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<font size=4 color="#FF0000"><b>2 articles follow<br><br>
</font><font size=4>The Helen Thomas' Resolution by Gilad Atzmon<br><br>
</b></font><font size=3>Monday, June 14, 2010 at 10:08PM<br>
<a href="http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/the-helen-thomas-resolution-by-gilad-atzmon.html?printerFriendly=true" eudora="autourl">
http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/the-helen-thomas-resolution-by-gilad-atzmon.html?printerFriendly=true<br>
<br>
</a>Gilad Atzmon <br><br>
Those who are engaged in the Palestinian solidarity discourse are
familiar with two visions of conflict resolution: the ‘Two State
Solution’ and the ‘One State Solution’. This week we have learned
about a third possible resolution that seems to me the most reasonable
and ethical considering the circumstances. Helen Thomas, the
89 years old doyenne of the White House press corps, sketched it in
one sentence. When asked by a Rabbi holding a camera: "where should
Israelis go", she said Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine”.
When the Rabbi challenged her, she made it plainly clear: “they should go
home to Poland, Germany, America and elsewhere”<br><br>
Thomas was quick to be reminded who runs Capitol Hill. A global war was
declared against her. She had to resign and to apologise. However,
her brief yet transparently clear solution is sound and should be
elaborated upon. <br><br>
It is an obvious fact that the Israelis do not belong to the region. The
Jewish claim for Zion i.e. Palestine is beyond pathetic. It is in fact as
ridiculous as a bunch of Italian settlers invading London's
Piccadilly Circus claiming their right to return to a land once occupied
by their Roman forefathers. Obviously Italians would not get away with
it, Zionists, on the other hand, have managed to fool the nations for
more than a while.<br><br>
Unlike our Western politicians and Media, Helen Thomas was not impressed
by the Zionist argument. Let’s try to understand what she is saying. She
suggests primarily that Jews don’t belong to Palestine and
Palestine certainly doesn’t belong to the Jews. She also argues
that the home for Jews is somewhere else. Thomas suggested for instance
that Jews should go to Germany. Surely this is not such a rude idea
considering the love Germany pours on Israel. We shouldn’t also forget
that the Israeli nuclear submarines that have been on their way to the
Gulf (according to The Times), were given to Israel by Germany as a
‘present’ at the time that Israel flattened Lebanon (2006). If Angela
Merkel is sincere, she should welcome the Israelis to return to her
country and save the world from another world conflict.<br><br>
As it happens, most Western leaders support the Two State Solution, they
believe that such a solution is fair and ethical. I wonder what is
so ethical about it, the Two State Solution doesn’t address the
Palestinian Cause. It largely ignores the Palestinian Right of Return to
their land, homes, villages, fields and orchards. It accepts the
outrageous circumstances in which millions of Palestinian refugees will
be left dispossessed forever. <br><br>
Most humanists seem to support the One State Solution, they are convinced
that such a solution is fair and ethical. Again, I am rather perplexed
here. As much as we accept that sharing the land is reasonable and
ethical, it is completely foreign to Jewish ideology and Zionism in
particular. Early Zionist immigrants were more than welcome to share the
land with the Palestinian indigenous population. But they had a
completely different plan in mind, they wanted a ‘Jews only State’. They
eventually ethnically cleansed the Palestinians (1948), Those who managed
to cling to the land were eventually locked behind walls and
barbed wire. The One State Solution dismisses the Jewish ideology. As
much as I myself tend to support the One State Solution, I am fully aware
of the fact that such a solution may become possible only when the
Israeli Jewish population gives up its supremacist ideology. Needless to
say that when this happens, the Jews in Palestine would
become Palestinian Jews: ordinary people of Jewish ethnic
origin who happen to live on Palestinian land.<br><br>
Those who are repulsed by Helen Thomas’ resolution, blame her for being
discriminatory towards Jews. The truth of the matter is that
Thomas’ suggestion is not at all different or more discriminatory
than the notorious Two State Solution. While Thomas suggests that
millions of Jews would peacefully go back to their true home, the Two
State Resolution suggests that millions of Palestinian refugees
would be left with no home whatsoever. Clearly, the Israeli State
mentions again and again that it would never allow
Palestinian refugees to return to their land. <br><br>
Considering the latest Israeli barbarian military operations, bearing in
mind the disastrous starvation in Gaza, learning about the serious
threat to world peace imposed by repeated nuclear threats made by Israel
against its neighboring States and Iran in particular, we should move the
discourse one step further. We better look at the Helen Thomas’ solution.
