Tuesday 29 November 2011

بيان المنظمة السـورية لحقوق الإنســـان

المنظمة السـورية لحقوق الإنســـان - سـواسـية

لكل فرد حق في الحياة والحرية وفي الأمان على شخصه
( المادة /3/ من الإعلان العالمي لحقوق الإنسان)

لكل شخص حق التمتع بحرية الرأي والتعبير ويشمل هذا الحق حريته باعتناق الآراء دون مضايقة وفي التماس الأنباء والأفكار وتلقيها ونقلها إلى الآخرين بأية وسيلة ودونما اعتبار للحدود.
( المادة 19 من الإعلان العالمي لحقوق الإنســان (

لا يجوز اعتقال أي إنسان أو حجزه أو نفية تعســفاً
( المادة /9/ من الإعلان العالمي لحقوق الإنسان (



بـــــــــــــــــيــــــــــــــــــــان



في إطار الحملة الأمنية الجائرة  التي تخوضها الأجهزة الأمنية و شبه الأمنية  المنفلتة من عقالها في سوريا  بحق نشطاء المجتمع المدني  و المدافعين عن حقوق الإنسان.

 فقد أقدم جهاز المخابرات العسكرية " الفرع – 291 –   في تمام الساعة التاسعة من صباح يوم الجمعة الواقع في 18/11/2011   على اعتقال الطالب الجامعي  الزميل



بحر عبد الرزاق



 " عضو المنظمة السورية لحقوق الإنسان "

و ذلك بعد ثلاثة أيام من المراجعة الدورية و لمدة اثنا عشر ساعة يومياً  للفرع المذكور في خطوة  تعبّر عن الإصرار على النهج التصعيدي القمعي  بحق المدافعين عن حقوق الإنسان  و أنصار الحرية و الديمقراطية و الكرامة الإنسانية   في سوريا

تدين المنظمة السورية لحقوق الإنسان هذا النهج الشائن للسلطات السورية القائم على الاعتقال و الخطف و الإخفاء و الإقصاء و التعذيب و مؤخراً القتل خارج إطار القانون

و تبدي قلقها الشديد على مصير الزميل و المدون  بحر عبد الرزاق   و تذكر السلطات السورية بأن إجرائها يصطدم بالتزاماتها بموجب العهد الدولي الخاص بالحقوق المدنية و السياسية و الاتفاقية الدولية لمناهضة التعذيب و غيره من ضروب المعاملة القاسية و بإعلان الأمم المتحدة الصادر في ديسمبر عام 1998 والخاص بحماية المدافعين عن حقوق الإنسان و بتوصيات اللجنة المعنية بالمدافعين عن حقوق الإنسان لا سيما الفقرة السادسة من توصيات اللجنة بدورتها الرابعة والثمانين ( تموز 2005 ) و كذلك الفقرة الثانية عشر من هذه التوصيات والتي تطالب الدولة الطرف(سورية ( بأن تطلق فورا سراح جميع الأشخاص المحتجزين بسبب أنشطتهم في مجال حقوق الإنسان و أن تضع حدا لجميع ممارساتها في المضايقة والترهيب التي يتعرض لها المدافعون عن حقوق الإنسان

تطالب المنظمة السورية لحقوق الإنسان  السلطات الأمنية السورية بإطلاق سراح الزميل و المدون بحر عبد الرزاق مع كافة معتقلي الرأي و الضمير بسوريا و الشروع  فوراً بمبادرات إعادة الثقة ما بين النظام السياسي و المجتمع و التي تبدأ بإعادة الجيش لثكناته و حل المليشيات غير النظامية و كف يد الأجهزة الأمنية عن رقاب الناس  و إطلاق سراح السجناء السياسيين دونما استثناء و الاعتراف بالمطالب المشروعة للشعب السوري و التي تجلت مع نسائم الربيع العربي و التي تحلم  بدولة مدنية تعددية و دستور عصري ديمقراطي  لا يقيم حاكم أبدي يقوم على الاعتراف بالكرامة الإنسانية و الحقوق الأساسية للمواطن السوري.

كما تناشد المنظمة السورية لحقوق الإنسان كافة الهيئات و المؤسـسات العاملة في مجال حقوق الإنسان تحمل مسؤولياتها تجاه الزميل و الطالب الجامعي و المدون  بحر عبد الرزاق  و القيام بكل ما يلزم للوقوف إلى جانبه في قضيته العادلة.



