Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon

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As a follow-up to the last post, which was a public statement endorsed by over a hundred anti-imperialists, condemning the views of Gilad Atzmon, i am also re-posting this statement by 23 Palestinian activists, "Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon". This statement was first posted on the U.S. Palestinian Community Network: http://uspcn.org/2012/03/13/granting-no-quarter-a-call-for-the-disavowal-of-the-racism-and-antisemitism-of-gilad-atzmon/

Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon

For many years now, Gilad Atzmon, a musician born in Israel and currently living in the United Kingdom, has taken on the self-appointed task of defining for the Palestinian movement the nature of our struggle, and the philosophy underpinning it. He has done so through his various blogs and Internet outlets, in speeches, and in articles. He is currently on tour in the United States promoting his most recent book, entitled, ‘The Wandering Who.’

With this letter, we call for the disavowal of Atzmon by fellow Palestinian organizers, as well as Palestine solidarity activists, and allies of the Palestinian people, and note the dangers of supporting Atzmon’s political work and writings and providing any platforms for their dissemination. We do so as Palestinian organizers and activists, working across continents, campaigns, and ideological positions.

Atzmon’s politics rest on one main overriding assertion that serves as springboard for vicious attacks on anyone who disagrees with his obsession with “Jewishness”. He claims that all Jewish politics is “tribal,” and essentially, Zionist. Zionism, to Atzmon, is not a settler-colonial project, but a trans-historical “Jewish” one, part and parcel of defining one’s self as a Jew. Therefore, he claims, one cannot self-describe as a Jew and also do work in solidarity with Palestine, because to identify as a Jew is to be a Zionist. We could not disagree more. Indeed, we believe Atzmon’s argument is itself Zionist because it agrees with the ideology of Zionism and Israel that the only way to be a Jew is to be a Zionist.

Palestinians have faced two centuries of orientalist, colonialist and imperialist domination of our native lands. And so as Palestinians, we see such language as immoral and completely outside the core foundations of humanism, equality and justice, on which the struggle for Palestine and its national movement rests. As countless Palestinian activists and organizers, their parties, associations and campaigns, have attested throughout the last century, our struggle was never, and will never be, with Jews, or Judaism, no matter how much Zionism insists that our enemies are the Jews. Rather, our struggle is with Zionism, a modern European settler colonial movement, similar to movements in many other parts of the world that aim to displace indigenous people and build new European societies on their lands.

We reaffirm that there is no room in this historic and foundational analysis of our struggle for any attacks on our Jewish allies, Jews, or Judaism; nor denying the Holocaust; nor allying in any way shape or form with any conspiracy theories, far-right, orientalist, and racist arguments, associations and entities. Challenging Zionism, including the illegitimate power of institutions that support the oppression of Palestinians, and the illegitimate use of Jewish identities to protect and legitimize oppression, must never become an attack on Jewish identities, nor the demeaning and denial of Jewish histories in all their diversity.

Indeed, we regard any attempt to link and adopt antisemitic or racist language, even if it is within a self-described anti-imperialist and anti-Zionist politics, as reaffirming and legitimizing Zionism. In addition to its immorality, this language obscures the fundamental role of imperialism and colonialism in destroying our homeland, expelling its people, and sustaining the systems and ideologies of oppression, apartheid and occupation. It leaves one squarely outside true solidarity with Palestine and its people.

The goal of the Palestinian people has always been clear: self determination. And we can only exercise that inalienable right through liberation, the return of our refugees (the absolute majority of our people) and achieving equal rights to all through decolonization. As such, we stand with all and any movements that call for justice, human dignity, equality, and social, economic, cultural and political rights. We will never compromise the principles and spirit of our liberation struggle. We will not allow a false sense of expediency to drive us into alliance with those who attack, malign, or otherwise attempt to target our political fraternity with all liberation struggles and movements for justice.

As Palestinians, it is our collective responsibility, whether we are in Palestine or in exile, to assert our guidance of our grassroots liberation struggle. We must protect the integrity of our movement, and to do so we must continue to remain vigilant that those for whom we provide platforms actually speak to its principles.

When the Palestinian people call for self-determination and decolonization of our homeland, we do so in the promise and hope of a community founded on justice, where all are free, all are equal and all are welcome.

Until liberation and return.

Signed:

Ali Abunimah
Naseer Aruri, Professor Emeritus, University of Massachusetts, Dartmouth
Omar Barghouti, human rights activist
Hatem Bazian, Chair, American Muslims for Palestine
Andrew Dalack, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network
Haidar Eid, Gaza
Nada Elia, US Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel
Toufic Haddad
Kathryn Hamoudah
Adam Hanieh, Lecturer, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London
Mostafa Henaway, Tadamon! Canada
Monadel Herzallah, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network
Nadia Hijab, author and human rights advocate
Andrew Kadi
Hanna Kawas, Chair person, Canada Palestine Association and Co-Host Voice of Palestine
Abir Kobty, Palestinian blogger and activist
Joseph Massad, Professor, Columbia University, NY
Danya Mustafa, Israeli Apartheid Week US National Co-Coordinator & Students for Justice in Palestine- University of New Mexico
Dina Omar, Columbia Students for Justice in Palestine
Haitham Salawdeh, National Coordinating Committee, US Palestinian Community Network
Sobhi Samour, School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), London
Khaled Ziada, SOAS Palestine Society, London
Rafeef Ziadah, poet and human rights advocate

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Not Quite "Ordinary Human Beings"—Anti-imperialism and the anti-humanist rhetoric of Gilad Atzmon

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[This is a statement signed by almost one hundred anti-imperialists and organizations denouncing the Israeli-born jazz musician Gilad Atzmon for his antisemitism, and asking our fellow progressives to not promote him or his works. The list of endorsements included here is accurate as of March 9, 2012; an updated list will be maintained on the Three Way Fight blog: http://threewayfight.blogspot.com/p/atzmon-critique_09.html]

Attempting to latch onto the just, vital, and growing movement in support of the Palestinian national liberation struggle, Gilad Atzmon is one of a very small and unrepresentative group of writers who have argued (in agreement with many Zionists) that there is no meaningful distinction to be made between Jews in general and Israeli atrocities. According to Atzmon, the latter are simply a manifestation of Jews’ historic relationship to gentiles, an authentic expression of an essentially racist, immoral, and anti-human “Jewish ideology.”

Atzmon’s statements, besides distorting the history of Jews and constituting a brazen justification for centuries of anti-Jewish behavior and beliefs, also downgrade anti-Zionism to a mere front in the broader (anti-Jewish) struggle. Atzmon has specifically described Zionism not as a form of colonialism or settlerism, but as a uniquely evil ideology unlike anything else in human history. In addition to any ethical problems, this line of argumentation actually strengthens Zionism’s grip and claim to be the authentic representative of Jews. It obscures the reality that Zionism is an imperialist and colonialist enemy of Jewish people and Palestinians, as well as the Arab people generally and all those oppressed and exploited by imperialism.

