Gilad Atzmon and the J-word

There's been much controversy about the Socialist Workers Party's invitation to Gilad Atzmon to promote his book at their book shop, Bookmarks, and to appear at their annual event: Marxism 2005. The controversy revolves around what he has written and who his friends are. Two of his friends are Israel Shamir and Paul Eisen. Israel Shamir is a shadowy figure and some say that he has alter egos who are Swedish and/or Russian fascists. His unsavoury politics were first exposed, as far as I know, by the owner of the Electronic Intifada website: Ali Abunimah and Hussein Ibish. But have a see for yourselves here. Paul Eisen I mentioned in a recent post. He has gone from ill-considered imagery through anti-Jewish generalisations to the poisonous embrace of neo-nazism as expressed in his support for Ernst Zundel and his pro-nazi take on WWII and the holocaust, such, if you believe Eisen and Zundel, as the latter was. Shamir and Eisen's pro-nazism is easy enough to expose. Just look at what they have written. Atzmon is a little more difficult to pin down. His wild allegations hurled at Jewish anti-zionist friends of mine, that they are actually under-cover zionists on account of their refusal to renounce their Jewishness is enough for me but what of others who don't know the people he has denounced or their contribution to the struggle against zionism?

Well, take a look at his article: The J word, the J people and the J spot. It rambles a bit, but take this following quote:

The J’s are the ultimate chameleons, they can be whatever they like as long as it serves as some expedient. As soon as you criticise their expansionist militant national beliefs (Zionism) you hurt them as a race (Semites), they would insist that anti Zionism is in practice a form of anti Semitism. When you condemn their racist tendencies, they are transformed immediately into an innocent cultural identity (merely chicken soup consumers). When you criticise their exclusive cultural leanings, they then become a race again (it isn’t me it’s all down to my mother, she is Jewish, I am just a consequence of her racial belonging). But it goes further, when you scrutinise their racist and supremacist religious law (Talmud) they remind you that most of them are in fact secular (true by the way), but then, when you question their secular philosophy, they would immediately confess that, in fact, there is no such philosophy. You may push your luck and ask them what stands at the core of their ethnic belonging. A ready made answer would be given instantly: ‘it is Hitler rather than Moses who made us into J’s’. Hitler never asked for our religious beliefs, he killed us just for being J’s.’ When you remind them that Hitler is no longer with us, they would assure you that a new one is just about to be born. Basically you can never win. But neither can they.

Clearly Atzmon doesn't just have a problem with the Jewish people, he has a problem with the word Jew. Some of what he says might be acceptable if he said some Jews but his target is the whole of the Jewish people. We don't have to jump through hoops to establish his anti-semitism, as the zionists did in the case of, say, Ken Livingstone. We just have to read his own words, or if you were at Marxism 2004 (which I wasn't) listen to them, or indeed the words of his many critics who are members of the SWP. Then consider whether this guy is a suitable person to appear at two Marxisms in a row and to have a book signing at Bookmarks.