دمشق 22/11/2011                                                        مجلس الإدارة

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Saturday 19 November 2011

In defence of Gilad Atzmon

From Sarah Gillespie:

Herodotos is an historian who trains you as you read. It is a process of asking, searching, collecting, doubting, striving, testing, blaming, and above all standing amazed at the strange things humans do’ - Poet and translator of ancient Greek, Anne Carson, Nox (2011)

Gilad Atzmon’s intellectual expedition into the daunting terrain of Jewish identity politics has always evoked a storm of controversy. Still, when I first met Gilad, it was hard not to suspect he was exaggerating the extent of abuse he received from various UK pressure groups. Primarily, it’s not easy to wrap your head around the notion that a person can plausibly be branded as ‘a racist’ when they tour the world with a gypsy violinist, a black drummer, a Jewish bass player and a token English white boy on piano. However, as I began to understand the full complexities of Gilad’s arguments – a process, which, for me, required as much unlearning as it did learning – I reluctantly grasped the problem. And, to my utter horror, I also fathomed the full measure of pathological bile wielded against him. Indeed, some of it hemorrhaged in my direction.

After the 2009 Israeli assault on Gaza I organized a concert for ‘Medical Aid for Palestinians’ featuring iconic violinist Nigel Kennedy. Campaigners launched an onslaught from all sides - the right, the left, the Zionists and the anti-Zionists - individually and collectively, lobbied the owner of the venue, the director of MAP and myself, demanding that we cancel the event.  Some even accused us of mobalising art to fund rocket attacks on Jews. I was shocked, upset and embarrassed that I had inadvertently dragged my friend, who owns the club, into such a shameful debacle.

After the concert (a huge success) I was labeled a Holocaust denier.  Not only was this accusation ludicrous and totally unfounded it was potentially damaging to me. It is clear that in this culture, you could query the extent of the Holodomor, the Nakba or the annihilation of American Indians without raising much of an eyebrow in the public domain, but to do the same with the deaths of Jews in the Second World War is tantamount to career suicide. My lawyer advised me to get the accusation removed from the Internet but I think it best serves as a small, cyber monument to the preposterous and baseless sewage in which some people are content to swim.

More recently the cacophony of hysteria we are subjected to since Gilad’s polemic The Wondering Who crowned him a cause célèbre, has shot off the richter scale. Gilad puts up with it almost daily. Yesterday the Jewish Chronicle demanded that the Arts Counsel of Britain withdraw funding from the Raise Your Banner Festival that we are playing at together on 25th November. They failed of course, but have now resorted, in a separate piece, to simply comparing Gilad to a paedophile. I too have been inundated with hostile youtube comments, messages and emails insisting I either drop my gigs with Gilad, or issue a statement denouncing his views.

This inspired me to do the exact opposite, to state here categorically how much I support and admire Gilad Atzmon’s work, both as an artist and as a humanist, how much I cherish freedom of thought and speech and to declare that the day I withdraw from a festival because a few campaigners threaten to wreck my reputation, will be a cold day in hell. We are artists. We are entitled to express ourselves as we wish, we are entitled to sing, ask, dance, write and reflect.

It would be advantageous for Gilad’s opponents if he were, as they claim, a banal biological determinist who simply dislikes people according to the lottery of their DNA. If this were the case, I’m sure they would be slightly more successful in dismantling our concerts and banning Gilad’s talks. Unfortunately for them, too many people understand that Gilad is on an intellectual quest for truth. According to the Greek historian Herodotos, quoted above, this is most humane thing you can ever hope to do. We can not be banned from playing, from writing or form ‘wondering who’ we are. Lest we forget, the word ‘history’ comes from an ancient Greek verb meaning ‘to ask’. 

So, alas dear agitators, even if we dropped dead tomorrow someone somewhere would still listening to our albums and reading Gilad’s book. I’m afraid the battle might continue but the war is already won.

Sarah Gillespie is a singer songwriter based in London. She will be discussing the role of politics in music on BBC Radio 4’s ‘Start the Week’ on Monday 21 November. Hear "How the Mighty Fall" here.

Thursday 17 November 2011

Why the West is demonizing Iran

From Stuart Littlewood:

Stuart Littlewood argues that behind the "non-stop, loud-mouthed sabre-rattling against Iran" lies the fact that the Anglo-American political establishment is still smarting from not getting its way.