In his online attack on Moshe Machover, an Israeli socialist and founder of the anti-Zionist group Matzpen, Atzmon states:

Machover’s reading of Zionism is pretty trivial. “Israel,” he says, is a “settler state.” For Machover this is a necessary point of departure because it sets Zionism as a colonialist expansionist project. The reasoning behind such a lame intellectual spin is obvious. As long as Zionism is conveyed as a colonial project, Jews, as a people, should be seen as ordinary people. They are no different from the French and the English, they just happen to run their deadly colonial project in a different time.[1]

For Atzmon, such views are “pretty trivial” and “lame” because he holds that Jews are in fact radically different from the French and the English. Of the many quotes we could provide in this regard, here is a small sampling:[2]

In order to understand Israel’s unique condition we must ask, “who are the Jews? What is Judaism and what is Jewishness?”[3]

Zionism is a continuation of Jewish ideology.[4]

The never-ending robbery of Palestine by Israel in the name of the Jewish people establishes a devastating spiritual, ideological, cultural and, obviously, practical continuum between the Judaic Bible and the Zionist project. The crux of the matter is simple yet disturbing: Israel and Zionism are both successful political systems that put into devastating practice the plunder promised by the Judaic God in the Judaic holy scriptures.[5]

Sadly, we have to admit that hate-ridden plunder of other people’s possessions made it into the Jewish political discourse both on the left and right. The Jewish nationalist would rob Palestine in the name of the right of self-determination, the Jewish progressive is there to rob the ruling class and even international capital in the name of world working class revolution.[6]

Were Jewish Marxists and cosmopolitans open to the notion of brotherhood, they would have given up on their unique, exclusive banners and become ordinary human beings like the rest of us.[7]

I do not consider the Jews to be a race, and yet it is obvious that “Jewishness” clearly involves an ethno centric and racially supremacist, exclusivist point of view that is based on a sense of Jewish “chosen-ness.”[8]

At the most, Israel has managed to mimic some of the appearances of a Western civilisation, but it has clearly failed to internalise the meaning of tolerance and freedom. This should not take us by surprise: Israel defines itself as a Jewish state, and Jewishness is, sadly enough, inherently intolerant; indeed, it may be argued that Jewish intolerance is as old as the Jews themselves.[9]

Israel and Zionism then, has proved to be a short lived dream. It was initiated to civilise Jewish life, and to dismantle the Jewish self-destructive mode. It was there to move the Jew into the post-herem[10] phase. It vowed to make the Jew into a productive being. But as things turned out, neither the Zionists nor the “anti Zionists” managed to drift away from the disastrous herem culture. It seems that the entire world of Jewish identity politics is a matrix of herems and exclusion strategies. In order to be “a proper Jew,” all you have to do is to point out whom you oppose, hate, exclude or boycott.[11]

The conclusion to such views is not difficult to draw:

The endless trail of Jewish collective tragedies is there to teach us that Jews always pay eventually (and heavily) for Jewish power exercises. Yet, surprisingly (and tragically) enough, Jews somehow consistently fail to internalise and learn from that very lesson.[12]

More precisely, commenting on the climax of State violence directed at Jews in the 1930s, most famously by Germany, but also in most other European nations, Atzmon is clear:

The remarkable fact is they don't understand why the world is beginning to stand against them in the same way they didn't understand why the Europeans stood against them in the 1930s. Instead of asking why we are hated they continue to toss accusations on others.[13]

Within the discourse of Jewish politics and history there is no room for causality. There is no such a thing as a former and a latter. Within the Jewish tribal discourse every narrative starts to evolve when Jewish pain establishes itself. This obviously explains why Israelis and some Jews around the world can only think as far as “two state solution” within the framework of 1967 borders. It also explains why for most Jews the history of the holocaust starts in the gas chambers or with the rise of the Nazis. I have hardly seen any Israelis or Jews attempt to understand the circumstances that led to the clear resentment of Europeans towards their Jewish neighbors in the 1920’s-40’s.[14]

It is, as such, not surprising that Atzmon’s work has received enthusiastic reviews by such prominent members of the racist right as former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, Kevin MacDonald of the Occidental Observer, David Icke, and Arthur Topham’s the Radical Press. It should not be surprising that Atzmon has distributed articles defending Holocaust deniers and those who write of “the Hitler we loved and why.”[15] These connections ultimately serve the interests of Zionism, which seeks to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Jewishness. Zionist agents have repeatedly attempted to ensnare and link Palestinian, Arab, and/or Muslim rights advocates to Neo-Nazism, through dirty tricks and outright lies.

It is more surprising and disappointing, then, that a small section of the left has opted to promote Atzmon and his works. In the UK, the Socialist Workers Party promoted Atzmon for several years before finally breaking with him; his latest book The Wandering Who? has been published by the left-wing Zero Books (a decision that elicited a letter of protest from several Zero authors).[16] In the United States, the widely-read Counterpunch website has repeatedly chosen to run articles by Atzmon. Currently, in February and March 2012, Atzmon is on tour in North America, where several of his speaking engagements are being organized by progressive anti-imperialists who we would normally like to consider our allies.

While perhaps well-meaning, operating under the assumption that any opposition to Zionism is to be welcomed, progressives who promote the work of Atzmon are in fact surrendering the moral high ground by encouraging a belief-system that simply mirrors that of the most racist section of Israeli society. Anti-racism is not a liability; on the contrary, it is a principle that makes our movements stronger in the long fight for a better tomorrow.

As political activists committed to resisting colonialism and imperialism—in North America and around the world—we recognize that there can be different interpretations of history, and we welcome exploring these. Without wishing to debate the question of whether far-right and racist ideologues should be censored, or how, we see no reason for progressive people to organize events to promote their works.

In our struggle against Zionism, racism, and all forms of colonialism and imperialism, there is no place for antisemitism or the vilification of Jews, Palestinians or any people based on their religions, cultures, nationalities, ethnicity or history. At this historic junction—when the need to struggle for the liberation of Palestine is more vital than ever and the fault lines of capitalist empire are becoming more widely exposed—no anti-oppressive revolution can be built with ultra-right allies or upon foundations friendly to creeping fascism.

As'ad AbuKhalil, The Angry Arab News Service, Turlock, CA

Suha Afyouni, solidarity activist, Beirut, LEBANON

Max Ajl, essayist, rabble-rouser, proprietor of Jewbonics blog site, Ithaca, NY

Haifaa Al-Moammar, activist, stay-at-home mom, and marathon walker, Los Angeles, CA

Electa Arenal, professor emerita, CUNY Graduate Center/Hispanic & Luso-Brazilian Literatures and Women's Studies, New York, NY

Gabriel Ash, International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Geneva, SWITZERLAND

Joel Beinin, Donald J. McLachlan Professor of History, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA

Dan Berger, Wild Poppies Collective, Philadelphia, PA

Chip Berlet, Boston, MA

Nazila Bettache, activist, Montréal, CANADA

Sam Bick, Tadamon!, Immigrant Workers Center, Montréal, Québec

Max Blumenthal, author; writing fellow, The Nation, New York, NY

Lenni Brenner, author, Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, New York, NY

Café Intifada

Paola Canarutto, Rete-ECO (Italian Network of Jews against the Occupation), Torino, ITALY

Paulette d’Auteuil, National Jericho Movement, Albuquerque, NM

Susie Day, Monthly Review, New York, NY

Ali Hocine Dimerdji, PhD student at The University of Nottingham, in Nottingham, UK

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, professor emerita, California State University

Todd Eaton, Park Slope Food Coop Members for Boycott/Divestment/Sanctions, Brooklyn, NY

S. EtShalom, registered nurse, Philadelphia, PA

Benjamin Evans, solidarity activist, Chicago, IL

First of May Anarchist Alliance

Sherna Berger Gluck, professor emerita, California State University/Israel Divestment Campaign, CA

Neta Golan, International Solidarity Movement

Tony Greenstein, Secretary Brighton Unemployed Centre/UNISON, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, Brighton, UK

Andrew Griggs, Café Intifada, Los Angeles, CA

Jenny Grossbard, artist, designer, writer and fighter, New York, NY

Freda Guttman, activist, Montréal, CANADA

Adam Hanieh, lecturer, Department of Development Studies/SOAS, University of London, UK

Swaneagle Harijan, anti-racism, social justice activism, Seattle, WA

Sarah Hawas, researcher and solidarity activist, Cairo, EGYPT

Stanley Heller, "The Struggle" Video News, moderator "Jews Who Speak Out"

Mostafa Henaway, Tadamon!, Immigrant Workers Center, Montréal, CANADA

Elise Hendrick, Meldungen aus dem Exil/Noticias de una multipátrida, Cincinnati, OH

Doug Henwood, Left Business Observer, New York, NY

Ken Hiebert, activist, Ladysmith, CANADA

Elizabeth Horowitz, solidarity activist, New York, NY

Adam Hudson, writer/blogger, San Francisco Bay Area, CA

Dhruv Jain, Researcher at the Jan Van Eyck Academie and PhD student at York University, Paris, FRANCE

