Touching Left, Islam, Israeli Lobby, Chomsky and Many other Hot Topics: Interview with Gilad Atzmon
Monday, June 28th, 2010
[Editor’s Note: This interview with Gilad Atzmon, undoubtedly, is one of the best examples I have read of an explanation for why the so-called “Left” here in the West has lost its relevancy in terms of the greater, burning question of global, moral outrage and dissatisfaction with both the state of Israel and its fundamental, supportive ideology known as political Zionism.
It identifies Marxism for what it truly is: a Zionist/Talmudic/Jewish concept based on a disbelief in God coupled with a supremacist attitude toward others who do not fit the cold, Marxist calculations of what defines a family, a community and a nation and also what is relevant to others in terms of their innate spiritual beliefs and/or consciousness of good and evil.
Gilad’s clear, frank and unambiguous responses to Miriam Cotton’s assumptions about Zionism and the Left were, for me, a joy to read. They acted like a cleanser, wiping away the grime that both smothers and conceals the seemingly endless discourse and rhetoric which inevitably composes the Marxist dialectic.
This interview is indeed a welcome response to these liberal assertions that the Left espouses under the guise of being humanists and ought to be seriously read and seriously promoted online in order to assist others who are still struggling with this divisive and essentially moral, ethic and spiritual Marxist conundrum that continues to plague humankind’s ability to live in peace and harmony and understanding.]
Shine your Light for Love, Peace & Justice for All,
Arthur Topham
Publisher/Editor
The Radical Press
Canada’s Radical News Network
“Digging to the root of the issues since 1998″
http://www.radicalpress.com
radical@radicalpress.com
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/touching-left-islam-israeli-lobby-chomsky-and-many-other-hot.html
Touching Left, Islam, Israeli Lobby, Chomsky and Many other Hot Topics
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Discussion with Gilad Atzmon by Miriam Cotton
Introduction by Miriam Cotton
Gilad Atzmon is a world renowned saxophonist and musician with a deep political passion for humanist issues and concern for the fate of the Palestinian people. He has written extensively about the issue and been published widely. As a self-exiled, former Jewish Israeli and IDF soldier, Atzmon’s perspective within the raging public discourse on Palestine is relatively unique. His views are bitterly opposed by some among anti-Zionist Jewish groups, who accuse him of anti-Semitism and of being a ‘self-hater’.
Atzmon fiercely resists the charge of anti-Semitism and insists that he is concerned with a proper and thorough examination of the ideology of what it is to be Jewish – in particular about how the notion of the Jews as ‘a chosen people’ has led, as he sees it, inexorably to the rise of Zionism and its present disproportionate influence on world affairs.
Atzmon also takes issue with the Western Left which he believes has failed either to recognize the true extent of Zionist influence (he singles Noam Chomsky out for criticism) and of not understanding how western Marxist/socialist ideologies are incompatible with Islamic societies and therefore can be of no use to them. These and other issues are discussed with him below. There are many things in what Atzmon says below that beg further question and comment but hopefully the exchange has served to illustrate his interpretation of the Palestinian situation and to provide an insight on a less frequently aired or understood perspective.
Miriam Cotton
MediaBite (Ireland) http://www.mediabite.org/about_us.html
June 21st 2010
MC: Following the murder and kidnap of unarmed aid activists in international waters by Israel, General Petraeus has said the situation [in Gaza] is no longer sustainable. Though he was in no sense condemning what Israel had done, do you think there may be a beginning of an end to unconditional US support for Israel?
GA: It is actually the other way around. It is Israel that ditches America. Israeli leadership realises that with America in the background the Jewish state won’t be able to pursue its next two lethal plans: Nakaba 2 and dismantling Iranian nuclear capacity. Israel realises that if it wants to maintain its Jews only state as a regional power, it must ethnically cleanse the rest of the Palestinians. Israel is also convinced that its only chance of surviving in the region is if it maintains a nuclear hegemony. The USA makes things difficult for the Jewish State at the moment; it tries to slow Israel down. I believe that it is Israel that is leading the conflict rather than being subject to it.
MC: But surely that assessment overlooks some important factors. Nobody can seriously doubt that the US obsession with the region is entirely to do with oil, gas and geo-strategic matters such as Russian and Chinese proximity to these resources, in particular.