When new recruits join British Petroleum (BP) they are fed romantic tales about how the company came into being.

William Knox D'Arcy, a Devon man, studied law and, after emigrating to Australia, made a fortune from the Mount Morgan gold-mining operations in the 1880s. Returning to England he agreed to fund a search for oil and minerals in Persia and negotiations with the Mozaffar al-Din Shah Qajar began in 1901. A sixty-year concession to explore for oil gave D'Arcy the oil rights to the entire country except for five provinces in northern Iran. The Iranian government would receive16 per cent of the oil company's annual profits.

Mozzafar ad-Din, seldom consulted on matters of state by his father, was naive in business matters and unprepared for kingship when the time came. He borrowed heavily from the Russians in order to finance his extravagant personal lifestyle and the costs of the state, and in order to pay off the debt, he signed away control of many Iranian industries and markets to foreigners. The deal D'Arcy cut was too sharp by far and would eventually lead to trouble.

He sent an exploration team headed by geologist George B Reynolds. In 1903 a company was formed and D'Arcy had to spend much of his fortune to cover the costs. Further financial support came from Glasgow-based Burmah Oil in return for a large share of the stock.

Drilling in southern Persia at Shardin continued until 1907 when the search was switched to Masjid-i-Souleiman. By1908 D'Arcy was almost bankrupt. Reynolds received a last-chance instruction: "Drill to 1,600 feet and give up." On 26 May, at 1,180 feet, he struck oil.

It was indeed a triumph of guts and determination. The Anglo-Persian Oil Company was soon up and running and in 1911 completed a pipeline from the oilfield to its new refinery at Abadan. But the company was in trouble again by 1914. The golden age of motoring had not yet arrived and the industrial oil markets were sewn up by American and European interests. The sulphurous stench of the Persian oil, even after refining, ruled it out for domestic use, so D'Arcy had a marketing problem.

Luckily, Winston Churchill, then First Lord of the Admiralty, was an enthusiast for oil and wanted to convert the British fleet from coal, especially now that a reliable oil source was secured. He famously told Parliament: “Look out upon the wide expanse of the oil regions of the world!” Only the British-owned Anglo-Persian Oil Company, he said, could protect British interests. His resolution passed and the British Government took a major shareholding in the company. Just in time too, for World War I started a few weeks later.

During the war the government seized the assets of a German company calling itself British Petroleum in order to market its products in Britain. Anglo-Persian acquired the assets from the Public Trustee complete with a ready-made distribution network with hundreds of depots, railway tank wagons, road vehicles, barges and so forth. This enabled Anglo-Persian to rapidly expand sales in petroleum-hungry Britain and Europe after the war.

In the inter-war years Anglo-Persian profited handsomely from paying the Iranians a measly 16 per cent , and an increasingly angry Iran tried to renegotiate the terms. Getting nowhere, the Iranians cancelled the D'Arcy agreement and the matter ended up at the Permanent Court of International Justice at The Hague. A new agreement in 1933 provided Anglo-Persian with a fresh 60-year concession but on a smaller area. The terms were an improvement for the Iranians but still didn’t amount to a square deal.

Anglo-Persian changed its name to Anglo-Iranian Oil Company in 1935. By 1950 Abadan was the biggest oil refinery in the world and Britain, with its 51 per cent holding in Anglo-Iranian, had affectively colonised part of southern Iran.

Iran's small share of the profits became a big issue and so did the treatment of its oil workers. 6,000 withdrew their labour in 1946 and the strike was violently put down with 200 dead or injured. In 1951 Anglo-Iranian declared £40 million profit after tax but gave Iran only £7 million. Meanwhile Arabian American Oil was sharing profits with the Saudis on a 50/50 basis. Calls for nationalisation were intensifying.

Iran nationalised its oil to achieve economic and political independence and combat poverty

In March 1951 the Iranian Majlis and Senate voted to nationalise Anglo-Iranian, which had controlled Iran's oil industry since 1913 under terms disadvantageous to Iran. Respected social reformer Dr Mohammad Mossadeq was named prime minister the following month by a 79 to 12 majority. On 1 May Mossadeq carried out his government's wishes, cancelling Anglo-Iranian’s oil concession due to expire in 1993 and expropriating its assets.

His explanation, given in a speech in June 1951 (M. Fateh, Panjah Sal-e Naft-e Iran, p. 525), ran as follows...