Tom Keefer, an editor of the journal Upping the Anti, Toronto, CANADA

Karl Kersplebedeb, Left Wing Books, Montréal, CANADA

Anne Key, Penrith, Cumbria, UK

Mark Klein, activist, Toronto, CANADA

Bill Koehnlein, Brecht Forum, New York, NY

L.A. Palestine Labor Solidarity Committee, Los Angeles, CA

Mark Lance, Georgetown University/Institute for Anarchist Studies, Washington, DC

David Landy, author, Jewish Identity and Palestinian Rights: Diaspora Jewish Opposition to Israel, Dublin, IRELAND

Bob Lederer, Pacifica/WBAI producer, Queers Against Israeli Apartheid, New York, NY

Matthew Lyons, Three Way Fight, Philadelphia, PA

Karen MacRae, solidarity activist, Toronto, CANADA

Heba Farouk Mahfouz, student activist, blogger, Cairo, EGYPT

Marvin Mandell and Betty Reid Mandell, co-editors, New Politics, West Roxbury, MA

Ruth Sarah Berman McConnell, retired teacher, DeLand, FL

Kathleen McLeod, poet, Brisbane, Australia

Karrie Melendres, Los Angeles, CA

Matt Meyer, Resistance in Brooklyn, New York, NY

Amirah Mizrahi, poet and educator, New York, NY

mesha Monge-Irizarry, co-director of Education Not Incarceration; SF MOOC City commissioner, San Francisco, CA

Matthew Morgan-Brown, solidarity activist, Ottawa, CANADA

Michael Novick, People Against Racist Terror/Anti-Racist Action, Los Angeles, CA

Saffo Papantonopoulou, New School Students for Justice in Palestine, New York, NY

Susan Pashkoff, Jews Against Zionism, London, UK

Tom Pessah, UC Berkeley Students for Justice in Palestine, Berkeley, CA

Marie-Claire Picher, Theater of the Oppressed Laboratory (TOPLAB), New York, NY

Sylvia Posadas (Jinjirrie), Kadaitcha, Noosa, AUSTRALIA

Roland Rance, Jews Against Zionism, London, UK

Danielle Ratcliff, San Francisco, CA

Liz Roberts, War Resisters League, New York, NY

Emma Rosenthal, contributor, Shifting Sands: Jewish Women Confront the Israeli Occupation, Los Angeles, CA

Penny Rosenwasser, PhD, Oakland, CA

Suzanne Ross, Free Mumia Abu-Jamal Coalition, The Riverside Church Prison Ministry, New York, NY

Gabriel San Roman, Orange County Weekly, Orange County, CA

Ian Saville, performer and lecturer, London, UK

Joel Schwartz, CSEA retiree/AFSCME, New York, NY

Tali Shapiro, Anarchists Against the Wall, Boycott From Within, Tel Aviv, OCCUPIED PALESTINE

Simona Sharoni, SUNY, author, Gender & the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Plattsburgh, NY

Jaggi Singh, No One Is Illegal-Montreal/Solidarity Across Borders, Montréal, CANADA

Michael S. Smith, board member, Center for Constitutional Rights, New York, NY

Pierre Stambul, Union juive française pour la paix (French Jewish Union for Peace), Paris, FRANCE

Muffy Sunde, Los Angeles, CA

Bhaskar Sunkara, editor of Jacobin, Bronx, NY

Tadamon! (http://www.tadamon.ca/), Montréal, CANADA

Ian Trujillo, atheist, Los Angeles, CA

Gabriella Turek, PhD, Auckland, NEW ZEALAND

Henry Walton, SEIU, retired, Los Angeles, CA

Bill Weinberg, New Jewish Resistance, New York, NY

Abraham Weizfeld, author, The End of Zionism and the liberation of the Jewish People, Montreal, CANADA

Ben White, author, Palestinians in Israel: Segregation, Discrimination, and Democracy, Cambridge, UK

Laura Whitehorn, former political prisoner, NYS Task Force on Political Prisoners, New York, NY

Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, founding member, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG)

Asa Winstanley, journalist for Electronic Intifada, Al-Akhbar and others, London, UK

Ziyaad Yousef, solidarity activist

* List in formation

* Organizations listed for identification purposes only

* Contact us at: antiracistantizionist@yahoo.com

Postscript:

This text is not intended as a comprehensive critique of Gilad Atzmon's politics. It was written quickly by some North American anti-imperialists who learned of Atzmon's 2012 speaking tour just days before it was to begin in late February 2012. At first it was thought it would be signed by just a few people, but the initiative quickly took on a life of its own, being posted to the web and to multiple listservs, discussed via email and on Facebook, and elsewhere, even before the wording had been finalized or a decision had been made as to how to use it (the initial assumption had been that it would be passed on to organizers with far less fanfare). Instead of a few signatures, within a week there were dozens, and emails continue to arrive from people wishing to sign on. We believe that this speaks to the deep frustration that many of us feel when confronted with Atzmon's anti-Jewish beliefs, which constitute an affront to our anti-racist principles, as well as a distraction from the essential tasks of opposing colonialist genocide and Israeli apartheid. What this response makes clear is that for many anti-imperialists, opposing such racism remains essential to building a movement against imperialism and the myriad forms of oppression that both feed on and are fed by it.

Any subsequent news or information about this initiative will appear here on the Three Way Fight website (threewayfight.blogspot.com). Those wishing to endorse or discuss this initiative, or for more information, should email antiracistantizionist@yahoo.com. We wish to reiterate that we consider many of those promoting Atzmon's work to be allies, but would ask that they reconsider their decision to do so. This is not a call for censorship, but for consistency and accountability.

---

[1] Gilad Atzmon, "Tribal Marxism for Dummies," originally published in June 2009, republished on his Web site on April 24, 2011.

[2] Many more quotes like these could be provided, but we assume this is enough to show that these are not out-of-context or out-of-character remarks. If not, readers may wish to peruse the section of Atzmon’s website on “Jewishness” at <www.gilad.co.uk/writings/category/jewishness>.

[3] Gilad Atzmon, "Tribal Marxism for Dummies," Atlantic Free Press, July 2, 2009.

[4] Anayat Durrani, "Exposing Dangerous Myths," Interview with Gilad Atzmon, originally published in Al-Ahram Weekly (May 19-25, 2011), republished on Atzmon's Web site on May 19, 2011.

[5] Gilad Atzmon, "Swindler's List: Zionist Plunder and the Judaic Bible," Redress Information & Analysis, April 5, 2008.

[6] Ibid.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Gilad Atzmon, "An Interesting Exchange With A Jewish Anti Zionist," Atzmon's Web site, August 17, 2011.

[9] Gilad Atzmon, "The Herem Law in the context of Jewish Past and Present," Atzmon's Web site, July 16, 2011.

[10] “Herem” is a Hebrew word that refers to banning or excluding someone, it is also the name of the repressive legislation Israel recently passed to enable punitive lawsuits against those calling for a boycott of the apartheid state. For Atzmon, this law is just one more example of Zionism’s Jewish uniqueness (guess he never heard of SLAPPs), as he concludes that “this is what Jews do best: destroying, excluding, excommunicating, silencing, boycotting, sanctioning. After all, Jews have been doing this for centuries.”

[11] Ibid.

[12] Gilad Atzmon, "A Warning From The Past," Atzmon's Web site, May 26, 2011.

[13] Quoted in Shabana Syed, "Time for World to Confront Israel: Gilad Atzmon," Arab News, June 14, 2010.

[14] Gilad Atzmon, "Jewish Ideology and World Peace," Atzmon's Web site, June 7, 2010.

[15] Tony Greenstein, "Bookmarks & Invitation to Gilad Atzmon & Holocaust Denial," JustPeaceUK, Yahoo! Groups, June 9, 2005.

[16] "Zero Authors' Statement on Gilad Atzmon," Lenin's Tomb, September 26, 2011.

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Gilbert Achcar: Why Holocaust Denial Is on the Rise in the Arab World

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The following from Gilbert Achcar:

What pushes Arabs to deny the existence of the Holocaust? How and why does Israel continue to instrumentalize the memory of the destruction of European Jewry? What was the attitude of Arab intellectuals during the Second World War? Why does Ahmadinejad incessantly brandish the denial weapon while Hamas and Hezbollah turn away from it? Mediapart published an exclusive extract from the book, "Les Arabes et la Shoah" [The Arabs and the Holocaust] (éditions Actes Sud/Sindbad, 2009), that came out Wednesday, October 14. [Metropolitan Books will be releasing an English version of the book in April 2010.]

