Robert Faurisson and the Study of the Past

October 23, 2018  /  Gilad Atzmon

The history of ideas provides us with the names of those few men and women who challenged the boundaries of tolerance.  Professor Robert Faurisson was one such man. Faurisson, who died last Sunday at age 89, was a French academic who didn’t believe in the validity of parts of the Holocaust narrative. He argued that gas chambers in Auschwitz were the “biggest lie of the 20th century,” and contended that deported Jews had died of disease and malnutrition. Faurisson also questioned the authenticity of the Diary of Anne Frank many years before  the Swiss foundation that holds the copyright to the famous diary “alerted publishers that her father (Otto Frank) is not only the ‘editor’ but also legally the ‘co-author’ of the celebrated book” (NY Times).

In the France of the late 1960s-1970s Faurisson had  reason to believe that his maverick attitude toward the past would receive a kosher pass. He was wrong. Faurisson may have failed to grasp the role of the Holocaust in contemporary Jewish politics and culture. And he did not grasp that Jewish power is literally the power to silence opposition to Jewish power. 

In 1990 France made holocaust revisionism into the crime of  history denial.  Faurisson was repeatedly prosecuted, beaten and fined for his writings. He was dismissed from his academic post at Lyon University in 1991.

I am bothered by the question of why Jews and others  attached to their politics are desperate to restrict the story of their past. This question extends far beyond the holocaust. Israel has enacted a law that bans discussion of the Nakba – the racially motivated ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people that occurred a mere three years after the liberation of Auschwitz. Similarly, exploring the role of Jews in the slave trade will cost your job or lead to your expulsion from the labour party. My attempt to analyse the true nature of the Yiddish Speaking International Brigade in the 1936 Spanish Civil War outraged some of my Jewish ‘progressive’ friends.

Jean-François Lyotard addressed this question.  History may claim to relate what actually occurred, but what it does more often is operate to conceal our shame. The task of an authentic historian is, according to Lyotard, similar to that of the psychoanalyst. It is all about removing layers of shame, concealment and suppression to try to uncover the truth.   

It was the work of Faurisson that helped me to define the historical endeavour in philosophical terms.  I define history as the attempt to narrate the past as we move along. To deal with history for real, is to continually re-visit and revise the past in light of our cultural, social and ideological changes. For instance, the 1948 Nakba came to be thought of in terms of ethnic cleansing in the early 2000s when the notion of ‘ethnic cleansing’ entered our vocabulary (and our way of understanding a conflict) following the crisis in Kosovo. The real historian reevaluates the past and embraces adjustments that place our understanding of that past in line with our contemporaneous reality and terminology.

Professor Faurisson and the controversy around his work illuminates the distinction between real history and religion. While history is a vibrant dynamic matter subject to constant ‘revision,’ the religious approach to the past is limited to the production of a rigid unchanging chronicle of events. Authentic history invokes ethical thinking to examine the past in light of the present and vice versa, religious history often operates by denying or rejecting increasing ethical insight – it judges actions and events according to set predefined parameters. The question at stake is not what happened in the past but the freedom to research and evaluate the past without being threatened by ‘history laws.’ In the same manner I support ‘progress’ in cancer research, although I do not  produce scholarly comments on related scientific findings, I support the past being continually re-examined although I offer no  judgment of any kind regarding the validity of those historical findings. For history to be a valid and an ethical universal pursuit, history laws must be abolished.

In 2014 I met Robert Faurisson and discussed with him different questions about the meaning of history and what the past meant to him.

https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2e7359

Why Holocaust Education is Failing?

October 17, 2018  /  Gilad Atzmon

 By Gilad Atzmon

Despite the vast amount invested in Holocaust education and in spite of the fact that the Holocaust is the only compulsory subject in the British national history curriculum, British pupils seem not to follow the message of the rigid topic. For some reason, they struggle to buy into the primacy of Jewish suffering. They show little interest and learn mostly nothing.  Yesterday’s Tablet Magazine article,  “The Failure of Holocaust Education in Britain”, produced a clumsy attempt to grasp the reason for the failures of Holocaust education.

UCL’s  Centre for Holocaust Education has recently conducted  the ‘world’s largest ever study of its kind, it interviewed over 8,000 pupils aged 11-18 in England. Andy Pearce who work as a researcher at the centre told the Tablet that apparently  25-30 years of Holocaust education “is failing to make an impact.”

Pearce reports that when students were asked who was responsible for the Holocaust, “Hitler dominated the answer.” This is presumably a ‘wrong answer.’ Pearce continues, “Incredibly when we asked them to tell us who the Nazis were, students responded by saying they were ‘Hitler’s minions’ and ‘Hitler’s paratroopers.’” Pearce wasn’t happy with this answer either. “There was no reference to the Nazi Party as a political movement. Students also told the researchers that most Jews were killed in Germany. There was no understanding of collaborating regimes and many believed that mass killing began in 1933.”

Pearce inadvertently provided some crucial insights into the systematic failure of ‘holocaust education.’ While Heidegger taught us that to educate is to teach others how to learn, indoctrination is a very different exercise. It teaches how to produce the ‘right’ answers. The Holocaust, as taught and preached, falls into the domain of indoctrination. It is not a subject matter that is open to discussion or revision. The Holocaust as a subject does not accommodate dilemma or confusion. It is treated like a religious text with a rigid structure that doesn’t allow deviation.

For history to be relevant it must contain a dynamic discourse with present day, historical and contextual connotations. If the Holocaust is to be a vibrant topic that is engaging and enlightening for young enthusiastic minds, then the Holocaust must be placed into a context, such as comparing Auschwitz to Gaza. Nuremberg laws must be juxtaposed with the Israeli National Bill and the Israeli Law of Return. For the Holocaust to win our kids’ attention they must try to address the most difficult of questions: How and why was it that just three years after the liberation of Auschwitz, the newly born Jewish State ethnically cleansed the vast majority of the indigenous Palestinians? For the Holocaust to garner universal interest, it must carry a universal message!

Apparently ‘Holocaust education’ in Britain and in the West in general is dependent on Holocaust survivors. Elli Olmer is an outreach teacher for the Holocaust Education Trust. She told the Tablet, “I love what I do and hope to do it for many years but it all depends on what happens after we lose our survivors.” Despite Israel’s scientific gains in life extending technologies, it seems survivors aren’t going to live forever. Moreover, many survivors complain that their ability to reach young audiences is fading for the obvious reasons. However, their approach that engagement with a chapter in the past can only be reached through personal experience with people who lived through that chapter shows that the Holocaust is understood by these so called ‘educators’ as an a-historical narrative.

Historians revisit Napoleonic wars without depending on ‘meetings’ with survivors of those wars. We believe that we can learn about  the Roman empire without expecting veteran Roman generals to visit our classes. Why then does the Holocaust needs its survivors? Why can’t the Holocaust be taught as a proper historical chapter through analysing texts and documents and encountering some opposing views? Because Holocaust education is driven by political interests and laws requiring such education are passed by means of emotional manipulation. It is there, of course, to serve Israeli and Jewish politics — the Holocaust is the raison d’être behind the Jewish state. But the Holocaust is also used to serve other global political trends such as (im)moral interventionism, pro immigration, anti racism, pro liberalism and so on.