<br><br>
Seemingly, the Rabbi who assaulted Helen Thomas, is not
impressed by Thomas’ solution. He was concerned about six million
Jews who perished in Europe. Someone should remind the Rabbi that the
European Judeocide has nothing to do with Palestine or the Palestinians.
However, his own behaviour towards Thomas together with the Israeli
repellent murderous behaviour in the high seas, in Palestine, and
the Jewish lobbies around the world, all contribute together to a
necessary revision of the notion of ‘Jewish suffering’ in history. At the
end of the day, our vision of the past is constantly shaped by our
present understandings. <br><br>
Like the rest of humanity, Old Helen Thomas is tired of Jewish power and
Israeli barbarism, she touched the nerve exactly where it hurts by saying
the plain truth. “Get the hell out of Palestine”. Truth, it seems,
echoes ethics and reason.<br><br>
Article originally appeared on Gilad Atzmon
(<a href="http://www.gilad.co.uk/" eudora="autourl">
http://www.gilad.co.uk/</a>). <br>
*************************************************************************<br>
By <b>SHABANA SYED | ARAB NEWS</b> <br><br>
</font><h1><b>Time for world to confront Israel: Gilad
Atzmon</b></h1><font size=3>
<a href="http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article66233.ece" eudora="autourl">
http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article66233.ece</a> <br><br>
Israeli-born British jazz saxophonist Gilad Atzmon<br><br>
<b>According to the famous Israeli-born Jazz musician, Gilad Atzmon,
"The ideology that carried out execution-style killings on the Gaza
aid flotilla the 'Mavi Marmara' is the same ideology that carried out the
massacres at Deir Yassin, Qibya, Sabra and Shatilla, Qana, Gaza, Jenin
and the murder of Rachel Corrie more than that it is the same ideology
that killed Christ."<br><br>
</b>He continues: "there is no biological, racial or ethnic
continuum between the ancient Israelites and the contemporary Israelis.
The attack on the aid convoy is a continuum of the same ideology that
killed Christ. Christ's killing is a symbol of a brutal assault against
goodness, in the same way the attack on the aid convoy was against
humanity and compassion." Speaking to Arab News after the deadly
attack on the aid Flotilla where 9 peace activists were shot dead and
around 50 injured Atzmon was scathing against Israel's actions and
demanded that it should be stripped of its UN membership.<br><br>
Atzmon is a former Israeli soldier who now lives in London. He is not
only a renowned author and writer but also a famous award-winning jazz
musician. Described as a musical genius he has recorded with the likes of
Robbie Williams, Sinead O Connor, Robert Wyatt Paul McCartney, Tunisian
singer Dhaffer Youssef and countless others.<br><br>
With a strong presence on and off stage and a disarming smile, Atzmon has
a huge following not only for his music but for being a unique thinker
and philosopher.<br><br>
Admired for his fearless stance against oppression, he is also at the
forefront of a taboo discourse that many will not venture into out of
fear of being branded anti-Semite; and that is the discourse on the
Jewish identity, Zionism and Israel.<br><br>
Because of this stance, he has been branded a "Jew self-hater."
Atzmon smiles: "in fact I correct them 'I am not only a self-hater
but a proud self- hater.'" The accusations do not deter him as he is
quite vocal about the self-hatred he feels for the Israeli part of him.