The result of an unprecedented labor, the work of political scientist Gilbert Achcar -- professor at London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS) -- reviews over a century of history from the birth of Zionism to last winter's Israeli offensive against Gaza. Although he gives prominence to the political impasse constituted by the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he indicates "new links" that today exist between Jews and Arabs. An Interview.

Pierre Puchot: Gilbert Achcar, your book's subtitle is: "The Israeli-Arab War of Narratives." What do you mean?

Gilbert Achcar: It's about the war that opposes two entirely symmetrical visions of the origins of the conflict. Specifically, I refer here to the notion of "narrative" as the recitation of history as developed by post-modernism. The Israeli narrative describes an Israel that emerges as a reaction to anti-Semitism, beside the "Biblical rights" invoked by religious Zionists. And its justification by European anti-Semitism is extended to Arabs, who are presented as accomplices to this paroxysm of anti-Semitism that was Nazism -- which would legitimate the birth of the State of Israel on lands conquered from the population of Arab descent. That's why the Israeli narrative insists to such a degree on Amin al-Husseini, this character, blown up out of all proportion, who became the ex-grand mufti of Jerusalem.

On the Arab side, the most rational narrative -- later we'll mention the denialist escalations that are on the rise at present -- may perhaps be summarized in these terms, "We had nothing to do with the Shoah. Anti-Semitism is not an established tradition for us, but a European phenomenon. Zionism is a colonial movement that really took off in Palestine under the British colonial mandate, even though there were earlier instances. In consequence, it's a colonial implantation in the Arab world, on the model of what was seen in South Africa and elsewhere." It's the war between these two narratives that I explore in this book.

Is there a dominant Arab reading of the Shoah? In what respects is it specific and how does it differ from those in Europe or the United States?

There's not a single Arab interpretation of the Shoah, just as there isn't a single European reading either, even though there's certainly more homogeneity in the perception of the Holocaust in Europe. However, even that is recent, since, as you know, the Shoah was not a very current theme in European news and education during the two decades that followed the end of the Second World War.

In the Arab world, the situation is far more diversified. That is chiefly the result of the existence of a great variety of political regimes in the Arab countries, with very different ideological legitimatizations. Similarly, very diverse -- and even broadly antithetical -- ideological currents traverse Arab public opinion.

In these last few years, there has been an escalation in the brutality of Israeli military operations -- which have gone from being wars that Israel could present as defensive to wars that could no longer be presented that way at all -- beginning with the invasion of Lebanon in 1982. That has been accompanied by an intensification of hatred in the Israeli-Arab conflict, notably because of the fate reserved for the Palestinians of the territories occupied since 1967.

In the face of growing criticism of Israel, including in the West, since 1982 especially, we have seen that state systematically resort to instrumentalization of the memory of the Shoah, beginning no later than the Eichmann trial in 1960. And that instrumentalization arouses, on the "opposing side," a knee-jerk reaction that sometimes goes so far as to deny the Holocaust. The best indicator of this reactive quality is the fact that the Arab population which has received the widest education on the memory of the Shoah, the population of Arab citizens of Israel, has been prone to an absolutely striking explosion of denial these last few years.

To my mind, that very clearly illustrates the fact that denial in these cases corresponds more to a "gut reaction" out of political rancor, than to a true denial of the Shoah as is seen in Europe or the United States, where the deniers spend their time devising historical theories that don't stand up to refute the existence of the gas chambers, etc.

Another indication of this difference is that within the Arab world where denial is riding high, there's not a single author who has produced anything original on that theme. All the Arab deniers do is pick up theories produced in the West.

The political instrumentalization of denial as formulated by Ahmadinejad today was not used before in the Arab world, in the time of Nasser, for example. What does this development tell us?

The Islamic fundamentalism that has developed over the most recent decades, from the perspective of the Israeli-Arab conflict, carries an essentialist vision, even though it is not anti-Semitic in the strict racial sense of the term. It's a vision that picks up the anti-Judaism that may be found in the Abrahamic religions that followed Judaism: Christianity and Islam. Those elements present in Islam are going to be pointed out to facilitate a convergence between this ideologically extreme current and Western denial.

What elements of Islam allow the realization of this anti-Judaism?

There are criticisms of Judaism within Islam and echoes of the conflict that arose between the Prophet of Islam and the Jewish tribes on the Arab peninsula. But it's a contradictory background: we find anti-Christian and anti-Jewish statements in Islamic scripture. But at the same time, Christians and Jews are considered "people of the book" and may in consequence enjoy privileged treatment compared to other populations in the countries Islam conquered, populations which were forced to convert. The people of the book were not forced to convert and their religions were considered legitimate. Consequently, there is tension between these two contradictory dispositions.

I show in my book how the man who may be considered the main founder of modern Islamic fundamentalism, Rachid Rida, switched from a pro-Jewish attitude due to anti-Christianity -- especially during the Dreyfus Affair, when he denounced anti-Judaism in Europe -- to an attitude that, towards the end of the 1920's, began to repeat an anti-Semitic discourse of Western inspiration, including the big Nazi anti-Semitic narrative attributing all kinds of things to the Jews in continuity with the fake Russian "Protocols of the Elders of Zion," including responsibility for the First World War. Then we see a graft occur between certain Western anti-Semitic discourse and Islamic fundamentalism which veers in that direction on this question because of what was happening in Palestine. Before the conflict turned ugly in Palestine, this same Rachid Rida tried to dialogue with representatives of the Zionist movement to convince them to form an alliance between Jews and Muslims to confront the Christian West as a colonial power. From that anti-colonialism that determines anti-Westernism, they were to move on to anti-Zionism, which, in the case of a fundamentalist religious mentality, combined very easily with anti-Semitism.

With that said, the signs of anti-Judaism that one finds in Islam, one finds a hundredfold in Christianity, and in Catholicism in particular, with the idea of the Jews as deicides, the Jews responsible for the death of Jesus, the son of God. This anti-Jewish charge contained in Christianity has, moreover, resulted in a persecution of the Jews in the history of the West incomparably worse than was the case in Islamic countries. We have seen, for example, how Jews of the Iberian Peninsula, fleeing the Christian Reconquista and the Inquisition, found refuge in the Muslim world, in North Africa, Turkey and elsewhere.

How have Hezbollah and Hamas used this rising tendency towards denial for political ends?

Rachid Rida's discourse, integral to their ideologies, was present from the outset in Hamas and Hezbollah. Much more, by the way, in Hamas, which is an emanation of the Muslim Brotherhood in Palestine. The founder of the Brotherhood, Hassan El-Banna, was largely inspired by Rachid Rida.

In the case of Hezbollah, the discourse is presented through the slant of what was to come from political Iran: in Shiite fundamentalism originally, there is no source for an anti-Judaic dimension comparable to the one developed by Rida. It was to be elaborated along with the Iranian regime's opposition to the West, to the United States and to Israel.

That said, what distinguishes Hamas as well as Hezbollah is that they're mass movements, and, as such, they have a pragmatic dimension. As much as it suits Ahmadinejad to perform denialist one-upsmanship for reasons of state policy, these movements have to a large extent reduced the anti-Semitic discourse they previously expressed and which proved to be counter-productive.

What I understand from your book is that Holocaust denial has become a political instrument per se in the Middle East, whether one chooses to use it or not. How was this instrument integral to the political foundation of the Palestinian movement, especially with respect to the PLO?

The PLO, ever since the armed Palestinian organizations got the upper hand within it after 1967, very quickly came to understand that anti-Semitic discourse is bad in itself and altogether contrary to the interests of the struggle of the Palestinian people. Hence the insistence on the distinction to be made between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism, which was the issue in a political battle within the Palestinian movement.

Conversely, what are the mechanisms of what you call the "positive" instrumentalization of the Shoah, as it emanates from Israel?