The use of the Holocaust for political ends suggests that British youngsters may actually be more sophisticated than the banal minds that attempt to crudely indoctrinate them into submission. They sense that something about the holocaust education is not ‘straight forward,’ so to say. It is not taught as an open discourse, it is somehow different than other chapters in the past. It isn’t really open to discussion.

As could have been expected, Corbyn and the Labour party are dealt some of the blame. “The current debate over anti-Semitism in Britain’s opposition Labour Party and the views of its leader Jeremy Corbyn have also had a negative impact on Holocaust education in the classroom and made better teacher training even more imperative.”  Apparently, British youngsters do not live in a bubble. “Students now ask about Holocaust denial and anti-Semitism… Two to three years ago I would not have had pupils who would have heard the terms,” a teacher said.

The UCL team also examined what teachers hope to achieve by teaching the Holocaust.  “There is a belief that if we study the Holocaust it will stop it happening again.” The truth of the matter is that  there is more than one  holocaust happening at the moment: Palestine, Libya, Syria just to mention a few. The Holocaust will become a meaningful lesson when it is finally emancipated from the primacy of Jewish suffering and  when we return to empathy and compassion as a basic tenet of our culture. Unfortunately I do not see the Holocaust Education Trust leading us in such a direction.

Surprisingly enough, Mike Levy, a Holocaust educator based in Cambridge, admitted to the Jewish outlet  that there is “an atmosphere of fatigue in the air when it comes to talking about the Holocaust and that students and teachers want to learn more about other genocides and contextualize the Holocaust.” I  agree with Mr. Levy. Let’s expose our kids to Aleppo, Tripoli  and Gaza and show them the crimes that are committed by our own democratically elected governments.  Let them figure out for themselves who are the Nazis of our time.  I believe that this would be the first step in preventing the next Holocaust.

«إسرائيل» تخشى حرب استنزاف

أكتوبر 4, 2018

«إسرائيل» تخشى حرب استنزاف

على الجبهة الشمالية واختفاء الكيان!

محمد صادق الحسيني

في ظل الإحباط الشديد، الذي يسود الأوساط العسكرية والأمنية «الإسرائيلية»، نتيجة تراكم انتصارات حلف المقاومة على كامل مسرح المواجهة، خاصة انتصارات الميدان السوري، وبالرغم من الهرطقات التي يحاول نتن ياهو تسويقها على انها حقائق ومعلومات، سواء تلك الخاصة بإيران أو المسرحية الهزلية الخاصة بلبنان، وجدنا لزاماً علينا أن نطمئن جمهور المقاومة وكل الأحرار في العالم.

وكذلك تجمّع المستوطنين اليهود في فلسطين المحتلة والذين يطلق عليهم البعض تسمية «الإسرائيليين» بأن الوضع المعنوي والنفسي لجيش الاحتلال «الإسرائيلي» وقادة مختلف صنوف أسلحته ليست على ما يرام. وإليكم الأسباب:

أولاً: التصريح الصحافي، الذي ادلى به المستشار الجديد للرئيس الأميركي لشؤون سورية يوم 28/9/2018 جيمس جيفيري James Jeffrey، على هامش أعمال الجمعية العمومية للأمم المتحدة، والذي قال فيه: «ليس لدينا توجّهات لإجبار الإيرانيين على مغادرة سورية إضافة الى اننا لا نعتقد ان الروس سيستطيعون إخراج الإيرانيين من سورية» على افتراض أنهم قرروا ذلك .

وهذا الكلام واضح لا لَبْس فيه: إقرار بعجز الولايات المتحدة وأذنابها عن تغيير موازين القوى في الميدان السوري وترك جيش نتن ياهو يواجه مصيره المحتوم: الهزيمة المدمّرة في الحرب المقبلة مع قوات حلف المقاومة.

ثانياً: إن رئيس أركان الجيش «الإسرائيلي»، الجنرال غادي إيزنكوت وقائد سلاح الجو «الإسرائيلي»، الجنرال عاميكام نوركين، كانا يعتقدان أنهما من نسور الجو في السماء السورية، ولكن أحداث مساء 17/9/2018 أثبتت عكس ذلك. إذ إن طياري هذا السلاح حاولوا التغطية على فشلهم في تنفيذ مهمتهم عن طريق إسقاط الطائرة الروسية، اليوشن 20، مما أدى الى استشهاد 15 ضابطاً من خيرة الضباط الروس في مجال الاستطلاع الإلكتروني.

لكن التطورات التي شهدها الميدان السوري، خاصة في مجال التسلّح وتطوير وسائط الدفاع الجوي والحرب الإلكترونية، والتي أعقبت إسقاط الطائرة الروسية والزيارة الفاشلة لقائد سلاح الجو «الإسرائيلي» الى موسكو، وقيام وزير الدفاع الروسي، الجنرال سيرجي شويغو، بالإعلان عن تلك الإجراءات شخصياً، قد جعل الموقف «الإسرائيلي» ينزلق الى وضع دراماتيكي جداً.

ثالثاً: وهذا ما أكده تصريح مستشار مجمع الصناعات المختص بتكنولوجيا الاتصالات الراديو إلكترونية Radio- Electronic Technologies، السيد فلاديمير ميخييف Vladimir Micheyev، والذي قال فيه: «إن أنظمة الدفاع الجوي السورية وانظمة الحرب الإلكترونية السورية التي تم تشغيلها بعد إسقاط الطائرة الروسية قادرة على رصد أية طائرة «إسرائيلية» أو سعودية أو أي طائرة تنطلق من القواعد الأميركية هناك أو في الاْردن أو حتى أوروبية وهي لا زالت على الأرض. أي بمجرد أن تتحرك أي طائرة «إسرائيلية» أو أوروبية أو من القواعد الأميركية في أوروبا من العنبر باتجاه مدرج الإقلاع تقوم الرادارات وأجهزة الرصد الإلكتروني السورية بالتقاطها ورصدها وإعطائها رقماً أو رمزاً كود فيتم إدخاله إلى أدمغة بطاريات الصواريخ، الروسية والسورية، المضادة للطائرات التي تبدأ التعامل العملياتي معه قبل الانطلاق مما يجعل نسبة النجاح في أسقاط الهدف تصل إلى ما يزيد على 98 .

فهل يفهم جنرالات وضباط أركان العدو معنى هذا الكلام!؟

إنه يعني قدرة أسلحة الدفاع الجوي السورية على ضرب أي طائرة من طائراتكم قبل أن تتحرك من مكانها. أي أن أجواء كلّ من سورية ولبنان وفلسطين المحتلة وغيرها قد أصبحت منطقة حظر طيران يمنع عليكم القيام بأي نشاط جوي عملي ومؤثر فيها اللهم إلا للاستعراض..!

وهذا بالضبط هو الدافع الذي جعل مستشار ترامب لشؤون سورية يبشّركم بعدم قدرة الولايات المتحدة على إخراج إيران من سورية وبالتالي انعدام وجود أي إمكانية لديكم للتأثير في موازين القوى الميدانية في ساحات المواجهة، من باب المندب مروراً بقطاع غزة ولبنان وفلسطين وصولاً الى العراق وإيران.

