The Sycophantic Palestinian Solidarity Movement
In the Palestinian Solidarity Movement we really love celebrities – those famous, rather special people who write great books, play musical instruments (drums included) or even just think great thoughts. We like those people to stand up for Palestine and denounce ‘Zionism’, ‘Israeli Colonialism’ and ‘Apartheid.’ We love them - as long as they don’t say what they really think.
Here’s the problem. Celebrities are often famous and successful because they’re clever and independent. Unlike our progressive, dysfunctional activists, who in most cases lives on income support and repeat our ‘party line’, the celebrity is a confident, career-oriented, self-sufficient subject and, because of their capacity to make autonomous decisions, he or she is assertive and thriving . In short, the activist and the celebrity are made of very different stuff – so a collision is inevitable.
Time after time it happens to us in the Palestinian Solidarity Movement. We manage to pull in a great human being, we tell them what to say and they comply. For a while, they call to boycott Israel and, like parrots, they repeat our slogans. But then, against all odds, these damn, self-centred stars start to speak their minds.
Roger Waters is obviously such a celebrity. For the last two years we were so proud of our Pink Floyd comrade rallying for Palestine. For a while, he repeated our slogans, denouncing colonialism and Israeli Apartheid. But then, the inevitable happened. For no obvious reason he told the truth. In an interview on Counterpunch he equated Israel with Nazi Germany and, speaking about Jewish power, he even mentioned the ‘J word’.
Within hours, all hell broke loose. Every Jewish media outlet, including The Guardian unleashed its venom in order to bring Roger to his knees. Rabbis, Holocaust memory merchants and even artists were recruited to join the choir. But guess what? Not one single Palestinian activist stood up for Waters. Neither Electronic Intifada nor Jewish progressive Mondoweiss supported the legendary bassist. Their silence was deafening. The progressive, Cohen Blumenthal also didn’t show any support for the truth teller. Is this a coincidence?
“The voice, for instance, of the right wing rabbinate, which is so bizarre and hard to hear that you can hardly believe that it’s real,” Waters said.
“They believe some very weird stuff you know, they believe that everybody that is not a Jew is only on earth to serve them and they believe that the Indigenous people of the region that they kicked off the land in 1948 and have continued to kick off the land ever since are sub-human.”
[Asked why other musicians did not take a public stand like he did, Waters replied that]
“Well, where I live, in the USA, I think, A: they are frightened and B: I think the propaganda machine that starts in Israeli schools and that continues through all the Netanyahu’s bluster is poured all over the United States, not just Fox but also CNN and in fact in all the mainstream media.
“It’s like a huge bucket of crap that they are pouring into the mouth of a gullible public in my view, when they say ‘we are afraid of Iran, it is going to get nuclear weapons…’. It’s a diversionary tactic.
“The lie that they have told for the last 20 years is ‘Oh, we want to make peace’, you know and they talk about Clinton and Arafat and Barak being in Camp David and that they came very close to agreeing, and the story that they sold was ‘Oh Arafat f**ked it all up’.
“Well, no, he did not. This is not the story. The fact of the matter is no Israeli government has been serious about creating a Palestinian state since 1948. They’ve always had the Ben Gurion agenda of kicking all the Arabs out of the country and becoming greater Israel.
“They tell a lie as part of their propaganda machinery whilst doing the other thing but they have been doing it so obviously in the last 10 years.
“For instance, even after when Obama went to Cairo and made that speech about Arabs and the Israelis, everybody was like ‘Oh, this is a step in a new direction at least’. But as soon as he visited Israel, they said. ‘Oh by the way, we are building another 1200 settlements’.
“Exactly the same when Kerry went last year saying, ‘Oh I am going to try to get the sides together and talk peace’. Netanhayu said “F**k you. We are going to build another 1500 settlements and we a going to build them in E1, this is our plan.’
“This is so transparent that you’d have to have an IQ above room temperature not to understand what is going on. It is just dopey.
“You know I read some piece the other day where it said ‘apparently only the Secretary State of the United States, believes that these current peace talks are real, no one else in the world does’.
“It is a very complicated situation which is why you and I and all the other people in the world who care about their brothers and sisters and not just about the people of our own faith, our own colour, our own race or our own whatever, have to stand in solidarity shoulder to shoulder.
“This has been a very hard sell particularly where I live in the United States of America. The Jewish lobby is extraordinary powerful here and particularly in the industry that I work in, the music industry and in rock’n roll as they say.
“I promise you, naming no names, I’ve spoken to people who are terrified that if they stand shoulder to shoulder with me they are going to get f**ked.
“They have said to me ‘aren’t you worried for your life?’ and I go ‘No, I’m not’.”
Our sycophantic Solidarity Movement dropped Roger Waters like a stone as we’ve done so many times before because, in our little progressive ghetto, we love celebrities - but not when speak their minds or tell the truth.
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Gilad Atzmon was born in Israel in 1963 and had his musical training at the Rubin Academy of Music, Jerusalem (Composition and Jazz). As a multi-instrumentalist he plays Soprano, Alto, Tenor and Baritone Saxes, Clarinet and Flutes. His album Exile was the BBC jazz album of the year in 2003. He has been described by John Lewis on the Guardian as the “hardest-gigging man in British jazz". His albums, of which he has recorded nine to date, often explore political themes and the music of the Middle East. Until 1994 he was a producer-arranger for various Israeli Dance & Rock Projects, performing in Europe and the USA playing ethnic music as well as R&R and Jazz. Coming to the UK in 1994, Atzmon recovered an interest in playing the music of the Middle East, North Africa and Eastern Europe that had been in the back of his mind for years. In 2000 he founded the Orient House Ensemble in London and started re-defining his own roots in the light of his emerging political awareness. Since then the Orient House Ensemble has toured all over the world. The Ensemble includes Eddie Hick on Drums, Yaron Stavi on Bass and Frank Harrison on piano & electronics. Also, being a prolific writer, Atzmon's essays are widely published. His novels 'Guide to the perplexed' and 'My One And Only Love' have been translated into 24 languages. The Wandering Who? can be ordered here. Gilad Atzmon's Blog is here.
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Source: Gilad's Blog
URL: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2013/12/17/the-sycophantic-palestinian-solidarity-movement
