Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon to play music, foment hate in New York
In my inbox is a notice from World Village-Harmonia Mundi: Saxophonist Gilad Atzmon “makes a rare appearance in New York City beginning May 5th and is available for interviews.” Oddly I see no gig schedule listed. In any case I won’t be interviewing Atzmon during his visit, because I’m too busy interviewing musicians who don’t claim that the Jews provoked
Assange and Shamir
I think it’s safe to say that political activists who compare themselves to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. ought to be regarded with a high degree of skepticism. Alas, many on the left regard Julian Assange of WikiLeaks the way he views himself. Katha Pollitt of The Nation has written this very eloquent piece about the belittling of Assange’s rape charges.
No place for racists?
As much as I applaud the NAACP for calling out rampant racism within the Tea Party movement, the problem is this. The NAACP’s rhetorical strategy is a delicate one; they don’t want to alienate masses of blue-collar whites who might be drawn to the Tea Party’s brand of (I would argue phony) libertarianism. So the NAACP instead insists that the
Socialist Worker on Atzmon: “The evidence for these serious charges is damning.”
Yes, it is. So it’s good to see the fringe lefties at Socialist Worker retract and apologize for publishing an interview with a Nazi sympathizer. The fact that they felt no need to vet Gilad Atzmon beforehand speaks volumes, however. “Critics of Israel,” no matter how virulent, have come to be given the benefit of the doubt on the radical
Atzmon in America: a follow-up
Rich Siegel, who is partnering with Gilad Atzmon as described in my previous post, has written me a terse reply. He says that the Atzmon quotes I cite “do not constitute racism or holocaust revisionism. I suggest you read them again.” Michael Ezra, in the Z Word comments space, has also referred me to this piece of writing, in which Rich
Atzmon comes to America
[Cross-posted at Z Word, and at Harry’s Place.] The bloggers of Mondoweiss have worked very hard to convince the public that antisemitism does not exist among the Palestine solidarity movement — indeed, that all such charges of antisemitism are mere subterfuge concocted by “Zionists” to tar critics of Israel, who are by definition pure of heart. So it’s important to
Atzmon’s protocols
Having begun to read David Aaronovitch’s engaging Voodoo Histories: The Role of the Conspiracy Theory in Shaping Modern History, I am prompted once again to mention the UK-based saxophonist and political agitator Gilad Atzmon. To be clear, Atzmon does not appear in Aaronovitch’s first chapter, about The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. However, Aaronovitch does reveal something that underlines
Sirkis on Atzmon
Anil Prasad has an interview up with drummer Asaf Sirkis, whose recent recordings The Song Within and The Monk I can vouch for as unique and well worth hearing. Sirkis also happens to be a musical associate of Gilad Atzmon, a saxophonist and political blowhard with a straightforwardly antisemitic paper trail that has come up frequently on this blog. In