رابعاً: وبالإضافة الى ما تقدم، حول قدرات الدفاعات الجوية السورية وأجهزة الحرب الإلكترونية، فإن ما يزيد الوضع الاستراتيجي «الإسرائيلي» تعقيداً وكارثية، وليس الوضع التكتيكي فقط والمتصل بإمكانيات محاولة تنفيذ عمليات إغارة جوية أو قصف صاروخي لأهداف عسكرية في الأراضي السورية، إن ما يزيد هذا الوضع تعقيداً هو تفعيل القيادتين الروسية والسورية لمنظومات الدفاع الجوي من طراز /يبشورا / ام 2 / Pechorsa M 2 والذي يسمى أيضاً: نيفا / اس 125 / Neva – S 125 والمخصص للتصدي للأهداف الجوية التي تطير على ارتفاعات منخفضة جداً، سواء كانت مروحيات أو صواريخ جوالة صواريخ كروز مثل التوماهوك أو غيرها من الأهداف الجوية التي قد تنفذ بمعنى تفلت من أو تخترق النظام من شبكة صواريخ أس 300 وأس 400 .

أي أن تكامل هذه الأنظمة أصبح يقدم حماية أو مظلة جوية قادرة، وبنسبة 100 على تأمين أجواء كافة المدن والمنشآت العسكرية والمدنية الهامة في كافة أنحاء سورية ولبنان.

خامساً: ولكل الأسباب المذكورة أعلاه، مضاف اليها خوف القادة العسكريين والمدنيين في «إسرائيل» من مفاجآت أخرى، على صعيد القدرات التسليحية لقوات حلف المقاومة، فإن وضع هؤلاء القادة يسوده الإحباط الشديد والخوف مما يخبئه لهم المستقبل، خاصة أن قادة «إسرائيل» قد تولّدت لديهم قناعة بأن الموقف الروسي تجاه كيانهم قد أصبح موقفاً معادياً ولَم يعد موقفاً متشدداً أو منتقداً فقط.

وهو بالتالي بدأ يقترب من موقف الاتحاد السوفياتي السابق من «إسرائيل» والذي كان موقفاً مؤيداً للعرب بلا تحفظ.

وبكلمات أخرى، فإن موجة الرعب التي تجتاح الكيان «الإسرائيلي» لا بد أن يكون أحد أسبابها هو القناعة «الإسرائيلية» بأن روسيا تؤسس لحرب استنزاف جديدة ضدّ الجيش «الإسرائيلي» على الجبهة الشمالية تذكر بحرب الاستنزاف التي خاضتها مصر عبد الناصر على جبهة قناة السويس ومعها قوات الثورة الفلسطينية في الأردن حتى سنة 1970 وفي الجولان السوري حتى عامي 1972/1973. تلك الحرب التي مهدت الطريق أمام انطلاق حرب تشرين 1973 والانتصار الذي تحقق خلالها.

سادساً: لا بد من القول لـ«جنرالات» الجيش «الإسرائيلي» بأنه آن الأوان لتقديم أحر التعازي لكم بـ «الجيش الذي لا يُقهر» وبسلاح الجو «المتفوق» والذي «كان يملك» السيطرة الجوية في اجواء «الشرق الأوسط «…!.

وإلى اللقاء مع صواريخ بيشورا / 2 / وما بعد بعد بيشورا /2 / Pechora 2 .

في هذه الأثناء ثمة من يسأل:

هل اقتربت نهاية «إسرائيل» كما تنقل تقارير تتحدث عن هجرة مليونية تنتظرها روسيا وأميركا من الكيان..!؟

يكفي في هذا السياق التذكير بأن يهود اميركا شكلوا أخيراً ميليشيا أسموها: سيف داود / تعدادها 300 ألف مسلّح يتم تدريبهم والإشراف على تشكيلاتهم العسكرية من قبل ضباط متقاعدين في الجيش «الإسرائيلي».

الهدف من وراء ذلك هو: حماية اليهود من حملات الإبادة في الولايات المتحدة مستقبلاً، كما يقول هؤلاء!

بعدنا طيّبين، قولوا الله.

Again with Antisemitism

Hussein Samawarchi

One of the most used terms of the modern world is “Anti-Semitic.” Maybe, describing it as misused would be more precise. Abused also works when discussing the way this word has been increasingly utilized during the past few decades.

Innocent people have been branded as anti-Semitic all over the globe; people from all walks of life. To be accused of being anti-Semitic could get you terminated from a job or, at the very least, may cause you to be treated with extreme prejudice. Artists who share their opinions regarding “Israeli” war crimes are battled in Hollywood; others who refuse to perform in concerts on the Palestinian raped land lose future contracts almost instantly. Even American politicians who decline to sign a document pledging allegiance to the Zionist entity are automatically branded as anti-Semitic and are made to lose elections.

You know you are branded as an anti-Semitic, according to the Zionist dominated media, if you are one of the following:

– A German who thinks it unfair that he or she still needs to act apologetic for the acts of Nazis 80 years ago

– A Polish who believes his country holds the natural right to pass a legislation dealing with domestic issues

– An American who wants his government to stop giving ludicrous amounts of his or her tax money to “Israel” instead of investing it towards national education and health institutions

– A Lebanese who fights against constant “Israeli” infringements of his sovereign country’s border and airspace

– A Syrian demanding the withdrawal of “Israeli” occupying forces from his country

– An Iranian contesting “Israel’s”, almost daily, threats against his country

The above examples are but a small fraction of what could put you in the anti-Semitic category if you were to make your stance public regardless of what nationality you hold.

It is also known to nominate you for the title of ‘anti-Semitic’ if you consider investigating certain historical events or texts. Employing your natural human tendency to question statements is a thought crime according to those throwing anti-Semitism accusations left and right.

You are a horrible person if you try to look into whether Palestine is actually the biblical “promised land” when interpretations based on geographical indications in the holy book lead to think it should be further towards the middle of the Arabian Peninsula. You are a worse person if you do simple calculations of the number of Jews before World War II and after; you are simply not allowed to question why the change in number does not correspond to the general claim of six to eight million fatalities. You are also despicable should you want to understand why the main building for exterminating Jews at Auschwitz has had the roof restructured with new ducts for dropping Zyklon-B on victims after the war ended and its remaining occupants freed.

The Zionist media will stick so many defaming titles on anyone who tries to use the freedom of thought to tackle their stories. Some of these titles will get you imprisoned and fined.

Challenging Zionist statements is not the only way to be branded anti-Semitic, though. You may never mention “Israel” but still find yourself becoming a victim of slander and antisemitism charges by simply criticizing their allies and puppets.

For instance, if you question why the so-called Arab alliance is practicing ethnic cleansing against Yemenis, you are an anti-Semitic because what Saudi Arabia is actually leading is a termination of the inhabitants of a country that believes in the rights of Palestinians.

Try holding a conference that advocates the unity of the Arab people through cultural practices like arts and poetry. The “Israeli” media will report it as a conference of antisemitism although Arabs are, themselves, Semitic.

So, killing Semitic people is an act of antisemitism? In that case, “Israel” would be the winner of every prize that there is for that practice. The Zionists staging this farce are not so ignorant. They do, however, assume that the rest of the world doesn’t know about the ancient Aramaic language and its evolution process or the definition of the word SEMITE. Their low regard for the intelligence of others doesn’t come as surprising; after all, any person who does not belong to one of their tribes is a lesser human; if human at all to begin with.

