INTERVIEW WITH ISRAEL SHAMIR
Kim Petersen
uruknet.info, Italy
;l=i&am p;size=1&hd=0
May 2 2006
Israel Shamir is a prominent and controversial Russian-Israeli
thinker, writer, and translator who lives in Jaffa. Shamir brings
to his political writing a refreshing candor, sharp insight, and
inspiring humanity. His principled stand supporting the Palestinian
refugees’ right of return and the rebuilding of their destroyed
villages led to his firing from the “progressive” Israeli newspaper
Haaretz. Following Israeli attacks on Palestinians in January 2001,
Shamir became dedicated to political writings in English.
For the intellectual Karl Marx, the Jewish question was an “unreal
subject.” Marx was baptized a Lutheran and married to a gentile.
Shamir has renounced Judaism and embraced Christianity.
He is a strong proponent of the “One Man, One Vote, One State”
solution for a united Israel-Palestine.
I interviewed the unflinching maverick writer Israel Shamir.
Kim Petersen: You wrote recently that the historian David Irving, who
the corporate media reports as being sentenced for holocaust denial,
was sentenced for denial of “Jewish superiority.” Could you elaborate
on this and what holocaust denial means for you?
Israel Shamir: I wrote about it, in “For Whom The Bell Tolls,” and
in the “Vampire Killers,” at length. No free man can agree with the
proposition that Jewish death (and life) is more important than that
of a goy. But the ban of Holocaust revisionism is the only legally
enforced prohibition in our society. The Armenians were envious of
this elevated status of Jews, and actually succeeded to protect
their tragedy of 1915 by a similar law in France. The result was
tragicomic. They brought an important Jewish historian (and warmonger
of first degree) Bernard Lewis to the court of Paris, and he was
found guilty of denying their tragedy, just like David Irving. But
David Irving has got three years in jail, and now his name is always
preceded with the title “discredited” (see an interview with him in
the Observer), while Bernard Lewis was fined one franc and he still
appears everywhere, and his name graces various petitions. He was
not discredited, but the Armenians were. Apparently, Jewish blood
is redder than Armenian, not to mention lesser species. I quoted
an article by a Jewish American historian denying the genocide of
the native Americans. He was not discredited, either. The scourge
of Irving, Debora Lipstadt, denied the fiery holocaust of Dresden,
and was not discredited, either. Face it, Kim: the very concept of
H is a concept of Jewish superiority.
This has an important religious meaning: Christianity is the denial
of Jewish superiority. Whoever believes or accepts Jewish superiority,
denies Christ for He made us equal. The French Jewish filmmaker Claude
Lanzman, the creator of “Shoah,” said: if you believe in holocaust, you
can’t believe in Christ. I am ready to take his challenge: I believe
in Christ. We can rephrase the words of Lanzman: belief in a special
historical meaning of death of Jews is a sign of apostasy. Indeed,
the creed of holocaust competes with the Church: we believe that
Christ suffered for us and came back to life.
The H believers believe that the Jewish people suffered and came
back by creating the Jewish state. In this competition, the Jews win:
as opposed to H, you can deny Crucifixion and Resurrection and your
career won’t suffer a bit.
Thus the question of H denial is the question of apostasy: will our
society stand on the rock planted by Christ, or will it worship the
Jewish state. This is an important discovery of eternal religiosity
of human spirit: the attempt to create a secular society did not work
out. After an illusionary short break, the gods came back.
KP: Is it appropriate to use such loaded terms as “goy”?
IS: Well, I am not aware this is a loaded term. I translated some
Hebrew books, from Samuel Yosef Agnon, the only Hebrew Nobel Prize
winner, to the Book of Lineage by Rabbi Zacuto, a 15th century
Judaeo-Iberian sage, my most recent translation into English. They
all used “goy” and so do Israeli newspapers. The word “goy” has
a meaning: this is a non-Jew as seen by Jews. If you think it is
not a complimentary term, you mean that in your view Jews look with
distaste at a goy. Maybe. But we should deal with problems, not with
words. Dealing with words is easier, but brings no relief. If we were
to use ‘gentile’, would it change the Jewish attitude to one? This
is also a sign of weakness. When (in 19th century) Jews felt weak,
they liked to be called Israelites, or Hebrews. Now they do not mind
being called “Jews.”
KP: You have described the US as a “greater Jewish state.” You laud
Jeffrey Blankfort as having taken “an important next step” in rejecting
the views of Noam Chomsky and others. Is the influence of the “Jewish
lobby” preponderant over US corporate imperialism?
IS: I wrote about it in “A Yiddishe Medina.” The US corporate
imperialism is not a bodiless spirit; it is the sum of desires and
actions by the US elites. And the US elites are Jewish, to great
extent, and they have accepted Jewish values and ideas, to even
greater extent. A few years ago, an American Jewish writer Philip
Weiss wrote in the New York Observer: “I don’t claim to know how
Jewish the membership of the establishment is. Twenty percent,
50 percent? I’m guessing 30.” Jews compose at least 30% of Harvard
students, reported The Forward, a Jewish American newspaper. The
Hillel Society gives such numbers: Total Undergraduate Population:
6658; Jewish Undergraduate Population: 2000 (approx.); Total Graduate
Population: 10351 Jewish Graduate Population: 2500 (approx.). Thus
the US elites are Jewish to a great extent, in the ordinary meaning
of the word. As for spirit, Karl Marx spoke of “Jewish spirit” of
the Yankees. A less known Marxist, Sombart, wrote about it at length.
Thus in my view it is a mistake to speak of “Jewish Lobby” — we may
refer to a takeover, a displacement of the old WASP elites. The Jews
constitute some three percent of the US population. The Brits took
over India with much less percentage; so did the ruling minority in
Syria. Normans ruled over Britain for centuries with less than that.
