Either Gilad is 70 or Tony is a fool
Oh dear, ploughing through this tedious nonsense is no fun at all. So, I’m doing it slowly, and now I’m taking a break to see what Tony has to say in his published piece.
Heres my summary:
1) Mary wrote a story. Mary always gets it wrong. I’m going to put it right.
2) I have impeccable credibility as an anti-zionist Jew, and I am happy to diss Israel.
3) Gilad is a bad, bad man and I am going to prove that by giving lots of out of context quotes, and wildly misrepesenting his writings.
4) Using these tactics, I am going to libel Gilad and Mary as anti-semites, whilst baffling people by admitting that my tactics are not new.
5) I am also going to kick up a big fuss at Indymedia, because they have no idea how to run an effective site. I am going to demand that they censor Atzmon and then I am going to call my article “There are no gatekeepers”, so that there is no doubt that I do not understand the term gatekeeping.
6) Next I will show that I am better for Palestine than Atzmon and Rizzo.
7) I will end by saying that Atzmon is entitled to express his opinions (which I have already said I am trying to censor), ” but not “in the name of the Palestinians” erm like I myself do.
Thats it - start to end in 7 easy steps.
Hurrah for that!
According to ‘our Tone’:
“Even the very term gatekeeper is derived from Atzmon’s assertion that Jews are holding back support for the Palestinians.”
Those who have done any media studies will no doubt be amazed that Gilad managed to invent the term ‘gatekeeping’ some 16 years before he was born, when he was apparently using the alias Kurt Lewin.
“In human communication, in particular, in journalism, gatekeeping is the process through which ideas and information are filtered for publication. The internal decision making process of relaying or withholding information from the media to the masses.”
Thats what I thought it meant till Tone told us what it really meant.
In fact, when I saw Tone’s DEMAND for CENSORSHIP, I thought he was ‘gatekeeping’! Now I find that it wasn’t like that at all. Gilad doesn’t look 70 and I have to say, Tone makes him sound a lot more omniscient than I would have expected.
Tone boasts how he saw off the ‘anti-semitism libel’ used against those who lobbied for the academic boycott, by speaking out as a Jew. Of course, this would only actually work if people believed that Jews could not be anti-semities, and yet, Tone is devoting a large part of his life to asserting that Jews CAN be anti-semitic. Tone is shooting himself in the foot here. He complains, “according to Gilad Atzmon this was just another example of how it is ‘Jews and only Jews who engage in racially orientated peace campaigning“
Now, I’ve looked at the article with that quote, which our Tone so kindly linked to, and his name isn’t in it. So, he links to something that doesn’t back up his claim. Either he thinks thats Atzmon directed the quote at him, or his link is duff.
Here’s a bit more of the quoted article:
During my years in Europe I have come across groups of people who call themselves ‘Jews for Peace’, ‘Jews for Justice in Palestine’, ‘Jews for this’ and ‘Jews for that’. I have recently heard about ‘Jews for Boycott of Israeli Goods’. Occasionally I end up asking myself what stands at the core of this racially orientated separatist peace-loving endeavour. I may as well admit that though I have come across many German peace activists, I have never come across an Aryan Palestinian Solidarity group or even Caucasian Anti-War campaigners. It is somehow Jews and only Jews who engage in racially orientated peace campaigning.
Now, maybe Tone knows of an ‘Aryan Palestinian Solidarity group’ or a ‘Caucasian Anti-War campaign’ and chose not to mention it, or maybe there isn’t one. Maybe there aren’t groups that Tone can point to, in order to dispute Atzmon’s claim? Maybe one day Tone will help us to sort it out. But, to be really honest, I’m not holding my breath. I don’t think that he has an understanding of Atzmon’s article, let alone a devastating critique of it. But, if there is a devastating critique, someone would surely do us all a service by putting it to us, rather than demanding the banishment of the author. Cos now that Tony’s pointed us to the article, we’ve read it and we have to make sense of it.
