Jewish Family Feuds

This matter is actually quite complex, and for background please see this article here. This involves a feud between some anti-Zionist Jews mostly located in the UK. It involves a splinter Troskyidiot sect called the Socialist Workers Party. In brief, some of the anti-Zionist Leftist Jews have accused some of the other anti-Zionist Leftist Jews of being anti-Semites. Dumb, huh?

It's just Jewish Family Feud, that's all. On one side is Israel Shamir, Gilad Atzmon and Mary Rizzo, who runs a superb blog called Peace Palestine (the so-called anti-Semites). On the other side is the whole of the SWP, including most particularly persons such as Roland Rance, Tony Greenstein and the author of the Jews Sans Frontiers blog.

These Jews are sitting around arguing about what is the best way to "support the Palestinians". Should we be anti-Semites about it or not? Supposedly the fate of the Palestinians hinges on the conclusion of this Jewish Family Feud. As in most cases of these sorts of intratribal conflicts, no one outside the tribe very much gives a fuck.

I'm sure the Palestinians could care less what a bunch of Jews outside Israel who aren't trying to kill them think about them. They've got their own battles to wage. I'm more or less neutral on the whole affair, and I think everyone involved has a case of excessive self-importance going on.

Excessive self-importance is typical of Jewish Family Feuds. They act like the fate of Western Civilization hangs on the thread of these intra-Jewish conflicts, but the truth is that almost everyone who is not a Jew (and even most Jews) could give a flying fuck how it all turns out.

Neither Mary nor Atzmon are anti-Semites (surely not Mary), though Atzmon really pushes the envelope. Shamir is an anti-Semite sometimes, and other times he is not. He's a real shit-stirrer. I think Shamir is a brilliant writer and thinker, and his anti-Semitism should just be ignored. His work is valuable and deserves a critical reading. I disagree that Shamir is a supporter White Power.

I do not agree that Atzmon is a Holocaust Denier. That is a feverish, absurd charge.

Bottom line is I think that anti-Palestinianism is a Hell of a lot more dangerous to Palestinians than anti-Semitism is to Jews these days. How many of the world's 18 million Jews are getting killed per year by anti-Semites? Not too many. How many of the 4 million Palestinians in Palestine are getting injured or killed by anti-Palestinians every year. Way, way more. So who's in greater danger?

The problems of the Palestinians are so massive, and the pro-Palestinian movement in the US and UK so pitiful that this whole spat boils down to a tempest in a teapot. Palestinians would do better to focus on how to resist Zionism, preferably with improved weaponry, in my opinion.

We should note that all parties mentioned above are Jewish.

Here is Tony Greenstein's response to a previous article of mine on this rather obscure spat. In v., Tony says that my characterization of him as a 'tribal and ethnocentric Leftist Jew' in this post is itself racist. Of course, I deny the charge.

i. The latest problems with the Peace Palestine site have nothing whatsoever to do with me. If the blog was described as a 'spam blog' that was entirely Google's doing and in fact the same happened to the Azvsas blog which I help run.


ii. I have nothing to do with the Socialist Workers Party.


iii. My article on Socialist Unity and Azvsas on why Gilad Atzmon is a Holocaust Denier, and a number of other articles, demonstrates why he is not an anti-Zionist but is anti-Semitic.


iv. Mary Rizzo has worked alongside and defending Atzmon too long for some of it not to have rubbed off. That is why she was so effusive about The Radical Press (again see Socialist Unity/Azvsas) where she defended them against such accusation.


v. The term 'tribal and ethnocentric Leftist Jews' is itself racist. It presumes if someone speaks out because they are Jewish they represent or purport to represent others besides themselves as part of some Jewish power interest.

Criticism of Atzmon for advocating conspiracy theories, including his notion that it is irrelevant if the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion is a forgery (The Times managed that one a mere 87 years ago) suggest deep anti-Semitism i.e. racism towards Jews.


vi. Yes life is complicated by those who associate my criticisms of Atzmon with that of a person known as Ibraham Av. Av supports the Israeli state, I don't. I just happen to understand that indulging in puerile and childish accusations of conspiracy, seeing the hidden hand of Jews everywhere, including financing New Labour in Britain, isn't the best way of supporting the Palestinians.

However the attacks were begun by Atzmon and his even more anti-Semitic White Power chum Israel Shamir. We responded, we didn't initiate.


vii. If you think that anti-Semitism, Holocaust Denial, nonsense about 'Jewish Power' is going to help the Palestinians in any way, then fine. The irony is that whereas some of us are to the fore in the Boycott campaign, it is Atzmon who opposes that campaign whilst at the same time continually attacking Jewish Anti-Zionists (have a look at his Dialectic of the Negation).


viii. And why is he attacking Jewish anti-Zionists, which Atzmon says is automatically Zionist because to him being Jewish is to be a Zionist? Because Israel claims all sorts of things on our behalf and we reject them.

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