I’m behind in noting the latest from UK jazz saxophonist Gilad Atzmon, who now declares, in essence, that Jews brought the Holocaust on themselves. It’s a challenge to decipher Atzmon’s miserable writing, but here it is:
Seemingly, it is the personification of WW2 and the Holocaust that blinded the Israelis and their supporters from internalising the real meaning of the conditions and the events that led towards their destruction in the first place. Would the Zionists understand the real meaning of their Holocaust, the contemporary Israelite may be able to prevent the destruction that may be awaiting them in the future.
Similarly, Wagner may be banned in Israel, yet, the conditions that led Marx, Weininger and Wagner to say what they had to say remain unchanged. [...]
Weininger? David T at Harry’s Place points to a refresher on this antisemitic and racist philosopher (1880-1903), who said among other things:
A genius has perhaps scarcely ever appeared amongst the negroes, and the standard of their morality is almost universally so low that it is beginning to be acknowledged in America that their emancipation was an act of imprudence.
Judeosphere notes that at least one administrator at UK Indymedia has leapt to Atzmon’s defense by starting a new blog, “Saying NO to the hunters of Atzmon,” which could be rephrased as “Saying NO to the principled opponents of racism and antisemitism.” Sad to see Indymedia continue on its sinister, phony-progressive path. I wonder when jazz musicians and critics will get a clue.
[Update: Of course there's more. Atzmon writes elsewhere:
For an Israeli to humanise himself, he must de-zionise himself. In this way, self-hating can become a very productive power. It's the same sense of self-hating I find, too, in Jews who have given the most to humanity, like Christ, Spinoza or Marx. They bravely confronted their beast and, in doing so, they made sense to many millions.
It's interesting to compare Atzmon with the French comic-turned-hatemonger Dieudonné, who is profiled in this week's New Yorker by Tom Reiss (just in time for my trip to Paris). A black man who has made common cause with Le Pen and the National Front, Dieudonné strikes me as a few degrees more intelligent and subtle than Atzmon, actually.
Bernard Henri-Lévy has an interesting quote in the Reiss profile:
In France, being an anti-Semite in the old way does not work ... You will not raise a mass movement by saying the Jews killed Christ — nobody cares. Accuse them of having invented Christ, like Voltaire did in the eighteenth century, still nobody cares. As far as being a special race, nobody believes that anymore. But anti-racist anti-Semitism — saying that for the sake of the blacks, for the sake of the Arabs, we must make the Jews shut up — this works.
Atzmon does the antiracist bit and the anachronistic bit, and oddly, this seems to work as well — some on the left still come to his defense. Maybe a British thing. We can be thankful that as a jazz musician, Atzmon is doomed to a certain obscurity, very much unlike Dieudonné.]
Forwarded to me from a jazz radio programmers’ listserv, a riposte to Gilad Atzmon’s morally and intellectually bankrupt portrait of jazz as “holy war” akin to militant jihad.
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Last night’s televised prayers of representatives of the Moslem, Buddhist, Jewish and Christian community of Virginia Tech offering solace to the families and friends of the massacre victims and appeals for mutual respect and restraint in the tragedy’s aftermath are a moving reminder of the America we uphold and the hatred and violence we reject.
The recent posting of Gilad Atzmon’s confused ramblings is particularly abhorrent in view of his attempt to couple the symbol of freedom that is jazz with the moniker of incitement that is jihad.
Students at the University of Denver where Atzmon spoke may be interested to note that Colorado hosted, half a century earlier, a father of Islamic extremism and jihad, Sayyid Qutb, whose rantings against jazz, among other American repugnancies such as its bare-legged women, are noted in last October’s Unesco-sponsored jazz symposium (marking the 50th Anniversary of the 1st International Congress of Black Writers and Artists 1956-2006):
“In ‘The Age of Horrorism’, an essay in the Observer, Martin Amis quoted Sayyid Qutb, a founder of Islamic fundamentalism, as defining jazz as “a type of music invented by blacks to please their primitive tendencies – their desire for noise and their appetite for sexual arousal.” That is pretty much how Hitler and Stalin defined it. Like it or not, you have to admit music with enemies like that can’t be all bad.” ( Mike Zwerin, “Jazz Is World Music, Even With An American Accent”, Oct 2, 2006)
Respected journalists including The Washington Post’s Lee Hockstader have lamented the Islamic extremism that closed down Ramallah’s sole jazz club at the start of the 2nd Intifada, preventing saxophonist Arnie Lawrence and his co-existence jazz band of Israelis and Palestinians from continuing to play there to a packed multi-cultural house. Last April 22, marking a year since Mr Lawrence’s death, Israel’s Army Radio dedicated its weekly jazz program to this dream of cultural freedom, broadcasting Mr Lawrence’s Palestinian-Israeli-American ensemble singing “Cheek to Cheek” in the still unreleased “Live from Ramallah”.
