time you realise that neocon racists calling a humanist a ‘neo Natzi’ just doesn’t cut it … Good luck, Shana Tova and Gmar Hatima Tova (I happen to have a Jewish wife)

Oh my. “Natzi.” And a Jewish wife.

Did anyone stick around the “Avoiding the issue: part 3″ post long enough to notice that toward the end “The Hasbara Buster” admitted to being a Nazi?

Exact quote: A friend of mine used to say, “all of us are Nazis; we only don’t have enough information.”

Here’s a question, is there any difference between admitted Nazi hangers on like Hasbara Buster and conspiracy mongering antisemites who’ve been here all along like “resistor”?

Resistor, by the way, was calling me a “sayanim” (secret member of the Mossad/Jewish conspiracy) for criticizing the Palestinians long before he even came to Harry’s Place.

I’m glad to see this discussion here.

Now that a measure of perestroika is being forced on a Zionist-dominated ‘west’, is it too much to hope for glasnost as well?

History is a tangle of complex puzzles and mysteries, information and disinformation, documented facts and post-hoc analysis masquerading as fact. There will, perhaps, never be a definitive version of history on many topics. But there is – and should be – ongoing debate about history and all other subject areas.

Free discussion, free enquiry and open debate are the tried and tested ways of approaching the truth in all matters. These are basic foundations of western civilization.

Why not invite Atzmon to speak at one of your meetings, so you can debate with him?

Or do you prefer only to talk to people with whom you already agree? Your approach so far sounds very ‘McCain’. As you may have observed, it’s an approach that increasingly unpopular.

Free Mordechai Vanunu!

Free Palestine!

End Zionist apartheid now!

No more Zionist-enforced historical opinions!

“Atzmon, Eisen and Shamir? Well, the SWP aside, you’ve got Counterpunch. You’ve got Uruknet, and their multiple iterations. You’ve got the former Chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. ”

Don’t forget that in the Spanish internet you have the far left webmagazine “Rebelión”
http://buenaprensa.blogspot.com/2008/10/rebelinorg-es-antisionista.html
Lately they have published an article called: “Lee el Talmud, goyim” (Read the Talmud, goyim).
You don’t get more explicity than this.

I assume the following spittle-flecked crap from Alec is about me:

I notice how you deftly changed the subject when I asked if you were Mick Napier; coming out with an non-sequitur about your having lived in Israel

You have non-existent reading skills. I made two separate comments:
I have no idea who Mick Napier is.
I have lived in Israel.

I am certain you would have touted this more than once had it been true

Your writing skills are no better. Touted what? Living in Israel? Well, I have, and I couldn’t care less if a sad little loser like you chooses to disbelieve me.

As always happens here, barrel of laughs!!

It’s cute how David T and Co call others nazis and anti-Semites to kind of cover over the fact that a large portion of the literate public knows that they are considered to be hardcore Islamophobes (racists, in case you haven’t figured that one out) themselves. Hey, if Stormfront likes them, and if no one is really bothered about the Tea-towel comments, it’s rather difficult to discuss in a civil way, so bring on the “NAZI” charges.

But what is really even more charming is how David T insists several times on genetically profiling Atzmon and who knows who else, as “striking me as Jewish”. G-d, does he completely ignore how this sounds distinctly racist? Honestly, I guess Jews are really comfortable saying this, and don’t notice how racist is does sound.

And just for the hell of it, his definition of Jews as swarthy, dark, Mediterranean types (like the cover pictures on the books by redhead, Woody Allenesque David Grossman) doesn’t really fit Atzmon at all. I come from the Mediterranean, I grew up with Turks, Greeks, Cypriots, Israelis and Italians. I haven’t seen many with Atzmon’s blue eyes, his bulky figure and frankly, he resembles people from the Baltic area. Maybe David T is really the lad who wrote this question:

SensitiveFilter: This question might be construed as offensive. It deals with physical features of peoples from different parts of the globe.

I am curious in telling the difference between various peoples of African descent, and people of Asian descent. What I mean is, as I am Jewish, I have “Semitic” features. Slavic people have certain features, as do people from Latin America (ie I can tell somebody from Central America from somebody from Southern America).
http://ask.metafilter.com/18252/facial-characteristics

What a wonderful World!

Just heard on the radio that Jorg Haider the Austrian far right leader died in a car crash this morning – presumably he veered too far to the right. How long before Atzmon blames the jews/bundists/zionists?

PW’s stupidity is neatly summarised in his inability to grasp that Islam is not a ‘race’.

LOL, David.

Damn – I was just logging on to post PRECISELY that.

“At the moment, this is what these parts of the Left are saying and publishing in online fora. You’ll soon see this in journals like the London Review of Books.”

The LRB is totally strange. During the time when the IRA was planting bombs and there were constant terrorist trials I bet they had a lot of coverage on Northern Ireland. Now we have another lot planting bombs and there are constant terrorist trials there is almost no coverage at all. I wish someone who has the time to look through back issues and the talent and knowledge to write it up would produce an article on this.

Mod:- that truncated conversation is my only piece of information about the SPCS.

Just heard on the radio that Jorg Haider the Austrian far right leader died in a car crash this morning – presumably he veered too far to the right. How long before Atzmon blames the jews/bundists/zionists?

How long, David Rosenberg, before you blame the Zionists yourself? I must admit that I have had much more time for you until, earlier on this thread, you have insinuated that Atzmon is somehow `operated’ by Zionists. Given that your only `argument’ was the cui bono fallacy (”if in my subjective opinion X serves the interests of Y then X must be caused/operated/run by Y”), what in logic is to prevent you from using the same argument again: “Haider was anti-Semitic, pro-Iranian enemy of Israel. Who did benefit from his death? It is not that I believe in conspiracy theories but…”.

I expected better from you.

A, so Jewish is a race?

And now to Atzmon. The guy is clearly unhinged, but probably the most interesting item about him are these `anonymous’ posts materialising on HP, each under different signature and each obviously written by him. These are really a matter for a psychiatrist. They all share a broad common denominator and describe some mythical audience of gentle, loving souls, enticed by that wonderful speaker and musician, loving him, following him and touching the tails of his shirt like he had been a latter-day Christ.

Everybody has their fantasies, every adolescent boy dreaming on playing footie for England and every adolescent girl dreaming about Hollywood. But it takes a mind in urgent need of medical intervention to put your fantasies into `anonymous’ voices in the public domain.

David Rosenberg: Gilad Atzmon/Mr E Spencer/Rufus T. Firefly is a very rich jew from London and he doesn’t need anyone to pay him for the crap he comes out with. However it is correct to say that far from being an anti-Zionist, he is not just a Zionist but also in fact The Last Zionist (with apologies to Yoram Kaniuk and the human race). His verbal emissions are best understood as a semantic game rather than political discourse. However he is a Jewish supremacist, and his core belief, that goyim are stupid, has been reinforced by his encounters with the likes of the Cambridge Forum.

DavidT

#Now, look here. You’re a complete nutter. You have claimed that I have the ability to control what appears on the website of The JC, and insinuated that I have a similar power in relation to the content of the Mail and the Telegraph.

You’re a tosser. Fuck off.#

DavidT I must be asking difficult questions to you , which you do not want to respond to and instead you resort to calling me a lunatic, nutter, tosser and telling me to fuck off.

Now the header above states : “Liberty if anything means, the right to tell people what they dont want to hear”.

Perhaps it does not apply to you DavidT.

Just to summarise for you DavidT:

The story about your wife’s experience appeared in the JC which is no longer available but excerpts of it are available online.

The story told in the jewish Chronicle was that your wife was trying to get into the male only session with your son but when the story appeared in the Mail and Telegraph it was changed (because even Mail readers would allow that single sex swimming session are perfectly reasonable and only a nutter would object).

Now come on DavidT all I am asking you is to confirm that the story initially appeared in the Jewish Chronicle concerning your wife and male only sessions and if you can produce it here in the interests of honesty and truth.

The story in the Daily Mail states the following:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-560231/Public-pool-bars-father-son-Muslim-swimming-session.html

#”Public pool bars father and son from its ‘Muslim-only’ swimming session

A father and his five-year-old son were turned away from their local swimming pool because they were the wrong religion.
David Toube, 39, and his son Harry were told that the Sunday morning session was reserved for Muslim men only.”#

There is no mention or reference in the Daily Mail/Telegraph stories to you having a battle over women only swimming, that catered exclusively for a small number of Haredi women, in the middle of a family weekend.

Had this been mentioned the Daily Mail/Telegraph stories could not make the claims they did about the pool and the muslims, and you were aware of the facts when you went to the Daily Mail and Telegraph.

Further there is nothing in the Daily Mail story about you DavidT wanting to to turn this story from one about radicalised Muslims demanding special privileges, to one about an over-zealous council, imposing on Muslims and non Muslims, a ghettoisation that nobody wants.

Please read the story again and point out where you do this.

Further
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

Now please provide some answers DavidT, name calling, insults will not do here.

I keep getting the duplicate comment messages for some reason…

DavidT

#Now, look here. You’re a complete nutter. You have claimed that I have the ability to control what appears on the website of The JC, and insinuated that I have a similar power in relation to the content of the Mail and the Telegraph.

You’re a tosser. Fuck off.#

DavidT I must be asking difficult questions to you , which you do not want to respond to and instead you resort to calling me a lunatic, nutter, tosser and telling me to fuck off.

Now the header above states : “Liberty if anything means, the right to tell people what they dont want to hear”.

Perhaps it does not apply to you DavidT.

Just to summarise for you DavidT:

The story about your wife’s experience appeared in the JC which is no longer available but excerpts of it are available online.

The story told in the jewish Chronicle was that your wife was trying to get into the male only session with your son but when the story appeared in the Mail and Telegraph it was changed (because even Mail readers would allow that single sex swimming session are perfectly reasonable and only a nutter would object).

Now come on DavidT all I am asking you is to confirm that the story initially appeared in the Jewish Chronicle concerning your wife and male only sessions and if you can produce it here in the interests of honesty and truth.

The story in the Daily Mail states the following:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-560231/Public-pool-bars-father-son-Muslim-swimming-session.html

#”Public pool bars father and son from its ‘Muslim-only’ swimming session

A father and his five-year-old son were turned away from their local swimming pool because they were the wrong religion.
David Toube, 39, and his son Harry were told that the Sunday morning session was reserved for Muslim men only.”#

There is no mention or reference in the Daily Mail/Telegraph stories to you having a battle over women only swimming, that catered exclusively for a small number of Haredi women, in the middle of a family weekend.

Had this been mentioned the Daily Mail/Telegraph stories could not make the claims they did about the pool and the muslims, and you were aware of the facts when you went to the Daily Mail and Telegraph.

Further there is nothing in the Daily Mail story about you DavidT wanting to to turn this story from one about radicalised Muslims demanding special privileges, to one about an over-zealous council, imposing on Muslims and non Muslims, a ghettoisation that nobody wants.

Please read the story again and point out where you do this.

Further
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

Now please provide some answers DavidT, name calling, insults will not do here.

jr, you forgot to add “swarthy, dark, mediterranean looking” semitic Jew. Not that it in any way reflects reality, but who is checking reality around here anyway?

test to see if this appears

DavidT

#Now, look here. You’re a complete nutter. You have claimed that I have the ability to control what appears on the website of The JC, and insinuated that I have a similar power in relation to the content of the Mail and the Telegraph.

You’re a tosser. Fuck off.#

DavidT I must be asking difficult questions to you , which you do not want to respond to and instead you resort to calling me a lunatic, nutter, tosser and telling me to fuck off.

Now the header above states : “Liberty if anything means, the right to tell people what they dont want to hear”.

Perhaps it does not apply to you DavidT.

Just to summarise for you DavidT:

The story about your wife’s experience appeared in the JC which is no longer available but excerpts of it are available online.

The story told in the jewish Chronicle was that your wife was trying to get into the male only session with your son but when the story appeared in the Mail and Telegraph it was changed (because even Mail readers would allow that single sex swimming session are perfectly reasonable and only a nutter would object).

Now come on DavidT all I am asking you is to confirm that the story initially appeared in the Jewish Chronicle concerning your wife and male only sessions and if you can produce it here in the interests of honesty and truth.

The story in the Daily Mail states the following:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-560231/Public-pool-bars-father-son-Muslim-swimming-session.html

#”Public pool bars father and son from its ‘Muslim-only’ swimming session

A father and his five-year-old son were turned away from their local swimming pool because they were the wrong religion.
David Toube, 39, and his son Harry were told that the Sunday morning session was reserved for Muslim men only.”#

There is no mention or reference in the Daily Mail/Telegraph stories to you having a battle over women only swimming, that catered exclusively for a small number of Haredi women, in the middle of a family weekend.

Had this been mentioned the Daily Mail/Telegraph stories could not make the claims they did about the pool and the muslims, and you were aware of the facts when you went to the Daily Mail and Telegraph.

Further there is nothing in the Daily Mail story about you DavidT wanting to to turn this story from one about radicalised Muslims demanding special privileges, to one about an over-zealous council, imposing on Muslims and non Muslims, a ghettoisation that nobody wants.

Please read the story again and point out where you do this.

Further
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

Now please provide some answers DavidT, name calling, insults will not do here.

Daily Mail story states the following:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-560231/Public-pool-bars-father-son-Muslim-swimming-session.html

#”Public pool bars father and son from its ‘Muslim-only’ swimming session

A father and his five-year-old son were turned away from their local swimming pool because they were the wrong religion.
David Toube, 39, and his son Harry were told that the Sunday morning session was reserved for Muslim men only.”#

There is no mention or reference in the Daily Mail/Telegraph stories to you having a battle over women only swimming, that catered exclusively for a small number of Haredi women, in the middle of a family weekend.