At the moment, “Israel’s” and the Zionist movement’s loudest horn is a compulsive liar who is a war criminal by international standards and a corrupt politician by his own people’s standards. Benjamin Netanyahu, with all his dark record in every possible domain, tries to portray the Islamic Republic of Iran as an anti-Semitic state.

If, for argument’s sake, we were to limit the term Semitic to Jews only, then Iran is the only regional nation whose government has actually never treated its Jewish nationals with prejudice. And, if we were to take the word in its true definition, then Iran has been paying dearly in terms of sanctions over the past forty years for supporting none-Persians around the world – for upholding their rights to dignified lives.

Antisemitism allegations have become almost as boring as Netanyahu’s theatrics thanks to their excessive usage by Zionists against anyone who does not agree with the apartheid nature of their illegal ‘state’. Should standing up against genocide, for instance, the one committed daily against the Palestinian people, constitute a basis for labeling you as such, then the overwhelming majority of the citizens of Earth are anti-Semitic.

Source: Al-Ahed

On the censorship of Michael Hoffman’s books by Amazon

The Saker

September 13, 2018

[This article was written for the Unz Review]

A couple of months ago I did an interview with one of the foremost scholars of rabbinical Judaism, Michael Hoffman. The occasion was the release of his latest book “The Occult Renaissance Church of Rome”. At the time I did not expect to have to ask for a follow-up interview with him, but when I learned that Amazon had censored his books (please see Hoffman’s own account of this here). Specifically, the ban is on three of his books. A complete ban (Kindle + printed book) on Judaism’s Strange Gods: Revised and Expanded, as well as The Great Holocaust Trial: Revised and Expanded, while his textbook, Judaism Discovered, has been removed from the Kindle. I felt that I had to talk to him again and he kindly agreed to reply to my questions. I submit to you the full text of our Q&A which I will follow-up with a short commentary.

*******

The Saker: Please summarize what happened to your books and Amazon and tells us what specific explanations were given to you. Did Amazon ever offer you a “page and paragraph” list of “offending” passages? Do you have any means of knowing exactly what your book is being banned for?

Hoffman: Whether it is Facebook, Google or Amazon, the excuse most often cited for suppression is “content guidelines’ violation.” Amazon notified us on August 13 that two of our titles, which they have been selling for years and in thousands of copies, Judaism Discovered, our 1100 page textbook published in 2008, and Judaism’s Strange Gods: Revised and Expanded, published in 2010 — were being permanently removed after “review” by the Kindle Direct Publishing (KDP) unit of Amazon. A facsimile of the KDP notice can be viewed here:

https://www.revisionisthistory.org/page8/page8.html

In their e-mail they told us that “…we found that this content is in violation of content guidelines.” In studying their content guidelines one encounters a vague, generic statement about not permitting that which is “offensive.” There is no guidance as to what “offense” has suddenly arisen after these books were sold on Amazon for several years. Like the Red Queen in Wonderland who declared to Alice that, “A word is anything I say it is!” — that which “offends” is anything Amazon says it is. A third book, The Great Holocaust Trial: The Landmark Battle for the Right to Doubt the West’s Most Sacred Relic, was also forbidden.

Does Amazon have the chutzpah to publicly categorize these books as “hate speech” or some other alibi for censorship that could be contested? No, they do not. They leave authors and publishers twisting in the wind, making it more difficult to appeal the decision and report to the public on the tyranny. Although since they allow no appeal, it’s a moot point. Personally, I have no doubt concerning why my books were censored.

The Saker: What is, in your opinion, the true intent behind the ban on the sales of your book? What is Amazon’s interest in this?

Hoffman: I don’t believe Amazon has much interest in this. It is more likely that the Southern Poverty Law Center (SLC) is the interested party. Last August 7 the New York Times online published a revealing piece by David French in which he wrote: “We live in a world where the Southern Poverty Law Center, a formerly respected civil-rights organization, abuses its past trust to label a host of mainstream organizations (including my former employer, the Alliance Defending Freedom) and individuals as ‘hate groups,…based sometimes on…outright misreadings and misrepresentations of an individual’s beliefs and views…Amazon recently booted Alliance Defending Freedom from its AmazonSmile charity program because of the center’s designation.”

At around the time in 2017 that the SPLC was trying to interfere with the business operations of people such as myself, by intimidating banks and credit card processors into refusing to process payments for books, Paypal notified us that due to the contents of our website (www.RevisionistHistory.org) we were an embarrassment to their brand and they were terminating our account. As long as Paypal was owned by libertarians, all was well and we had a high customer satisfaction rating for our integrity and dependability. The original Paypal mainly cared about whether you were a responsible seller. A politicized administration eventually took over Paypal and in 2017 we were terminated, very likely on the “advice” of the SPLC.

To return to Amazon, CEO Jeff Bezos founded it in 1994. It was very much a libertarian book operation from the start. From 1994 until a year or two ago, Amazon only refused to sell hard core pornography and books that constituted direct appeals to violence or law-breaking, which is how it should be. Every other type of book was sold, without censorship, which is one reason for Amazon’s early success and increasing market share. Then last year, after Mr. Bezos had reached the status of one of the world’s wealthiest persons, and Amazon’s total value was beginning to approach that of Apple and Google, Amazon staged a huge purge and eliminated more than a hundred World War II revisionist history books published by Germar Rudolf’s CODOH organization (books smeared as “Holocaust denial”). This year it was my turn. Next year it might be any author not part of the university press syndicates or the major houses. Such is the heedless power and immunity of Amazon.

It’s important to note that the thought police who removed three of my books were based in the digital division of Amazon, where the electronic Kindle books are marketed and managed. A Kindle permits anyone connected to the Amazon website to read approximately the first thirty pages of any Kindle book free of charge. Consequently, my Judaica scholarship was on display around the world and therefore it was much harder to lie about me and mischaracterize my Talmud and Kabbalah research under those circumstances.

We were also beginning to sell ever increasing numbers of these Kindle books to people in Asia, particularly India and Japan. It’s my hunch that Big Brother is not half so worried about printed books as the digital kind. Removing the three books from the Kindle was the primary objective.

To be banned by Amazon is not equivalent to being banned by any other private business. Most publishers will admit that Amazon has replaced Bowker Books in Print as the industry’s authoritative guide to what books in English have been printed in the past and what is in print now. Amazon is currently the reference source. For a book to be forbidden by Amazon renders it largely invisible. It is equivalent to burning the book. So this is not a matter of Amazon exercising the prerogative of private enterprise. Amazon is a monopoly. It has no rival. If your book doesn’t exist on Amazon, then for most people who are not research specialists, your book doesn’t exist. The consequences for the pursuit of knowledge are ominous.

There is a problem here for Amazon as well. The more Amazon excludes books that embody facts and ideas that constitute radical dissent, the more it becomes a narrow censor’s aperture rather than a reliable bridge to the entire range of the Republic of Letters.

Apologists for censorship of radicals and authentic conservatives often claim that no First Amendment rights are violated when Amazon bans books, therefore it is not a civil rights issue, merely an inconvenience of the capitalist system. In the 1950s however, when the privately-owned movie studios banned certain directors, actors and screen-writers judged to be Leftists or Communists, that action on the part of private enterprise was inscribed in the rolls of the culture wars as the infamous “Blacklist,” and we are still reading and weeping over it sixty-five years later. So it depends on whose ox is being gored.