And, when Atzmon writes this in the same article:
While observant Jews can easily list more than a few positive qualities they identify with, they for instance follow Judaism, they practice Jewish laws, they follow the Talmud, they follow Kosher dietary restrictions, etc., emancipated secular Jews have very little to offer in terms of positive characteristics to identify with. Once you ask a secular Jew what makes him into a Jew you may hear the following: “I am not a Christian nor am I a Muslim.” OK then, but what is it that makes you into a Jew in particular? You see, he may say, “I am not exactly an American, French or British. I am somehow different.” In fact, emancipated Jews would find it hard to list any positive quality that may identify them as Jews. As it seems, emancipated Jews are identified by negation. They are made of the very many things they are not.
we have to stop and think, is this true? Now instead of Tone and his mates assuring us that Atzmon is wrong, and that there are plenty of positive qualities associated with being a secular Jew, there seems to be a big resounding silence. I can’t imagine what a secular Jew might feel makes up her identity, butI do know that as an atheist, I don’t align myself with any racially orientated peace campaigning - and nor do I imagine that I might ever join a group of ‘ex-christians against the war’ or even ‘christians against the war’. Atheism doesn’t seem to draw me to other atheists particularly. I don’t define myself by the religion I was baptised into and then rejected. That isn’t necessarily to say it hasn’t affected my whole way of thinking though, maybe it has.
Now, I’ve hung around discussion of the whole Israel/Palestine issue for many years. And, along with all the strawmen arguments, and deafening roars of “anti-semite” and “holocaust denier’, this is one of the issues that keeps cropping up. Its clearly an issue that Gilad is trying to make sense of . Perhaps if someone pointed out to him that are many positive qualities associated with being a secular Jew he would understand, and refine his thought accordingly. A sort of process of dialectics if you like. It might help some of us to us understand why so many secular Jews accept that Jewish people have a right to someone elses land.
We do know that religion is used to justify the dispossession - that the bible apparently says God gave the land to the Jewish people. We also understand that christian-zionists believe the same thing. But how do secular Jews justify what is a real problem, the practical horrors of taking that land forcibly? I still have no idea. We also know that there are religious Jews who do not believe that the dispossession of the Palestinians is justified in their holy book. And likewise, we know that there are secular Jews who do not think that zionism is right. Despite all the claims that we harbour anti-semitic beliefs, often unwittingly, it seems to me that most on the left do understand that there are many differences amongst Jews, that they are not all some kind of mono-thought clique.
There is no doubt in my mind that the so-called left has to learn to deal with the ‘anti-semitic libel’, as well as the fact that there are real anti-semites out there. But we see time and time again that different people see anti-semitism in different places. We see that there is no easy way of dealing with the claim, because the accuser is always so certain that they are right and there is no need for discussion, that we are incapable of understanding the issues. If we do not jump when the accusation is made, then very quickly we have our anti-racist practices brought into question.
That is the worst type of gatekeeping, when censorship is DEMANDED, and any delay to think about it is immediately seen as a sign of anti-semitism. “Hypocrites, why not get rid of your anti-racist guidelines, they are meaningless” is clearly designed to put pressure on the editors, and to affect the outcome. Joining in the discussion and convincing people through rational debate would seem to me to be a much healthier form of gatekeeping. It would help move it all along, and educate these stupid fools who don’t understand in the process.
TONY GREENSTEIN IS A GATEKEEPER!
And, until he allows us some rational debate, we are still faced with the choice of either being anti-semites ourselves, or with joining in with the lynch-mob mentality that Mr. Greenstein likes to pursue so rigorously.
I’d like to make my own mind up in an arena which is respectful, and understanding.
THE GATEKEEPERS APPEAR TO WANT THAT TO BE IMPOSSIBLE.
PS - having said that - a reasonable debate seems to be happening here
At comment #34 Stephen Marks, who clearly doesn’t have a lot of fondness for Atzmon makes some good points.
Why does Greenstein perpetually engage in this discussion, whilst demanding that Indymedia does not even refer to it? Why does he link to the alleged ‘anti-semitic’ texts all over the web, if his real concern is that anti-semitism is useful to the zionists? Shouldn’t he just shut-up and let us work it out for ourselves?
In Atzmon’s words:
my views are receiving more and more attention, by the way, a lot thanks to Greenstein… and guess what, he is doing it all for free.
Shukran Comrade Greenstein
Tone will keep pressuring us until we do what he wants.
In the meantime,his mate will slag us off whatever we do.*sigh*
15 comments November 20, 2007