He argues: "We are dealing here with a morbid collective that sets
itself against humanity.” He believes the reason why he is at the
forefront of this discourse is because he is more able than others to
understand Israeli mentality because, "I come from them, and I know
how they think." He himself has studied for many years the issue of
the Jewish identity, and in his talks is often found quoting philosophers
like the Austrian Otto Weininger, Kant, Heidegger, Nietzsche, Lacan, Marx
as well as Eastern philosophers.<br><br>
He explains: "Israel has violated all international laws, it has
never been held accountable for the countless massacres." However,
he argues the latest massacre of peace activists on the aid flotilla with
the emerging forensic reports which suggest Israeli execution-style
killings of the 9 peace activists has resulted in shock horror around the
world.<br><br>
"The remarkable fact is they don't understand why the world is
beginning to stand against them in the same way they didn't understand
why the Europeans stood against them in the 1930s. Instead of asking why
we are hated they continue to toss accusations on others." In his
latest article titled "Jewish Ideology and World Peace," he
argues: "Within the discourse of Jewish politics and history there
is no room for causality... Within the Jewish tribal discourse every
narrative starts to evolve when Jewish pain establishes itself. ...It
also explains why for most Jews the history of the holocaust starts in
the gas chambers or with the rise of the Nazis. I have hardly seen any
Israelis or Jews attempt to understand the circumstances that led to the
clear resentment of Europeans toward their Jewish neighbors in the
1920s-40s.”<br><br>
Born and brought up as a Zionist in Israel, Atzmon believes it was his
love of music that first opened his eyes to the world. "I was
brought up to believe that Jews were the chosen people and no one was
better than us. Then I discovered jazz and found out that many of the
great jazz musicians were black Afro-Americans. That was the first dent
in the theory of our greatness and as I picked up the stones more truths
began to come out." At 19, Atzmon was stationed as a soldier to
Lebanon where he saw for the first time thousands of Palestinians living
as refugees. "We were told that the Palestinians had left and gone
to other Arab countries, so when I saw thousands of refugees living
without the basics I realized that we had stolen their land." Atzmon
also witnessed the atrocities the Israeli Army was committing against the
Palestinians; so as soon as he could, he left the army and left the
country for good.<br><br>
"My studies have shown me that the Jewish identity is foreign to
humanism, it is tribal and has evolved as an outcome of an exilic
culture." He argues that we can learn a lot about Jewish collective
ideology by looking closely to the biblical "Story of Esther"
which he argues teaches Jews the art of infiltration into politics and
governments.<br><br>
He continues: "This form of infiltration is clearly evident in
America today where the Jewish lobby (AIPAC) dominates the political
discourse. Also in Britain we have the British Jewish lobby, and the
'Friends of Israel', we also have people like David Aaronovitch, The
Times columnist and Nick Cohen of The Observer, who advocated for war
with Iraq. Both write for the Jewish papers, are known sympathizers of
Israel and have contributed extensively to the growing Islamophobia in
Britain. Lord Levy, a rabid Zionist was funding the Labour Party when it
went into an illegal war with Iraq which led to over a million Iraqi
fatalities.”<br><br>
He continues: "We have the likes of David Miliband the Labour MP; I
wonder how many people know that he is listed on the Israeli propaganda
site as an Israeli propagandist author. Did you know that under the last
government, when everyone was talking about Israel's killing of a Hamas
leader in Dubai by using forged British passports, David Miliband was
busy attempting to amend the laws of universal jurisdiction so Israeli
war criminals could enter Britain.”<br><br>
In his latest article Atzmon writes: "Enough is enough; it is time
to name and shame every Israeli and Zionist infiltrator within political
circles, media and academia." Maybe it is the soldier in him but
there are not many subjects that Atzmon is not afraid to confront. The
biggest taboo subject today is to question the holocaust. In many
European countries one can be jailed for questioning the numbers killed
or to what extent gas chambers were used? Atzmon however has no fear when
he says: "I do not deny that Jewish suffering took place, I also
lost family in it. However if the established holocaust narrative is true
why do we need laws to protect it?" He continues: "We want a
coherent narrative open to scrutiny. We owe it to ourselves, to history
to find out the truth and I don't mean the truth through emotionally
charged Hollywood films. Also I reiterate that those involved in an
academic and historic inquiry should not be threatened with law suits and
abuse.”<br><br>
To stop further world conflicts, Atzmon believes that governments should
confront Israel. He argues that unlike the last Labour government that
indulged Israel to continue its brutal assaults, while its leaders Blair
and Brown were honorary patrons of the Jewish National Fund UK, the new
government has to take a stronger stand. "In order to end one of the
most brutal occupations of Gaza we need to ban Israeli aircraft from
British airspace, impose EU trade sanctions against Israel and strip
Israel of its UN membership." For Atzmon the tide is turning and
humanity which is bound together by human ethics and morals need to stand
together against Israel before it takes us to war with Iran which
according to him "is its next step.”<br><br>
<br><br>
<br><br>
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