Gilad Atzmon's Blog, page 131
July 22, 2012
Farewell, Alex, My Friend by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Introduction by Gilad Atzmon: I have learned today that the widely admired Alexander Cockburn, co-editor of the invaluable Counterpunch Magazine, passed away last week. Alex was, no doubt, amongst the leading voices of dissent and Counterpunch, which he founded with Jeffrey St. Clair, has been the prominent English alternative media outlet for more than a decade.
Alex was a great supporter of Palestine, justice and free speech. He was quick to offer support to younger writers, myself included. Alex will missed!
I will use this opportunity to express my deepest condolences to Alex’s family and Counterpunch.
Farewell, Alex, My Friend
by JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Alexander Cockburn, 1941-2012
Our friend and comrade Alexander Cockburn died last night in Germany, after a fierce two-year long battle against cancer. His daughter Daisy was at his bedside.
Alex kept his illness a tightly guarded secret. Only a handful of us knew how terribly sick he truly was. He didn’t want the disease to define him. He didn’t want his friends and readers to shower him with sympathy. He didn’t want to blog his own death as Christopher Hitchens had done. Alex wanted to keep living his life right to the end. He wanted to live on his terms. And he wanted to continue writing through it all, just as his brilliant father, the novelist and journalist Claud Cockburn had done. And so he did. His body was deteriorating, but his prose remained as sharp, lucid and deadly as ever.
In one of Alex’s last emails to me, he patted himself on the back (and deservedly so) for having only missed one column through his incredibly debilitating and painful last few months. Amid the chemo and blood transfusions and painkillers, Alex turned out not only columns for CounterPunch and The Nation and First Post, but he also wrote a small book called Guillotine and finished his memoirs, A Colossal Wreck, both of which CounterPunch plans to publish over the course of the next year.
Alex lived a huge life and he lived it his way. He hated compromise in politics and he didn’t tolerate it in his own life. Alex was my pal, my mentor, my comrade. We joked, gossiped, argued and worked together nearly every day for the last twenty years. He leaves a huge void in our lives. But he taught at least two generations how to think, how to look at the world, how to live a life of joyful and creative resistance. So, the struggle continues and we’re going to remain engaged. He wouldn’t have it any other way.
In the coming days and weeks, CounterPunch will publish many tributes to Alex from his friends and colleagues. But for this day, let us remember him through a few images taken by our friend Tao Ruspoli.
Alex and Jasper. Photo: Tao Ruspoli
July 21, 2012
A War Israel is Just Begging for an Excuse to Start
By Gilad Atzmon
Just hours after the attack on Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and his Defence Minister Ehud Barak were quick to announce that Iran and the Hezbollah were behind the attack. In fact, it didn’t take the Israeli PM more than two hours to blame another country for committing an act of war on Israeli citizens in a third country’s territory. Of course, Netanyahu didn’t provide any evidence to support his thesis. In fact, even today, three days after the attack, no clear leads suggesting any Iranian or Hezbollah's connection are available.
What was it then that made Netanyahu so determined? Is it because he himself was privy to the knowledge that Israeli agents have been murdering Iranian scientists for years? Did Netanyahu react the way he did because he thought to himself that considering Mossad’s assassinations in Tehran, Israel may well have brought on itself an Iranian retaliation? Was Bibi projecting?
I obviously do not have access to Netanyahu or Barak’s minds, but Israel has certainly by now made it clear that its desperation to attack Iran's nuclear facilities, even if such an attack would escalate into a global nuclear conflict. In order to grasp such morbidity we have to bear in mind that collective self-annihilation is inherent to Israeli culture. As it happens, the story of Masada and Samson, both heroic suicidal narratives, are cherished in Israel. Yet, as much as Netanyahu and Barak are keen to launch a world war, it is far from being clear whether the Israeli masses are quite as keen to sacrifice themselves on the Jewish national altar.
I guess that both Barak and Netanyahu’s rush to blame Iran must be seen as an indication of their clear eagerness to attack the country. By now, the two Israeli leaders have managed to rid themselves of any significant voices against such an attack. The former head of Mossad Meir Dagan and IDF Chief of Staff Gabi Askenazi, both of whom opposed military action against Iran, are now excluded from any decision-making process. Veteran Major-General Shaul Mofaz, the leader of the Kadima party, who also opposed an attack on Iran, left Netanyahu’s coalition last week. It seems as if no one within the Israeli cabinet is there to stop Barak and Netanyahu’s genocidal enthusiasms.
July 20, 2012
Gilad and All That Jazz - Great Film Review by Selwyn Harris/Jazzwise
http://www.jazzwisemagazine.com/
[image error]SELWYN HARRIS explains how Iranian filmmaker Golriz Kolahi’s new bio-pic Gilad and All That Jazz reveals the humour, passion and politics of Gilad Atmon, a musician and writer on a mission to tell it like it is, whatever the cost
Gilad and All That Jazz Trailer from David Alamouti on Vimeo.