My Judaica studies are free of “Jew hate,” as anyone who peruses the sections in both books titled “To the Judaic Reader” knows. There we state that the books are dedicated to pidyon shevyuim (redemption of the captive), i.e. rescuing those Judaic persons who are in bondage to the Talmud and the Kabbalah.

Our enemies easily turn to their advantage books containing hatred of “The Jews.” What they absolutely have no credible answer to is a critique predicated, as our books are, on a sincere foundation of true Christian love. Boundary-breaking scholarship united to compassionate concern for the welfare of Judaic people is almost unprecedented in this field. This approach makes my studies of Judaism among the most powerful and effective because they are free of the “hate speech” which is the pivot upon which turns the machinery of liberal-approved censorship. For that reason, making Judaism’s Strange Gods: Revised and Expanded, and Judaism Discovered available on the Kindle undercut decades of hatred and libel. Therefore those volumes had to be suppressed.

The Saker: Since this ban was put in place – what reactions have you heard? who has spoken in defense of your scholarship and right to be heard? has anybody taken your defense or spoken up for you?

Hoffman: Ron Unz allowed me to publish a note on the ban at unz.com and you, the Saker, have taken an interest. Our many friends, readers and subscribers have expressed outrage on Twitter and in e-mail. Meanwhile we have contacted everyone from a columnist for Taki’s website to the legacy media, to no discernible effect thus far. The Washington Post, which is owned by Mr. Bezos, has as its motto, “Democracy dies in darkness.” Yet it is in that very darkness where Amazon’s book-banning dwells, due to the apathy of the media and the American Library Association. To ban books by a vulnerable independent scholar is not exactly a daring move in this age where “hate speech” is anything that offends someone’s cherished myth. The definition is so loose it functions as an inquisitor’s sword.

On the positive side, we have seen an uptick in orders to our own online store for the printed books which Amazon has banned [https://truthfulhistory.blogspot.com/2016/02/judaica-books-and-resources.html]. There is no replacement for the banned Kindle editions, however.

The Saker: What do you believe could be done to resist this state of affairs? what can we all do to put at stop to this kind of censorship?

Hoffman: In a general, the supporters of the lies of the Overlords wage spiritual and psychological warfare with far more dedication, commitment and self-sacrifice than the purported allies of God’s truth. The Cryptocracy’s defenders are 24/7 militants resolved to contend with their perceived foes with every ounce of their being. Whereas on the side of Christian conservative renewal, with honorable exceptions, I find mainly armchair warriors and folks so enormously distracted by the choices offered by the Internet’s deluge of words and images, that they are nearly paralyzed by the spectacle.

Compare the reception Judge Kavanaugh received in the Senate hearings with that of recent Supreme Court nominees Kagan and Ginsburg. The Republicans were too cowed to seriously confront those ladies. Maintaining decorum was the chief concern of the timid GOP at the time, while Kavanaugh faced a near riot in the visitor’s gallery and extremes of withering interrogation and contempt from defiant Democratic senators.

When CODOH’s books were banned we reported the case extensively online and in our printed newsletter. We contacted an executive with the American Library Association to elicit his response and express our outrage. We did what we could even though we have almost no relationship with CODOH. We would do the same for any person of good will who is denied the right to advance human learning with suppressed facts and ideas. This was formerly a truism in America, up until the rise of the punks of social media who seem to be more like a branch of Antifa than an intellectual class invested in discovery and enlightenment.

Advances in human knowledge are achieved on the basis that “error has rights,” for the reason that enshrined dogmas are often wrong and demonized dissidents are sometimes the bearers of rare discoveries. But the epigram of our time is “Error has no rights,” which was the doctrine of the fiery Inquisition, of the head-chopping French Revolution and of the Bolsheviks and Maoists. If error has no rights then neither does truth, in that what is denounced as hateful error by the mob is sometimes a destabilizing, necessary and even cosmic truth.

*******

Reading Hoffman’s words I thought that what happened to him is so typical of the Orwellian world we live in where the what I call the “Skripal rules of evidence” (aka “highly likely”) have replaced even basic evidentiary notions, a world in which false flag attacks are announced weeks in advance, a world in which the Planetary Hegemon has declared urbi et orbi that nothing in the body of international law applies to the “indispensable nation” (or to the parasitic host feeding off it) and where “might makes right” has become the motto by which everybody lives. Of course, the censorship of a book cannot be compared to the initiation of a war of aggression (which is the “supreme international crime” under international law: this was the conclusion of the Nuremberg Trial on this topic: To initiate a war of aggression, therefore, is not only an international crime; it is the supreme international crime differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole). Still, there is something uniquely devious and evil about the censorship of Hoffman’s books by Amazon, several things in fact:

1. What is attacked in not a person or even a group, but ideas, arguably the most precious attribute of mankind. This is therefore not only an attack on a human being, but an attack on the very notion of humanity as such
2. While the method is different, the intention here is no different from the book burnings of the Nazis or the Papacy except that in these latter cases it was obvious who ordered the burning of putatively “degenerate” or “heretical” books. Thus the ideological motive of the Nazis and Papists was always clear whereas in the case of Hoffman this ideological motive is hidden (even if obvious with anybody with a modicum of intelligence).
3. The ultimate hypocrisy lies in the fact that most so-called libertarians (from the Left to the Right) have nothing to say about this because this is not a case of censorship by government but the action of a corporation which has the “right” to do as it wishes, nevermind that the result is still a clear de-facto infringement of Hoffman’s First Amendment rights and the freedom of academic scholarship.
4. The US government and Congress, by allowing monopolistic corporations such as Amazon to have that kind of power are basically engaging in what I would call “censorship by proxy” which is to be expected from a deep state which now does almost everything by proxy in order to bypass fundamental US and international laws (“extraordinary renditions” anybody?).
5. Unlike the government which does have to produce at least some evidence before it can censor an individual or organization, a US corporation does not even have to justify itself by a single word. This is viewed as a triumph of deregulation by mindless libertarians who would gladly surrender all their freedoms as long as it is not to the state. In the real world, of course, they still end up handing over their freedoms to the state, except that the state is hiding behind their beloved corporations.

It is also pretty obvious that those who might, at least in theory, have something to say about this kind of censorship by proxy remain silent because, at least according to them, Hoffman is an “anti-Semite” (which, having read many of his books, I can attest is a total falsehood; by way of evidence here are sample pages from his book: https://twitter.com/HoffmanMichaelA/status/1039159686233088000) and thus he is undeserving of support. So-called “anti-Semites” are, along with the pedophiles, the “consensus villains” of the day (I explain that in detail here) but what the anti-anti-Semites fail to realize is that each time a “consensus villain” is deprived from his rights, this sets a precedent for everybody else. This is why Yehuda Bauer warned us when he wrote: “Thou shalt not be a victim, Thou shalt not be a perpetrator, And above all, Thou shalt not be a bystander”. To no avail, alas: we live in society of silent bystanders apparently! And when YouTube decides to silence all the Syrian state channels to better prepare for a false flag chemical attack, everybody looks away – “ain’t my problem”…

We all know that in Europe (and in Russia) you can be jailed and your books banned if a court finds them to be “revisionist” or “anti-Semitic” or “hateful” and the like. But at least in Europe (and in Russia), you get your day in court and you can defend yourself against accusations which the state has to prove. In Russia, just last week, a man accused of “rehabilitating National-Socialism” (for reprinting an article by another author!) was found non guilty by a majority of jurors (5 to 3) (the punishment he was facing was a fine and several years in jail). Thank God, in the “home of the brave” no such thing could happen, right?!