Our long years of negotiations with foreign countries… have yielded no results this far. With the oil revenues we could meet our entire budget and combat poverty, disease, and backwardness among our people. Another important consideration is that by the elimination of the power of the British company, we would also eliminate corruption and intrigue, by means of which the internal affairs of our country have been influenced. Once this tutelage has ceased, Iran will have achieved its economic and political independence. 
The Iranian state prefers to take over the production of petroleum itself. The company should do nothing else but return its property to the rightful owners. The nationalization law provides that 25 per cent of the net profits on oil be set aside to meet all the legitimate claims of the company for compensation…
It has been asserted abroad that Iran intends to expel the foreign oil experts from the country and then shut down oil installations. Not only is this allegation absurd; it is utter invention…

For this he was eventually removed in a coup by MI5 and the CIA, imprisoned for 3 years then put under house arrest until his death.

In the meantime Britain orchestrated a world-wide boycott of Iranian oil, froze Iran’s stirling assets and threatened legal action against anyone purchasing oil produced in the formerly British-controlled refineries. It even considered invading. The Iranian economy was soon in ruins. Attempts by the Shah to replace Mossadeq failed and he returned with more power, but his coalition was slowly crumbling under the hardships imposed by the British blockade.

At first America was reluctant to join Britain’s destructive game but Churchill let it be known that Mossadeq was turning communist and pushing Iran into Russia's arms at a time when Cold War jumpiness was high. It was enough to get America's new president, Eisenhower, on board and plotting with Britain to bring Mossadeq down

Chief of the CIA's Near East and Africa division, Kermit Roosevelt Jr, arrived to play the leading role in an ugly game of provocation, mayhem and deception. An elaborate campaign of disinformation began, and the Shah signed two decrees, one dismissing Mossadeq and the other nominating the CIA's choice, General Fazlollah Zahedi, as prime minister. These decrees were written as dictated by Donald Wilbur the CIA architect of the plan

The Shah fled to Rome. When it was judged safe to do so he returned on 22 August 1953. Mossadeq was arrested, tried, convicted of treason by the Shah's military court and sentenced to death.

Mossadeq remarked http://www.mohammadmossadegh.com/biography/ …

My greatest sin is that I nationalised Iran’s oil industry and discarded the system of political and economic exploitation by the world’s greatest empire… With God’s blessing and the will of the people, I fought this savage and dreadful system of international espionage and colonialism.

I am well aware that my fate must serve as an example in the future throughout the Middle East in breaking the chains of slavery and servitude to colonial interests.

The sentence was later commuted to three years' solitary in a military prison, followed by house arrest until he died on 5 March 1967. Mossadeq's supporters were rounded up, imprisoned, tortured or executed.

Zahedi's new government soon reached an agreement with foreign oil companies to form a consortium to restore the flow of Iranian oil, awarding the US and Great Britain the lion's share - 40 per cent going to Anglo-Iranian. The consortium agreed to share profits on a 50-50 basis with Iran but, tricky as ever, refused to open its books for inspection or verification by Iranian auditors or allow Iranians to sit on the board.

Anglo-Iranian changed its name to British Petroleum in 1954.

A grateful US massively funded the Shah's government, including his army and secret police force, SAVAK.

The West's fun came to an abrupt halt with the Islamic Revolution of 1979 and the book closed on a chapter in British enterprise that started heroically, turned nasty and ended in tears.

The US is still hated today for reinstating the Shah and his vicious SAVAK, and for demolishing the Iranians’ democratic system of government, which the Revolution unfortunately didn’t restore. Britain, as the instigator and junior partner in the sordid affair, is similarly despised.

On top of that, Iran harbours great resentment at the way the West, especially the US, helped Iraq develop its chemical weapons arsenal and armed forces, and how the international community failed to punish Iraq for its use of chemical weapons against Iran in the Iran-Iraq war. The US, and eventually Britain, tilted strongly towards Saddam in that conflict and the alliance enabled Saddam to more easily acquire or develop forbidden chemical and biological weapons. At least 100,000 Iranians fell victim to them.