Had this been mentioned the Daily Mail/Telegraph stories could not make the claims they did about the pool and the muslims, and you were aware of the facts when you went to the Daily Mail and Telegraph.

Further there is nothing in the Daily Mail story about you DavidT wanting to to turn this story from one about radicalised Muslims demanding special privileges, to one about an over-zealous council, imposing on Muslims and non Muslims, a ghettoisation that nobody wants.

Please read the story again and point out where you do this.

Further
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

Now please provide some answers DavidT, name calling, insults will not do here.

so Jewish is a race?

You evidently know nothing of Britain’s race discrimination legislation. Like Sikhs, Jews count as a race as well as a religion. So incitement to hatred against Jews (as against Irish or Pakistanis) is a crime. Sorry.

I take that back, Nearly, you’re simply a dim, unthinking tosser who cannot distinguish between non-existent and not-exercised.

Daily Mail story states the following:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-560231/Public-pool-bars-father-son-Muslim-swimming-session.html

#”Public pool bars father and son from its ‘Muslim-only’ swimming session

A father and his five-year-old son were turned away from their local swimming pool because they were the wrong religion.
David Toube, 39, and his son Harry were told that the Sunday morning session was reserved for Muslim men only.”#

There is no mention or reference in the Daily Mail/Telegraph stories to you having a battle over women only swimming, that catered exclusively for a small number of Haredi women, in the middle of a family weekend.

Had this been mentioned the Daily Mail/Telegraph stories could not make the claims they did about the pool and the muslims, and you were aware of the facts when you went to the Daily Mail and Telegraph.

Further there is nothing in the Daily Mail story about you DavidT wanting to to turn this story from one about radicalised Muslims demanding special privileges, to one about an over-zealous council, imposing on Muslims and non Muslims, a ghettoisation that nobody wants.

Please read the story again and point out where you do this.

Further
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

Now please provide some answers DavidT, name calling, insults will not do here.

Further there is nothing in the Daily Mail story about you DavidT wanting to to turn this story from one about radicalised Muslims demanding special privileges, to one about an over-zealous council, imposing on Muslims and non Muslims, a ghettoisation that nobody wants.

Please read the story again and point out where you do this.

Further
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

Now please provide some answers DavidT, name calling, insults will not do here.

Yeah, but you’ve already been pointed to it online.

What you’ve not done, though, is explain what significance you divine from the fact the JC has redesigned its website.

It also evidently hasn’t occurred to you that

- a story about single sex swimming used by Haredi jewish women is of little interest to anybody but Jews and secularists; but

- a story about Muslim only swimming is of interest to a lot of people, nationally.

I’d suggest that this is because Haredim keep themselves to themselves, while radicalised Islamists have made a rather more significant impact on the public consciousness.

If there is anybody else here who has the faintest idea what this nutter is talking about, I’d be grateful for your help.

so, being Islamophobic is not racist, but being Anti-Semitic is because you claim that they are ALSO a race and a religion?

Try to logically defend that, please.

By the way, I can remember my Grandparents being upset that they were qualified as Jews under race (this is how things were done in Europe and still are in Israel). I guess times have changed. You can hate muslims and not be considered racist because they are a religion, but you can classify Jews even physically as a race.

Holy shite, have times changed.

I tried to get into an all-women’s gym once, and I was turned away. Should I write an article about that grueling experience?

>>> “Jewish is a race?”

There’s a recent article by Jonathan Cook that has bearing on this strange subject – see ‘Book refuting Jewish taboo on Israel’s bestseller list’ at:

http://www.jkcook.net/Articles2/0339.htm#Top

It’s about a book refuting Jewish taboo on Israel’s bestseller list. Perhaps it’s already been discussed here?

The book’s author, Shlomo Sand, is an Israeli historican. He argues Zionist Jews created a national history by inventing the idea that their sect existed as people separate from their religion. As yet, there’s no English translation.

Regarding Jorg Haider’s death, we must await for the investigation and hope it’s thorough and honest.

However, the mortality rate of Zionist critics in politics – whether left, center or right – is a matter of growing concern. There’s been too much smoke for far too long for there to be no fire. Israeli spooks must stop murdering their opponents.

Also of concern is the lack of overt interest, on the part of law enforcement agencies in many western jurisdictions, to investigate crimes thoroughly if they are likely to have been committed by Zionists. The USS Liberty outrage set the template for modern cover-ups.

The cat is out of the bag. There have been too many crimes for us not to notice. Very soon, the tide will turn and those who commit these atrocities can expect to be brought to justice.

You can only fool so many people for so long.

I don’t know whether Haider’s death was an accident. I know little about him. But if Zionists want to avoid suspicion every time one of their critics dies an unnatural death, they would do well to co-operate in reducing the death toll. Fast

Releasing Mordechai Vanunu and letting him go free would also be of enormous benefit to Israel’s image! I wonder if the next Prime Minister will have the wisdom to heal this sore.

It’s so easy… just let him go free. All he wants is to leave Israel in safety. What type of country won’t allow that? Only a country wedded to inhumanity. Is that really what Israel has become?

Plantation westworld you really are a fucking dim cunt.

so, being Islamophobic is not racist, but being Anti-Semitic is because you claim that they are ALSO a race and a religion?

They are an ethnic group, a nation (a ‘race’, if you insist), yes. They also practice a religion called Judaism, yes.

An idiot who doesn’t know this – or cannot grasp this – should not be shooting his mouth off.

I am Jewish, and I never once considered myself part of a Jewish RACE. Can you get the idea into your brain that some people actually DO remember what Race Laws were and that Jews were lumped into a race in order to exterminate them?

How soon these young sprites forget.

If you want to consider Jews a race, even say they are dark and Mediterranean looking, have it your way, but don’t expect everyone to agree with your small mind.

Alec, a total mindless jerk like you who knows nothing about my existence outside this blog but insists on spewing his fantasies about me, should really seek help.

I know nothing about Alec or about Nearly Oxfordian, but from what I see here, both are are totally unimpressive and need to include an insult with every post. They think we care about them having a swing at one another, let them carry on.

The book’s author, Shlomo Sand, is an Israeli historican. He argues Zionist Jews created a national history by inventing the idea that their sect existed as people separate from their religion

Well, he is an ignorant nutter. Perhaps he’s never heard of Jewish national and political history since ca. 1100 BC.

Who is ‘we’ you are talking about, PW? Do you have delusions of grandeur?
(No need to answer that – evidently you do).

No, no delusions of grandeur, who would argue with your opinion! Everyone obviously who disagrees with you is uninformed or a “nutter”. It’s actually quite provincial of you, and really quaint.

By the Way, did you happen to READ the book by Sand?

Pardon, I am certain that everyone DOES care that the two of them (Alec and NO) are insulting the intelligence of each other. It is oh-so-interesting. How dare I have insinuated otherwise.

Oh, Nearly Loxfordian, I am starting to like you. Can we make a date and go to the Muslim Swim session some Sunday morning if we have nothing else better to do?

I’m sorry – there’s no point discussing this with you until you’ve read every book on nationalism generally and Jewish history specifically.

DavidT

Please answer the questions asked. Calling me a nutter does not answer the questions.

#What you’ve not done, though, is explain what significance you divine from the fact the JC has redesigned its website. #

This is nothing about JC redesigning its website.

The story about your wife and son and the swimming pool is relevant in that it was about male only swimming which then was changed to about muslim only swimming. Its about getting to the truth and your motives for going to National press, given you mentioned nothing about the haredi jewish women swimming sessions.

So you have not denied the story was about your wife and son and the simming pool sessions in JC?

Further there is nothing in the Daily Mail story about you DavidT wanting to to turn this story from one about radicalised Muslims demanding special privileges, to one about an over-zealous council, imposing on Muslims and non Muslims, a ghettoisation that nobody wants.

Please read the story again and point out where you do this.

Further
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

Now please provide some answers DavidT, name calling, insults will not do here.

DavidT

Please answer the questions asked. Calling me a nutter does not answer the questions.

#What you’ve not done, though, is explain what significance you divine from the fact the JC has redesigned its website. #

This is nothing about JC redesigning its website.

The story about your wife and son and the swimming pool is relevant in that it was about male only swimming which then was changed to about muslim only swimming. Its about getting to the truth and your motives for going to National press, given you mentioned nothing about the haredi jewish women swimming sessions.

So you have not denied the story was about your wife and son and the simming pool sessions in JC?

Further there is nothing in the Daily Mail story about you DavidT wanting to to turn this story from one about radicalised Muslims demanding special privileges, to one about an over-zealous council, imposing on Muslims and non Muslims, a ghettoisation that nobody wants.

Please read the story again and point out where you do this.

Further
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

Come on DavidT answer the questions, name calling, insults will not do here

I was talking about the fact that you refer to yourself as ‘we’. Clearly, you are unable to grasp such a simple point.
And of course, you have no clue about Jewish history.

Funny the way the words “Gilad Atzmon” magically produce a parade of lunatics. Is this a Web 2.0 thing?

You were “discussing” something with someone, David T?

Hey, have you read the Sand book? Obviously you must have, since it is the latest and most discussed book both on Jewish Nationalism.

What do you think of it, which language did you read it in?

Yes, I corrected the We pronoun. Make sure you get out the rest of the nits with that comb!

Further
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

Come on DavidT answer the questions, name calling, insults will not do here

#It also evidently hasn’t occurred to you that

- a story about single sex swimming used by Haredi jewish women is of little interest to anybody but Jews and secularists; but

- a story about Muslim only swimming is of interest to a lot of people, nationally.

I’d suggest that this is because Haredim keep themselves to themselves, while radicalised Islamists have made a rather more significant impact on the public consciousness.#

So DavidT the men only swimming sessions were organised and participated by radical islamists – is this your argument?

Do you have any proof?

Your story in the Mail and telegraph whipped up anti-muslim hysteria and was not about radical islamists?

I beleive the Mail or the Telgraph would have had great difficulty in running the story about the muslim men swimming sessions, had they been made aware of the heradi jewish women swimming sessions. DavidT you knew about this but chose not to mention it in the story, had you mentioned it the there was no story to tell!

Jim

You are either very stupid or mad.

Do I understand you correctly. Is your argument that my story about women only swimming was changed by me to a story about Muslim only swimming, that such a session was never offered by the pool, and that I made it up, told the Mail to run a made up story, and then told the JC to hide a previous story about women only swimming?

You’re a nutter.

Further
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

Come on DavidT answer the questions, name calling, insults will not do here

#It also evidently hasn’t occurred to you that

- a story about single sex swimming used by Haredi jewish women is of little interest to anybody but Jews and secularists; but

- a story about Muslim only swimming is of interest to a lot of people, nationally.

I’d suggest that this is because Haredim keep themselves to themselves, while radicalised Islamists have made a rather more significant impact on the public consciousness.#

So DavidT the men only swimming sessions were organised and participated by radical islamists – is this your argument?

Do you have any proof?

Your story in the Mail and telegraph whipped up anti-muslim hysteria and was not about any radical islamists?

I believe the Mail or the Telgraph would have had great difficulty in running the story about the muslim men swimming sessions, had they been made aware of the heredi jewish women swimming sessions.

DavidT you knew about this but chose not to mention it in the story, had you mentioned it the there was no story to tell! This is the point I am making!

Do you notice the flaws and inconsistencies in your own arguments davidT?

DavidT

“You’re a nutter” is no argument!

Will you acknowledge the story in JC was about your wife and son and the swimming pool?

Yes /No

Further
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

Further
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

Come on DavidT answer the questions, name calling, insults will not do here

#It also evidently hasn’t occurred to you that

- a story about single sex swimming used by Haredi jewish women is of little interest to anybody but Jews and secularists; but

- a story about Muslim only swimming is of interest to a lot of people, nationally.

I’d suggest that this is because Haredim keep themselves to themselves, while radicalised Islamists have made a rather more significant impact on the public consciousness.#

So DavidT the men only swimming sessions were organised and participated by radical islamists – is this your argument?

Do you have any proof?

Your story in the Mail and telegraph whipped up anti-muslim hysteria and was not about any radical islamists?

I believe the Mail or the Telgraph would have had great difficulty in running the story about the muslim men swimming sessions, had they been made aware of the heradi jewish women swimming sessions. DavidT you knew about this but chose not to mention it in the story, had you mentioned it the there was no story to tell!

Do you notice the flaws and Inconssitencies in your own arguments davidT?

http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

Jim, you are nutter.

There was a story in the JC about my family and a women only swimming session until 12 pm on Sundays.

There was a story in the local and national press about Muslim only swimming.

The two articles and events were separate, and happened months apart.

Now, please explain clearly exactly what you are saying I have done, to what end, and how I achieved it.

Can somebody else take over dealing with this nutter?

I want to go look at a museum

“You’re a nutter” is no argument!

It is not an argument. It is a statement of fact.

There is a whole host of individuals on this thread who are probably too stupid to realise how unhinged they are – and too unhinged to realise how stupid they are. Jim, Nearly Oxfordian, plantation westworld: in case you think I mean the other two – well, I mean all three of you.

All I want is a date with NO to go to a woman’s gym or a Muslim swim. I will settle for David T, because then he thinks it’s important enough to have an article published about it!

http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

PW
Jewish is not a race. It’s an adjective. Jews are a race and a people. Judaism is a religion. Just like arabs are a race and Islam is a religion.

Jim
Why can’t you understand the difference between gender and religion? “Women only” equals “muslims only”? I guess you don’t want to see the difference, you’re just trying to make David T. look like a racist. Your twisted logic tells you that if you can prove David T. a racist, this will make his post look like smears and lies, and save the reputation of your beloved Atzmon and others like him. Well, it doesn’t work.