What may be the legitimatizations for the State of Israel? I'm not talking about questioning its existence, but about examining the legitimatizations that it gives itself. One has to confess that, apart from religious Zionists, the Biblical legitimatization convinces very few people! As for the justification that we find in secular Zionism as expressed most notably by Theodore Herzl, it's a justification that does not take into account what is actually there where the "State of the Jews" is going to be created. The only justification he gives for that state is anti-Semitism in the West. He doesn't concern himself with what's already over there. Moreover, we know that at the outset the Zionist movement occasionally had very intense debates about the possible location for the Zionist state. Therefore, for the Zionist movement, it was a matter of inserting itself within a colonial undertaking and we find references to colonialism in Herzl's book, including the idea of embodying a rampart of civilization against barbarism.

Colonial ideology having expired globally, it was necessary to find an alternative legitimatization: that's when the instrumentalization of the Shoah began to intensify, especially from the beginning of the 1960's with the Eichmann trial. Excellent work has already been done on this subject, particularly that of Tom Segev. It's an absolutely remarkable work on the manner in which, within Israel itself, the question of the Shoah was to suddenly emerge and change character. The relationship to the Holocaust was to change from a relationship of contempt for the survivors to claiming that memory as a legitimatization for the State. Moreover, as a narrative, this legitimatization has been highly effective in the West on several levels, including in the relations maintained between Israel and the Federal Republic of Germany at a time when the German administration was stuffed with former Nazis. People frequently obscure the absolutely significant role Germany played in strengthening the State of Israel, notably by the reparations Bonn dispensed, not to the victims of Nazism, to the survivors of the genocide, but to the State of Israel presented as the survivors' state. Consequently, this legitimatization of the State of Israel was to appear over time as a very high-value political instrument for that State, an instrument that today is overexploited.

The memory of the Shoah is invoked to counter every criticism. At times, this has reached the level of the grotesque as when Prime Minister Begin made his famous answer to Ronald Reagan during the siege of Beirut: Begin compared Arafat to Hitler then, at the very moment when it was the Israeli Army besieging Beirut and while many Israelis and other observers were instead finding parallels with the Warsaw Ghetto.

Does the parallel between the Nakba and the Shoah exist in the Middle East? In what respect does it reveal possible political developments?

At that level, there are two different aspects: the one that we've talked about, the war over the instrumentalization of the Holocaust, and there is what you could call the local version of competition between victims: "My tragedy is more important than yours." On the Palestinian side, one may often read statements that assert that the fate of the Palestinian people has been worse than that of the Jews under Nazism. These are obviously altogether outrageous and absurd exaggerations, but we can easily understand what drives them. Moreover, we find this victims' competition with respect to the Shoah in the case of other historical tragedies such as the Armenian genocide, for example.

At the same time, it is good to listen to former Knesset Speaker Avraham Burg's remarks. He says out loud: "We are guilty of denying the genocides and the tragedies of others." Confronted with a situation, where, in Israel, they deny the Nakba -- and where it required the appearance of those who are called the "New Historians" and of post-Zionism for the official discourse of Nakba denial to be strongly questioned -- there is not only a development of Holocaust denial on the Arab side, but also an escalation in their claims about the scope and the drama of their own tragedy. That can often lead to contradictory statements: on the one hand, Holocaust denial, a minimization of the crimes of Nazism, and, on the other hand, a discourse accusing Israel of reproducing the crimes of Nazism ... It's perfectly clear that it's not logic that holds sway. It's an ideological war that proceeds more through feelings and passions than through rational discourse.

In your conclusion, you present a rather optimistic analysis: "The progress made between Arabs and Israelis is significant when one considers the virtual impossibility of communication between them in the first decades following the Nakba."

This progress has, in part, been a product of the PLO, which opened the way to a more rational attitude vis-à-vis the Shoah, the State of Israel and Israelis on the Arab side.

Connections between Arabs and Jews exist today and in the end must favor recognition of the Holocaust and of the Nakba. Israelis' recognition of the latter is more difficult because it implies recognition of their own responsibility, with the direct implications you can imagine, and which would lead to an attitude radically opposed to that of Israeli governments up to now. Yet that recognition of the Nakba by Israel is today an indispensable step towards achieving a true settlement of this conflict that has gone on for too long.



[Translation: by Truthout French Language Editor Leslie Thatcher, with the permission of Medipart.]

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[ZNet] Anti-Semitism in Canada

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Yesterday's article by Yves Engler on ZNet, about the way in which right-wing groups and the Canadian government use charges of anti-semitism to advance their own agenda:

Which Canadians suffer more discrimination: Those of African descent, Muslims, Latin Americans, South Asians, East Asians, Arabs, First Nations or Jews?

If you answer the latter, take your place alongside the Harper government and other sectors of the political elite that attack a largely historic form of oppression to advance a present day pro-imperial foreign-policy and anti-immigrant/anti-aboriginal domestic agenda.

Despite a loud chorus claiming otherwise, anti-Semitism is a mere fig leaf of its former oppressive character. Six decades ago "none is too many" was the order of the day in Ottawa, which rejected Jewish refugees escaping Nazi concentration camps. This hostile anti-semitic climate continued into the 1950s with institutions such as McGill University in Montreal imposing quotas on Jewish students. But Christianity's decline, combined with a rise in antiracist politics has significantly undercut anti-Semitism as a social force in Canada.

Today, Jews are largely seen as white people. Canada's Jewish community is well represented among institutions of influence in this country and there is very little in terms of structural racism against Jews (which is not to say there isn't significant cultural stereotyping, which must be challenged). But in an inversion of reality, the more anti-Semitism declines as a social force the more it concerns the political elite.

Why?

As a way to silence critics of Israel, of course. More generally, the Conservatives, supported by the Jewish establishment, allege anti-Semitism to advance a broadly pro-empire foreign-policy.

In April 2009, Harper explained: "we are very concerned that, around the world, anti-Semitism is growing in volume and acceptance." A month later, Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister (formerly Secretary of State for Multiculturalism and Canadian Identity) Jason Kenney told a European audience, "peaceful and pluralistic Canada sees signs that this evil [anti-Semitism] is newly resurgent." Then, in a statement bordering on Holocaust denial, he added, "I also very acutely understand the nature of the new anti-Semitism, and I think it's even more dangerous than the old European anti-Semitism."

There have been few similar proclamations about racism directed towards First Nations, Blacks or any other group in Canada. A Canadian Newsstand search for Jason Kenney Islamophobia; Jason Kenney racism against Blacks; Jason Kenney missing Native/Aboriginal women brings up nothing of substance. On the other hand, a search of Jason Kenney and anti-Semitism elicited dozens of articles, including many strong comments from the Minister.

The Conservatives, which get few Jewish votes but are close with its right-wing establishment, have used the politics of anti-Semitism to crowd out action regarding more oppressive forms of bigotry. Despite the fact that Muslims and Blacks are more likely to be targeted, "Jewish organizations have received 84 per cent of the funding announcements under a federal program that provides security for groups at risk of being attacked in hate crimes," reported the Canadian Press on Friday. "Forty-six of the 55 projects funded by Ottawa since February 2008 belonged to Jewish community groups."

At the level of international diplomacy the Harper government's cries of anti-Semitism are a transparent attempt to silence critics of Israeli crimes. But there is more to it. The accusations of anti-Semitism are a way to advance a broader right-wing foreign-policy agenda.

Beyond defending Israel, there are a number of recent instances where anti-Semitism has been used by Canadian politicians to advance 'white' or imperial policies. Last April, Virginie Levesque, a spokesperson for the Canadian Embassy in Venezuela, accused socialist oriented president Hugo Chavez of anti-Semitism. "The Canadian Embassy has encouraged and continues to encourage the Venezuelan government to follow through on its commitment to reject and combat anti-Semitism and to do its utmost to ensure the security of the Jewish community and its religious and cultural centers."

That same month, two Liberal MPs presented a petition to the House of Commons claiming an increase in state-backed anti-Semitism in Venezuela. Former Liberal Justice Minister Irwin Cotler said Venezuela has seen a "delegitimization from the president on down of the Jewish people and Israel." These unsubstantiated accusations of anti-Semitism are designed to further demonize a government that threatens North American capitalist/geopolitical interests.