This is how John King, writing in 2003 http://www.iranchamber.com/history/articles/arming_iraq.php , summed it up…

The United States used methods both legal and illegal to help build Saddam's army into the most powerful army in the Mideast outside of Israel. The US supplied chemical and biological agents and technology to Iraq when it knew Iraq was using chemical weapons against the Iranians. The US supplied the materials and technology for these weapons of mass destruction to Iraq at a time when it was know that Saddam was using this technology to kill his Kurdish citizens. The United States supplied intelligence and battle planning information to Iraq when those battle plans included the use of cyanide, mustard gas and nerve agents. The United States blocked UN censure of Iraq's use of chemical weapons. The United States did not act alone in this effort. The Soviet Union was the largest weapons supplier, but England, France and Germany were also involved in the shipment of arms and technology.

Which brings us to today… Why are we hearing non-stop, loud-mouthed sabre-rattling against Iran when we should be extending the hand of friendship and reconciliation?

David Cameron (b. 1966) wasn’t even a twinkle in his father’s eye when Britain crushed Iran’s democracy, and was probably carousing with his Bullingdon Club pals at Oxford while Iranians were dying in their thousands from Saddam’s poison gases. What does he know?

William Hague (b. 1961) seems similarly oblivious to the dirty tricks previous British foreign secretaries pulled on Iran.

Obama (b. 1961)? He was a community organiser in Chicago while the Iranians were being mustard-gassed by chemicals his country supplied to Saddam. What does he know?

As for Mrs Clinton (b. 1947), she’s old enough to know better.

So why are they demonising Iran instead of righting the wrongs? Why not live and let live?

Because the political establishment is still smarting.

They are the new-generation imperialists, the political spawn of those Dr Mossadeq and many others struggled against.

They haven’t learned from the past, and they won’t lift their eyes to a better future. It’s so depressing.

Wednesday 9 November 2011

Alan Dershowitz’ lies and glitches

From Gilad Atzmon:

Rabid Zionist Alan Dershowitz is devastated by the success of The Wandering Who. He just cannot accept that professors and academics endorse the book “as ‘brilliant,’ ‘fascinating,’ ‘absorbing,’ and ‘moving’,” In his latest article he again misses an opportunity to debate the book, its message and its meaning. He prefers instead to indulge in the only things for which he possesses any talent at all - lying and bullying.

But why, I wonder, does Dershowitz insist on reducing a potentially ethical, intellectual and ideological debate to just one more Zionist exercise in mud-slinging? I can think of only two possible answers; First, Dershowitz lacks the necessary intellect to engage in a debate and second, that Zionism and Israel cannot be defended - ethically, morally or intellectually. 

But there is also an amusing aspect to Dershowitz’s Zio-centric tantrum.  For some strange reason, he believes that it’s down to him, an ultra Zionist, to decide who his kosher enough to lead the Palestinian solidarity discourse. “There is growing concern that some of Israel’s most vocal detractors are crossing a red line between acceptable criticism of Israel and legitimizing anti-Semitism,” he pontificates without really being able to point at any anti Semitism in mine or anyone else’s work. But is it down to Dershowitz or any other Zionist to define the ‘red lines’ of the solidarity discourse?

Dershowitz tries so hard to ‘prove’ that I am an anti-Semite but fails to even define what anti Semitism is. In the past, anti Semites were people who didn’t like Jews but on Planet Dershowitz, anti-Semites are simply those Dershowitz hates (or fears).  He mentions, for instance, the significant role of Austrian philosopher Otto Weininger in shaping my views  yet seems unable to suggest exactly what it is in Weininger’s influence that makes me into an ‘anti- Semite’.  He points at my contempt for the ‘the Jew in me’ but this leaves me wondering, why am I not permitted to hate myself?  Why am I not permitted to loathe ‘the Jew in me’? I’ll try to expand on this. Why is it that when I hate ‘myself’ Dershowitz is so devastatingly and personally offended? Is it possible that my loathing of the ‘Jew in me’ exposes an inherent problem at the core of Jewish identity politics in general? And if this is indeed the case, why can’t we just discuss it openly? What is Dershowitz afraid of?

It’s obvious that, like other Zionists, Dershowitz lacks the elementary capacity to engage in proper intellectual debate. Instead he prefers to take quotes out of context – or if that fails, well, he just lies.

In his latest article, Dershowitz conceals from his readers the fact that my book deals solely with Jewish ideology. It avoids any reference to Jews as people, race or ethnicity and concentrates only on ideology and culture. He probably realises that my avoidance of any form of criticism of the Jews as people or ethnicity leaves him and his life’s-work on a path to nowhere.