True, Hoffman does not risk jail (yet!). But in terms of crushing crimethink, I submit that the US system is much more effective because it allows the deep state to hide behind the veil of corporate malfeasance. There have been plenty of revolutions against a state, but I don’t know of any revolutions against the corporate dictatorship.

You tell me: which is worse, the absence of freedom or the illusion of freedom?

Personally, I find the latter *much* worse.

I never expected the corporate presstitutes to really care about our freedoms, ditto for the libertarians and the progressive Left. They are all too busy with their narrow ideological agenda. As for the US academic world, it has shown its true face when it allowed the persecution of Professor Norman Finkenstein. But I have to say that I am shocked by the fact that the blogosphere and the so-called “alternative media” has remained so silent in the face of such a blatant censorship by proxy by the deep state against one of the foremost US historians.

I urge all those reading these lines to speak up on Hoffman’s behalf and to support him by purchasing his superb and censored books. This is how every one of us can resist the Hegemon and his rule!

The Saker

Transcending ‘Chosenness’: Journey of an ‘ex-Jew’

September 11, 2018  /  Gilad Atzmon

GA: TRT published yesterday this extensive interview. Those who struggle with my ideas or fail to understand where I come from, may want to read this article. It clarifies where I stand on most relevant issues.

Transcending ‘Chosenness’: Journey of an ‘ex-Jew’

An interview By Nafees Mahmud

How a former Israeli citizen Gilad Atzmon left Israel and how becoming a musician helped him understand Palestinian suffering.

LONDON — If you are despised by both conservative Zionists and liberal anti-Zionists, it can only mean one thing: you are Gilad Atzmon.

Born in Israel in 1963 into a Zionist household, he saw his birthplace as the Jewish promised land and says he was expected to serve and cement the Israeli ideology of Jewish supremacy.

However, at age 17, he was mesmerised by the sounds of African American jazz musician Charlie Parker. As a passionate Israeli, this challenged what he’d believed up until that point: only Jews produce greatness.

Serving as a paramedic and musician in the Israeli military during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, he witnessed the immense suffering of Arabs.

At this point, he says, he began to view life “from an ethical, rather than a Zionist point of view.”

Years later he moved to Britain to study philosophy and launched his career as a jazz musician. Today, he attempts to enlighten and unite people through his art.

Yet his work as a writer examining Jewish identity has seen him described as a peddler of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. He argues that this is an attempt to censor honest analysis of, and reflection upon, Jewishness’ immense impact on mass culture, politics and global economics through the likes of The Frankfurt School and Milton Friedman.

As Israel increasingly meets international criticism and boycott, Atzmon believes his former homeland can only be seriously challenged for its injustices, if it is understood in the wider context of Jewish identity politics – a context he is trying to remove himself from. TRT World spoke to him to find out why.

TRT WORLD: As a musician, how do you feel about Lana Del Ray and many others cancelling their performances at the Meteor Festival in Israel following pleas from the BDS campaign?

Gilad Atzmon: It’s a beautiful thing.

I don’t support BDS mounting pressure on artists, but I think it is well appreciated when artists refuse to perform in states where there are so many crimes against humanity. I myself decided to boycott Israel a long time before the BDS movement was born. Since 1996, I haven’t visited my home country.

There have been major stories in the news this year regarding Israel. One of the most significant was the Jewish nation-state bill. What do you make of that?

GA: It confirms what we’ve known for more than a while: Israel is the Jewish state and everything that is happening in Israel should be understood within the context of its Jewishness. It confirms what I’ve been saying for many years. We must dig into the notions of Jews, Jewishness and Judaism to understand the difference between these three and the relationship between them.

Break that down for us.

GA: I make a clear differentiation between Jews, the people, which I regard as an innocent category; Jewishness, the ideology; and Judaism, the religion.

I argue that both Jews and Judaism are innocent categories. The fact you are born a Jew doesn’t make you a war criminal or a supremacist. Also, Judaism is a relatively innocent notion. We know the only genuine Jewish collective who really operate actively for Palestine are Torah Jews, Orthodox Jews.

When it comes to Jewishness, this is complicated.  I had a debate about this with a supremacist Jew yesterday and his argument was there is no such thing as Jewishness – it changes along the years. I couldn’t agree more, elasticity is inherent to Jewishness.  One thing that remains constant is the exceptionalism. Jewishness is different explorations of the notion of “chosenness.

” Some Jews feel they are chosen because they are elected by God, some Jews feel they are chosen because they are Bolsheviks, and a week later they can feel chosen because they are supporting a free market – like Milton Friedman. They can feel chosen because they are religious, and they can feel chosen because they are secular. It is this exceptionalism that is the core of “chosenness,” that is racially driven, that I believe is the common ground for all Jewish cultures.

This is why I have never in my life referred to Jews biologically, nor as a race, nor ethnicity. But I believe supremacy is something that is essential to Jewishness. This is why instead of talking about “Jews” I talk about the people who identify “politically” as Jews.

Gilad Atzmon (Tali Atzmon/)

You’ve made a 180 degree turn from what Israel represents, but tell us about your childhood during which you say you were heavily influenced by your Zionist grandfather.

GA: I don’t think you can talk in my case about 180, 45 or even 360 degree turns. I see my role as a philosopher, and as a philosopher, my job is to refine questions rather than subscribe to or recycle slogans. I’m working now on Zionism, and I find – this is interesting – you’ll be the first one I explore this idea with. I grew up in a society that saw itself as a revolutionary society. I was subject to an ultranationalist upbringing driven by complete contempt towards the diaspora Jew, something I didn’t understand because I was growing up in Israel and I didn’t know any diaspora Jews. But the diaspora Jews were seen by us as a bunch of capitalists, unsocial abusers of the universe, and we were born to become ordinary people – workers. My father was a hard-working man, my mother was a hard-working woman and I was raised to be a hard-working Israeli.

Unlike the diaspora Jews who went like lambs to the slaughter in Auschwitz, we were raised to fight and, accordingly, I was happy and looking forward to dying in a war. This was my upbringing. Let me tell you: when the war came, I wasn’t sure if I wanted to die for Israel. I started to understand that something wasn’t right.

Now, I never understood what the problem was with the diaspora Jews. All I knew was that when you immigrate to Israel, we called it aliyah. Aliyah means ascending. If you leave Israel and become a diaspora Jew, it is called yerida – descending. So here, you already see within Zionism an internal concept of “chosenness;” so the Israelis are the “uber-chosen.”  What I do understand, nowadays, looking at the shift that happened in Israel after 1967, Israel gradually stopped seeing itself as the Israeli state and more and more as the Jewish state. The dichotomy between “us” the special emancipated Israelites and the diaspora Jews started to disappear.