Additionally, Canada was the first country to withdraw from last April's World Conference against Racism in Geneva. Defending Israel was part of the Harper government's motivation for pulling out of the conference; they also had little interest in discussing the dispossession of First Nations, colonialism or the African slave trade. An "anti-Semitic anti-West hate fest dressed up as anti-racism conference" is how one unnamed Canadian official described the meeting.

Claiming the conference was anti-Semitic was the only politically palatable justification for withdrawing. In fact, Israel was barely on the agenda as Naomi Klein describes in this month's Harper's Magazine. She points out how pro-Israel groups effectively undermined extensive efforts by (largely) black activists to force the international community to define colonialism and the slave trade as crimes against humanity. "Perhaps the best way to describe the convergence of interests in Geneva is to say that pro Israel groups succeeded in convincing 10 governments to boycott a conference that they never wanted to come to anyway."
It's particularly ironic that the Immigration and Multiculturalism Minister has been the most fervent proponent of anti-Semitism politics. Claims of anti-Semitism do not in any way challenge white supremacy, something a multiculturalism minister should take on.
Harper gave Jason Kenney, the most right wing member of his cabinet, the immigration and multiculturalism portfolio. Is that because the Conservative party's (anti-aboriginal, anti-immigrant) base opposes multiculturalism? Does the focus on claims of "racism" against white Jews simply offer a convenient cover for continued white supremacy?

Yves Engler is the author of the recently released The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy and other books. the book is available at blackbook.foreignpolicy.ca If you are interested in helping to organize an event as part of the second leg of a book tour in late September/October please contact: yvesengler@hotmail.com

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Speaking of St-Jerome...

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Immigrants are “buying their way in” to Quebec,
Lise Provencher of St. Jérôme tells Gérard Bouchard and
Charles Taylor at hearings last night,
and Jews are “trampolines of money in the world.”

Well yeah timing is everything...

i haven't been blogging about the Bouchard-Taylor roving racist rendezvous, mainly because i thought i should wait til had time to provide something a little less than sketchy.

This is the "reasonable accommodation" commission, headed by two mildly liberal intellectuals, which was initiated by the provincial Liberal government just before this spring's elections in an effort to take some of the wind out of the sails of the more openly racist ADQ political party. It has started its audiences in the monocultural and conservative regions of Quebec, and so far at least it has fulfilled my expectations of being a forum for people to vent their racist phlegm.

i predict that - regardless of the "liberal" or "progressive" or "inclusive" conclusions Taylor and Bouchard might come up with - the entire exercise will at best amount to one (little) step forward and ten (big) steps back, as it serves to normalize racist discourse all under the guise of letting people "say out loud what everyone is thinking" (who wins the prize of telling me who that quote is from?)

At best racism and anti-racism will appear as two equally valid sets of opinion, at worst this will be one of those circuses where racist comes to be identified with "the people" and anti-racism is associated with snobbish intellectuals. And who loses then? You know who.

In any case, yesterday the commission was in St-Jerome, and here i am finding myself blogging about anti-communist police repression in St-Jerome today. Coincidences coincidences. As i mentioned in my previous entry, towns like St-Jerome have real potential for political organizing, but are neglected by most activists. Even people from these areas generally move to "the city" as soon as they can, with the end result that some towns have a bigger and more visible far right scene than they do a far left. And this suits the cops fine, which is probably a part of why they attacked the communist demo in St-Jerome on August 11th.

In any case, i'm all over the place i know, but here is an article from today's Montreal Gazette to give an idea of why we should be intervening in places like St-Jerome, why we can't surrender them to the right.

Laurentian residents vent anger with Hasidim
St. Jérome session becomes platform for bashing distinctive Orthodox sect
JEFF HEINRICH THE GAZETTE
ST. JÉRÔME –

In the 1st century AD, St. Jerome translated the Bible from Greek and Hebrew into Latin and pulled a thorn from the paw of a lion.

Two millennia later, a travelling commission on “reasonable accommodation” of religious minorities in Quebec made a stop yesterday in the Laurentian town named after him and tried to interpret the outcry of French Canadians over a new thorn in their side: Jews.

Ultra-orthodox Jews, more precisely – the Hasidim.

In the Laurentians, where more than 500,000 people live, the Hasidim are very much on people’s minds, judging from those who spoke at last night’s open-mike session.

“We’re playing the game of ... the great rabbis, with their archaic values,” resident JeanPierre Bouvrette told a packed hall of 175 people in downtown St. Jérôme, 60 kilometres northwest of Montreal.

“There are a lot of arguments, and we get along less and less,” said Val Morin resident Roger Cuerrier, complaining about the “ever-growing number” of Hasidic Jews in his village – and their “unreasonable” demands.

“The last shot they directed at us, was they set themselves up next to the baseball field and asked us to shut off the lights when they pray on Saturday evenings,” he said.

“It’s really a mentality that’s separate,” St. Hippolyte resident Lise Casavant said of the Hasidism, adding that immigrants should sign a new Quebec citizenship charter “or choose another province,” a sentiment several other speakers also evoked.

John Saywell, of Argenteuil, said when he hears a Hasidic Jewish leader speaking only in English on the TV news, he thinks it’s wrong. The community should make the effort to speak French, he said.

And Lise Provencher, of St. Jérôme, said immigrants are “buying their way in” to Quebec and that Jews are the worst because they’re “the most powerful. ... It’s always been said that the Jews are the trampoline of money in the world.” After she spoke, the crowd applauded.

A rare few last night blamed themselves as French Canadians.

“The main reason we’re here today is that we stopped having children,” said Loyola Leroux, of Prévost.

Listening impassively from the front of the room were the commission’s co-chairmen, historian Gérard Bouchard and philosopher Charles Taylor, with his left arm in a sling. Taylor is recovering from surgery that sidelined him for the first two weeks of the commission’s roadshow. He made his first appearance last night, saying that during his convalescence he’d been “burning” to attend.

The two men knew the Laurentians would be where they’d hear about the Hasidic question. The last few years have been full of Jewish news in the region, none of it good:

In late June, after hearing the Miramont sur le Lac resort in St. Adolphe d’Howard had been sold to a group of Hasidic Jews for $3.5 million, village manager Michel Binette complained he didn’t want to see the Miramont become “ghettoized.” After Jewish groups complained, St. Adolphe mayor Pierre Roy apologized for Binette’s remarks.

In Val David last June, a series of suspicious fires hit the town, particularly in the neighbourhood of Préfontaine, where about 50 families from the Satmar group of Hasidic Jews have cottages. The residents said they have been a frequent target of vandalism.

In 2005, the village of Val Morin spent nearly $100,000 in court against a group of the Belz sect of Hasidic Jews that converted two residences into a religious school and a synagogue. The Quebec Superior Court ruled in favour of the municipality, which said the Hasidim were contravening zoning laws. An appeal was heard last week and a decision is pending.

Hasidic Jews stand out by their separateness – even last night.

There were none in the crowd to defend the community.

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Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All of Our Movements: The Past Didn't Go Anywhere

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Another notice i'm passing along. The pamphlet in question, a very accessible look at antisemitism and the radical left, is going to be one of the new titles in the upcoming Kersplebedeb catalog, so if you'd like a hardcopy you can get in touch.

As some of you might know, i think the antisemitism question is of strategic importance for revolutionaries, and is also more complicated than some might think, and also suffers from normally being thought about in the most stupidly simplistic way OR in the most stupidly academic way. While not perfect, Rosenblum's pamphlet does us the service of identifying the issues we will need to grapple with... i'll hopefully be writing a lengthier critique/appraisal of this pamphlet some time over the next few weeks.

But in the meantime... check it out!

THE PAST DIDN'T GO ANYWHERE
Making Resistance to Antisemitism Part of All of Our Movements

A 32-page pamphlet for progressives and radicals, to support our social justice movements in combating anti-Jewish oppression from a perspective of liberation for all people.