#”The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

#”The policy, which means that Clissold Leisure Centre’s training pool is open to women only between 10.45am and 12.30pm every Sunday, was the subject of heated debate at Hackney Council.

Local resident David Toube complained after his wife was not allowed to bring the couple’s five-year-old son into the pool as a result of the policy.

He said: “Why should a public institution subsidise the expression, in a public place, of the gender apartheid practice mandated by a small religious minority?’”#

from
http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

Which small religious minority were you referring to here DavidT as you were aware of swimming sessions to cater for at least 2 religious minorities but the stories in National papers only featured one minority?

from

http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

source :

http://www.londonpoolscampaign.com/newsItems/departments/londonBoroughOfHackney

Pisa

muslim men = gender and religion

haredi jewish women = gender and religion

Spot the difference!

Nearly, your MO here has been as always. I *asked* you a question and, you being your calm and rational self, took it to be on a par with threatening to murder your children. Barge in and start waving your willy about, and initiating personally abusive remarks. I am quite capable of ignoring you. You should learn such self-control.

Syd:

There’s a recent article by Jonathan Cook that has bearing on this strange subject – see ‘Book refuting Jewish taboo on Israel’s bestseller list’ at:

Not as good as your endorsing Israel Shahak. I’m disappointed.

Which religious minority were to referring to DavidT as there were two religious minorities in question but only one was featured in the national newspapers.

Pisa

muslim men = gender and religion

haredi jewish women = gender and religion

spot the difference

One is classed as a distinct ethnic group under UK legislation, another is not.

*part of a distinct ethnic group

Jim
You keep twisting things. “Women only” does not mean “Haredi jewish women only”. “Muslim men only” means…muslim men only? With “women only” all women are allowed. With “muslim men only” only muslim men are allowed. Spot the difference.

However, as I understand, David T. only complained because that particular pool is a public pool.

This is all there is to say about this subject.

well, this thread seems to have gone off topic and away from Atzmon’s racism, strange how some people want to deflect from the topic? Hmm.

still I have to wonder if Atzmon and his supporters will be mourning the demise of Joerg Haider?

Come on DavidT answer the questions, name calling, insults will not do here

#It also evidently hasn’t occurred to you that

- a story about single sex swimming used by Haredi jewish women is of little interest to anybody but Jews and secularists; but

- a story about Muslim only swimming is of interest to a lot of people, nationally.

I’d suggest that this is because Haredim keep themselves to themselves, while radicalised Islamists have made a rather more significant impact on the public consciousness.#

So DavidT the men only swimming sessions were organised and participated by radical islamists – is this your argument?

Do you have any proof?

Your story in the Mail and telegraph whipped up anti-muslim hysteria and was not about any radical islamists?

I believe the Mail or the Telgraph would have had great difficulty in running the story about the muslim men swimming sessions, had they been made aware of the heredi jewish women swimming sessions.

DavidT you knew about this but chose not to mention it in the story, had you mentioned it the there was no story to tell! This is the point I am making!

Do you notice the flaws and inconsistencies in your own arguments davidT?

Muffin, you are a nutter and an illiterate and ignorant little cunt who can’t read a whole sentence in one go. You probably don’t even do joined-up writing.

Nearly, your MO here has been as always. I *asked* you a question and, you being your calm and rational self, took it to be on a par with threatening to murder your children. Barge in and start waving your willy about, and initiating personally abusive remarks. I am quite capable of ignoring you. You should learn such self-control.

I answered your question, you disgusting, shrieking little waste of protoplasm. It’s not my fault you are too dim to understand my reply.
I am not whoever-it-was you took me for in your hysterical ranting.
I lived in Israel for many years.
Do you want it with explanatory pictures?

David Rosenberg is a spokesperson of the Jewish Socialist Group.

Atzmon has articulated a Zionist Conspiracy theory.

Rosenberg thinks this is good for the Zionists.

Rosenberg leaves open the question as to whether Atzmon is being financed by Zionists.

Rosenberg fails to acknowledge that Atzmon’s garbage appearing on, and being recommended by, many, many legitimate anti-Zionist sites.

Rosenberg knows that acknowledging antisemitism’s presence within anti-Zionist politics means that he has been completely wrong for the last couple of years.

Rosenberg is so far down a blind alley, he knows he cannot get out.

He is beginning to look increasingly foolish.

There was no religious segregated swimming for Jews. There was sex segregated swimming which was largely used by Haredi women. Jews do not ask for religiously segregated swimming. The objection, here, was that these segregated sessions were taking place in the middle of the weekend.

There was religiously segregated swimming for Muslim men. Muslims do not ask for religiously segregated swimming. However, the council provided religiously segregated swimming for Muslim men. The objection here is that open and pluralist societies should not segregate by religion.

I predict another disingenuous comment by Jim in about… three minutes.

Frankly, Atzmon sounds like an unhinged loon. End of story.

David T – The objection here is that open and pluralist societies should not segregate by religion.

I thoroughly agree David.

I am sure that most of the posters above agree 100% too but your site is a place for some lunacy as well so many of them are availing themselves of your facilities.

Here’s another who agrees.

’sorry, guys, but isn’t Plantation Westworld himself Gilad Atzmon?

Nearly, there are things I agree with Muffin about, and there are things I disagree with him about. This is conducted through debate.

Stop insulting people you disagree with. Not only will people refuse to take anything you say seriously, they will ignore your posts altogether.

Westworld/Atzmon, or whoever you are:

“ethnicity”, “nationality”, “race” are and have been notoriously difficult things to define, if, properly, they exist at all. Historically they have encompassed all manner of elements: culture, language, descent etc. Anthropologists tend to place language highest in the list of distinctive ethnic markers.

From classical antiquity, Jews have been regarded as an ‘ethnos’, ‘gens’ or ‘natio’, into medieval Christendom and up to and including the modern age. It was, arguably, only in 1805, for the first time since classical antiquity that a Jew could transcend his Jewish ‘national’ or ‘ethnic’ identity, without apostatising, and become a national fellow citizen with other non-Jewish i.e. Christian nationals.

In Islam, the situation was different, but even there concepts were inherited from Christians and Christendom, that the Jews were a people cursed with national dispossession for their sins (and, of course, from the Hijaz, with Christians or ‘Romans’, as they were called until the modern period).

Arabic speaking Jews were not regarded as ‘Arabs’. That notion arose with modern Arab nationalism, and was overridden by the older notion that Jews were indeed a people originally dispossessed and, consequently, fellow ‘Zionists’ with Palestinian or Israeli Jews.

That is why most formerly Arabic speaking Jews and their descendants are now Israeli. I doubt many will find any of your arguments persuasive.

I haven’t read Sand’s book, but I dare say I shall when I have access and time, probably when I go to the states to see my family this year. I have of course read the Haaretz article and, frankly, it doesn’t look like he is saying anything especially new or insightful.

Yes there was a diaspora in antiquity, yes, some Khazars (the aristocracy in academic consensus) converted, as did some Spaniards in Al Andalus. Yes, yes, it has been said before, time and again.

It doesn’t matter. As a people dispossessed of temple, city and land is how most Jews haven regarded in Christendom and Islam for most of Christian and Islamic history.

And, to iterate, for the umpteenth time, a consequence of this, arguably the most important, iwas that in the 19th and 20th centuries, most European, North African and Asian Jews were either murdered or effectively driven out, before 1914 mostly to America, after mostly to Palestine or what became Israel.

That is why Israel may now be the largest Jewish community in the world.

I don’t think the profound musings of Westworld, Atzmon or even Sand is going to change that. As for Sand’s assertion that ‘Zionists’ invented a Jewish nation, even without religion, rot. Even the Jewish socialist bund, in Eastern Europe, whence most Zionist or Palestinian Jews originated, regarded Jews as fulfilling all the necessary criteria for Jewish national autonomy. And there is absolutely no question whatsoever that they would have regarded the likes of Gilad Atzmon as a raving antisemite, a well as a nutcase, to use the technical psychiatric term.

Of course, I understand, by Atzmon’s criteria, even the Bund were ‘Zionist’.

Zkharah, thanks for at least managing a decent response. I am not Atzmon, and why is it that any time someone is on this site who does not slam Atzmon is all of a sudden “Atzmon”? Think about how strange that is.

Anyway, I didn’t ask you if you read Sand, but David as he has said I would be an igoramous if I hadn’t read every book on the topic of Jewish Nationalism.

I actually have read a book I believe he hasn’t, but if he has, I’d LOVE to see his view on it, rather than just huff off on what some reviewer wrote.

But I think I just saw him trying to sneak into a kiddie party over at McDonald’s…. He really likes to go where it’s intended to reserve space for others…. Nasty habit.

so as to avoid all confusion: by “decent” I meant one that had a bit of information along with it to accompany the insults.

Just to take some of Sand’s points:

“But once I started looking at the evidence, I discovered that the kingdoms of David and Solomon were legends.”

I am not sure this is particularly relevant. Many national identities are built on similar alleged ‘myths’, if David or Solomon really were ahistorical. And the consequences for Palestinian Christian or Islamic identity are hardly less severe.

“Similarly with the exile. In fact, you can’t explain Jewishness without exile. But when I started to look for history books describing the events of this exile, I couldn’t find any. Not one.”

I’m not sure what he means by ‘history’ books. The ancient sources, pagan, Jewish and Christian, from immediately after the destruction of the temple, as well as the suppression of the Bar Kochba revolt, speak of a dispossession and exile. This was something that was widely perceived to have happened, from an early time. This perception did not diminish with time, rather the reverse.

“That was because the Romans did not exile people. In fact, Jews in Palestine were overwhelmingly peasants and all the evidence suggests they stayed on their lands.”

Of course Romans exiled people. They also from time to time committed ethnic cleansing, even genocide.

There is, in fact, very little evidence for widespread Jewish conversion to Christianity in the late antique. The Christian sources speak of it as a very rare thing. The earliest Christian sources, specifically the Gospels (leaving aside Paul’s letters) speak of a general Jewish exile and dispossession. Pagan Palestinians, the inhabitants of the Greco-Roman coloniae, are a different matter. Justin Martyr, late mid to late 2nd century, is a very early example. In fact, interestingly, it is among Christians that the first expressions of a distinctly ‘Palestinian’ identity are to be found. As far as I have found, before the Christian period, nobody described themselves as ‘Palestinian’ except Hellenistically educated Jews like Josephus.

It is true that there was a huge Hellenistic and classical Jewish diaspora. But

a) Jews were still regarded as a national group and

b) in the wake of the suppressions of the first and second Jewish revolts, in the pagan and Christian periods, all Jews were punished by the fiscus judaicus, as though they themselves were guilty of seditious intent towards the Roman state.

In other words, Jews were defined by the state, pagan, then Christian, as rebels against both state and g-d, and punished with dispossession of temple, city and land as a consequence.

‘Zionists’ did not invent these ideas. They were baggage that European and other Jews came with in societies that reinforced these views by external attitudes towards them.

One may say, if one desires, this constitutes ‘false consciousness’, of one kind or another. But one is not obliged to rescind such a view if it is likely to lead to personal or group danger. It is all very well saying Israeli Jews should rescind such a ‘false consciousness’, but, the truth is, most Jews who became Palestinian or Israeli were all too prepared to do just that. It was their host societies, culturally Christian or Islamic that imposed it from without, and gave them little choice in the matter.

Hence most Jews are now either American or Israeli.

OK, westworld, I appreciate your civil response. And I apologise if I caused offence by lumping you in with Atzmon, or for any other reason.

Are you a sci fi reader at all (I only ask because of your name)?

I hasten to add, merely because there is little evidence for widespread Jewish conversion in the land of Israel in the late antique, does not mean it did not happen.

But, for better or worse, what shapes people ideas about the past, their own and others and, hence, their own identities is based either on experience or existential tradition. People can only know what they know, and Zionist Jews are or were no different in this matter.

And re. Ben Gurion’s saying Palestinian Christians and Muslims were descended from Jews, those whose favour and brotherhood he was trying to get by it, Palestinian Christians and Muslims themselves, were, in the main, very resistant to the idea. They, in the main (though, as always, with exceptions), had very different ideas about their origins.

Saul,
Given that anti-Zionists like me from the JSG were among the first to expose and oppose Atzmon, I’m not sure what we are supposed to be so wrong about “in the last couple of years”. Antisemites have tried to infiltrate the anti-zionist movement for more than a couple of years – and we have challenged them and will continue to do so, while defending our fundamental and legitimate critique of Zionism.

You say Atzmon has articulated a “Zionist Conspiracy theory” – I regard it as a Jewish conspiracy theory of the classical type, where Zionism is just a code word, but one that allows him to cloak his off the wall ideas as “anti-Zionism”.

What he has done though has been more effective in smearing anti-Zionism and anti-Zionists, and opening them to attack, than the pro-Israel propagandists who do that work for a living. For the record, I don’t think Atzmon is part of a Zionist conspiracy and I don’t think he is being paid by Zionists. I do think his activities are extraordinarily convenient for them. Without Atzmon on the scene the arguments over Zionism would have to be had with genuine and principled anti-zionists. Muffin thinks its a psychiatric issue – which it may be – but I also don’t think he is acting alone.

As well as Atzmon’s general loathing for things positively identified as Jewish, Atzmon seems particularly keen on damning diaspora Jewish culture, especially Yiddish culture, and Bundism and, on this territory, he takes a stance that is associated with classical Zionism, and the dominant ideologies about the Diaspora that are inculcated by the Israeli education system. He is certainly an odd anti-Zionist who doesn’t criticise some of the central tenets of the Israelocentric belief system he grew up with.