Since Atzmon mentions Max Roach in his diatribe, I would add that Max’s “The Promised Land: A Peace Tour” in the Spring of 1999, brought together Moslems, Jews, Buddhists, Christians and others in a series of concerts throughout Arab and Israeli towns capped by a standing-room only Israel Festival performance for over ten thousand, despite the threats of jihadist suicide bombers.
As April 22 approaches, marking two years since Arnie’s passing, his students of all faiths and nationalities continue to play together throughout Israel and wherever in the world free music is audible. Jazz swings. Jihad don’t.
“There’s never been a suggestion on my radio program that there is some inherent characteristic or ability of one race that makes them superior to another,” [Don] Imus said. — from 60 Minutes transcript, April 15, 2007
“I find it important to mention that in none of my political texts or interviews have I ever used any kind of racially orientated arguments.” — Gilad Atzmon, UK-based saxophonist and “activist,” attempting to deny that he is an antisemite.
Their logic is precisely the same, resting on an absurdly narrow and self-serving definition of racism. Atzmon (Imus) wants us to believe that if you’re not a master-race theorist, running around comparing the size of human skulls and such, then you’re not a racist. It’s amazing that anyone on the left would buy this for a second.
Here is the latest from Atzmon: a speech he made at the University of Denver, where he tried to wow the students with “Lacanian terminology” and openly proclaimed solidarity with “the last sovereign pockets of Muslim resistance” in Iraq, Palestine and Afghanistan. I do wonder whether he supports the jihadis of the Tawhid and Jihad Brigades in Gaza, who abducted and very possibly killed BBC journalist Alan Johnston — a crime that has been condemned outright by a large number of Palestinians.
Worst of all, Atzmon invokes jazz music itself as a vindication of his beliefs:
For me, Jihad and Jazz are very similar forms of commitment. For me, the generations of Black Americans who sacrificed everything for the sake of beauty and resistance were actually engaged in a holy war. For me it was Bird, Max Roach, Dizzy, Coltrane and others who went far beyond the American dream of materialism and market value.
To the best of my knowledge, Bird, Max, Dizzy and Trane never killed anyone, let alone an innocent civilian.
Gilad Atzmon, the UK-based saxophonist and antisemitic agitator, has once again succeeded in passing himself off as a progressive, appearing at a March 18 forum in Sweden at the invitation of that country’s Social Democratic Party. Ulf Carmesund, a party official, took the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism to task for its condemnation of Atzmon:
Gilad Atzmon is himself a Jew, and when the Swedish Committee Against Anti-Semitism starts calling Jews anti-Semites there is a risk that they undermine the term anti-Semite and do the fight against anti-Semitism a disservice.
How touching: Carmesund is so concerned about “the fight against anti-Semitism” that he blows smoke on behalf of someone who has openly made common cause with Holocaust deniers. Atzmon is also an apologist for Nazi Germany, having argued that Israel is far worse: “Carpet bombing and total erasure of populated areas… has [sic] never been a Nazi tactic or strategy.”
Carmesund may want to note that Atzmon describes himself not as a Jew, but as an “ex-Jew” and a “Hebrew-speaking Palestinian.” But Atzmon’s identity is entirely his own business; it has no relevance whatsoever in the evaluation of his political opinions. Identity does not confer immunity — the very idea is ignorant. It’s like saying that the disgraced Christian right activist Ted Haggard cannot be antigay, because he is gay. It also brings to mind the petty, legalistic and ultimately malicious evasion that Arabs can’t be antisemitic “because Arabs are semites too.”
In fact, a [fill in the blank] can be just as racist toward [fill in the blanks] as anyone else. The proof is all around us.
It’s been a while since I’ve commented on the jazz saxophonist and rabid antisemite — sorry, “critic of Israel” — Gilad Atzmon. But I thought I’d link to this colorful spread on the website of the avowed neo-Nazi David Duke. Normally I’d hesitate to link to a racist site, but I feel we should all have a look at Atzmon’s beaming visage, right where it belongs.
Be sure to read Duke’s gushing preface. “Atzmon helps us understand the Holocaust mentality of Jewish extremists,” he writes.
Atzmon’s piece originally ran in Alexander Cockburn’s Counterpunch, which some continue to mistake for a progressive publication.
If there has been any request on Atzmon’s part to have his text and photo removed from Duke’s website, I will make a note of it. But I doubt I’ll need to.
I can’t quite make sense of this, but it appears that Gilad Atzmon, the UK-based jazz saxophonist, antizionist ideologue and antisemitic hatemonger (see here and here), has created an alter ego called Artie Fishel. My first impression of Artie is that he’s something like a blackface character, a Jewish sambo. Be sure to check out Artie’s glossary of Jewish terms. Those Jews — such racists!
In other Atzmon-related news: Oliver Kamm recently noticed that Atzmon has doctored one of the most offensive passages on his website.
[Update: Here is an MP3 of an "interview" with "Fishel."]
