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Former Israeli jazz musician Gilad Atzmon has some bizarre political ideas. He has written, for instance: “Even though the Jews only make up 2.9 per cent of the country’s population, an astounding 56 per cent of Clinton’s appointees were Jews. A coincidence? I don’t think so... we must begin to take the accusation that the Jewish people are trying to control the world very seriously... American Jewry makes any debate on whether the ‘Protocols of the elder of Zion’ are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews do try to control the world, by proxy... the Jews were responsible for the killing of Jesus” He has argued that the bombing of synagogues in the west is a rational response to Israel’s war crimes in the Middle East. He has smeared veteran anti-Zionist critics, including Roland Rance and Tony Greenstein, as “undercover Zionist agents”. Most recently, Atzmon has circulated approvingly a nasty article by one Paul Eisen, in which Eisen defends notorious nazi and holocaust denier Ernst Zundel as “a hands-on activist - a gentle, good-humored man, kind and honest and with those qualities often found in the strangest places: a fine mind and a good heart”. Eisen further dismisses any suggestion of deliberate mass murder of Jews by the nazis, and argues that there were no gas chambers, that Zyklon B was purely used as a disinfectant, and that the Jews who died in the concentration camps were victims of typhus, itself a result of allied bombing of Germany. He even defends Hitler as a misunderstood hero, and ends by calling on Palestinians to attack “organized world Jewry” as well as Israel. This essay is defended by Atzmon as following “the most radical form of orthodox Judaic spirit”; it is a “great text” with which he has “slight differences”. Atzmon spoke at the SWP’s Marxism event last year; his views dismayed many SWP comrades, and he was fiercely attacked by John Rose, among others. Incredibly, Atzmon has been invited to take part in Marxism again this year, and to speak at Bookmarks next Friday evening, on “The Deconstruction of the Zionist Identity”. Despite much pressure on the SWP, from some of their own comrades and by other speakers at Marxism including Moshé Machover and Michael Rosen, they have refused to cancel the invitations, and insist these events will go ahead as planned. Accordingly, Jews Against Zionism, in connsultation with other groups and individuals, has called a picket of Bookmarks, 1 Bloomsbury Street, London WC1, on Friday evening, 17 June, from 5. 45 pm. We are not calling for a boycott of Atzmon, but expressing our outrage that the SWP, which once supported the No Platform position and recognised the distinction between Zionism and Judaism, is itself giving a platform to a man who supports and defends holocaust deniers, and who, by constantly eliding the important distinction between Israel and Jews, is actually aiding the propaganda effort of the state he purports to oppose. I hope to see you there Roland |