There is a good deal of live music footage throughout revealing the different sides to Atzmon’s music: appearing with the Blockhead Ian Dury on Jools Holland’s Later, with Robbie Williams at a later tribute to Dury right through to his own projects: The Orient House Ensemble with Nigel Kennedy at Chelsea’s 606 club, and on a concert stage with his fairly recent Parker and
Larger than life characters are the lifeblood of the jazz documentary. One such release that was featured here just recently Sounds and Silence sheds some light on the intensely private, arcane world of the German ECM label head Manfred Eicher. Mystery though isn’t a word you’d associate with Gilad Atzmon, the subject of a new documentary by the Iranian filmmaker Golriz Kolahi. The expat London-based Israeli reedsman is a working jazz musician with a story to tell. Selected for screening at this year’s London International Documentary Festival, Gilad and All That Jazz emerged from an idea Kolahi had for a series of documentaries about artists who use their art as a political platform. Atzmon is one of a kind. In jazz terms, his allegiances spread across the mainstream of bop, R&B and Coltrane spiritualism. But they are often given a subversive, sometimes humorous cabaret-ish twist when infused primarily with the roots music of the Middle East, but also north Africa, eastern Europe and the Jewish diaspora. In his own words he “likes to take Jewish music and Palestinian-ise it.” Atzmon’s political activity isn’t just connected to his music making. He’s also proved an increasingly outspoken and controversial essayist, blogger and author, but humour is never far away.
How leftist "anti-zionists" are allied with Israel against Syria
By Mimi Al Laham (aka "Syrian Girl") and Lizzie Phelan
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The Myth
There has been a ridiculous notion amongst numerous left groups and those opposed to the Syrian government, that the Israeli regime does not want to see Assad fall. As self-professed “anti-zionists”, many in these groups are content to delude themselves into believing that both their enemies are on the same side. In the case of several socialist groups, they believe that this forcing of the Syrian crisis into their blanket “anti-authoritarian” narrative (regardless of the state in which they are applying that narrative to) enables them to maintain a façade of anti-imperialism.
London based socialist newspaper The Socialist Review writes: “Israel, although hostile to Syria, could depend on the Baathist regime to keep the frontier quiet. Thus criticism of Bashar is more muted in Tel Aviv.”
And Simon Assaf of the SocialistWorker writes:
The notion that ordinary Syrians struggling to change their country are the pawns of a ‘Western plot’ is absurd…In fact the Arab League is attempting to throw the regime a lifeline.
This view is also pervasive amongst the Islamic opposition to the Syrian government. Rafiq A. Tschannen of the The Muslims Times writes:
Burner against Burner
By Gilad Atzmon
Earlier this week we learned that Israeli Knesset Member Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) tore the New Testament to pieces and then threw it in the trash.
MK Ben –Ari was quoted as saying “This abhorrent book (The New Testament) promoted the murders of millions of Jews during the Inquisition and the autos da fé… this is an ugly missionary provocation by the Church, there’s no doubt that the book and its senders belong in the trash of history.”
Unfortunately, such a disgraceful attitude towards a text is no more or less than one would expect from a Zionist Jew, after all, herem, excommunication, boycott and book burning are all firmly embedded in both Jewish culture and Jewish politics. Still, I was a little surprised to read Ali Abunimah’s critical report on the event, because, only three months ago Abunmiah himself joined forces with Abe Foxman, Alan Dershowitz and the entire AZZ community in a desperate book burning campaign. That time it was my book The Wandering Who? that was the ‘abhorrent book’ desperately in need of binning.
United in their loathing of One man and his Book
July 19, 2012
Russian Spring Cancelled – Nyet to NGOs
introduction by Gilad Atzmon: Time is ripe to look into NGOs (non-governmental organizations), what they are and who stand behind them. In the following Deliberation piece, Jonathon Blackeley explores recent shift in Russian attitude towards NGOs. I may as well confess that in the last few weeks I have been looking into Palestinian NGOs and their funders. My findings are pretty concerning...
Russian Spring Cancelled – Nyet to NGOs
http://www.deliberation.info/russian-spring-cancelled-nyet-to-ngos/
by Jonathon Blakeley
In a wonderfully chess-like move, the Russian Parliament skillfully moved to block attempts to de-stablize Russia by using NGOs to encourage dissent. AlJaZeera reported today that a new law had been passed with only one vote against and one abstention. The law would limit the operation of NGOs in Russia. Specifically foreign-funded NGOs would have to declare that they are foreign agents on all their publicity materials.
But what are NGOs exactly?
No one describes the NGOs better than Phyllis Schlafly who has watched them for decades: “The NGOs are energetic lobbyists for dramatic changes in the mission and structure of the UN to achieve global governance. Most NGOs are also members of the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN), which originated many of the global environmental polices set forth in the Convention on Biological Diversity, the Convention on Climate Change, and Agenda 21. The most prominent NGOs are the radical environmental groups such as the Sierra Club and the feminist and population-control groups such as Planned Parenthood.”
This Russian ruling against NGOs also links in a rather oblique way to another recent Court ruling in Russia which controversially banned Gay (LGBT) Parades for the next 100 years. The two events are linked because it is through this kind of cultural marxism of the NGOs that countries are being taken over all around the world. It is plain to see and the Russians are no fools. The World Order has been using a variety of techniques to subvert and take over countries round the globe, economic hit-men, Cyberwar & fake-liberation is very popular these days. But it turns out that Russian law change was only following in the foot-steps of those other great revolutionaries… The Iranians.
A film by Leila Sansour - They came in the morning
"They came in the morning" was born from some of the footage shot over 5 critical years in the life of Bethlehem during the making of upcoming feature film "Operation Bethlehem".
