Let me make a confession. I was brought up as a Zionist in an orthodox Jewish household. I also grew up in the shadow of the Holocaust. I concluded from an early age that if anti-Semitism was wrong, then all forms of racism were equally wrong.
Unfortunately the Zionist movement drew the opposite conclusion. Indeed it accepted the arguments of anti-Semitism that Jews did not belong in the lands where they were born and grew up. They were strangers living in exile (Galut). They should ‘return’ to Palestine. Unfortunately they took with them the ideological framework of European racism. In essence, the anti-Semites said ‘you do not belong’ and the Zionists said ‘we agree’.
This is from Tony Greenstein, who is part of the Alliance for Green Socialism (who I as a green and a socialist would love to see in the GPEW! not organising as another Party), he has a fantastic record as a campaigner on a range of issues including support for Palestine as well as opposition to anti-semitism...issues which as you know I am pretty passionate about.
I have been strongly opposing anti-semites in the monetary reform/social credit movement as well as supporting Palestine and hailing figures like the late great Edward Said.
The excellent socialist unity site contains a statement from Tony about how Sue Blackwell is being sued by Gilad Atzmon.
Please read this and support Sue and educate your selves about the issue of 'left' anti-semitism (not left criticism of Israel in relation to Palestine but holocaust denial and nasty conspiracy orientated attacks linked to race).
Any way on to the statement from Tony...
"Many people will be aware of who Gilad Atzmon is. An ex-Israeli jazz player and anti-Semite who has become a Christian fundamentalist.
"Sue Blackwell is the Birmingham University lecturer who successfully moved a motion at the Association of University Teachers 2005 Conference supporting a boycott of Israel. She has a 'Nazi Alert' webpage which features Atzmon and it is this he has taken exception to.
"Although Sue has not called Atzmon a neo-nazi or a Holocaust Denier, there is no doubt that when not consorting with the SWP he enjoys the convivial company of a variety of anti-Semitic fruitcakes such as Israel Shamir and Paul Eisen. His own website is replete with Jewish conspiracy articles. Atzmon has hired lawyers who have sent a letter threatening Sue with defamation proceedings. "
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CLEVELAND, Ohio – THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY, a genre spy-thriller by Robert Spirko, was fourth on the best-seller list at Atlasbooks, Inc., a national book distributor.
Spirko, a financial and geo-political analyst who has given his advice to the National Security Council, turned his attention to the Middle East in 1987, after discovering several common elements related to the Middle East question. He wrote down his analysis, and when he was finished, he not only had a solution to the quagmire, he had a story to tell. THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY foreshadowed the Persian Gulf War by three years, and the resultant Iraq War followed by the Sept. 11 attack.
Spirko states, "The chief threat in the region I see right now is the threat to Saudi Arabia by Al Qaeda. If Al Qaeda were to overthrow the present royal family in Saudi Arabia, cutting off the oil supply to western nations including Japan and China, it would bring down entire world economies. France and Germany would be begging us to go to war to retake those oil wells. It would be World War III."
“If such a scenario were to occur,” he reiterates, “France and the European economies would collapse in a matter of weeks.”
“Another looming concern is Iran which wants to develop nuclear weapons to couple with their Shahab 4, 5 & 6 missiles on the drawing boards which have a range to hit London, Israel, all of Europe, southern Russia and the United States. Also, the Iranian government has said it initially had 300 centrifuges to enrich uranium to weapons grade material. They have increased that to 3,000. They will soon increase that again to 10,000 centrifuges,” Spirko says. “They have the additional capacity to add another 20,000 centrifuges in mass production techniques that will enable them to produce at least seven nuclear bombs in about a year. Where did they get these centrifuges?”
Spirko answers that question by stating an Arab proverb, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend.”
“Simply put,” Spirko explains, “they probably got them from Saddam Hussein before the Iraq War started and were probably smuggled out of Iraq and into Iran just like he did his air force of 600 Soviet fighter planes. In other words, he gave them to his former enemy rather than let them be destroyed on the ground.”