Free downloads at www.thepast.info

"In order to build powerful movements we must take on antisemitism as what it is: a divide-and-rule strategy that has served to maintain ruling classes, conceal who actually has power, and confuse us about the real systems of oppression that pit us against one another. ...Rosenblum's pamphlet needs to be studied and the lessons applied."

- Chris Crass, organizer, The Catalyst Project: a center for political education and movement building

*You are invited to use and share this resource: Permission is given to copy freely.*

About the author:

April Rosenblum, 27, was born and raised in activist movements in Philadelphia. She became politicized herself by government attempts in 1995 to execute U.S. political prisoner and Philadelphia journalist Mumia Abu-Jamal. Over time she has also worked on issues including police brutality, political prisoners and prisoners' rights, womens' reproductive freedom, immigrants' rights, poverty, anti-racist education and Palestinian self-determination. She graduated with a B.A. in History from Temple University.

She writes, "My work to create 'The Past' was inspired by noticing how afraid I was to speak up when I noticed instances of anti-Jewish oppression in the movements I called home. I realized that my activist friends were, like me, staying silent not out of antisemitism, but because they needed basic tools to confront it. I hope it will be a resource for Jewish and non-Jewish organizers, activists, and other people passionate about building movements that can win."

She can be reached at reachpast@gmail.com.

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Two Arrested in Montreal for Carrying Out Racist Anti-Jewish Attacks

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Azim Ibragimov, left, and Omar Bulphred face nine charges for carrying out anti-Semitic attacks in Montreal over the past six months

i missed this news item when i was out of town last week: two men have been arrested for carrying out anti-Semitic attacks in Snowdon/Cote-des-Neiges area in Montreal.

Here is the article:

Pair denied bail
Men charged with crimes targeting city's Jewish community

The Gazette
Friday, April 13, 2007
Sue Montgomery
and Paul Cherry

Two Montreal men have been accused of a raft of attacks against the city’s Jewish community, including the firebombing of a Snowdon community centre that police are treating as a hate-related crime.

Omar Bulphred, 21, and Azim Ibragimov, 23, appeared briefly in Quebec Court on Friday to be arraigned on charges stemming from incidents that began last fall. Both were denied bail.

The case is due back in court on Monday, at which time a date could be set for a bail hearing.

In addition to their alleged roles in a rash of firebombings, the two are accused of conspiring to commit kidnapping and armed robbery. But it’s not known who or what their potential victims were.

The pair were arrested Thursday morning and questioned. The investigation did not turn up links to any terrorist or hate groups, said Constable Christian Emond, of the Montreal police fraud and arson squad.

“What we can say is that the crimes are hate-related, however,” he said.

“The evidence we’ve accumulated will be brought out in a trial and it will be up to a judge to use this to impose a stiffer sentence” if there is a conviction.

“We deem it to be hate-related because the proof we have indicates the motivation was there.”

Each man is charged with conspiracy to commit armed robbery, conspiracy to kidnap and conspiracy to forcibly confine someone. Those crimes are alleged to have taken place between March 30 and April 8.

They also face charges of possession of an explosive in connection with the Sept. 2 firebombing of Skver-Toldos Orthodox Jewish Boys School in Outremont.

Each faces one count of damage to property by fire or explosion after a car parked on de l’Authion Ave. in the city’s Mercier district was firebombed Sept. 12.

As well, the two are alleged to have uttered death threats against a member of the Jewish community, and to have threatened to burn, destroy or damage property belonging to the Jewish community.

The most recent attack occurred on April 3, the first day of Passover, when a firebomb exploded at the YM-YWHA Ben Weider Jewish Community Centre, also known as the Snowdon Y. Employees called police at 11:15 p.m. after they heard an explosion at the facility’s main entrance on Westbury Ave. No one was injured and there was no damage to the building.

In the case of the Sept. 2 school firebombing, video surveillance cameras showed a masked man throwing a Molotov cocktail through the front door. The resulting fire was brought under control quickly. Damage to the building was minimal.

During their probe of the firebombings, investigators uncovered a conspiracy to commit armed robbery and to kidnap someone, Emond said.

“Of course, the investigators did everything they could to abort that plan as soon as possible,” he said.

The investigation began after the firebombing at the school. Seven days later, Montreal police came across a letter linked to that attack.

“The person who wrote the letter had intimate details of the firebombing,” Emond said. “Obviously, the person who wrote it was tied to the crime.

“We can’t say exactly how the letter was discovered. What we can say is that the information was not made public at that time because was it was deemed important that we keep it to ourselves. In the long run, it proved to be the right decision. It helped us a lot in determining who the suspects were.”

At the Sept. 12 car bombing, police found another letter at the scene that helped investigators link that incident to the attack at the school.

While probing this month’s firebombing at the Snowdon Y, investigators pieced everything together.

“The evidence and clues investigators were able to gather pointed to all three incidents were caused by the same individuals,” Emond said.

He said he could not divulge how long the men were considered suspects.

Crown prosecutor Gianni Cuffaro wouldn’t say much about the case Friday, except that the investigation continues.

Alexandre Bergevin, the lawyer for the two accused, said police used wiretaps to close in on his clients.

“Other than that, I have very little information about the evidence,” Bergevin said in an interview. “I wasn’t even allowed to meet with them at the courthouse, so won’t see them until sometime over the weekend.”

Jeffrey Boro, president of the Canadian Jewish Congress, said police told him the two suspects are Canadian-born Muslims of Russian descent.

“That makes it very disconcerting for those who live here,” he said. “We’re raising people here with such hatred in their hearts for people they’ve never met or had anything to do with.”

He said police had informed the CJC they’d found material during the investigation that suggested the crimes were motivated by hate toward Jewish people.

Sarah Elgazzar, of the Canadian Council on American-Islamic Relations, expressed dismay the accused are Muslims and hoped that fact wouldn’t increase the animosity between the Jewish and Muslim communities in Montreal.

“Religiously speaking, Jews and Muslims should be so close,” she said. “Sure, there are differences, and there are problems in other parts of the world, but that doesn’t justify these kinds of attacks.

“Most Muslims would never even think of doing something like that; it’s horrible.”

It is unclear if the two are also being charged with the neo-nazi graffiti that has gone up in the area over the past year or so. In January 2007 swastikas and anti-Semitic slogans were spraypainted in Russian on the Snowdon Y and the Jewish Community Centre. A year earlier - in January 2006 - similar Russian-language graffiti had gone up in the area, pointing people towards the Russian National Socialist Organization. Cote-des-Neiges and Snowdon is home to many people from the former Soviet Union - both Jewish and non-Jewish - who immigrated over the past sixteen years.

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Potentially Interesting Event in NYC

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An interesting discussion about an upcoming event in NYC (Opposing Antisemitism in the Movement: A Workshop for Activists) is taking place on NYC Indymedia… some of you may find it worth checking out.

Oh, and for info on the event itself:

OPPOSING ANTISEMITISM IN THE MOVEMENT: A WORKSHOP FOR ACTIVISTSWhen: Sunday, July 23, 6:30 p.m.Where: Bluestockings, 172 Allen Street, between Stanton and Rivington Streets, Manhattan (directions below).Antiauthoritarians and social justice activists often think they're immune from racism and prejudice. But many Jewish activists' experience shows that forms of antisemitism are alive and well in the social justice movement. This not only drives away many Jewish activists, but profoundly affects our work as a movement. This workshop brings together two longtime activists who have studied how the left responds to antisemitism for an evening of instruction and experience-sharing that will help us understand and combat its effects in the activist community.Antisemitism is more than a "prejudice." It's a political worldview that can creep into the work of even dedicated fighters against oppression and injustice. This workshop will begin with the essentials: What is antisemitism? How is it different from what we've been taught it is? We will then explore the ways that antisemitism manifests itself today within movements against capitalism, the state, corporate globalization, and other forms of oppression, and what problems have kept the left from tackling antisemitism historically. We will look at how antisemitism damages the struggle for justice. Finally, we will discuss how we as activists can get better at seeing and fighting antisemitism where it arises.This workshop is designed to be an interactive learning experience, where participants are encouraged to discuss their own experiences and concerns. The panelists are: April Rosenblum, a Philadelphia-based activist and author of "The Past Didn't Go Anywhere," a pamphlet for radicals on resisting antisemitism. Peter Staudenmeier, a faculty member, Institute for Social Ecology and author of "Fascist Ecology: The 'Green Wing' of the Nazi Party and its Historical Antecedents." Eric Laursen (moderator), a writer, organizer, and longtime global justice and antiwar activist.$5 suggested. No one turned away.Directions: Bluestockings, 1 block south of the Second Avenue stop (F train) and 5 blocks from the Essex-Delancey Street stop (J,M,Z trains).

