God is with us ‘poor god!’
The American Dilemma by Gilad Atzmon
On January 12TH at a Martin Luther King Birthday Concert I joined the NYC Meeting House Orchestra to perform a set of my music. The event was the annual fundraiser for a local homeless shelter and it took place at the auditorium of the Friends Seminary, an elite Quaker private school in Lower Manhattan. The cause was obviously worthy and fully consistent with Quaker values, the house was packed and the concert was a smashing success.
Apparently, some Zionist parents were devastated by my invitation. A few days before the concert, I learned that an Israeli parent was mounting pressure on the Seminary’s management and a day or two before the concert, notorious ethnic cleansing enthusiast Alan Dershowitz joined in. As he himself proudly admits, he relentlessly threatened and harassed the school and its administration.
According to Dershowitz who along the years has gained for himself quite a reputation as a compulsive liar and a plagiarist, the Friends Seminary has now acknowledged that it ‘was wrong to invite’ me. And also according to Dershowitz, the Quaker Seminar promised to invite representatives of the notorious racist Jewish Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and Dershowitz himself to address the students about the “dangers of the sort of anti-Semitic hatred spewed by Atzmon.”
So what’s going on here? Is this a desperate attempt by Dershowitz to be funny? After all, how is it possible that a Quaker institute would invite Jewish supremacists to lecture on tolerance towards one group only? Why would a Quaker institute give a platform to an ADL interested in the ‘defence’ of one people only? And why would a Quaker institute give a platform to Alan Dershowitz who is advocating the ‘Case of Israel‘ at the expense of the indigenous people of Palestine? I have never come across a single humanist who supported either warmonger Dershowitz or the Zionist ADL so it is indeed interesting to see a Quaker institute leading such an unusual move.
However, the alleged surrender by the Quakers may not be all that it seems. First, it wasn’t the Seminary that invited me it was the teachers within the Seminary who have been following my writing and clearly saw a continuum and consistency between my texts and Quaker’s philosophy. And why not? I write about universal human and civil rights. I fight for justice for all and I tour around the world educating students (of all ages) about the ‘primacy of the ear’ and the art of listening to others. I oppose supremacy and I preach only tolerance and brotherhood. True, I do indeed openly oppose Jewish political exclusiveness, but my criticism is humanist and founded in ethical and ideological criticism. I do not oppose the Jewish people and I refrain from criticising Judaism.
Living as I do in London and being supported by Quaker institutes in the past, I was initially pretty perplexed by the Zionist influence within the NYC Quaker Seminary. To start with, I couldn’t understand the logic of it. Why would Zionists send their kids to a Quaker school? Clearly the discrepancy between Quaker pacifism and Zionist militancy must be blindingly obvious to every Jewish nationalist parent.
However when I visited the Seminary the fog lifted a little. Apparently there is a dispute at NYC Friends Seminary between a management that is striving to survive within a highly competitive educational market and the teachers who are spiritually driven by Quaker philosophy. Also, once in NYC I was pleased to find out that, in accordance with Quaker ideas of inclusiveness, peace and tolerance, the Seminary is sympathetic towards the Palestinian cause and in fact is about to send a mission of student to Palestine this month - and iIt didn’t take a genius to work out that the Zionist parents who opposed my visit were also opposing the mission to Palestine.
The practicality of the Zionist parents sending their kids to the school is obvious. The expensive, elitist school (around $40.000 a year) is located in Lower Manhattan, an area thickly populated by very rich people, many of them of Jewish origin so, the percentage of Jewish students is pretty high, maybe as high as 40% according to one of the teachers.
But I still can’t work out why Zionist parents - supporters of Israel and promoters of Jewish, nationalist, militant ideology - would send their kids to a tolerant, pacifist school. I mean, surely those parents must loathe Quaker ideals. So how do they get over the ideological divide? Simple. The Zionist parents, in collaboration with warmonger Dershowitz, are now insisting that the school give up on its Quaker principles and start to operate as a Yeshiva. They openly lobby against tolerance, freedom of expression and relentlessly suppress freedom of speech. As we always knew - in the ‘land of the free’ money can buy everything.