In a very revealing exchange some months ago with Mike Rosen (who was defending Yiddish diasporic culture), Atzmon told him to go read Ber Borochov (the Zionist theorist) who, he claimed, was “right” on these matters. Wouldn’t you say that is not quite what you would expect from a common or garden anti-zionist?

I don’t doubt that Atzmon’s rubbish is appearing on various sites claiming to be anti-zionist, what I was disputing was an overblown claim that Atzmonism was taking root significantly in parts of the left. It is clear from the discussion here that no one, including you Saul, has found another left party in the UK (apart from the SWP) that gives Atzmon and his ideas a platform.

Yeah, Zkharya, I read a bit of sci fi, but not as much as I used to. The name really hasn’t got a thing to do with sci fi though.

Now, I wouldn’t be offended to be lumped in with Atzmon in particular. I think it is just really a crazy practice to label anybody who isn’t attacking Atzmon as being Atzmon. Thanks for the apology though, and for replying with some comments on Sand.

Now: to the matter. (don’t make incident out of my English, it isn’t my native language)

“But once I started looking at the evidence, I discovered that the kingdoms of David and Solomon were legends.”

You say most national identities are built on myths, ok. But at least if I am looking at a temple supposed to have been the geographic-metaphysical place that has a spiritual meaning, it had better be THAT temple if it becomes a dogmatic document of faith. You aren’t supposed to invent the meaning of the document with the stuff you find. I will tell you a quick secret: where I come from, we have a lot of really antique findings in the soil, farmers dig them up all the time. They are not interesting to most archeologists because they aren’t from a really evolved culture, so do you know what they do? They pass them off as being from an area between Pakistan and Afghanistan on auctions. The same items get no interest if they are told to be what they are (Balkan) and if they are suddenly central Asian, they are in demand.

The document is the same, the interpretation is totally different and false, according to the market value at the time, same goes for culture and ethnicity.

I remember as a boy, being proud to be a Jew, but my father told me he was ashamed of the same thing. It became fashionable, go find out why and we will understand the universe.

2. Jewish history books are a relatively new invention. Before that, we had the sacred book and the Talmud and a series of other things that were dogma, but not really history. So, Sand is right there, there is no historical recounting from the Jewish perspective of exile, but one that is just in the scriptural books.

3. Romans didn’t exile anyone. Well, he presents a damn good case for it in the book. Romans actually preferred to mix with the locals. I tend to believe that Jews admired the nearby Phoenicians and tried their hand at travel and exchange. You can call it exile if you want, but mass immigration and colonialisation isn’t always exile.

Any way, I haven’t got time to review the book or all its arguments. I just think people better read it before they say if it’s right or wrong. So far only those who read Ivrit and French are so lucky.

David Rosenberg: I am glad you have now withdrawn, even if implicitly, your ridiculous speculation that Atzmon might be an agent of “Zionists”.

You claim to represent “principled anti-Zionism”. Fine. I have certainly found in the past members of your group as people with whom I can (to coin a phrase) disagree agreeably, while respecting each other and each other’s motives and integrity. I strongly suggest that you avoid even a whiff of this sort of delegitimising and demonising accusations, since they have the habit of destroying mutual respect.

But there is also something in your new position which I find objectionable.

I do think his activities are extraordinarily convenient for them.

(”them” being Zionists). Essentially, what you are saying to Atzmon is “stop, you are assisting the enemy”. Which is something I’ve heard said by others, in a different context, and I always found it oddly unprincipled and unconvincing. Firstly, either what he is doing is right or it is wrong, regardless of what does it (in your opinion) assist. Secondly, you really have to decide which side you are on on this particular issue. Is Atzmon the enemy or are the Zionists the enemy and Atzmon is unwittingly assisting them. So, to quote Pete Seeger, which side are you on?

Dave R

Sorry to disappoint you, but Left parties (in the sense you mean it) are dead. There are just not that many people organising through such vehicles. Political organising doesn’t happen this way any more. They’re not important forces.

Nonsense, Danny. I said nothing whatsoever about Muffin until he waded into this thread out of nowhere, having contributed nothing to it, and for no reason at all started laying into me rudely, to put it mildly. You had better direct your criticism to him.

David R wrote:

“what I was disputing was an overblown claim that Atzmonism was taking root significantly in parts of the left. “

well, as Atzmon heightens his rhetoric and use very conspicuous anti-Jewish racism then less and less people on the Left will want to support him, but until recently Atzmon could be guaranteed to find some idiots on the British Left to back him up?

if you want evidence, just scan the Socialist Unity blog when Atzmon has been discussed and you’ll see that Andy Newman often has had an uphill struggle to convince some people of Atzmon’s racism, when it should have been obvious to all

http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=2766#comments
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1890#comments
there’s probably a lot more

I doubt that the SWP will clarify their position:

“The SWP does not believe that Gilad Atzmon is a Holocaust denier or racist. However, while defending Gilad’s right to play and speak on public platforms that in no way means we endorse all of Gilad’s views.

In fact we have publicly challenged and argued against those of his ideas we disagree with.”[my emphasis]

http://www.swp.org.uk/gilad.php

I think the real questions are:

1. why didn’t many on the British Left see the nature of Atzmon’s cloaked racism, many years back?

2. so having not been sufficiently sensitive to Atzmon’s racism, will such “sloppiness” occur again if another Aztmon figure arises?

“Without Atzmon on the scene the arguments over Zionism would have to be had with genuine and principled anti-zionists. Muffin thinks its a psychiatric issue – which it may be – but I also don’t think he is acting alone.” (David Rosenberg)

Actually, the arguments went on for decades between the two sides, since the early 1900s until, not casually, the Holocaust settled the matter. Most of those Jews who “stayed to fight” for the Socialist revolution in Europe perished at the hands of the nazis and the indiference of the rest of the Europeans (with counted exceptions). Those Jews who made aliah to Israel are here overwhelmingly to tell the story.
I could not find a worst way to settle an argument, but Herzl already predicted how it will be 50 years earlier.

Zkharya -
Hezekiah’s historical existence, at any rate, has been archaeologically verified. Since that takes us to about the mid-10th century BC, IIRC, it seems to me that the charge of ‘myths’ can be laid to rest.

and http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1488#comments

“1. I don’t actually think that Atzmon is an anti-semite, I think he’s just mad and extremely eccentric. A shame if he just stuck to playing music he is a very talented political artist

Comment by Adam J — 7 January, 2008 @ 8:50 pm”

says it all :(

Jim

The Mulsim-only swimming story is of huge interest because it highliights the grovelling dhimmitude of the establishment.

While Jews have been living quietly here for years, Muslims’ shrill demands for special privileges, and their obvious contempt for the host culture, have pissed off many ordinary people to the point where they are heartily sick of them.

You will see the consequences when the recession begins to bite.

They are not interesting to most archeologists because they aren’t from a really evolved culture

Archaeologists specialise: some are only interested in Roman Britain, others only in the upper palaeolithic where the very word ‘culture’ can be questioned – and is. To say that ‘most archeologists’ aren’t interested in artefacts that aren’t from a really evolved culture is simply not a factual description of the situation.

Exactly, Andy. Most Brits have no time for such Gimme, Gimme bullies, to put it mildly. The establishment has practised grovelling dhimmitude for ages now, but your ordinary bloke has nothing but contempt for such an attitude, and as you say, we may well see some ugly backlashes.

Speaking of Hezekiah, I was last week in the tunnel he made built, got out soaked (it has 70cm water in some parts) after an enjoyable half an hour walk in the dark.
Just before entering the tunnel, I was shown the place where archeologist believe kings (like David) were anointed with oil (the Hebrew word for anointed is Mashiaj, from where the word Messiah was derived.
Just to answer to banana plantation’s: “You say most national identities are built on myths, ok. But at least if I am looking at a temple supposed to have been the geographic-metaphysical place that has a spiritual meaning, it had better be THAT temple if it becomes a dogmatic document of faith.”
And to make other people envy of my adventures :)

Gilatzmon has quietly withdrawn the lead to his masterpiece, which had cited a newspaper article by a certain banker and cast a certain .. ahem.. complexion on it. The banker threatened legal action.

Andy Gill

I saw no evidence that Hackney Muslims had asked for Muslim only swimming. There is no doctrinal reason for Sunni Muslims to avoid physical contact with non-Muslims.

David R

Your other mistake is to think that the Left will do anything to defend Jews from racism. It won’t.

What you will see, is anti-Jewish racism being used metaphorically: for example, to equate Jews with Nazis. You’ll also see Jews being blamed for racism against them.

You must recognise this in yourself. You see Atzmon, and your immediate reaction is (a) it is a Zionist plot and (b) my comrades wouldn’t have missed Atzmon’s racism, were it not for the pesky Zionists who make false allegations of antisemitism and cloud the water.

Here’s the truth. Your comrades are not anti-racists. They are at best indifferent to anti-semitism, unless it comes wearing a swastika armband. At worst, they are promoters of it.

Muffin, you are a nutter and an illiterate and ignorant little cunt who can’t read a whole sentence in one go. You probably don’t even do joined-up writing.

Unlike you, S has fought for Israel in different wars and lost many good friends.

Atzmon’s antisemitism is wrong because it is harmful to Jews. And whether or not it affected the Palestinians it would be wrong and should be opposed.

But something can be wrong for more than one reason and an action can have implications in more than one arena.

Atzmon’s antisemitism also happens to be deleterious to the interests of Palestinians while claiming the opposite. In which ways could the real interests of Palestinians – who want to change their predicament to be able to live as equals – be enhanced by support from antisemites?

On the Muffin-Seeger question I’m on the side of freedom, equality and justice, which means I’m against all antisemitism (and all forms of racism) and it means I’m against Zionism. While of course recognising the different shades of Zionist and the left-right struggles within the zionist movement historically and currently, I cannot see Zionism in either its left or right varieties delivering freedom, justice and equality to the Palestinians. While those on Zionism’s left wing are at least able to speak a language of seeking peace, Israel’s Labour Party has been as guilty as Likud in encouraging the settlements and maintaining the occupation. It was a labour Zionist leader, Yitzhak Rabin, who gave the order to soldiers during the first intifada (in relation to palestinian children and youth, “Break their bones”.

And from my perspective Zionism continues to have negative affects on Jewish life in the diaspora, insisting on support from diaspora communities as a number one political priority regardless of how it might contradict their values and their community needs. Zionism regards itself as a liberation movement. Why are Israel’s leaders so willing to accept unquestioning support from the diaspora but so unwilling to accept the criticism that flows from freedom of thought in the diaspora?

Just out of interest, Muffin, do you know where Pete Seeger stands on Israel/
Palestine these days? I know that in the 60s he recorded some Hebrew songs (I’ve got them, somewhere) but I read that a few years ago he pledged the royalties of turn, turn, turn to the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions led by the anti-Zionist Jeff Halper…Maybe Seeger has turned, turned, turned.

David R,

I never understand you, you ask questions and then when they are answered you respond as if nothing has been written.

as muffin points out it reduces mutual trust and makes DISCUSSING (not arguing) these issues very hard with you.

so, I’ll ask a pointed question:

WHY did so many on the British left conspicuously FAIL to spot Atzmon’s racism early on?

was it:

1) they don’t know much about anti-Jewish racism
2) they are confused by the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish racism
3) or that a climate has arisen where anti-Jewish racism seeps into the main discourse and people hardly notice it?

4)…[your answer] which, you tell me? I am curious?

DavidT

#There was religiously segregated swimming for Muslim men. Muslims do not ask for religiously segregated swimming. However, the council provided religiously segregated swimming for Muslim men.
The objection here is that open and pluralist societies should not segregate by religion.#

and in your story in Daily Telegraph

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1895962/%27Non-Muslim%27-father-banned-from-London-pool.html

“A spokesman for Hackney Council said: “None of Hackney’s leisure centres has religiously segregated swimming sessions in their public timetables. In common with most public swimming facilities, there are single sex sessions, and this session was men only.

“The member of staff in this situation made a mistake and the centre manager is working to ensure that all staff are clear about the timetabled sessions at the centre. Hackney Council would wish to apologise to any member of the public who was given incorrect information at any of our facilities.”

I do find it odd that 2 newspapers known for their anti-muslim hysteria used the story to whip up further ant-muslim hysteria where you davidT were at the centre stage.

Atzmon’s antisemitism also happens to be deleterious to the interests of Palestinians while claiming the opposite. In which ways could the real interests of Palestinians – who want to change their predicament to be able to live as equals – be enhanced by support from antisemites?

Well, I’ve certainly argued this.

But the ‘anti-semitism hurts Palestinians’ argument turns on two false premises. They are as follows:

- Palestinians need the support of European Left wingers
- European Left wingers won’t support an anti-semitic politics

First, Palestinian politics doesn’t need political support from European revolutionary socialists. It needs money from Iraq (formerly) and other Arab states, and Iran. That’s where Palestinians get the money and arms they need in order to fight Israelis.

Now, if you’ve been following Arab and Persian politics, you might have noticed that they’re not exactly preoccupied by worries about anti-semitism.

Compared to this, what precisely do a handful of Jewish bundists and trots offer to Palestinians? Seriously?

Secondly, as Atzmon has shown, and as the surplanting of Fatah as objects of the Left’s affection, by the vocally anti-semitic and genocidal Hamas and Hezbollah… the far Left just isn’t put off by anti-semitism. It either doesn’t recognise it. Or it thinks that it incidental. Or it thinks it is deserved.

So, precisely how is anti-semitism supposed to harm the Palestinians?

Do you mean that, when the get their national state, it might be one governed by a political movement with a fanatical hatred of Jews, rather than international socialism … and that would be a bad thing for them, somehow?

Well, you’re probably right. You must go over to Gaza and explain to Hamas supporters what a terrible error they’re making.

