Responses on Gilad Atzmon’s interview
Editor's note: On July 13, SocialistWorker.org published an interview with jazz musician and anti-Zionist writer Gilad Atzmon. After the interview's publication, we learned of many allegations that Atzmon has made not just highly inflammatory, but anti-Semitic statements about Jews, be they supporters or opponents of the state of Israel--and that he has associations with deniers of the Nazi Holocaust of the Jews. The evidence for these serious charges is damning.
We knew that Atzmon was a controversial figure among opponents of Israel when we ran our article, but not the full extent of these allegations. Needless to say, there was no trace of such ideas in his interview with SocialistWorker.org, or it never would have been published.
Nevertheless, we believe that our Web site, which is committed to the liberation of the Palestinian people and to the struggle against anti-Semitism, should not have published the interview without any reference to the controversy over someone who could make the comments and advance the ideas that he has--whatever his motives or reasoning. We therefore withdrew the article from our site.
Here, we publish excerpts from some of the comments sent to SocialistWorker.org.
Atzmon's anti-socialist beliefs
IT IS unfortunate that you chose to publish an interview with the racist Gilad Atzmon. I congratulate you on the swift removal of this, and your dissociation from his politics.
Anyone who still believes that Atzmon is motivated by anti-Zionism and opposition to Israel's genocidal policies, rather than by naked hatred of Jews and any form of Jewish self-expression, should read his nasty essay "Swindler's List".
This article is an attack on the Bund, the Jewish labor union in 19th century Eastern Europe, and one of the founders of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party. Atzmon writes of the Bund: "Bundists believe that instead of robbing Palestinians, we should all get together and rob who is considered to be the rich, the wealthy and the strong, in the name of working-class revolution."
He goes on to say, "[W]e have to admit that hate-ridden plunder of other people's possessions made it into the Jewish political discourse both on the left and right. The Jewish nationalist would rob Palestine in the name of the right of self-determination, the Jewish progressive is there to rob the ruling class and even international capital in the name of world working-class revolution."
This is not an anti-Zionist statement; it is a bigoted anti-Jewish and anti-socialist rant by a man who devotes more energy to denouncing anti-Zionist Jews than he does to the struggle for Palestinian rights.
Gilad Atzmon is a bigoted charlatan, who has nothing to offer to the struggle for Palestinian rights. He should save his mouth for blowing his saxophone, rather than for his racist attacks on anti-Zionist and socialist Jews.
In solidarity,
Roland Rance, Jews Against Zionism, London
Readers deserve more information
I DON'T know enough about Gilad Atzmon or read him or his critics regularly enough to know just what the accusations are, whether they're legit or whether there's an ulterior motive behind them--e.g., a pro-Israel smear campaign. I suspect many of your readers don't either.
It doesn't seem fair to me to remove a good, albeit provocative, interview on the basis of anonymous and un-sourced allegations of anti-Jewish statements by a Jewish Israel-born pro-Palestinian writer and activist. Perhaps SocialistWorker.org should publish the sources, content and context of the accusations--say as an addendum to the reinstated interview, in fairness to Atzmon and your readers?
On the other hand, perhaps going any more into and getting involved in this controversy is not in SocialistWorker.org's and your readers' interest, considering that Atzmon has many other outlets for his views and especially that your position on Palestine is and has been entirely solid?
Still, it does seem to me unfair, no matter what Atzmon's personal views are, for SocialistWorker.org to pull the interview without making the charges explicit and public. I think I'm a bit disappointed in this decision and how it was handled, though I will continue to read and support SocialistWorker.org.
Best regards and in solidarity,
Lou Kipnis, from the Internet
A retraction without merit
WHAT SOCIALISTWORKER.ORG has done in retracting the Gilad Atzmon interview is far more reprehensible than anything objectionable that Atzmon has said or might ever say. SocialistWorker.org has succumbed to the easy way out; it has censored where it could have argued.
It has chosen the intellectually cowardly path of elision rather than the broad highway of engagement with a person whose views are extremely complex; are sometimes--and I gather this from having digested only bits of it--self-contradictory or argued, I think, based on misinterpretations of fact; are at many points and in a broad sense completely in line with the International Socialist Organization's (ISO) take on Middle Eastern/Israeli-Palestinian reality; and, at times, are just plain misunderstood.
SocialistWorker.org has jumped to a decision to censor the interview with Atzmon based on presentations of bits of his speech completely out of context; out of a claim that he associates with Holocaust deniers, though SW.org provides not a shred of evidence to justify this claim (and completely ignores the fact that Atzmon, himself, is no Holocaust denier); and, essentially, because the interview has upset some readers and challenged, correctly or incorrectly, a dearly held historical narrative.
No clarity has been gained in this exercise; confusion and a lack of clarity have been given SocialistWorker.org's imprimatur. Irrationality has won the day.
Rather than challenge points of contention by engaging in debate, the debate is over for SW.org. I am disgusted. This paper is important to me. But if it doesn't have the courage to engage the views of somebody who is far too complex simply to be dismissed as "anti-Semitic and an associate of Holocaust deniers," then its use to me as an organ of the kind of left politics in which I aspire to engage will be very limited going forward.
Jeff Weinberger, from the Internet
Right to remove Atzmon's interview
I'M DEEPLY disturbed that SocialistWorker.org chose to run an article by Gilad Atzmon. His racist and anti-Semitic views have no place in a left-thinking society.
However, I noticed something interesting--when the mistake was realized, SocialistWorker.org's retraction came immediately and were self-critical in a way that I never see in the mainstream American news media. I wasn't even aware of Atzmon's real views until I read the retraction.
My earnest wish is that SocialistWorker.org will continue to fight against racism and prejudice in all its forms, especially the racism fostered by the Israeli apartheid state.
Wendy Fairbee, from the Internet