In fact, what we see here is a microcosm of the Zionification of America. Once Zionist money changes hands, tribal indoctrination will soon follow. The Wall Street Journal confirmed this week that some parents “vowed to pull their applications in protest” unless their demands are met. The message to the Quaker seminary was clear - surrender or face financial extinction.
The Quaker Seminary is facing a serious challenge here. It has to decide whether to stand up for its precious principles or surrender to mammon seeking and face total moral bankruptcy. Interestingly enough, America faces the exact same dilemma. It has to choose between a fight for freedom or total surrender to a foreign materialist ideology conveyed by AIPAC, ADL and other Zionist warmongers.
I wish America and the Friends Seminary’s Quakers lots of luck, because we're all in this battle together. We’re all Palestinians seeking liberation.
Anti-Jewish ….Moi?
In your case, Eisen, there is nothing “alleged” about the anti-Jewishness of your stance. Your record is unfortunately quite clear on the issue, even if we look only at your postings on this site.
(deLiberation Commentator – ‘Paige’)
So ‘Paige’ thinks I”m anti-Jewish. Well, maybe I am but before I come clean and own up to the charge, I’d like a little clarification.
What does ‘Paige’ mean by saying that my stance is anti-Jewish? Does she mean that I hate all Jews and does that include the mother, the father, the brothers, the sisters, the friends, the family – all of whom I love dearly? And what about me? I was born and raised as a Jew and have no wish to be otherwise. Do I hate myself? Am I one of those dreaded self-hating Jews?
Or perhaps she means that I hate some Jews but not others. If so, which Jews do I hate and which Jews do I not hate and why do I hate some Jews but not other Jews? And if I do hate Jews, why is that? Is it because of what they are, or is it because of what they do? Or is it both…. or neither?
Or is it not Jews that I hate but rather their ‘Jewishness’? If so, what’s that? What is this ‘Jewishness’ that I hate so much? I’ve often felt that this ’Jewishness’ was some kind of feeling of specialness? Is it that feeling of specialness that I hate? But is feeling special so very bad? After all, don’t we all feel a little bit special and certainly don’t all babies and young children feel very special indeed? And shouldn’t they? And aren’t they? Or is it because Jews feel special as a group – like they’re the best group of people in the world. But don’t many groups feel like that? Don’t Man U fans feel special? Isn’t that in a way what being in a group is all about?
Or is it because Jews feel special as a nation? But we Brits feel pretty special as a nation. I mean, come on, aren’t we Brits just that little bit more restrained, contained and somehow altogether more ‘knowing’ than, for example, those dreadful, dreadful Frenchmen across the channel. And as for the Yanks, they certainly think they’re special. I mean, “Land of the free and home of the brave” – How much more special can you get? And don’t even begin to talk about the bloody Germans with their Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles (or is that the verse they’re not allowed to sing any more?)
Or is it that although everyone feels special not just Jews, Jews feel more special than anyone else.
After all, Chaim Weizman did say that Jews are like everyone else – only more so.
Or is it that there’s something different about the nature of Jewish specialness – that it’s the specialness of their suffering that’s the problem. Is there something special about Jewish suffering? They say six million Jews died in the Holocaust but at the same time, so did twenty million Russians and eleven million Germans and Austrians. Are those Jewish dead more important then the Russian dead or the German dead?
Yes, Jews have certainly suffered but then so have the Poles, Armenians, Gypsies, Africans, women, serfs, arthritis victims, the young man sitting on a piece of cardboard at the end of my street – the list is endless. But perhaps Jews have suffered more, or perhaps Jews have suffered more intensely or more relentlessly? Or perhaps it’s because their suffering has been more unjustified?
Anyway, what is this thing that ‘Paige’ thinks I hate so much? Is it a settler in Hebron or a coffee-sipping Tel Avivian? Is it Primo Levi or Ariel Sharon? Or is it a Jewish grandma in Hendon or or an art-dealer in Primrose Hill? Is it someone who likes chicken soup and waves their arms around a lot when they get excited? Or is it someone who believes that they, along with all Jews, stood with Moses at the foot of Mount Sinai? Or perhaps like so many of my anti-Zionist brothers and sisters it’s someone who feels that it was only Hitler who made them into Jews.
So come on ‘Paige’, how about it, what do you mean?
And, in the unlikely event of Paige not coming up with the goods, all answers please to…….
…deLiberation - www.deliberation.info