Modernity – no snub intended – your comment and question hadn’t shown up when I was responding to Muffin.

Apart from the fact that Atzmon tended to be writing his stuff in fairly obscure places on the blogosphere that most normal people of the left would not have visited, (which I guess is my number 4) , I think elements of 1) and 2) and 3) are certainly there among some who place themselves on the left.

I think we would disagree about how widespread these elements are, and I certainly wouldn’t paint such a negative picture of the left in general in regard to racism/antisemitism with the broad strokes that David T does (and I’m not sure you would either).

Do you think the problem you point to in 2) is helped or hindered by the fact that the Board of Deputies, the Chief Rabbi and Israeli Embassy spokespeople also can’t seem to distinguish anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish racism and also assume that Jewish interests and israeli state interests are always the same?

I am very glad that my actions resulted in Hackney Council overturning a religiously segregated swimming session.

I hope that you, too, oppose religious apartheid and sectarianism, and support a pluralism and multicultural society.

And of course, Tosser Alec knows for sure that I never fought in any of Israel’s wars and didn’t lose any friends in them.

For the record: he is stupid, ignorant – and wrong, as usual.

David Rosenberg and the JSG – A legend in Their own Lifetime.

And very , very bitter that they have failed and are ignored.

Put them in a museum.

Wind them up, watch them go.

David R

“ou think the problem you point to in 2) is helped or hindered by the fact that the Board of Deputies, the Chief Rabbi and Israeli Embassy spokespeople also can’t seem to distinguish anti-Zionism and anti-Jewish racism and also assume that Jewish interests and israeli state interests are always the same?”

Your problem is that you are so bitter that yourself and your roup are ignored while the the Board of Deps and The Chief Rabbi are listened to , inspite of their many faults.

David , give it up , everybody’s heard you , 99.9999 % of Jews ignore you. Still to being a historian because that’s where your irrelevant group belongs.

BTW , i too would be bitter if i had spent the last however many years it is trying to argue for politics and an ideology that nobody except a dozen or so fifty year olds support. That’s also why you continously whinge.

PS , apologies for my typos.

BTW David , yiddish culture does not just belong to Bundists.

“Apart from the fact that Atzmon tended to be writing his stuff in fairly obscure places on the blogosphere that most normal people of the left would not have visited,” (David Rosenberg)

Atzmon’s articles are religiously translated to several languages including Spanish, and posted in less than 48 hours in sites as Indymedia, Rebelion, and voltaire.net places where the LatinAmerican far left tends to congregate. Your articles, D.R. are not translated nor posted anywhere in the Spanish blogosphere.
I mention Spanish because that is my mother language and because it’s been several years that I see Atzmon’s venom sucked by the LatinAmerican pro-Palestinian movement.

David R wrote:

“I think we would disagree about how widespread these elements are, and I certainly wouldn’t paint such a negative picture of the left in general”

how long is a piece of string?

how many 100s, went to Maxrism 200x?

how many dozens went to Atzmon talks, sponsored by the SWP (and picketed by Jewish socialists)?

how many defended Aztmon on the SU Blog (see above, and remember I base my views on EVIDENCE), etc

that’s a few hundred too many, in my book

the fact that one socialist even tried to defend Atzmon is absurd and ONE too many

as for the Embassy, please David, could we focus on the point?

[I doubt if any of the attendees of Marxism xxxx give a flying fuck whatever the Embassy or the Chief Rabbi have to say on any subject?

since WHEN have the Left ever, ever concerned themselves with those two bodies? they haven't, it is not relevant to the discourse.]

so I return to my point:

when confronted my anti-Jewish racism nowadays can many on the British Left recognise it, if it doesn’t come from Far Right sources?

and if not, WHY not?

is there a problem discerning sexism? or anti-black racism? are anti-Irish gibes hard to spot?NO, not at all,

yet anti-Jewish racism seems to go under the ideological radar of many, and it is fair to ask WHY are, otherwise intelligent people, desensitized to these topics?

why, David?

(and blaming Zionists is a poor answer)

David T – you have jumbled together a number of contradictory factors to conclude that the far left is supporting hamas and hezbollah and therefore supporting genocidal antisemitism.

Maybe I hang out with nice people, but the principal sentiment I meet among other leftists on this question is a determined support for the Palestinian people and their right to self-determination and equality (argued variously in two state and one state positions). I rarely hear enthusiasm for Hamas but I do hear (and agree with) the demand that the Israeli government recognise Hamas and negotiate with it on the basis that Hamas won an internal Palestinian election (albeit held under very difficult conditions).

In February 2008 Haaretz reported a poll result showing that 64% of Israelis support direct talks with Hamas. Would you say they want to talk with genocidal antisemites?

(sorry, takeaway has arrived – I’ll try and get back to this later!)

On the Muffin-Seeger question I’m on the side of freedom, equality and justice, which means I’m against all antisemitism (and all forms of racism) and it means I’m against Zionism

That’s a contradiction in terms. Zionism seeks to achieve freedom, equality and justice for the Jewish nation – on a par with other nations. Opposing this aim is racist, of the kind called antisemitism.

Of course, you may be one of those left-wing loons who have taken the term Zionism and subverted it to mean what they would have liked it to mean so they can beat the Jews with it, which is also a form of antisemitism.

on the basis that Hamas won an internal Palestinian election (albeit held under very difficult conditions).

An interesting euphemism for ‘thugs and gangsters beating up people who disagree with them, indeed murdering quite a few’.

David Rosenberg I don’t doubt that Atzmon’s rubbish is appearing on various sites claiming to be anti-zionist, what I was disputing was an overblown claim that Atzmonism was taking root significantly in parts of the left. It is clear from the discussion here that no one, including you Saul, has found another left party in the UK (apart from the SWP) that gives Atzmon and his ideas a platform.

If Atzmon’s rubbish was quoted frequently on CI(F), a haven for the anarchist detached extreme and looney left, would you reconsider your statement above??????

David R

Substantial parts of the far Left doesn’t even recognise that Hamas and Hezbollah are genocidal racists.

I bet you don’t.

Anyhow, after your takeaway, I’d love to hear how you think that association with anti-semitism hurts the Palestinian liberation struggle.

I know people who have been put off the whole Palestinian Solidarity thing by Atzmon. I agree with David T that objectively this is irrelevant to the Palestinian cause, but some Palestinians may see it differently.

In February 2008 Haaretz reported a poll result showing that 64% of Israelis support direct talks with Hamas. Would you say they want to talk with genocidal antisemites?

Assuming that this is meant to be a clever rhetorical question, then it’s an irrelevant point. They may want to talk to them for pragmatic reason: this is no evidence that they are not genocidal antisemites (which of course they are, condemned from their own mouths by way of loud proclamations).

JR, after the Jerusalem Quartet protest, I spoke to apolitical mates who’d been there and repulsed and did my best to disentangle the two issues – Palestinian self-determination, and neo-nazi scum – in their minds.

Yes disentanglement is often the issue – the waters muddied by the likes of Atzmon and the spsc with their peculiar agendas.

David Rosenberg, it’s funny that you imagine that Gilad Atzmon might be a crypto-Zionist, when that’s exactly what he accuses your lot of being. I’m sure we agree that when he lays that particular charge, it is nothing more than an antisemitic conspiracy theory masquerading as anti-Zionism.

Would you care to explain how your employing of the same conspiracy theory is ‘kosher’?

On the Muffin-Seeger question I’m on the side of freedom, equality and justice, which means I’m against all antisemitism (and all forms of racism) and it means I’m against Zionism.

Why can’t you be against anti-Semitism without immediately qualifying it that you are against Zionism? Because they are the same? Because you are just against two things in the universe, nothing else, hence you are compelled to list them together? Because your friends in what passes in these days for “left” can misunderstand or be unhappy with unqualified condemnation of anti-Semitism?

You see, David Rosenberg, you are falling into the same trap as the more unsavoury reaches of the left. A principled position is that anti-Semitism is always wrong, without qualification. Exactly like any other form of racism and other similar forms of discrimination. But the unsavoury reaches of the left distinguish between good anti-anti-Semites and bad anti-anti-Semites. You know, you don’t really need an alibi of anti-Zionism to oppose anti-Semitism.

Modernity you ” doubt if any of the attendees of Marxism xxxx give a flying fuck whatever the Embassy or the Chief Rabbi have to say on any subject?
since WHEN have the Left ever, ever concerned themselves with those two bodies? they haven’t, it is not relevant to the discourse.”

I disagree. It does not excuse people on the left failing to apply their intelligence and make proper distinctions, but I do think it contributes to the confusion on the issue.

I agree that when issues about Atzmon’s on the SU blog there was evidence of some lefties defending/apologising for him, (though we are talking small numbers of individuals here) and the counter arguments came from other lefties (and not just sensitised Jewish ones). I agree that one is one too many – and needs to be challenged but let’s keep some sense of proportion about the whole business.

Of course he shouldn’t have been invited by the SWP (and we told them so) but you’ve exaggerated the amount of exposure Atzmon was able to get with the SWP. He played sax at Marxism I believe on three occasions and probably made a few typical mutterings between tracks. He didn’t have the opportunity to present a “coherent” argument as far as I know. He was interviewed once in Socialist Worker about the Cultures of Resistance music initiative. He spoke at one Bookmarks meeting which was picketed by Jewish anti-Zionists.

After that meeting he boasted that the SWP would be sending him on a speaking tour. That never happened and he was dropped from the last Marxism and replaced by one of his opponents – Mike Rosen.

Without the intervention of principled anti-Zionists I suspect he might have got a few more gigs playing and speaking – and only the SWP can explain that one. I reckon most SWP members have still not heard of him or know what he is about – though their CC certainly has something to answer for. Other left groups/parties have not been interested in him.

Your assumption that the left are completely unable to see antisemitism but can spot every other kind of racism perfectly – is wrong. Unfortunately, sections of the left have been affected by the shift in discourse from multiculturalism/anti-racism to multi-faithism, from seeing things in terms of ethnicity and class to seeing things through a religious prism. And as a result the racism against non-Islamic Asian communities, and African and Afro-Caribbean communities does not seem to be noticed as much and responded to as much by some Left groups as the racism against Islamic communities. And the issues of diversity and class conflict within Islamic communities in the UK don’t get as much attention as they should.

David T – got to give you a shorthand answer now cos I’ve got to go -but we can chat after the walk tomorrow. In short (I’ll talk about Hamas because I know more about them than Hizbollah), ask Palestinian leftish-secularists why Fatah was defeated by Hamas, and though they oppose them politically, and have good reason to diss them, they will admit that Hamas did not get supported by stressing its more fundamentalist and antisemitic agendas but by campaigning on what had previously been core Palestinian national platforms of Fatah that under (mainly American) pressure Fatah has retreated from. They will also tell you that Hamas is a heterogenous movement with many conflicts and contradictions, that also gained because of the democratic deficit under the Palestinian authority.

The JSG position (shared by the radical peace camp in Israel) is that Israel should negotiate with the elected Palestinian leaders and vice versa without preconditions on either side. Furthermore, the left should be doing what it can to help rebuild and strengthen the secular, progressive current in Palestinian political life that has been weakened and opened up political opportunities for what has been described by one left group as a “reactionary movement of the oppressed”.

Muffin – read my first sentence on that post:

“Atzmon’s antisemitism is wrong because it is harmful to Jews. And whether or not it affected the Palestinians it would be wrong and should be opposed.”

Anything else I wrote on that post was additional not qualifying.

Hi westworld,

well, I have two degrees in classics, Latin and Greek, and the Romans definitely periodically did what we might call ethnic cleansing even genocide.

Nothing compares to what Rome did in Judaea save Dacia. The book I would recommend to you is Martin Goodman’s “Rome and Jerusalem” where he observes that it was unparallelled for Rome to forbid the rebuilding of a temple. The loss of life inflicted on Judeans in the suppression of the second revolt was heavy, even by modern standards.

And what was more unique was how the large scale ethnic cleansing of Judea of Jews (many of whom indeed settled Galilee) was then enshrined in the world view of Christianity, which then became and dictated Roman state policy. That the Jews were a people humiliated and dispossessed as punishment for their rejection of Jesus and the prophets became central to a Christian weltanschauung, and then, of course, to some degree, that of Islam.

Christian Rome than inflicted further restrictive measures on the Jews in the land, whom pagan Rome had to some degree left alone. This led to a further erosion of the Jewish population (perhaps analogous to post-nakbah restrictions placed on Palestinian Christians and Muslims in the land).

As to your assertion about ‘history’ books. It depends what you mean by ‘history’. There is a wealth of ancient texts that purport to give accounts of what happened. Christians had their texts plus those of their pagan predecessors. With the decline of Hellenistic Judaism, in time, Jews had chiefly the Tanakh, the Mishah and the Talmuds. This was their ‘history’, their narrative of who they were and how they had come to be.

The Talmud is the most important text of the time, the largest ‘Palestinian’ text, that tells us about Jewish life at the start of the common era. That is because the rabbis, fearing the loss of Israel among the nations, gathered every scrap of lore, law, information that told of a society and culture that had been all but destroyed, and was in danger of perishing. The Talmuds are, in that sense, invaluable historical documents, unique and indispensable to any historical survey.

It’s all very well saying their narrative is mythical, but, in that case, it was a myth reinforced by the Christian and Islamic societies in which Jews lived i.e. it is a myth that became history. As I said, pagan and Christian Rome treated all Jews, within and without the land, as de facto subversive of the state, and as having been rebels against both the state and g-d. This can have only reinforced a Jewish sense of being a separate people.

I’m sure I shall read Sand’s book, sometime. But it doesn’t sound as though he is saying much new, and it also sounds as though he leaves a lot of the story out. He wouldn’t be the first academic out to cause a sensation to do that.