For example, I do indeed call the recent credit crunch a  ‘Zio-punch’ (22) and I insist that by no means was it “a Jewish conspiracy”.  Because, as I clearly prove, “it was all in the open” (30).

So why is this anti Semitic? I neither blame, nor associate the ‘Jew’ or the ‘Jews’ with the financial turmoil. But I do make the necessary connection between that financial turmoil and the criminal Zionist wars in which we are engaged. If Dershowitz is unhappy with my reading of the situation, well, all he has to do is to produce a counter-argument. Clearly, this is the one thing he cannot do. 

I also follow Israeli historian Shlomo Sand and argue that, as far as Israel is concerned, Influential Zionists had better stay right where they are in the Diaspora rather than make Aliya. Have not Wolfowitz, Rahm, Emmanuel, Dershowitz etc “proved far more effective for the Zionist cause by staying where they are”? (19). Is this an anti Semitic statement? Is it not rather an ‘astute political observation’?

And Dershowitz is right. I do insist that the American media “failed to warn the American people of the enemy within” (27), though it seems that those who now occupy Wall Street have certainly managed to grasp who the enemy are and where they may be found. But is it really anti-Semitic to oppose the influential lobby of a foreign State which dominates your country’s foreign policy? Is it anti-Semitic to oppose a politically motivated club that succeeds in driving your country to financial ruin?  

Dershowitz writes “Atzmon has written that Jews are evil and a menace to humanity”. This does leave me a touch bewildered, because, first, it doesn’t represent my views at all. Second, it doesn’t sound even remotely like me or my writing. Third,  not one single sentence in my book or in my writing  refers to ‘Jews’ as people or an ethnic group but only to Jewish identity politics, Jewish culture or Jewish ideology. Far more significant is the fact that Dershowitz fails to support his bizarre statement with any contextual reference whatsoever. Instead of citing any criticism of ‘Jews’ or the “Jew’ he just provides us with examples of my criticism of Israeli behaviour.  “With Fagin and Shylock in mind Israeli barbarism and organ trafficking seem to be just other events in an endless hellish continuum.”

The truth is that, in my original text, the above sentence actually refers to Zionist lawyer Anthony Julius’ latest book. Here is the original quote in full: “It doesn’t take a genius to gather why Julius and others are concerned with Fagin or Shylock. Fagin is the ultimate plunderer, a child exploiter and usurer. Shylock is the bloodthirsty merchant. With Fagin and Shylock in mind, the Israeli treatment of the Palestinians seems to be just a further event in an endless hellish continuum.” (51)

Harsh words indeed, but they refer clearly to Anthony Julius’ Zionist advocacy and his obsession with Jewish stereotypes such as Shylock and Fagin.  So what’s Dershowitz up to?

But, I’ll say this for him, he doesn’t give up. Again, he tries his luck - “The Homo Zionicus quickly became a mass murderer, detached from any recognised form of ethical thinking and engaged in a colossal crime against humanity.” – but again he fails. The ‘Homo Zionicus’ is not a ‘general’ reference to ‘Jews’ but a clear attempt to point at a particular form of Jewish national school of thought, namely Zionismus. Dershowitz should explain to us, once and for all why he believes that Zionism is beyond criticism.

Now Dershowitz gets desperate. His article is going nowhere so now he decides to deceive his readers.  He quotes me as saying “[T]o be a Jew is a deep commitment that goes far beyond any legal or moral order” (20) and this commitment “pulls more and more Jews into an obscure, dangerous and unethical fellowship” (21).

I was slightly surprised to read this quote since such a statement would be for me completely out of character. So I decided to check my original text. And would you believe it, it was immediately clear that Dershowitz had deliberately and consciously decided to drop the first half of the sentence. He was, quite simply, trying to trick the reader. Judge for yourself.

“(Jodeph) Lapid, later a member of Sharon’s cabinet, makes it very clear: to be a Jew is a deep commitment that goes far beyond any legal or moral order.”

Yes, the above sentence actually refers to right wing Israeli journalist Joseph Lapid’s perception of Jewishness. But in his article Dershowitz tries to attribute this view to me. Truly, Dershowitz does work ‘by the way of deception’.

I know Dershowitz is no fool. He knew what he was doing. He was lying in an attempt to score points. But the irony of this grubby little episode is that the above half-quote actually portrays Dershowitz’s true ethical attitude. For him at least, ‘to be a Zionist is a deep commitment that goes very far beyond any legal or moral order’. The question to ask here is whether Dershowitz’s deceitful attitude is symptomatic of the Zionist discourse. I am afraid that this may be indeed the case. After all, the Mossad’s mantra is plainly clear-“ by way of deception, thou shalt make war.”