As we became a Jewish state, we started to adopt more and more Jewish symptoms. We became victims, we started to cry about the Holocaust. When I was young, we looked at the Holocaust with contempt. We looked at the Jews who went like lambs to the slaughter with contempt. If you don’t believe me, read Tom Sergev: The Seventh Million. It’s about the million who survived the Holocaust, how badly they were treated in Israel. There are films about it. My parents tell me, and you can hear it from a lot of people, that they were not allowed to play with or bring home young survivors of the Holocaust. They were looked upon by the Israelis at the time as sub-humans. There is a film about it: Aviya’s Summer.

What I understood recently is that I was initially very enthusiastic about this Israeli revolution. I agreed with it.

I just wanted to be an ordinary human being. But as Israel was transforming into a Jewish state, I had to leave the country.

What were you taught at school about the creation of Israel?

GA: We were misled. We were told the Palestinians left willingly. I didn’t hear the word nakba until the late nineties. However, when I was in Lebanon in 1982, I started to see all the refugee camps. I started to dig into it and I realised the scale of the ethnic cleansing.

Can you share some of the things you saw?

GA: I don’t like to talk about it. But when I saw the Israeli army in Lebanon, I understood that we were not as righteous as we claim to be and this was the beginning of my transition in the early 1980s. My journey really started there.

What was the tipping point that made you leave?

GA: Very simple – the Oslo Agreement of 1993. Until that point, there was a common belief that we, the Israelis, wanted peace. When I look at the peace deal that was imposed on the Palestinians, I realised by then the Palestinians were the ones expelled from the country that I believed to be mine. I understood then that we don’t mean peace, that what Israel means by peace is security for the Jews.

This is why I am not hopeful. You will not hear me talking about resolution. Israel will be defeated into a solution by the facts on the ground.

How did music change you? It’s part of your journey away from Israel, isn’t it?

GA: It was the first time I understood that I can join a discourse that is universal – aiming at beauty – rather than being a part of an ultranationalist tribal ethos. If jazz was the music of the oppressed, I gladly joined the oppressed and learned their language and I made it into quite a successful career.

How does being a jazz musician aid your philosophical work?

GA: In my thirties, I tried to integrate Arabic music into my jazz. By then I could pretty much play any kind of music, but I realised how difficult it is for me to play Arabic music which is surprising because I grew up with Umm Kulthum, the Egyptian singer, all around me.

I found it really difficult. But then I realised that in Arab music it’s all about the primacy of the ear, as opposed to Western musical education where they put you in front of notes and you have to learn to translate the primacy of the eye. The West is obsessed with the primacy of the eye but humanity is all about the primacy of the ear.  Primacy of the ear is where ethics starts. We have to listen to each other. I made a huge effort to listen to the Palestinians and understand their plight. If you were a Jewish journalist you would say: “What about listening to the Jews?” I say listening to the Jews is not necessary because you get it all over – from the media to the Holocaust museums. But Gaza, Syria, Iraq, Libya is the holocaust that is most relevant for us now.

Tell us about some of the thinkers, philosophers and activists who have influenced you?

GA: I am disgusted by most forms of activism and I think activists have very little to contribute to our understanding. This is why they achieve nothing.  They are part of the controlled opposition. I ended up learning German philosophy. I started with Immanuel Kant and what I took from him is the ability to refine questions. Then Hegel, Nietzsche and most important, Heidegger who is the ultimate master in refining questions, and this is what I do. By refining questions, I can see the answers are flexible. They are changing as the questions are shifting.

Heidegger was about “being,” right?

GA: Obviously, but being is the goal. How do you reach the understanding of “being,” if ever? Through questioning. What is “being?” What is that thing that is unique, most fundamental to us human beings? What he called dasein. This “Being,” with a capital B, that we can never touch.

So, what were you told “Being” was when you were growing up in Israel?

GA: I guess that being an Israeli meant, at the early stage of my upbringing, being forceful, being determined, fighting for what you believe in and the willingness to sacrifice for that goal. Believe it or not, in that sense, I am 100 percent Israeli and I had to leave Israel because Israel was not Israel anymore. It stopped being Israeli. It became Jewish, and Jewishness is celebrating victimhood which is something that I would never do. I prefer to die than be a victim.

How do you describe yourself now?

GA: I aim at a universal understanding of humanism. To be a universal humanist is a challenge for everyone, it’s a task rather than a state of being. It is being inspired by the ability to see yourself as an ordinary creature. To remove yourself from any sense of privilege.

Universal humanism is not the human rights declaration, not a set of commandments. It’s an organic thing that is changing all the time and is finding itself to be more and more inclusive, and this is why you can only aspire to become one and work on it twenty-four seven rather than declare yourself to be one.

Is universal humanism not part of the cultural Marxist doctrine, which you find impedes human flourishing?

GA: On paper, yes. But in reality, definitely not. The new left, cultural Marxists – the Frankfurt School – are all people in the open who define who is in and who is out.  They invented no platforming. How can people who adhere to no platforming be universalists?

Aren’t you still seeing the world from a Jewish perspective despite trying to move beyond this?

GA: I hope not, you know. Some people would argue they see some Jewish traits in my thinking, and I accept that. The one thing that I would admit to you is that the one thing I learnt from Otto Weininger – he’s one of the people who inspired me – is that in art, self-realisation is the realisation of the world. So while a scientist looks at the world and tells us something about the world, artists close their eyes and write a poem, and through this poem we understand the world, or through a symphony – and this is the most important thing. So when I look at myself, I occasionally deconstruct the Jew that is left in me. It’s not a privilege, it’s an instrument towards developing a better understanding and a better world.

This interview has been edited for clarity

Jews, Logic and Corbyn

August 18, 2018  /  Gilad Atzmon

By Gilad Atzmomn

According to the Transitive Axiom if A=B and B=C then A = C (If any two items are equal to the same third item then the two are equal to each other).

I mention the Transitive Axiom because it is a straightforward way to understand that if Corbyn (A) = existential threat to Jews (B) and Hitler (C) = existential threat to Jews (B) then Corbyn (A) = Hitler (C).

Every day British Jewish community leaders tell us that it will pose an “existential threat” to British Jews if Corbyn ends up in 10 Downing Street. It seems some British Jewish leaders are either delusional or stupid enough to believe that Corbyn and Hitler are one and the same. A few weeks ago, the three main British Jewish papers joined forces to deliver this humorous message in a single voice: ‘Corbyn poses an existential threat to our community.’

Today, Jonathan Goldstein, head of the Jewish Leadership Council repeated the same message in an interview with the Times of Israel.

“We are nervous about this man (Corbyn) becoming prime minister. We see the possibility of a Labour government led by this group as an existential threat to our community. These are unprecedented times.”

Jewish religion and culture are saturated with purported ‘existential threats.’ Jews are advised to “remember Amalek” the archetypical Biblical existential threat. Purim, the most joyous Jewish holiday, is a celebration of the Jewish victory over Haman, who was another existential threat. The holiday commemorates the killing  of Haman as well as the massacre of 75.000 of his associates. Even Jesus is perceived by some rabbinical sects as not only an arch enemy but an existential threat as well. Yeshu, the Hebrew name used for Christ , is an acronym for the formula Y’mach Sh’mo V’Zichro meaning ‘may his name and memory be obliterated’– a term reserved for the bitterest enemies of the Jews (Hitler, Amalek, etc.).  A few years back, yours truly was an existential threat in the eyes of the delusional Alan Dershowitz  

I hope that the Zionist campaign against Corbyn is not going to mature into a jubilant Jewish holiday or, God forbid, a Purim spirited lethal attack on his many supporters. I point at the absurdity of the Zionist zeal because judging by the language used by British Jewish community leaders, they see Corbyn as up there with Amalek, Haman and Hitler.