Well, I don’t have a profound and principled objection to any of that, and I think that you analysis of the perspective of far Left organisations when it comes to racism.

What I think you haven’t necessarily factored in, is how shallow, opportunistic, and contingent the far Left’s opposition to racism is. Put bluntly, parts of the far Left see anti-racism as an opportunity to recruit paper sellers, and nothing more. You have seen this in practice, in relation to the SWP’s attitude to you and your comrades, but there are many more illustrations.

Important parts of the far Left simply regurgitated Soviet Bloc originated anti-Zionist arguments, and got Jewish anti Zionists in as window dressing, while – in the case of the WRP – taking backhanders from Saddam, and Gaddafi: at pretty much the same time that Nick Griffin was trying to get cash from precisely the same source. You thought this was principled? For you perhaps. Where did Greenstein and Rance get the cash to fund Return?

So, along comes the SWP’s alliance with Islamist groups, and suddenly, they’re in an electoral front with people running Islamist conspiracy theories, some anti-semitic, while touting around Atzmon to ‘kosherise’ it.

And you wanted to keep the SWP ‘in the family’?

Anything else I wrote on that post was additional not qualifying.

I see that we are talking at cross purposes. OK, David, suppose that you’ve expressed your opinion about racism occasionally directed against African-Americans in USA. Fine, so far, so good. And then you would have seamlessly segued into a discourse on Black crime, inner cities, drug dealing (all “additional, not qualifying”). Don’t you see that this would have raised some pretty legitimate eyebrows?

Or, to strike nearer home, there are occasionally individuals here on HP that, while condemning acts of discrimination against British Muslims, follow that up, “additionally, not qualifying”, with a discourse on 7/7, Hizb el-Tahrir and domestic terrorism. Would I guess correctly that you’ll feel uneasy with this?

I might agree with some of the things you are saying about specific Israeli policies, say, and disagree with others, but this is completely irrelevant and should be completely separated from discussion about anti-Semitism and anti-Semites, for the simple reason that no policies of any state or non-state actors can justify racism.

David R wrote:

“Your assumption that the left are completely unable to see antisemitism but can spot every other kind of racism perfectly – is wrong.”

it is bleeding hard discussing these issues with you, IF that had been what I wanted to say, then I would have stated it, wouldn’t I??

Dave, please, don’t assume, I am often less than expressive but there’s rarely any need to assume what I mean, as I am fairly direct in these matters.

no, my point is, that when faced with anti-Jewish racism from a NON right wing source a lot of people don’t know how to take it

that includes a chunk of the British Left, NOT all, but a chunk.

thankfully, there still are a lot of old anti-fascists around who will take up the issue, but when such basics have to be explained, time after time, then you have to wonder, what is wrong?

I am NOT making a specific point, I am just mystified at this overall behaviour, how people can often get their heads around the issue of sexism, the iconography of anti-black, anti-Irish racism, etc but NOT see anti-Jewish racism?

Returning to the real point, will those past defenders of Atzmon review their own conduct or wonder why they didn’t see where he was going?

I doubt it, and thatis a problem

Prior to AD 67, Jews in the Roman Empire were generally regarded as foolish, eccentric, or neutrally as just another regional group. They were fairly widespread throughout the Empire. Significant numbers lived in Rome and in what had been Babylon. There were a certain number of converts, including Idumeans, whose nobility became vassal kings of Judea. The region was hugely multicultural, and the predominant cultural influence was Hellenic.

After the destruction of the Second Temple, there were – understandably – a relatively low number of converts, some of which persisted through the generations, and other of which syncretised, or otherwise disappeared. A recurring theme among these conversions were a desire to position a group as neither Christian nor Muslim. The Ethiopians and the Khazars are a good example of this. Later examples include an African tribe, which became Jewish in the 19th century, as a result of a dispute with the British Colonial government: it was essentially an anti-imperialist gesture. Similarly, there are African American groups which regard themselves as the true Jews, and which stem from the post slavery flowering of religious cults that took place in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. One of them – a relative of Obama’s wife – has gone the whole hog, if that’s not an inapposite metaphor, and has undergone a formal conversion.

So, in that sense, there are a large number of people out there who call themselves Jews, who have no connection other than mythical, to the Land of Israel.

However, the overwhelming majority of Jews, are bound together by familiar ties, and are significantly Middle Eastern. I know this, because I’ve had my DNA tested, and that’s what my paternal DNA says.

But I don’t think that the existence of a putative genetic link, or Middle Eastern origins entitles anybody to anything. What I’m concerned with, is regional self determination, and mutual co-operation, between the many groups that live in the Middle East, of which Jews are only one. I’m not interested in a socialist paradise: I’d be very happy with a European style federation, that allowed states to pool citizenship, and established a common standard of social, political, and democratic rights that would form the bedrock of a liberal democratic political system.

This is precisely what we have achieved in Europe.

David T I’d be very happy with a European style federation, that allowed states to pool citizenship, and established a common standard of social, political, and democratic rights that would form the bedrock of a liberal democratic political system.

A nice sentiment David.

However, I would only see the first part enacted after ‘liberal democratic political systems’ have been instantiated successfully in all the participating countries.

In other words, don’t hold your breath.

I am afraid the idea that ‘we have achieved a liberal democratic political system’ in the EU is fantastic. The EU is corrupt at many levels, and the demos can do b*** all about it.

The whole point of the Jews’ (as a nation) entitlement to their homeland in a particular small corner of the Middle East stems from their origin in the Middle East. One of the arguments put forward by their enemies is that they are ‘European imperialist colonisers with no historical links to Israel’, that ‘they are really Khazars; ditto), and so on. Had that really been the case, then one could regard this as some sort of argument. But it isn’t, and it’s not.

On a group of African Americans regarding themselves as the ‘real Jews’: well, people can ‘call themselves’ whatever they like, it don’t make it so. I can choose to call myself an African American, but it doesn’t make me one. These people are not Jews, because they haven’t fulfilled the conditions necessary to be part of the Jewish ethnos and/or religion.

Zkharya,
Excellent post. If I may comment on ‘It’s all very well saying their narrative is mythical’ – the rabbis did indeed collect every scrap of lore, law, information etc. Given the systematic way they did it – which was, if not unique at the time, certainly not commonplace – I don’t think we have reason to believe that by and large it is ‘mythical’, but rather a collection of the real culture of a real nation.
The archaeology supports it. When digging foundations for houses in Jerusalem, for example, the contractors find Hasmonean-era Jewish family tombs: they are not mythical, they support the cultural picture reflected in the Mishna.

Without the intervention of principled anti-Zionists

This is still an oxymoron. Unless you think that antisemitism can ever be ‘principled’.

Oxfordian,

you are quite right about the unparallelled achievement of the rabbis. And, if one may say the Babylonian Talmud derives from the work of the Jerusalem, one may say that the Talmuds are the largest works to have come from ancient Palestine, after 135 I mean, larger and more ‘Palestinian’ than any work by any Palestinian pagan or Christian.

I’m a little shocked. I stumbled into this site a week or so ago, from some comments place somewhere. Oh, let me confess, I habitually read the leftwing, largely pro-Palestinian and progressive sites, so of course the name Atzmon is not at all new to me, but I didn’t know that a group of right-leaning zionists in England who insist upon calling themselves progressive are this concerned (as if these are the problems of life) about who speaks or not at an SWP event!

I found just a little bit of interesting stuff here, and only one person who in the end realised that it looks really childish to insult someone just because that is how to comment here, brought out some points that I am interested in. (now he’ll go back to hating me again and that’s too bad, he was interesting). But now, reading through, or just to glossing over these comments, I think the point is never about the POINT, but about WHO IS SAYING it.

So, realising the new rules, I’m going to extend my views out about Atzmon. I can’t think of too much else as worthless as stating admiration for Atzmon on HP, considering the readers here, but since I have a hangover anyway, everything will look worthless.

150 posts, or who knows how many, all about Jews who are actively trying to control and transform the leftist discourse while at the same time denouncing such a way of acting as anti Semitic. Shit, even I went into my tribal mode here.

Then you have David Rosenberg who admittedly acts as a Sayan… he goes there and tells them in an open manner, we do our best to curtail the interest in Atzmon within the left.

Is this any different kind of behaviour than what Atzmon’s written about in the past? That people in the movement (left or the solidarity one) are acting behind the scenes to get what they want an especially for the good name of the Jews?

But, do you know what the problem is? That they think that Palestinians are really that interested in what the leftists or the Jews are saying and doing. That maybe they aren’t the ones who are supposed to be laying down the strategy?

The rise of Hamas is just one proof of this. The total humiliation of Sue Blackwell, Elf, Rance and Greenstein in the PSC AGM when they tried to get some members excluded is more proof.

Palestinians will liberate themselves without the ‘good Jews’ or with them. The ‘good Jews’ are an accessory. Nice if they are there, but if not, you still can carry on.

The Palestinians know that if it only was up to the Israelis, they would have been free a long time ago. It’s the pressure groups around the world, specifically the Jewish ones, the neocons of Harry’s and Euston, all these people who say they are progressive but think the war against the Arab world is the way to go who keep the flame going.

And it is really actually funny. You write here as if Atzmon is some virus from space that offends you all so deeply, or maybe the odd weirdo lunatic. Strange… he’s really very popular. Put in any article he’s written and it’s out on hundreds of top sites. He speaks at conferences on a regular basis, and he’s translated into quite a few languages. He writes what he thinks, people read it, and he’s alive and a public figure while David T hides behind a “T”, the other writers are pseudonoms, and the commenters, well the ones who use their full names, are yammering on about their accomplishments for the world of leftist culture. (That was not an intentional oxymoron). If I didn’t know better, I’d call it envy.

Why do people read him? Because he doesn’t pull the Jewish card out on them. He doesn’t care to be “the Good Jew”, he’s just what he is, a humanist who sometimes is funny, sometimes is rude, but has the interests of knocking down what he sees as a vicious ideology, Zionism.

He picks on the tribalists, and that touches the sensitive spots of us all, we are all tribal.
He picks on the Marxists, because he stopped being one once he grew up.
He doesn’t get hung up in political campaigning and is not licking any arses to be associated with people.

From what one can tell, he gets a full house, even when he’s being boycotted and there is pressure made against venues. Now, I don’t know how many people he has in his public on any given week, but looking at some of the events listings he has, one can do an estimate of somewhere between 1000-5000 each week.

That is a lot of public contact. So, his following would be ten times bigger than the SWP or the PSC or any other organised solidarity campaign in the UK. 1000 to 5000 times bigger than the public David T and Mikey and Gene get to listen to them speak.

This might give a little hint as to why organisations on the left are trying to recruit Atzmon, and this includes, as he has said on occasion, Jewish Marxists such as Machover, JPUK, Roland Rance who in the past actively tried to pull Atzmon into their camps.

Evidently, Atzmon always refused them. Maybe because they are dogmatic and in the end, very tribal.

Sure, most of the UK Jews resent that he has such a hostility to the politics of the Diaspora Jew (and the reason has got to be… the guy was born and raised in Israel) and has such a warm acceptance of the democratically elected Hamas, even though they are nominally Islamic. They are the ones the Palestinians chose, isn’t that supposed to be a bottom line for anybody who is in the PSC? That they accept the choice? REspect the elections?

Atzmon is probably quite unlikeable to those who hate his politics. So what? He’s not in a popularity contest, except for unwittingly being subject to them here. I don’t think he cares that he’s not loved by the Jewish Diaspora crowd… he’s in every Palestinian and Arabic media outlet, and as far as it seems, that matters more to him. He’s on all the important leftist outlets… this is what bothers the Rosens and Rosenbergs here. The Jewish hegemony within the Palestinian solidarity discourse, and ha ha ha… it ended with an ex-Israeli! Are Rosenberg, Rance, Greenstein and Machover or any of those who put the left before the liberation even given a paragraph? They are totally irrelevant, and this is why they are so arrogantly against Atzmon… those on the right.. here, for instance, well, they represent the opposite of his worldview so who cares? The solidarity movements aren’t interested in what they have to say.

Maybe he better move along and stop dealing with these irrelevant people. But I guess he must find it amusing.

most of the UK Jews resent that he has such a hostility to the politics of the Diaspora Jew (and the reason has got to be… the guy was born and raised in Israel)

I can assure you that most Israelis detest him as a fool at best, a Quisling at worst. And do you know why? Because he fights against the right of the Jews to have a free independent homeland.

Westworld, you do sound a lot like Atzmon.

By which I mean, not that you are, but you say a lot of the stuff he says. Much of which I cannot be bothered to refute. I have better things to do with my time. So, Atzmon is popular? So what? For many people this is not the be all and all of life. And appealing to the lowest common denominator, by promulgating antisemitic conspiracy theories is, in the eyes of many, base and ignoble.

Having said that, much of what Atzmon says is so out there, and so crumby, that I wouldn’t fuss myself to refute it either. My life is tough enough, and too full of pain, literal, physical pain, to waste on crumby, nutty egoists like Gilad Atzmon.

Zkharya, I am sorry to hear it, mate.

Genuine, honest to goodness question:

If Obama went to a church presided over by Gilad Atzmon THEN would you admit that it’s a actually a tad worrying he’s going to running the free world

DavidT

#I am very glad that my actions resulted in Hackney Council overturning a religiously segregated swimming session. #

Hackney council denied having segregated swimming sessions and stated the official had made a mistake and apologised to you, as it states in the story.

#I hope that you, too, oppose religious apartheid and sectarianism, and support a pluralism and multicultural society.#

I raised a matter about a story that was a non-story.
Raising the matter with you, in no way does it lessen my support for pluralism and multicultural society, nor does it mean that I support any form of religious apartheid and sectarianism.

