As already reported here, a panel discussion, ‘Zionism, Jewishness and Israel’, was due to take place on 3 May at the University of Westminster. One of the advertised speakers was Gilad Atzmon, who has promoted Holocaust revisionism and implied the Jews were responsible for the Holocaust. Whereas some content themselves with making gratuitous comparisons between Nazi Germany and Israel – Atzmon goes one step further and asserts that Israel is worse. Another planned speaker was Alan Hart who thinks that Israel was behind 9/11 and that it plans to arrange a false-flag nuclear attack against the United States in order to bring about a war with Iran. The other two invited speakers were Ghada Khami and John Rose. Not #1 with HP perhaps, but far less egregious.
Since the original post on this issue, it has become clear that Khami and Rose were unhappy about this event, and had apparently been misled as to its nature. On his blog Tony Greenstein quotes from personal correspondence with both speakers. Rose says:
I have not agreed to speak at this event & I have told the organisers to withdraw my name immediately. I did agree to speak at an event ABOUT Atzmon! A very different event and clearly not this one. Best John
Hart now seems to have pulled out too. As Tony Greenstein observes:
Atzmon therefore has the Panel to himself and can explain at length how the Jews are behind all the world’s ills!
Yet it is still not quite clear what the final fate of the meeting will be. The JC reports that it has been cancelled. However, although the University of Westminster won’t be hosting this event , it seems another venue has been identified. On his own blog Atzmon asserts that the meeting will still go ahead, with new speakers taken from ‘a list of Palestinian intellectuals and journalists’. He also makes some quite extraordinary comments about Tony Greenstein and Jewish anti-zionists more generally.
I guess that Jewish ‘anti Zionists’ know better than everyone what is good for Palestine, they are chosen after all.
Sarah adds – although, when I wrote this post, I knew enough about Tony Greenstein to realize that my views are very different from his, I felt it was important to acknowledge as fully and accurately as possible the differences between anti-zionists such as TG and someone like Atzmon, and not to conflate them together when (as seems to have been the case with this event) anti-zionists, however much their views differ from those of most HP readers, do not want to be associated with Atzmon. Commenters have provided information about TG which reveals him to have articulated views which are still more objectionable than I had previously thought, and in some cases simply horrific – for example saying he wouldn’t care if any number of innocent people were vaporised – but I will keep the information from his blog as it is relevant to the post
closing comments I am closing the comments because so many allegations and ad hominem comments are being posted. Apologies – but I am unsure how to moderate these fairly.