This is probably the right time to remind ourselves and British Jewish leaders of another fundamental mathematical axiom, namely the Symmetric one — If a = b then b = a.

If Corbyn = Hitler then we can assume that Hitler = Corbyn.  This could be a dangerous path for British Jews, especially considering the fact that despite the relentless Zionist campaign against him, Corbyn is still leading in the polls. In other words, if Hitler = Corbyn and Corbyn is supported by a majority of Brits who see him as an anti-racist and a humanist, some Brits may begin to  entertain the possibility that maybe Hitler was only just as bad as Corbyn. I guess that this is what many Jews regard a ‘holocaust denial.’ But, as things stand, they have only themselves to blame — it is the British Jewish leadership that introduced this absurd equation and has foolishly continued to push it on a daily basis.

Antisemitism and Antiblackness

By Eve Mykytyn

Great Britain’s Labour Party has been wrestling with allegations of antisemitism. One of the charges is that although the Labour party adopted The International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) ‘s definition (often incorrectly identified as the ‘international’ definition) of antisemitism, Labour did not include in its definition all of the examples listed in the IHRA definition. Specifically, Labour omitted the provisions that define criticism of Israel as antisemitism.

Israel may claim that it wants to be a state like all others, but it vigorously campaigns to limit criticism of its expansionist policies by forcing critics to navigate a minefield of potential claims of antisemitism. I can think of no other country that even attempts to limit criticism by outsiders.

Even without the provisions relating to Israel, the IHRA definition of antisemitism seems overly broad and unnecessary in light of the discrimination that many people have faced. In the United States our record is spotty at best and many immigrant groups have faced discrimination by the legal system, by the actions of our public institutions and by the behavior of other Americans.  Notably, and at different times, Asians and Jews have been affected by quota systems in our universities, the Chinese were exploited and then deported under the exclusion acts, Japanese Americans were forced into internment camps during World War II and our president has accused Mexican Americans of being rapists.

And then, no group has suffered the systemic racism that has been directed against African Americans. Not only do we have few laws that begin to atone for their continued exploitation and incarceration, we don’t even have a word in common usage that refers specifically to discrimination against African Americans. There is such a word in the dictionary, however, and it is ‘antiblack.’

Since the United States has not treated Jews any worse than its other immigrants, it seems odd that the State Department has adopted a specific definition of antisemitism and not of antiblackness. Borrowing from the IHRA definition of antisemitism, I would like to offer the following, modeled on the IHRA definition, to fill this void.  Other groups may wish to follow suit. Words from the IHRA definition are italicized.

Antiblackness is a certain perception of Blacks, which may be expressed as hatred towardBlacks. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antiblackness are directed toward Black or non-Black individuals and/or their property, toward Black community institutions and religious facilities, especially the targeting of Black churches.

Two examples: the Charleston church shooting, in which the killer argued that he didn’t deserve the death penalty since the nine people he killed were Black; or the killing of four young girls at a church in Birmingham, Alabama after which the killers were protected by the federal government for at least 15 years.

Manifestations might include the targeting of majority black countries, conceived as merely a collection of Blacks. (e.g., calling them shitholes) However, criticism of such countries similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antiblack.  So, if you wanted to criticize apartheid South Africa, you must find another apartheid country to criticize in the same way. (Israel?)

Antiblackness frequently charges Blacks with conspiring to harm whites, and it is often used to blame Blacks for “why things go wrong.” It is expressed speech, writing, visual forms and action, and employs sinister stereotypes and negative character traits. For example, the negative stereotypes of Blacks as portrayed in film, the press, etc. as people who are shiftless, crime seeking, etc.

Contemporary examples of antiblackness in public life, the media, schools, the workplace, and in the religious sphere could, taking into account the overall context, include, but are not limited to:

• Calling for, aiding, or justifying the killing or harming or mass incarceration of Blacks for crimes that are routinely charged only against Blacks, such as vagrancy, in the name of a radical ideology or an extremist view of race.

• Making mendacious, dehumanizing, demonizing, or stereotypical allegations about Blacks as Blacks such as, especially but not exclusively, the myth about the advantages of slavery over life in Africa, the myth that more Blacks than others are on death row, or that Blacks do not contribute to society. Included in this is the theft by artists of the intellectual property of Blacks, under the antiblack assumption that Blacks will not respond.  For example, The Beach Boys ‘ ripoff of Chuck Berry in Surfing USA (Sweet Little Sixteen) or George Harrison’s theft of My Sweet Lord from Ronnie Mack (He’s So Fine).

• Accusing Blacks as a people of being responsible for real or imagined wrongdoing committed by any Black person or group, or even for acts committed by non-Blacks, this would include blaming Blacks for the deterioration of a neighborhood.

• Denying the fact, scope, mechanisms or intentionality of the enslavement of Black people at the hands of the United States, and the financial gain from such labor enjoyed by the South and its accomplices in the North, as well as in a number of European countries who continued to finance the South during the Civil War. Included in this is the de facto slavery of Black people that continued in many states after slavery was abolished, including using convicts guilty of dubious crimes, such as loitering, as ‘free’ labor in factories, mines and other businesses or the sharecropping system that left Blacks unable to exercise the right to move or to realize any financial gain from their own labor.

• Accusing Blacks as a people of inventing or exaggerating slavery or the millions of deaths that occurred in the brutal passage of Blacks from Africa to various parts of the ‘new world.’

• Accusing Black citizens of not being loyal to the United States when they protest the treatment of Blacks in the United States.

• Denying Blacks their right to choose leaders, either as in the past through poll taxes or absurd history tests, or as in the present through voter id laws or by gerrymandering of voting districts. The paragraph in the IHRA definition refers to denying Jews the right to self determination by claiming Israel is a racist endeavor. Two points here: if Israel is the collective state of the Jews then we are not talking about self-determination but policies set by some number of Jews and Israel is a racist endeavor in that only those who are racially qualified may become citizens and others may not.

• Applying double standards by requiring of Blacks behavior not expected or demanded of other people such as submission to stop and frisk policies.

• Using the symbols and images associated with classic antiblackness (e.g., unhinged accusations of rape or use of Aunt Jemima or Little Black Sambo) to characterize Blacks.

• The next IHRA paragraph prohibits drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis, but since Gaza resembles a mega Warsaw ghetto I’m not sure why this is not simply an observation.

•Profiling Blacks as lawbreakers by targeting them in ‘random’ traffic stops.

•Failure to provide Black communities with decent infrastructure similar to that enjoyed by nearby white communities (Flint water).

•Using Blacks purely for financial gain such as for medical experiments deemed too risky for the general public, or incarcerating a vastly disproportionate number of Blacks in for profit private prisons.

Of course, Blacks are not the only group facing discrimination. Hispanics, Native Americans and others may wish to get into this speech inhibiting game. Then they too can decide how and for what they may be criticized. Or we could prohibit racism against any subgroup by defining racism as Unesco has, as “a theory of races hierarchy which argues that the superior race should be preserved and should dominate the others. Racism can also be an unfair attitude towards another ethnic group. Finally, racism can also be defined as a violent hostility against a social group.”