Jim,

you are good at asking questions, but can you answer them?

1. what is your view of Atzmon? and if you haven’t formed one then using Google with the key words: Gilad Atzmon Protocols of London, should enable you to get up to speed in 5 mins?

2. and if after that, you still haven’t formed an opinion, please could you tells us what you think of Ahmadinejad and his racist utterances?

what do you think of them both? and please don’t be shy :)

http://mwcnews.net/content/view/25599/99999999/1/1/

Credit Crunch, ou plutôt : Siono-Upercut ?

Clarification:
In the course of an article entitled “Credit Crunch or rather Zio Punch?” I recently made a comment about Mr John Reynolds, the Chief Executive of Reynolds Partners and chairman of the Ethical Investment Advisory Group. I suggested that some people may think that his call in The Observer to send more Christians to the City was a plea for the financial world to be “spiritually de-Judified”. I want to make it clear that I did not intend to suggest that Mr Reynolds was anti-Semitic or in any way hostile to Jewish people or those of the Jewish faith and I am sorry if my comment was understood by anybody in that way. Mr Reynolds has asked me to clarify the position and I am happy to do so. I would like to apologise for any distress caused.

par Gilad Atzmon

The link in previous posting should have been: http://www.alterinfo.net/Credit-Crunch,-ou-plutot-Siono-Upercut-_a24519.html

Hi Jenni, are submitting this on Atzmon’s behalf, the contrary or merely for information?

Just to clarify, you’re not Jenni Delich, are you?

“Hackney council denied having segregated swimming sessions and stated the official had made a mistake and apologised to you, as it states in the story.”

Well, they may well have denied it, but as you can see from this brochure, one of the two pools in Hackney advertised and ran what were officially announced by Hackney as “Male Muslim Swim”:

http://www.gll.org/uploads/Hackney_Leisure_Guide_Nov_07-March_08.pdf

At the other pool, there was also an advertisement for Muslim Male Swimming, that was removed following press interest in this story.

I expect your next post will be one in which you:

- apologise to me for calling me a liar; and

- thank me for having encouraged Hackney to reverse its policy of imposing religious apartheid on all the people of Hackney.

Oh no, he has run away.

Quelle surprise.

David T,

Jim was a baiter, a Jew baiter, not really interested in the issues or the facts of the matter, more concerned with poking a stick at you

so I think it is best not to respond to such people, just tell them to “fuck off”, as anyone that knowingly indulges in Jew baiting is probably on a par with David Irving or Lady Birchwood

So I sound like Atzmon? Doesn’t mean I am him. So some people here sound like other people here. Does it mean they are all the same person?

I only wanted to get a straight answer from David T and I never did.

He said that Gilad Atzmon struck him as Jewish. He then said it’s because he is Mediterranean looking. (Woody Allen, David Grossman, Natan Sharansky, Ehud Barak, Shimon Peres, etc etc etc have not got a crumb of Mediterranean “look” in them, but I guess they are Jewish. Likewise, Atzmon looks incredibly similar to the Baltic type, so either David T has some bizarre visual impairment, or he is full of stereotype that no one challenges). He never replied to me. I think this is because it sounds racist to go and say what he did. At least, if a non-Jewish person said it, they would be challenged here. Why does David T get away with ethnic stereotyping?

The thick Israeli accent is the giveaway.

Anyone who can say ‘Do you want to know why Jewish banker Jacob Schiff sent 20 millions to Lenin? He didn’t really like the ‘anti semitic’ Tzar. Lenin did the job….’ has no interest whatsoever in serious political discussion and is clearly quite happy to further anti-semitic canards.

This claim is a keystone of anti-semitic and far-right conspiracy theorists. It is wildly shamefully wrong.

In 1905 Jacob Schiff lent $200 million to Japan in its war against Russia. He may well have been motivated by his understandable opposition to the Tsar’s anti-semitism, but this had nothing to do with Lenin. He backed Kerensky when the Tsar fell. He did not finance the Bolsheviks.

The claim that he did comes from one throwaway quote in the ‘Cholly Knickerbocker’ gossip column in the New York Journal American on February 3, 1949: “Today it is estimated by Jacob’s grandson, John Schiff, that the old man sank about $20,000,000 for the final triumph of Bolshevism in Russia.” That’s it. That’s Atzmon’s proof.

Still, it’s good to see this all again. The last time I came across such sh*t was when I was an active member of the National Front in the 1970s. If I had just 5p every time I saw that quote in ‘Spearhead’ or ‘League Review’ or ‘Christian Vanguard’ or ‘The Thunderbolt’ or ‘White Power’ or ‘National Vanguard’ or ‘American Opinion’ or ‘Candour’ or ‘South African Observer’ or ‘Intelligence Survey’ or ‘National Socialist Mobilizer’ or ‘The Crusader’ or even ‘Folk og Land’ I’d be a wealthy man now. Perhaps even as wealthy as Jacob Schiff.

But oddly enough, I never saw it in anything published by anyone claiming to be of the left. How times change.

I think it’s obvious what David T meant: on balance, the appearance and sound of Atzmon would suggest to someone who recognises such a complex of elements as most likely to be Israeli Jewish. We make these kinds of guesses about people all the time. We often get it wrong, but it is a natural enough thing to do.

What was silly, in my view, was David’s then trying to read this as saying anything or much about Atzmon’s personal beliefs i.e. he was ‘Jewish’ in his outlook. Atzmon has said he follows and interprets Jesus in his own way, even if he is not a church going or confirmed Christian. This is a theme Atzmon as iterated several times and he has singled out the sayings and actions of Jesus as significant for him.

But you wouldn’t be able to detect this merely by his appearance or his accent.

And, westworld, I didn’t say you were Atzmon, merely that you say the sort of things he says. Of course, given the sorts of games Atzmon plays with identities, I think he could put on the hat or mask of ‘Plantation Westworld’ and, in all good conscience, convey that he was not Atzmon, without thinking he was lying.

I think his mixed up academic mother would leave him just about arrogant enough to do that.

But, again, Westworld, I am not saying you are Atzmon.

I have been rude, and I am sorry. But I do find what you say, especially about ‘Jewish hegemony’ in the Palestinian solidarity campaign, thoroughly objectionable, which would mean that, were I to meet you in person, I would likely either ignore you or head butt you.

Well, I would probably just have a ‘very loud discussion’ with you.

Hello Zkharya,
I find your posts here a combination of annoying and refreshing. You say you won’t waste time on Atzmon, but you do just that, pulling his mother in for good measure! Anyway, seeing as how you are a scholar in classic literature, you would have to admit that you know the difference between a document by Tacitus or Pliny (I don’t remember how you call them in English, but I guess you know who I mean) who write about the known world as historians and documenters, and a book from the Hebrew culture that is a combination of religion, myth and historical anecdotes. I think the difference is self-evident? It is easier for someone to know what my face looks like who has it in front of him than for me to know it, unless I spend a lot of time in front of a mirror. It is not really a very objective source to use the Bible as a history book, especially since there are contradictions in it and other things that haven’t been documented at all. But who knows, maybe the universe was created in seven days.

Ok, I sound like Atzmon, might be the Israeli background, but I bet a lot of people sound like him, and I bet a lot of people who read him (like me) don’t find him anti-semitic, you can only find that in these niche sites like here and the “London” Jews who have it against Gilad for taking some wind out of their self-important sails. It is clear that they aren’t the big brothers anymore telling Palestinians what is best for them and that Atzmon accepts that whatever Palestinians want for themselves is what he has to accept as their will. They resent it, how could they not?

O I don’t think it’s at all “obvious” what David T “meant”. If I am going to call someone Israeli, I call them Israeli. If I am going to say they strike them as Jewish, I sound racist. It’s not that hard to really figure out if you decide to use your brains instead of the knee jerk reaction that if a Jew says Jew it means something different than if a non-Jew says Jew.

His list of attributes was really funny as it sounds more like a caricature than a real observation.

I don’t think we’d have a very loud discussion, unless that was how you generally talk. I try to really avoid that with everyone.

Fuck off westworld, a few sentences on Atzmon, and, to that extent, addressing him in you is hardly a vast expenditure of energy.

clever, clever schmuck.

You sound like a classical antisemite, westworld.

For me, the ancient Jews do not have be Tactiti or Plinii. All they have to be is the only people from the classical world who produced a body of literature about themselves in their own language that even approaches that of Greece or Rome.

You are talking nonsense. If I want to know about Jewish origins, or what Jews thought about themselves or others I’ll read the Tanakh, Mishnah or Talmuds, or, alternative Josephus or other classical Jewish authors.

If I want to know about Greek or Roman origins, or what Greeks or Romans thought, about themselves, others or anything else, I’ll read Greek or Latin authors.

There are some crossovers between to two, e.g. Josephus, Aristaeus, Philo, or indeed, the New Testament, so I’ll read those were appropriate or necessary.

I do not see the need to making quality distinctions between the two, especially when it comes to matters such as the suppressions of the first and second Jewish revolts and their aftermath, there is a great deal of agreement between both parties (if ‘parties’ is the right word).

The Tanakh may not be ‘history’, however one defines it. But it the closest thing to history that ancient Palestinians produced, and with which modern Palestinian Christians and Muslims are largely in agreement with anyway. Modern archeology etc is indispensable. But the Tanakh is itself a key historical document and witness. To reconstruct any modern ancient history of Palestine, if you dismiss the Tanakh altogether, you are going to have problems.

‘Loud discussion’ is a common euphemism for ‘argument’.

Listen, I don’t really care about you and David. I’m not especially keen to defend him, for the reasons stated. I think what he said was daft.

Israeli Jews and Israeli Arab Christians and Muslims do not sound the same in English, in my experience. So, if x has a characteristic ‘Israeli’, Hebrew accent, odds are he or she is Jewish. It is not racist to make that assumption, at least it is not racist in any way that matters, in my view.

And it is not uncommon (at least for me) to mix up Ashkenazi Israeli Jews with Greeks or Turks. They do, after all, have many Y chromosomal haplotypes in common.

You don’t think most Israeli or other Jews wouldn’t think Atzmon antisemitic?

I think you’re pretty self-important yourself, westi.

Anti-Zionist Jews in PSC were not, as far as I can see, trying to gain ‘hegemony’ over the movement. They were trying to stop antisemitism infecting it.

“You don’t think most Israeli or other Jews wouldn’t think Atzmon antisemitic?”

Sorry, should be

“You don’t think most Israeli or other Jews would think Atzmon antisemitic?”

Antisemites rarely think they are antisemitic, these days. The discourse has ‘evolved’.

Get a hobby or take care of your ailing health mister. I point out the contradiction in your “I am too awfully put out to address Atzmon” and what do you do? Just that.

Fuck off yourself!

When you actually DO read the Sand book, then I will listen to something you might have to say, the rest here is just hot air and you trying to look intellectual.

Get a hobby yourself, westi.

And where did I say “I am too awfully put out to address Atzmon” ?

By your argument, nobody can say, “I cannot be bothered to address x, y or z” because, according to you, by their very saying “I cannot be bothered to address x, y or z”, they are addressing x, y or z.

I think you are trying to look intellectual, and full of wind, yourself.

I am addressing the points you made in your post to me. You are objecting to me doing so. You are…an idiot?

Well, westi, Israel Bartal has certainly read Sand’s book, and he is far better qualified to review it than you or me.

Inventing an invention
By Israel Bartal
Tags: Khazars, Israel Bartal
According to Shlomo Sand, everything you ever thought you knew about the Jewish people as a nation with ethno-biological origins is false. Israel Bartal, however, says Sand didn’t do his homework

Mattai ve’ekh humtza ha’am hayehudi?
(When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?), by Shlomo Sand
Resling (Hebrew), 358 pages, NIS 94.

The first sentence of “When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?” reads: “This book is a historical study, not a work of pure fiction. Nevertheless, it will open with a number of stories rooted in a collective memory that has been adulterated with a considerable degree of imagination.” I recalled these words when I found myself utterly astounded by the statements of the author of this learned, fascinating study, concerned with the “period of silencing” in the “Jewish-Israeli collective memory,” a period that, to quote Sand, gave rise to a total avoidance of “any mention of the Khazars in the Israeli public arena.”

This assertion, according to which an entire chapter in Jewish history was deliberately silenced for political reasons, thrust me back to my days as a ninth grader, in the late 1950s. I recalled the Mikhlal Encyclopedia, an almost mythological reference text that nearly every Israeli high school student relied on in those years, the flagship of what is termed “mainstream Zionism,” in the lean Hebrew of 21st-century Israel. My ears still reverberate with the introduction to the encyclopedia’s entry on “Khazars”: “A source of consolation and hope for the scattered Jewish communities of the Diaspora during the Middle Ages, the story of the Khazar kingdom today has the ring of pure mythology. Nonetheless, that story is one of the most wonderful chapters in Jewish history.”

Sand suggests that it was “the wave of decolonization of the 1950s and 1960s [that] led the molders of Israeli collective memory to shield themselves from the shadow of the Khazar past. There was a profound fear that, should the Jews now rebuilding their home in Israel learn that they are not direct descendants of the ?Children of Israel,’ the very legitimacy of both the Zionist enterprise and the State of Israel’s existence would be undermined.”

With considerable trepidation, I returned to my yellowing copy of volume IV of the Mikhlal Encyclopedia. Could I perhaps have been mistaken and could it be that my teachers in the Socialist-Zionist city of Givatayim wanted to brainwash me with an ethno-biological perception of my parents’ origin?

When I reread the entry on the Khazars, my mind was put at rest. It was not the Zionist education to which I, as an Israeli teenager, was exposed that tried to make me forget the fact that the members of gentile tribes converted to Judaism in the Khazar Kingdom; instead, it is the author of this book about the “invention of the Jewish people” who has invented an ethno-biological Zionist historiography.