All Russian nobility in the Tsar’s days was 2-3% of the population,
while upper castes of Hindu societies constitute some 5% at most.
Now, the Jews are well integrated in the “US corporate imperialism”
on many levels, and they do not have to fight it, they use
it. The Jewish Lobby is an additional mechanism, consisting of
hard-core Jewish nationalists. The problem is that the rest, the
non-Jewish-Lobby part of the US establishment consists, as I have said,
of not-so-nationalistic Jews to great extent. They reach compromise,
and this compromise is the middle ground of mild-Jewish-nationalism.
KP: On the invasion of Iraq, you stated: “Too many coincidences for a
purely American war.” To what extent do you see a Zionist hand behind
the attack and occupation?
IS: Yes, I partly agree with the Chicago-Harvard duo, the conquest of
Iraq and present threat to Iran are caused by the Zionist affiliates
within the Administration. The old canard of Oil Interests was
debunked by reality: oil costs more, oil companies leave Iraq, none
of their executives supported the war. Probably your readers do not
even think of Iraqi WMD or the silly stuff of “bringing democracy” to
the Arabs. Thus the Zionist plot is the first and obvious explanation.
But the Iraqi war, as a part of War on Terror, has a second leg:
this is an even more scary totalitarianism, the drive to create a
caste-based oligarchy of the Iron Heel, in Jack London’s terms. Fear
is its important tool; dismantling of civil freedoms and of cohesive
natural society is the first goal. Without War on Terror, the US rulers
wouldn’t be able to read our emails, listen to our conversations, store
in their data banks every bit of information about our lives. This
totalitarianism was predicted by George Orwell, an avid reader of
the Protocols, and it was lauded by Leo Strauss, a guiding light of
Neo-Cons. Strauss endorsed a society with dictatorial powers of elites;
a follower of Hobbes, he distrusted the people. Though his views
were formed before the WWII, after the war he frequently referred
to the Holocaust as a phenomenon that is liable to come back unless
the society is firmly kept in check. I called the supporters of this
paradigm by the name “Mammonites,” mammon-worshippers. The Iraqi war,
and the War on Terror in general, is a joint product of Zionists and
Mammonites, while these two groups often coincide, as is the case
with the leading Neo-Cons.
That is why our struggle is with Zionists and Mammonites; this is not
only a laudable campaign of support of the peoples of the Middle East,
but first of all the decisive battle for preservation of democracy
and freedom in the US and Europe, for a chance of better life for
our children, for creation of a more egalitarian and more spiritual
society, against the Dark ages were are being led to.
KP: Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has taken a lot of flak from
the western media for citing the late Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini
about wiping Israel off the map. Apparently, judging by the western
media’s silence, it was okay to wipe Palestine off the map though. Is
the state of Israel a legitimate entity?
IS: No, it is not. We can’t consider legitimate a state that gives no
rights to its inhabitants and officially belongs to World Jewry. It is
in our interests to achieve full independence from the Jews, and to
shift the whole lot of rights and responsibilities to the population
of the country. The sovereignty should be ours, of the people of
Palestine/Israel, not of the Jewish People, the extra-territorial
worldwide body. I call upon my country-fellows to give up their
“Jewishness” and to become adoptive Palestinians, brothers and
sisters to the native folk. I hope eventually it will happen; we
shall integrate and forget the overseas connection.
Meanwhile we follow the colonial paradigm and exclude the natives in
the name of “Jewishness.” We should follow the example of Mexico,
where immigrants from Spain and Italy form one nation with the
descendents of Montezuma.
KP: What does the election of Hamas mean for you? Should Hamas
recognize the state of Israel?
IS: I wrote about the results. The Palestinians rejected the Fatah rule
because they made too many concessions to Israel, and received nothing
in return. Hamas should not recognise the state of Israel, at least
until the Israeli rulers recognise the Palestinian independence, remove
their armed forces and stop to interfere with the free traffic of
Palestinians within and without Palestine. This is reciprocity. I can
imagine an even better solution: Hamas may call for full integration
of all Palestine from the River to the Sea, and for general elections
on the basis of One Person-One Vote. But until it happens, Hamas should
be guided by reciprocity principle: mutual recognition, inter alia.
KP: You are an ex-Jew, a convert to Christianity — why is this? You
have written of “many ex-Jews.” Is this for the same reason as you?
Do you think a growing trend in Jewish apostasy would be effective
in bringing about justice for Palestinians?
IS: Christianity and Judaism are strongly connected religions. A
Christian, Karl Marx said: Christianity is sublime Judaism, while
Judaism is sordid Christianity. A real Christian knows that a
goy is not worse than a Jew; so the idea of Jewish exclusivity is
not acceptable to a Christian. In our country we have many Russian
Orthodox Christians (some of Jewish origin, and some not), and they
pray and celebrate holidays together with our Palestinian Orthodox
Christian brothers and sisters. I was baptised by the Palestinian
priest, Archbishop Theodosius Attalla Hanna, and it helped me to sort
out the question of identity. The important point is not to create a
separate Jewish “Christian” set-up, for such an arrangement defeats its
purpose. Thus I am worried that there are “Jewish Christian” churches
that are devoutly Zionist. In short, yes, baptism is a solution,
but only in connection with rejection of Jewishness. If it is done
as an addition to Jewishness, it is void, and brings no benefit.
Kim Petersen, Co-Editor of Dissident Voice, lives in the traditional
Mi’kmaq homeland colonially designated Nova Scotia, Canada. He can
be reached at: [email protected].
Israel Shamir writings can be read at his website. His essays are
collected in three books, The Flowers of Galilee, Our Lady of Sorrow,
and the Pardes.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