GA: This is a good way to put it. However you may also wonder what American interests are, who defines these interests and who shapes them. As it happens, AIPAC (American Israeli Public Affairs Committee) has been pretty effective in shaping American interests; we also know that the Wolfowitz doctrine made it into Bush’s doctrine. For the last three decades Americans failed to see the clear discrepancy between cheap oil and alliance with Israel. They might start to understand it now.
MC: But the Bush family was/is an oil dynasty too - with ties to as many if not more Arabic vested interests as to the Israelis - there are many more non-AIPAC, US vested interests like these than are in AIPAC. Everything the US has done there since the beginning of its so-called ‘war on terror’ - and long beforehand - has been aimed at securing the Middle East and about energy and other resources.
GA: This is all true. It is also true that AIPAC won’t necessarily interfere with unrelated political matters unless it involves Zionist, Israeli or Jewish interests. However, the Jewish lobby in America and in the UK has managed to shape the English speaking Empire’s vision of its needs and interests. From an American perspective, instead of admitting that American soldiers were actually sent to fight war for Israel, they were told instead that they were sent to die in the name of moral interventionism and democracy. They were actually told that they were ‘liberating the Iraqi people’. How wonderful! The oil and Israeli interests were presented as side issues. As we know, oil prices didn’t drop after 2003. And yet, Sadam Hussein, the bitterest enemy of Israel was removed. In the long run this plan didn’t work for Israel either. Iran had become the unchallenged Muslim leading power. Inshalah it also becomes a nuclear super power soon. This would obviously deter the Israelis from accomplishing its endless imperial aspirations.
MC: There is no other country in the Middle East in which the US and its allies could position the vast military threat that Israel has been made into if they are to achieve their ambitions for the region. The realisation of Zionist ambitions for Israel was and still is a secondary consideration for the US, despite the relatively powerful Israeli lobby.
GA: I am not so sure at all. I actually think that the Zionist Lobby has managed to destroy the American empire. I argue that the Credit Crunch is in fact a Zio-Punch. I argue that Greenspan created an economy boom to divert attention from Wolfowitz’ wars. The Zionists in fact have managed to bring down every super power they cling to. Britain, France and now America. You have to allow yourself to admit that the ‘War on Terror’ was actually a Zionist led war against Islam, a battle that was there to serve Israeli interests.
MC: Israel has been funded and encouraged to develop a nuclear arsenal of several hundred warheads, while the Iranians who do not even have one, but who control a lot of oil, are deemed to be a threat to world peace. Frankly, in these circumstances the Iranians and others would be justified in thinking they need some means of defending themselves against the only real threat at present- and against those who are in fact being the most provocative as well as doing the vast majority of the killing: US-Israel.
GA: This is indeed a very valid point. From an Iranian perspective, nuclear military capacity is a defensive means. The Iranians are constantly under a nuclear threat and so are the rest of the countries in the region and beyond.
MC: Britain and America don’t fight any wars that they don’t want to fight - not even justifiable wars, unless there is a percentage in it for them.
GA: Are you sure about this, or is that something we all prefer to believe? As it happens both in Britain and America the political parties are funded heavily by Jewish pro Israeli lobbies. Haim Saban, the multi-billionaire Israeli fund raiser for the American Democratic Party said last year that the best way to influence America is through political funding, the media and think tanks. There you go. Even the vision of ‘American interests’ can be no more than false interests when they have been manipulated into an alignment with what are really Israeli interests. At the end of the day, it is far cheaper to by a western politician than buying a tank. It is far cheaper to recruit a ‘new friend of Israel’ than flying an F15 for one hour.
MC: Israel is essentially a creation of the British and other European powers - and the oil was firmly at the front of their minds even way back then.
GA: This is another myth that people like Chomsky want us to believe in. In fact the Balfour Declaration was there to pull America into the war. It was there to push Jewish German and Russian bankers to change their allegiance from Germany to Britain so they could fund the new American war. Amos Alon presents an embarrassing chapter in Jewish history in his monumental book The Pity of It All. In fact it worked for the British. Two months after the Declaration, America was in the war. This wasn’t about oil. It was another war funded by a Jewish political lobby.








”
