Dershowitz continues. If Iran and Israel fight a nuclear war that kills tens of millions of people, “some may be bold enough to argue that ‘Hitler might have been right after all’” (179). Here, I obviously stand by my words.  I really don’t think that Germans, Italian and French will be all that pleased to learn that a lethal radioactive cloud is approaching their borders due to an Israeli pre-emptive nuclear attack on Iran. This is not wishful thinking on my part, as I clearly state in the book, but a clear warning to Israel. If Israel proceeds with its plans to nuke Iran, the consequences may well include a serious shift in the view of the Jewish past. 

Dershowitz says, “Atzmon regularly urges his readers to doubt the Holocaust and to reject Jewish history.” Here, correction is needed. I actually urge my readers to question every historical narrative and this obviously includes the Shoa and Jewish history. And yes, I do indeed oppose any notion of the primacy of Jewish suffering.

Dershowitz quotes me as saying “Even if we accept the Holocaust as the new Anglo-American liberal-democratic religion, we must allow people to be atheists.”  I must admit to being rather proud of my aphorism here so thank you Mr Dershowitz for sharing one of my gems with your Neo-con readers.

Anyway, he’s certainly not impressed by my idea that children should be allowed to question “how the teacher could know that these accusations of Jews making Matza out of young Goyim’s blood were indeed empty or groundless” (185). I suppose that Dershowitz the ignoramus hasn’t heard about Israeli professor Ariel Toaff’s study of Jewish medieval blood libel. Toaff found that accusations of blood rituals levelled against Jews in the Middle Ages were not entirely without foundation, to say the least. I suppose that if Dershowitz had heard about Toaff, his reaction to my take on the subject might have been a little more tolerant.

Dershowitz kindly says on my behalf that “the history of Jewish persecution is a myth, and if there was any persecution the Jews brought it on themselves” and he even provides page numbers: (175, 182).  Well, this statement sounded foreign to me, so I searched the relevant pages but could find none of the above. Is it possible that a professor at Harvard Law School would deceive so openly and repeatedly? I fear this indeed may be the case.

“Atzmon”, write Dershowitz,  “argues that Jews are corrupt and responsible for ‘why’ they are ‘hated’.” Again I’m puzzled because the book is not about ‘Jews’ but about Identity politics. So I was looking forward to seeing how Dershowitz supports this peculiar interpretation.  And yet again, it seems that it is Dershowitz himself who conflates the notions of the ‘Jew’ and ‘Israel’. Dershowitz quotes me saying- “[I]n order to promote Zionist interests, Israel must generate significant anti-Jewish sentiment. Cruelty against Palestinian civilians is a favourite Israeli means of achieving this aim.” It is totally clear that the above quote refers to Israel and Israeli politics. It doesn’t refer at all to the ‘Jew’ or ‘Jews’.

At one stage Dershowitz  just loses it. He starts to think that he can get away with downright deception. For instance, he accuses me of suggesting that “The ‘Judaic God’ described in Deuteronomy 6:10-12 ‘is an evil deity, who leads his people to plunder, robbery and theft’ (120).  But he deliberately fails to produce the most relevant quotes. Here they are, and I will leave it to you to come up with the appropriate judgment regarding Deuteronomy’s God:

 “When the Lord your God brings you into the land you are entering to possess and drives out before you many nations …you must destroy them totally. Make no treaty with them, and show them no mercy.” (Deuteronomy 7:1–2)

“Do not leave alive anything that breathes. Completely destroy them … as the Lord your God has commanded you …” (Deuteronomy 20:16)

I’m afraid that the above God does not appear to be the most compassionate and merciful around.
According to Dershowitz it is “Atzmon (who) explains that ‘Israel and Zionism … have instituted the plunder promised by the Hebrew God in the Judaic holy scriptures” (121).”

Here is the complete original quote. It makes a lot of sense to me, but is not in any way anti-Semitic. “The never-ending theft of Palestine in the name of the Jewish people is part of a spiritual, ideological, cultural and practical continuum between the Bible, Zionist ideology and the State of Israel (along with its overseas supporters). Israel and Zionism, both successful political systems, have instituted the plunder promised by the Hebrew God in the Judaic holy scriptures.” (121)

The above quote is certainly not very flattering to the Zionist project but it is, nonetheless, an attempt to understand the logos behind Israeli aggression. Dershowitz is entitled to present a counter-argument. But this is something, he never manages to do.