I know nothing about this event, so it could certainly turn out good or bad – i look forward to hearing reports about it!

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Anti-Semitism & The Revolutionary Right

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The revolutionary white right in North America is built on two beliefs: that white people form an objective biological group superior to all others, and that as a collectivity whites are in a state of perpetual competition with all others. The Hobbesian vision of nature, in which all are at war with all, is brought to a different level where “races,” not individuals, vie in permanent and total conflict.



These “facts” do not sit well with a third dogma held by the revolutionary white right, namely that whites are an oppressed and exploited group, who have gotten the raw end of the deal and suffer from “reverse discrimination” in almost all aspects of American life. This third tenet, the myth of the oppressed white man, was largely underdeveloped a hundred years ago. The U.S. power structure had a far more ambiguous relationship to groups like the Klan back then, and fascism – which is a radical and revolutionary movement from the right – had yet to enter the game. Whites not only benefited from the structural oppression of Blacks, but they had no compunction in admitting this and insisting that this was the way things were supposed to be.

Things have changed over the past century, and today the myth of the oppressed white man is one of the white right’s favourite sales pitches.

All of which sits uneasily together. After all, if whites are superior to other races, how did these others manage to get the upper hand? If nobody disputes that whites used to be in charge, how did these superior rulers lose their grip? It all kind of goes against that “survival of the fittest” bs they’re so into…

Under neo-colonialism the less powerful whites lose some of the privileges they were previously guaranteed. The class interests of a growing number of white people diverge more and more from those of the ruling class. The revolutionary right, not the left, is the most dynamic force organizing amongst downwardly-mobile whites. As the ruling class and the racist right move further apart, the question as to how the supposedly superior white man could be losing more and more ground becomes more and more pressing.

There is a need for a worthy opponent in the conscious racist’s mental universe. An ideology based on ethnic pedigree needs a racial villain. A white racist ideology, in a white supremacist society where the far right remains oppositional, and has a downwardly mobile class perspective, needs an elusive opponent, one who can wear a disguise and hide their origins.

Enter the Jews.

Reading their literature, it becomes clear that in the eyes of North American fascists, Jews are enemy #1. This did not use to be the case – prior to the 1970s Blacks were the racist right’s chief enemy. With the triumph of neo-colonialism as a world strategy of the ruling class, and the subsequent formal decolonization of two thirds of the planet, anti-Semitism came to the fore. This process saw the rise of clearly oppositional phenomena like the bonehead movement amongst white working class youth and the nazification of the racist right, officially acknowledged by the Klan as the dawn of a new era (the so-called “Fifth Era” of the KKK).

Today the grandchildren of European immigrants who may themselves have been the targets of nativist hostility can be found within the ranks of the revolutionary white right, and are just as eager to identify with the myth of the oppressed white man as their WASP comrades. These whites identify Jews as the bad pseudo-white guys, the ones responsible for the new harsher realities of the neo-colonial age, the loss of yesterday’s white pride and the fall from white grace.

Unlike anti-Catholic, anti-Irish, anti-Slavic and other racisms which used to be trumpeted by the far right, but which have melted away as these groups have been integrated into the mainstream of white America, anti-Semitism within the far right has increased as Jews have become more closely integrated into white America. To use the concept i put forward in my previous post on ideological racism: as popular anti-Semitism has decreased and any structural anti-Semitism has disappeared, ideological anti-Semitism has become more and more important within the ranks of the revolutionary right-wing.

In the world of the revolutionary right, Jews are not just another ethnic group. As spelled out by Hitler in a very different context, Jews are an evil master race to rival the good “Aryan” master race. They are literally the anti-Aryans. Actually gentile bad guys ranging from Mikail Gorbachev to Queen Elizabeth to Bill Gates are “outed” as being Jewish. Even Adolf Hitler has been accused of being Jewish by Christian Identity stalwart Jack Mohr, which of course got Mohr accused of being Jewish by other Identity groups, for as the Christian Separatist Church Society puts it: “it is common knowledge among Christians that the straight nosed Jew is the first one to call the hook nosed Jews the real Jews in an attempt to conceal his own identity.”

In the theories of the revolutionary right, Jews emerge as a plasticene ethnic group. Disquieting evidence that racist theories do not hold water – i.e. a white power structure NOT looking after the white masses, a society where power is in the hands of an absolute minority of super-rich white people who are not oppressed, an absolute majority of white people who remain indifferent or hostile to the revolutionary racists’ agenda – all of this is explained away by use of the Jewish trump card. The white power structure and super-rich are transformed into a Jewish ruling class which is screwing the white masses, using “straight nosed Jews” to lead astray even those who have recognized their enemy in the “hook nosed Jew.”

There have been other equally flexible and reality-defying devices used by the far right. Specifically, theories surrounding the Freemasons, the Illuminati, the Jesuits, and more recently the Reptilian/Draconian extra-terrestrials, also known as the “greys,” all seem ludicrous unless you actually accept the premise that they are true, at which point they become both irrefutable and essential to understanding everything in human history and contemporary events. These conspiracy theories are all shaped by the questions of their day, for like true plasticene they fill whatever mold they are pushed into. Coming out of a specific intellectual tradition, that of European reaction and then fascism, they build upon each other, and their different aspects are interchangeable. This explains how certain members of the Patriot movement could “abandon” anti-Semitism (which previously explained everything) while keeping their entire worldview intact: the name they gave to their plasticene changed from “Jews” to “Illuminati” or “Bilderbergers,” but the plasticene remained the same.

These conspiracy theories answer questions that the rational parts of far right ideology cannot, and as such their logic and details can only be explained by these shortcomings, not by surveying any historical evidence or using normal means of logical deduction. That’s why conspiracy theories, while amusing (who didn’t like the X-Files?), are such an unsound basis for any coherent or rational analysis.

As a plasticene ethnic group, there are no limits to how useful “the Jews” can be to those who adopt anti-Semitism as an ideological device. In a country like Poland, with a Jewish population of only 10,000 in 1990, anti-Semitism remains a key element to far right groups. Even in Japan, with a Jewish population of 600 and no significant historical Jewish presence or history of anti-Semitism, conspiracy theories about Jews have been adopted by many fascist and far right groups. As one J.P. Sartre put it many years ago, “If the Jew did not exit, the Anti-Semite would invent him.”

Given these precedents, it seems likely that anti-Semitism will continue regardless of any historical events unrelated to the far right itself. Even the complete extermination of every last Jew would not staunch this wound, for the belief in “Jewish conspiracies” would still make at least as much sense as current UFO conspiracies, which obviously bear no relationship to the actual population of Martians!

Likewise, it is ludicrous to suggest that any resolution to the problem of Zionist crimes being committed in Palestine would cause the far right to reject anti-Semitism. Like, since when was the far right so opposed to colonialism and the oppression of Arabs? While the fascists may oppose Israel, they do so despite Zionist atrocities, which if anything approximate those which the fascists dream of inflicting on “their own” subject peoples. Indeed, principled left opposition to Israel is based largely on the same values which lead us to reject fascist solutions; and non-Jewish fascist support for Israel – extremely rare as it may be – is predicated on this approval of ethnic slaughter.

I might even go so far as to say that the revolutionary white right pretends to be pro-Palestinian because Jews are overwhelmingly pro-Zionist today, but were Jews to overwhelmingly reject Zionism the radical right would most likely start holding “Solidarity with Israel” marches!

What do you think?

Categories: anti-semitism, fascism, racism

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