Here is what was written about the conversion of the Khazars, a nation of Turkish origin, in the Zionist Mikhlal Encyclopedia that the State of Israel’s Zionist Ministry of Education recommended so warmly during that “period of silencing”: “It is irrelevant whether the conversion to Judaism encompassed a large stratum of the Khazar nation; what is important is that this event was regarded as a highly significant phenomenon in Jewish history, a phenomenon that has since totally disappeared: Judaism as a missionary religion…. The question of the long-term impact of that chapter in Jewish history on East European Jewry — whether through the development of its ethnic character or in some other way — is a matter that requires further research. Nonetheless, although we do not know the extent of its influence, what is clear to us today is that this conversion did have an impact.” Sand, a professor of modern European history at Tel Aviv University, comments further on the silence of the historians: “Israel’s academic community developed a violent attitude toward this issue…. Any mention of the Khazars in the public arena in Israel was increasingly considered eccentric, a flight of fancy, even an open threat.”

Zionist historiography, he claims, concealed the possibility that the millions of Yiddish-speaking Jews were actually descendants of the Khazars and that even today Israeli historians deny the existence of an early Jewish nucleus that was augmented by immigrants who moved from Ashkenaz (present-day northern France and western Germany) to Eastern Europe.

These claims are baseless. Sand, for example, does not mention the fact that, from 2000 onwards, a team of scholars from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem labored on a monumental task: the production of a three-volume study on the history of the Jews of Russia.

In the first volume, which will shortly be published in Hebrew by the Zalman Shazar Center for Jewish History (another “Zionist” institution), considerable attention is devoted to the question of the origin of the East European Jews and to their link with the history of the Khazar kingdom.

Sand repeats the method he employs vis-a-vis the place of the Khazars in Jewish historiography in connection with other topics as well, presenting readers with partial citations and edited passages from the writings of various scholars. Several times, Sand declares what his ideological position is. Like him, I am not one of those who support the injustices committed by a number of Israeli government agencies against minority groups in this country in the name of arguments pretending to represent “historical values.” However, critical readers of Sand’s study must not overlook the intellectual superficiality and the twisting of the rules governing the work of professional historians that result when ideology and methodology are mixed.

Sand’s desire for Israel to become a state “representing all its citizens” is certainly worthy of a serious discussion, but the manner in which he attempts to connect a political platform with the history of the Jewish people from its very beginnings to the present day is bizarre and incoherent.

Descendants of pagans

What is Sand trying to prove in this study? In his view, the homeland of the Jewish people is not Palestine, and most Jews are descendants of the members of different nations who converted to Judaism in ancient times and in the medieval period. He claims that the Jews of Yemen and Eastern Europe are descendants of pagans.

According to Sand, this historical truth was concealed by Zionist thinkers, who developed an ethno-biological ideology, and the so-called “Jewish people” was invented as late as the 19th century. Furthermore, he argues, the idea of a “nation” that was exiled from its homeland in ancient times and which is destined to return to it in the modern age so as to rebuild its independent state is merely an invented myth.

Sand also maintains that, in the era preceding the emergence of European nationalism, the Jews were an ethnic group, not a nation. In his eyes, the argument promulgated by the Zionists and by their successors in the Israeli political arena concerning our “right to this land” rests on a biological-genetic ideology; that argument became the “narrative of the ruling group” thanks to the fact that the “authorized scholars of the past” have concealed the truth concerning the real, impure origin of the Jews.

My response to Sand’s arguments is that no historian of the Jewish national movement has ever really believed that the origins of the Jews are ethnically and biologically “pure.” Sand applies marginal positions to the entire body of Jewish historiography and, in doing so, denies the existence of the central positions in Jewish historical scholarship.

No “nationalist” Jewish historian has ever tried to conceal the well-known fact that conversions to Judaism had a major impact on Jewish history in the ancient period and in the early Middle Ages. Although the myth of an exile from the Jewish homeland (Palestine) does exist in popular Israeli culture, it is negligible in serious Jewish historical discussions. Important groups in the Jewish national movement expressed reservations regarding this myth or denied it completely.

Sand’s references to “authorized” historians are absurd, and perpetuate a superficial pattern of discussion that is characteristic of a certain group within Israeli academe. The guiding principle in this pattern of discussion is as follows: “Tell me what your position is on the past and I will tell you the nature of your connection with the agencies of the regime.”

The kind of political intervention Sand is talking about, namely, a deliberate program designed to make Israelis forget the true biological origins of the Jews of Poland and Russia or a directive for the promotion of the story of the Jews’ exile from their homeland is pure fantasy.

Sand points to three components in the structuring of the Jewish national past. First, the national historical narrative, especially the Zionist narrative, emphasizes the “ethno-biological” identity of those who belong to the imaginary Jewish nation.

Second, this identity is directly connected with a nationalist ideology that is a substitute for the religious link between Jewish communities in the Diaspora that has considerably weakened in the present era of secularization. Third, an aggressive political establishment that controls the dissemination of knowledge is concealing vital information on what really happened in the past, preventing the publication of sources that can serve as an alternative to the recommended national narrative, and censoring dangerous passages in published texts.

The central book of the Zionist “Jerusalem School,” “Toldot am yisrael” (”History of the Jewish People,” published in 1969), speaks extensively of the Jewish communities that existed in the Diaspora before the destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem and whose total population exceeded that of the tiny Jewish community in Palestine. As one would expect from a work that reflects a profound knowledge of scholarly studies in the field, the Zionist “Toldot am yisrael” explains that the number of Jews in the Diaspora during the ancient period was as high as it was because of conversion, a phenomenon that “was widespread in the Jewish Diaspora in the late Second Temple period …. Many of the converts to Judaism came from the gentile population of Palestine, but an even greater number of converts could be found in the Jewish Diaspora communities in both the East and the West.”

Choosing to ignore all this, Sand categorically states in his book that, “the mass conversions that created such huge Jewish populations throughout the Mediterranean region are scarcely mentioned in Jewish national historiography.” Apparently, he is obsessed with the idea of proving that the Zionist historians (including Nahum Slouschz, who wrote about the North African Jewish warrior-queen Dahia
al-Kahina) were “ethnocentric nationalists.” It is irrelevant to Sand what these historians actually wrote: To hell with the facts — the argument is what really counts!

Sand bends over backwards to prove that the great Jewish historians (such as Simon Dubnow, Salo Baron and Benzion Dinur), who, in their works, linked Jewish nationalism with liberalism, radicalism and socialism, were simply racists. Here’s what he writes, for example, about Israeli historian Haim Zeev Hirschberg (1903-1974), who studied the Jews of North Africa: “His continual attempts to prove that the Jews were a race of people that had been displaced from its ancient homeland and which had been condemned to wander from country to country as an exiled nation … dovetail beautifully with the directives of mainstream Zionist historiography.” According to Sand, Hirschberg never managed to liberate himself from a “purifying substantive ideology.” Does this sound familiar? When and where did you last read that Zionism was a racist movement?

Scattered communities

I will now refer briefly to the connection between the book’s conceptual underpinnings and the author’s main historical argument, namely, that, prior to the modern period, the Jews constituted only a group of “scattered religious communities.” Sand defines national identity in the spirit of the ideas of the French Revolution. Not only does he reject the concept of an ethnic identity that is not dependent on the existence of a political entity confined within clearly defined borders, he even rejects an identity whose possessors’ claim is founded on a cultural or political entity that is not subject to control or management by the agencies of the central regime. In his view, such identities are merely “invented identities” and he does not believe that pre-modern identities can survive in the modern era. In fact, Sand advocates the position that was heard in the French National Assembly in December 1789: “The Jews must not be allowed to constitute a special political entity or to have a special political status. Instead, each Jew must on an individual basis be a citizen of France.” However, whereas the champions of the Emancipation in Paris did recognize the non-religious essence of the pre-modern Jewish nation, Sand does not.

I was unable to find in Sand’s book any innovations in the study of nationalism. The author is stuck somewhere between historians such as Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson and Ernest Gellner — a generation behind what is happening today in the field. As far as I can discern, the book contains not even one idea that has not been presented earlier in their books and articles by what he insists on defining as “authorized historians” suspected of “concealing historical truth.” “When and How Was the Jewish People Invented?” is a marvelous blend of clearly modernist arguments, drawn from the legacy of 18th-century European Enlightenment, with a moderate, but disturbing (because of its superficiality), pinch of Foucaultian discourse from a previous generation.

Moreover, the author’s treatment of Jewish sources is embarrassing and humiliating. What serious reader who knows the history of modern Hebrew literature can take seriously the views expressed in a book that defines “Bohen tsadik” (Investigating a Righteous Man), a satirical (fictional!) work by the Galician intellectual and supporter of the Haskalah Yosef Perl (1773-1839), as something that was written by a person named Yitzhak Perl and which “contains 41 letters from rabbis that relate to various aspects of Jewish life”? Who would attest to the accuracy of facts in a research study where it is stated that historian Joseph Klausner (1874-1958) — a scholar who never was (despite his burning ambition to do so) a professor of history at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and who, instead, served there as a professor of Hebrew literature — “was in fact the first official historian of the ?Second Temple period’ at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem”? Does such sloppiness reflect the author’s attitude to the subject of his research? Or, perhaps, because everything is an invention anyway, it does not really matter whether the “imagined object” is black or white?

The lugubrious Israeli combination of aggressive one-dimensional conceptuality and blatant disrespect for details (a characteristic mix among writers at both ends of the political spectrum) will undoubtedly captivate the hearts of the public relations executives of the electronic media. However, we, the skeptical historians, who are buried between mountains of books and piles of archival files, can only continue to read what has really been written and to write about what has really been read.

Prof. Israel Bartal is dean of the humanities faculty of the Hebrew University. His book “Cossack and Bedouin: Land and People in Jewish Nationalism” was published by Am Oved in its Ofakim series (Hebrew).

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/999386.html

‘just an anecdote, but, when I was teaching in a high school in Mizpe Ramon, one of the most popular English novels, on the shelves of the school library, was ‘The Dictionary of Khazars’, by Milorad Pavic. It remains one of my favourite novels as well, and, Westi, if haven’t read it, I strongly recommend you do so. It is a fantastic work.

It is an alleged reconstruction of a lost 17th century dictionary of the culture and civilization of the Khazars, in the form of three dictionaries, Jewish, Christian and Islamic. You can read it like a normal novel, or you can read like a dictionary, following the same entries across the dictionaries of the three Abrahamic faiths. It is a work of genius.

My life is tough enough, and too full of pain, literal, physical pain, to waste on crumby, nutty egoists like Gilad Atzmon.

that was you, telling us of your woe and that it you had other things to concentrate on than Atzmon… so if you continue to post on him, and I point that out, the one who needs to get a good fuck is you. And I hope you do, it might lighen you up.

Being that you are such a cranky type, I won’t bother to even read the review you so graciously put up. Try to treat people better and they might actually be interested in continuing a conversation with you. I certainly don’t need to have to deal with your attitude because you are the inconsistent one.

I didn’t say I was ‘put out’: you said that. I said I have better things to do with my time than refute Atzmon. Nor did speak of my ‘woes’. I said I had problems with pain.

I responded to the points in your post, for we were in some kind of exchange, including (briefly) your points about Atzmon, which were related to those by David T. Clearly it is a courtesy you resent.

Oh dear. So it’s down to this is it? Telling me I need ‘to get a good fuck’? Did I say you needed one? Clearly it is your preoccupation, not mine. Did I say you were inconsistent? Ditto.

I am not surprised you have no wish to read the review. And there was nothing gracious intended in my posting it, so why the sarcasm?

Well, if you think I am not worth responding to, then why are you?

Are you some kind of joke or what? Are not your physical and other pain you were complaining about your woes? Wasn’t that the reason you weren’t going to waste your time? But then what do you do? You comment on Atzmon yet again on a blog post about Atzmon.

Maybe you don’t need a good fuck, but when you tell me to fuck off, I rather would wish that you have a good fuck and then you will become slightly less irritable.

Why am I here? For sure not to have to debate every weasly point you make that is totally irrelevant. I would have enjoyed to go into Sand, but with someone as irritable as you, I have not the slightest intention.

So, you were somehow translating for me what David T MEANT. I read what he WROTE, that is more than enough to have the antenna go up that this guy lives with the myth of Jewish and Sabra greatness and specialness.

And, it wasn’t sarcasm. I think you are so busy reading intentions, you don’t know what people actually do say.

So, with this I pray it is the last contact the two of us ever have. But I am of course waiting for your last irritable word.

My problems with pain, westi, are my problems with pain. ‘Woes’ is mocking. ‘Gracious’ was no more sincere.

Elsewhere, I was responding to or disputing what you were saying:

your assessment of David T’s view of him qua ‘Jewish’ (as well as iterating why I thought David T wrong. But I don’t think you did merely read what David wrote, but inferred a good deal besides).

your allegation of anti-Zionist Jews’ allegedly seeking to control PSC.

the validity of your ‘popularity’ argument re. Atzmon, and that it has any bearing on the quality of someone’s character or views.

It is true I also remarked the convergence of your views with Atzmon and why, in my view, claiming to be someone else is hardly inconsistent with what he does elsewhere. However, while the latter comments on Atzmon’s character, howe’er so briefly, it hardly constitutes refuting any specific argument of Atzmon, let alone at length.

As for your preoccupation with my sex life: your issue, not mine.

Regarding contact, that is up to you. If you return to read this thread, and answer, you will be resuming contact.

Atzmon makes even the most reasonable among us wonder if the Stern gang was right to use violence against at least one individual it considered a traitor.