Rarely does Dershowitz manage to draw an appropriate and informed conclusion from the book. Here, somehow, he succeeded.  “The moral of the Book of Esther is that Jews ‘had better infiltrate the corridors of power’ if they wish to survive (158).”  This is, I believe, the primary moral of The Book of Esther. And in ‘The Wandering Who’ I do indeed establish an ideological continuum between The Book of Esther and the Book of AIPAC. Is it anti Semitic to trace the ideological background of an ethnocentric political aspiration?

Dershowitz also grasps that as far as I’m concerned, in some ways, Israel is indeed worse than  Nazi Germany. “Many of us including me tend to equate Israel to Nazi Germany. Rather often I myself join others and argue that Israelis are the Nazis of our time. I want to take this opportunity to amend my statement. Israelis are not the Nazis of our time and the Nazis were not the Israelis of their time. Israel is in fact far worse than Nazi Germany and the above equation is simply meaningless and misleading.”

For obvious reasons Dershowitz fails to provide a reference, and he also manages to forget to provide us with the next few lines which are crucial to the understanding of the above statement. “Unlike totalitarian Nazi Germany, the Jewish State is a 'democracy'. In other words, the entirety of its Jewish population is complicit in IDF crimes against humanity. As if this is not enough, the fact that 94% of Israel's Jewish population supported the IDF genocidal attack in Gaza just over a year ago makes the case against Israel solid like a rock.” It is a fact that Israel is a ‘democracy’ and that makes Israelis collectively complicit in the colossal and continuous Israeli crime against humanity.

Sad it may be, but in his entire article Dershowitz fails to provide a single example of ‘bigotry against Jews’. He instead tries to silence any criticism of Israel and Zionism. I would agree with Dershowitz that some of the things I say and write could be painful to both Zionist and Jewish ethnic activists, but here, Dershowitz may just have to come to terms with the fact that political, ideological and ethical matters are sometimes painful.  

Perhaps one day Dershowitz might admit that he couldn’t find any real fault in the book. “(L)ike other classic anti-Semites, Atzmon doesn’t simply fault the individual Jews he names; he concocts a worldwide Jewish conspiracy motivated by a ‘ruthless Zio-driven’ (27) ‘Jewish ideology’ (69) that finds its source in ‘the lethal spirit (122) of the Hebrew Bible.” Unfortunately Dershowitz is again not accurate. He’s right when he admits that I ‘do not fault individual Jews’, but surely he must also know that I oppose the notion of ‘Jewish conspiracy’. Every anecdote and reference in the book is subject to public and open scrutiny. In my work there is no Jewish conspiracy. Everything is done right out in the open. I indeed blame the ideology and look into the culture because I believe that Ideology must be subject to scrutiny and criticism.

But Dershowitz must believe that Jewish ideology is beyond criticism. On that I disagree. Being an anti-racist writer, I oppose any form of Jewish supremacy. Moreover, considering that Israel defines itself as the Jewish State and bearing in mind the level of its criminality, surely scrutinising Jewishness must be a primary humanist task.

Dershowitz ends his empty drivel by challenging Professors John J. Mearsheimer and Richard Falk to a public debate “about why they have endorsed and said such positive things about so hateful and anti-Semitic a book by so bigoted and dishonest a writer.”

It’s pretty obvious that Dershowitz has failed to produce a single shred of evidence of myself being anti-Semitic. But it’s also embarrassingly clear that when Dershowitz speaks about a “bigoted and dishonest writer” he actually projects his own symptoms onto me – yes, he is speaking about himself. This Zionist bigot must be tormented by his own life of deceit.

I doubt if respected academics and humanists such as Mearsheimer and Falk would find the time for Dershowitz.  However, as I said before, I will find the time for this Zionist mouthpiece. I would just adore tearing  him apart in public. As I said before, Mr Dershowitz, any place, any time.

Thursday 3 November 2011

Israel: how racist laws imprison a nation

"Like apartheid in South Africa, the one practised against Palestinian citizens inside Israel and Palestinian non-citizens outside the Israeli borders, in the occupied territories of Palestine, is legal and supported by laws." >> MORE