“Why would he have done any differently with the 30,000 centrifuges he supposedly had on a decentralized basis inside Iraq before the war?” Spirko asks. “Isn’t it strange that Iran could come up with a nuclear weapons program in about six months to a year when it took the United States six years under the Manhattan Project with 5,000 of the world’s most brilliant scientists like Robert Oppenheimer, Niels Bohr, Seaborg, Einstein, Fermi, and others working on it?”
Another point Spirko makes on the Mideast is that, “It is time for the Israelis and Palestinians to return to the Camp David Peace Talks or some other place, resume where they left off and "freeze in place" the already-agreed-upon negotiating points,” Spirko says.
"And, it's all related to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict which I said back in 1987 was the crux of my book. It always has been, and always will be until it's settled,” Spirko says. “That linkage is exactly what Osama Bin Laden stated in a taped message aired the weekend before the election in November of 2004. Whether you believe him or not is beside the point. That's what's he told us, and we'd better take that into account."
The novel is a mass market paperback produced by Olive Grove Publishers, and can be purchased at area bookstores through Ingram Book Group, New Leaf Distribution, and Baker and Taylor, priced at $14.99, ISBN 0-9752508-0-9. THE PALESTINE CONSPIRACY can also be ordered on the web at www.atlasbooks.com, or email orders from: order@bookmasters.com, or from Barnes & Nobles, Border's, Dalton's, efollett.com & Follett bookstores at colleges and universities, WaldenBooks, Amazon.com, Walmart.com, Target.com and other popular retail bookstores. Or, readers and store managers can call 1-800-BOOKLOG, or 800-247-6553 direct, to order.
You don't know what you're talking about. You've also libelled Gilad Atzmon. You've fallen into the same trap as Blackwell and Greenstein. You are irrational PRO-semites.
I think your inability to distinguish my opinions from those of Ariel Sharon, says it all about this issue!
Thank you Derek for your kind comments.
I am not at all a 'pro-Semite' whatever that is. I have spent my life fighting Jewish chauvinism and Zionism. But that is also why I will not avert my eyes from anti-Semitism. And Atzmon's site reeks of it. His 'on anti-Semitism' article speaks explicitly about Jewish control of the world. Do I really need to spell out where that comes from?
Sue Blackwell is a good friend and a good supporter of the Palestinians. She took unbelievable personal flack for moving the academic boycott of Israeli universities. For Atzmon and his crowd to attack her, and Israel Shamir, who is a neo-Nazi and someone who Atzmon speaks highly of, gave her personal details to ex-NF leader Martin Webster, is disgusting.
A secular, democratic state in Palestine for Jews, Palestinians and those of no religion is the only solution which will solve the problem of imperialism and racism in the region.
Tony Greenstein
...I have been strongly opposing anti-semites in the monetary reform/social credit movement...
Er, that's just because you want Green Party policy to be standard Marxist dogma tarted-up with some greenwash, isn't it? Like some weasel you suggest people who, quite correctly, identify privately-created debt-money as a key cause of social and economic suffering as being somehow closet racists, a breath away from ecofascism.
I could say that anti-Israel statements are often evidence of closet anti-Semitism and while that's sometimes true, its not a reason to say criticism of the Israeli state is some slippery slope to nazism.
You're no doubt aware that the eco-Marxists have ideologically cleansed or marginalised the GPEW of the liberal reformers, the small-c conservatives, the centrists, the left-libertarians. Once I could tell conservative friends who recycled, hated excessive consumerism, needless waste and bland corporate dominated towns,agreed the railways were better off public to vote Green not Tory. Can I do that anymore with a straight face when the party increasingly resembles something off a 70s poly campus?
Fred,
Yes you can!
The fact that the GPEW has a "Green Left" grouping tells me that the party itelf is not "left" let alone Marxist.
True some [prominant] members may be described as such, including perhaps Derek Wall, but the wider ordinary membership out here is not. This important because GPEW, at least for moment does not have a leader and is very much a decentralised party.
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