Mazin Qumsiyeh

Gilad Atzmon, The Wandering Who? A Study of Jewish Identity Politics (Ropley, Hampshire, UK: Zero Books, 2011). Pp.177. Paperback. ISBN-13: 9781846948756. Review by Mazin Qumsiyeh. Copy Right: Holy Land Studies, May 2012, Vol. 11, No. 1 : pp. 99-101

About nine years ago, I entertained the notion of writing a book on “group identities” so that I can understand these concepts that cause a lot of the ills of society. Both WWI and WWII emanated from interpretations of nationalism (a group identity) and the conflict in Palestine mostly emanates from another group identity called Zionism. The horrors of the Crusaders came from the group identity of Christendom. There is an issue now with the notions of (Political) “Islamism" ala Osama Bin Laden. I am still exploring and reading on this issue from different authors and thus was intrigued to read the book by Gilad Atzmon that addresses this concept within Jewish communities.

Atzmon concluded from personal experience that he does not like Jewish group identity politics and any other form of what he calls “marginal group identity”. Atzmon starts by explaining his own upbringing as a third generation Israeli whose grandfather was a member of the underground terror organization the Irgun Gang and how via Jazz (and a questioning mind) he “left Chosen-ness behind to become an ordinary human being”.

Atzmon is accused by many to be a “self-hating Jew” and an “anti-Semite”. To the former label he admits but he strongly objects to the second label. His book represents in many ways a clarification of why he believes the way he does. He says (p. 15) that he distinguishes Jews (the people), Judaism (the religion), and Jewish-ness (the ideology). He has no problem with the first two but strongly argues against that third. He puts quotes that show that those who believe in this ideology put Jewish-ness above all other attributes. Thus he understands Chaim Weizmann’s statement that “there are no English, French, German, or American Jews, but only Jews living in England, France, Germany or America.” This third category that Weizmann belongs to even when overlapping with the first or second category, tends to according to Atzmon, overwhelm all other and represent a strong marginal politics.

More »

Stephen Lendman

"Imperialism" by Jolan Gross Bettelheim, c.1940.

Replicating post-WW II occupations is planned. Sixty-seven years after war's end, US troops still occupy Germany, Japan and Korea. They're part of America's growing empire of bases.

orces (SOFA) agreements establish the framework under which US forces operate abroad. The Department of Defense Technical Information Center calls them agreements "that defines the legal position of a 'visiting' military force deployed in the territory of a friendly state."

[They delineate] "the status of visiting military forces (and) may be bilateral or multilateral. Provisions pertaining to the status of visiting forces may be set forth in a separate agreement, or they may form a part of a more comprehensive agreement."

"These provisions describe how the authorities of a visiting force may control members of that force and the amenability of the force or its member to the local law or to the authority of local officials."

"To the extent that agreements delineate matters affecting the relations between a military force and civilian authorities and population, they may be considered as civil affairs agreements."

Occupied countries get little choice. Pentagon officials draft provisions. They're largely one way.

More »

William Blum

"Israel is becoming ever more irrational due to its fear of a
second Holocaust, a Holocaust that will never materialise"

It's a textbook case of how the American media is at its worst when it comes to US foreign policy and particularly when an Officially Designated Enemy (ODE) is involved. I've discussed this case several times in this report in recent years. The ODE is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. The accusation has been that he had threatened violence against Israel, based on his 2005 remark calling for "wiping Israel off the map". Who can count the number of times this has been repeated in every kind of media, in every country of the world, without questioning the accuracy of what was reported? A Lexis-Nexis search of "All News (English)" for Iran and Israel and "off the map" for the past seven years produced the message: "This search has been interrupted because it will return more than 3000 results."

As I've pointed out, Ahmadinejad's "threat of violence" was a serious misinterpretation, one piece of evidence being that the following year he declared: "The Zionist regime will be wiped out soon, the same way the Soviet Union was, and humanity will achieve freedom." [1] Obviously, he was not calling for any kind of violent attack upon Israel, for the dissolution of the Soviet Union took place remarkably peacefully. But the myth of course continued.

More »

Medea Benjamin

Fact check: There have been some 3,000 Pakistanis killed in drone attacks, of whom only 170 have been identified as known “militants”. (Editor)

Counterterrorism adviser John Brennan spoke at the Woodrow Wilson International Center in Washington DC on April 30 to mark the one-year anniversary of the [alleged] killing of Osama bin Laden. It was the first time a high level member of the Obama Administration spoke at length about the U.S. drone strikes that the CIA and the Joint Special Operations Command have been carrying out in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia.

“President Obama has instructed us to be more open with the American people about these efforts,” Brennan explained.

I had just co-organized a Drone Summit over the weekend, where Pakistani lawyer Shahzad Akbar told us heart-wrenching stories about the hundreds of innocent victims of our drone attacks. We saw horrific photos of people whose bodies were blown apart by Hellfire missiles, with only a hand or a slab of flesh remaining. We saw poor children on the receiving end of our attacks—maimed for life, with no legs, no eyes, no future. And for all these innocents, there was no apology, no compensation, not even an acknowledgement of their losses. Nothing.

The U.S. government refuses to disclose who has been killed, for what reason, and with what collateral consequences. It deems the entire world a war zone, where it can operate at will, beyond the confines of international law.

More »