Counterpunch, a journal of the far right, has published the latest screed by the racist crank, Gilad Atzmon.
The subject of Atzmon’s long and rambling article is – you guessed it – the dangerous nature of “jewishness”, and in particular:
3rd category socialists, on the other hand, are there to stop proud self-hating Jews from blowing the whistle. The Jewish Socialists are there to prevent you from reading the words you are engaged with right now.
In other words, Michael Rosen.
Those of you who have read the works of “Israel Shamir” and Paul Eisen, or who occasionally browse Stormfront will be familiar with Atzmon’s argument.
1. Jewish socialists, argues Atzmon, are engaged in “tribal activity which aims at halting assimilation and enforcing monolithic collective thought”.
2. Michael Rosen occasionally tells folksy stories about his boyhood, and so is part of the same “Hebraic” network as Ariel Sharon: both are driven, personally and politically, by “the tribal parental condition of the Jewish home”.
3. Zionism includes “every form of Jewish political tribalism”.
4. Atzmon therefore advocates a flight from Jewishness, Judaism and any other form of Judaic tribalism. It means, leaving chosenness behind. This is probably the only form of real Jewish resistance to Zionism.”
4. “Jewishness” – as distinct from jews – must be fought as a matter of urgency:
To be a Zionist is to prevent assimilation, to be a Zionist is to engage in some form of Jewish political tribalism. Zionism indeed colonizes Palestine but its branches are far-reaching. Zionism is not a local movement supported by some enthusiastic lobbies around the world. Zionism is a global network. It is a clannish political apparatus that systematically endangers our planet for the sake of a miniature ethnic group. This very group is not the Jews per se, it is actually the Jewish political tribe. Zionism is there to shape and re-shape the notion of the Ghetto, to form and re-form the dialectic of chosenness, to balance the emerging tension between insularity and openness and yet to include most of the Jews. Zionism is a global network with no head, it is a spirit and spirit cannot be defeated. Yet, spirit can be revealed and spiritual supremacy must be exposed.
This is the message that the Socialist Workers’ Party is propagating at the moment. It is also pretty much where its front organisation, RESPECT, stands.
PS. Harry’s Place also gets a mention. Which is nice.