THEY NEVER MISS AN OPPORTUNITY TO MISS AN OPPORTUNITY: SECULAR "ANTI-ZIONIST" JEWISH GROUPS ECHO ZIONIST GROUPS
By Mary Rizzo

Palestine Think Tank
-never-miss-an-opportunity-to-miss-an-opportunity- secular-anti-zionist-jewish-groups-echo-zionist-gr oups/
Feb 2 2009
Bahrain

A very strange thing is happening at this moment within a circle of
people who like to consider themselves at the cutting edge of the
struggle for the Palestine, and we are referring to the individuals
who classify themselves as Secular Anti-Zionist Jews, and consider
themselves to be the "independent" Jewish voices, and as thus, the
avant-garde of "the Pro-Palestinian movement". Following what can
only be classified as a unique international event of major media
importance, and perhaps also of a certain historical significance, they
are protesting and stomping their feet in anger at the intervention
of Erdogan on a stage shared by the General Secretary of the UN,
the leader of the Arab League and the President of Israel.

These unhappy critics are in a few marginal sites and tiny discussion
groups to practically take up the cause of the American Jewish
Committee in criticising Erdogan. The interesting and very positive
fact that Erdogan would not allow the stream of lies uttered by
Shimon Peres to go unchallenged in the World Economic Forum (Davos)
Conference on Gaza seems to have eluded them all. They hardly seem
to notice that Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan obviously had come
prepared for the sort of arguments he would be hearing, the kind
of justifications that Israel gives for its killing sprees, as he
took paper from his folder and read off of a sheet, (or tried hard
to before the moderator attempted to stifle the Prime Minister and
whisk the waiting public to their dinner) three quotes: the first,
from the Jewish Torah, the second, from Gilad Atzmon and the third
from Avi Shlaim.

Obviously, the Torah is quite authoritative, and even if some atheist
Jews don’t mind that God, someone they claim does not exist, is being
quoted, what counts is the message, after all. They have decided that
Erdogan did something terrible in quoting Gilad Atzmon. What is their
problem, with the message or the messenger?

First of all, the message: It stated pretty much the facts that
everyone who claims they are for the Palestinians should know by
now: "Israel’s barbarity exceeds ordinary cruelty." If anyone is
ready to state that Israel used anything less than the most crude
disproportionate force, may they speak now or forever hope for "peace".

It is also surprising that rather than state what Erdogan did
"right", they are bringing up Kurds, Armenia and other atrocious
aspects of Turkish affairs, past or present. This is true of the
attacks on Erdogan in the Zionist media right now, and it’s being
echoed by those who for a long time have been claiming they are
the forefront of the movement, even without the credentials for it,
unless their being Jewish so they can add their name to an appeal
is the dubious credential. It does seem odd that while the discourse
is Palestine, they are very happy to drag it to Anti-Semitism, which
obviously did not appear at all in what they are trying to destroy,
or to geo-political arenas far from Israel and Palestine. There is NO
difference between the Zionist campaign and the anti-Zionist Jewish
campaign. Both are to decide what the parameters of discourse are
and to destroy the messenger, while making the issue of how Jews feel
about themselves and how they think the world should speak about them
THE issue.

The messenger: Erdogan is being scoffed at for his belonging to an
Islamist party. Well, why should anyone be surprised that this is a
deadly sin for Jews who are Zionists and anti-Zionists alike. It is
as if it automatically means totalitarian religious regime that is
the enemy, and thus, the conditional support or the open criticism of
Hamas and Hezbollah. Whether or not that is the case of Turkey, one
has only to go there to find out. Women there are actually prohibited
from wearing hijab (how fundamentalist is that?) in public offices,
to cite but one example of the secular character of this state. Oh,
the other problem, that he’s bourgeois. Well, it seems that the
only ones acceptable are ones that are just like them, Secular
Marxists. Or Secular Liberals. Or Jewish Atheists. Or secular Jewish
Liberals… well, you get the picture.

Well, they wonder, how could Erdogan have gotten such an "obscure"
writer fall into his folder and be carried from Ankara to Davos and
directly to the stage? The critics maybe don’t know that papers by
Gilad Atzmon are widely circulated, and not only in the alternative
media, but actually they have entered the public discourse through
the front door. One of his recent papers was read aloud in full
on SkyTurk. Walking around Florence, today we found his papers in
Italian stuck under windscreen wipers, turn on your radio and you
are hearing him interviewed about Gaza. I suppose it is great to be
published in Socialist Unity, but if the argument used is that Atzmon
is fringe, margin, obscure, well, that argument once and for all has
bit the dust. It is not out of a sense of pride, and we admit, it is
indeed a matter of pride to hear your words or words of your friends
and allies used to tear down the shameful wall of lies by Peres,
while he can just sit and take it. It feels incredibly good. It is
enabling. If we can do it, not financed by anyone or doing anyone’s
business, everyone’s voice can be heard. As a matter of fact, Erdogan
made a lot of people happy. Almost across the board Palestinians and
Turks admired his bravery and determination. When he returned home,
he was welcomed "As a World Leader". Yet, some will try to undermine
that by calling it demagogy, with Turkey nearing elections.

Let’s stop to think for a moment. If it is an electoral tactic to be
as bloodthirsty as possible to win votes in Israel, and expressing
the humanitarian cries for a beleaguered people in Turkey is the
"winning choice". Which country would you rather live in?

And if it is indeed so that the people as a whole believe that Israel
is killing and killing in a way that exceeds anything necessary,
then the discourse of Atzmon is by no means marginal or fringe,
it is at the heart of the discourse. No one has to bombard people
with information or letters or campaigns to know how to call things
as they see it. They don’t need this Jewish organisation or that one
to tell them who to listen to and how to think, cornering them into
some kind of bizarre admission that identifying with these words is in
some way damaging to Jews and anti-Semitic and some of these movement
"leaders" will say, damaging to the movement or cause. In fact, the
conclusion to draw is that these writings must be touching nerves,
touching the deepest feelings of humanitarian concern and not ones
of political or personal expediency. The diffusion of these writings
has been by spontaneous proliferation, there is no press office or
political group lobbying, there’s just a person at his own computer
and the spread of information from there.

There is a rottenness of the "movement" if it does not recognise
when the moment to put aside their personal qualms or conflicts with
Atzmon and accept that something magnificent has happened, and the
humanitarians of the world feel it and know it. Persisting in the
campaign to silence Atzmon now would not only be LESS effective than
it was before, but it drops down the final mask, that these people
operate as crypto Zionists. Their agenda, and the agenda of the
American Jewish Committee is one and the same.

Mary Rizzo is an art restorer, translator and writer living in
Italy. Editor and co-founder of Palestine Think Tank, co-founder of
Tlaxcala translations collective. Her personal blog is Peacepalestine.