Gilad Atzmon's Blog, page 69
November 26, 2013
Gilad Atzmon on Press TV: World tired of Israel war policy on Iran
Political activist Gilad Atzmon says there is a growing international fatigue of Israel’s war-mongering policy and its effort to discredit a nuclear deal with Iran.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said he plans to send his national security advisor to the United States to discuss the interim deal with Iran on its nuclear program.
[image error]“Netanyahu and his cabinet are not yet used to the idea that there is a growing international fatigue of Israeli and Jewish lobby belligerence and war mongering,” Atzmon told Press TV on Tuesday.
He said that Israel and its powerful lobby in the United States “fail to understand that the world is telling them ‘enough is enough’.”
“We don’t want to fight anymore Jewish wars… we are not going to bomb Iran for you,” he added.
Meet The New Israeli Pioneers
The following is a comment made in September by my favorite Palestinian poet Nahida Izzat*:
A reflection on the implication of politicisation of sexual behaviour/ orientation and its infringement on children’s rights, all this in relation to the Palestinian cause
Now, is the issue of promoting and celebrating homosexuality (again, I reiterate, a private act which should not be anyone’s business) related to the Palestinian struggle for Liberation?
Are we obliged to start teaching our young Palestinian boys and girls about homosexual and LGBT “persecution” and “abuse of human rights” in order to be “accepted” as “progressive” society worthy of support?
Are we obliged to start competing with”Israel” which prides itself of being gay heaven in order for our supporters to be satisfied?
Just like attempting to tie our Palestinian struggle for liberation with causes which only distracts us from focusing on our goals and deplete our energies, like fighting “antisemitism”, “holocaust denial”, or “conspiracy theories”, pretending that this is the way for Palestine liberation, we refuse the imposition and the premises that the issue of “homosexuality is central to our cause”.
We refuse to consider sexual orientation issues as primal or urgent issues to be dealt with immediately, or that it the most burning issue in our quest for justice and freedom, when we have not yet achieved the most basic and fundamental human right ever, the right of SURVIVAL,
We do not accept to see our Palestinian struggle for freedom hijacked and used by some campaign groups who try to piggy-back on the Palestine cause in order to promote their own agenda and campaigns for “sexual freedom”, which would only distract, complicate and skew the essense of Palestine issues.
Moreover, this issue should be left to the Palestinians and other societies to examine, discuss and deal with, in its own time and in accordance with its own ethics and what is best for those societies.
We refuse to be distracted and our aims obscured by side issues while we struggle for survival facing threats of genocidal magnitude.
* Nahida added to her article the following disclaimer:
This article is not a condonation or justification of any form of discrimination or persecution against people with various sexual orientations or disorders, it is a mere expression of an opinion and sharing of concerns associated with promoting explicit sexual education amongst children and pressurising other societies to change their codes of ethics, thus destroying the cradle of child-protection, the family unit being the foundation of these societies.
Concerts, Master-Classes and Talks
November
29th With The Blockheads St Paul's, Worthing
30th With The Blockheads Arts Centre, Aberystwith
December
3rd Amina Figarova & Gilad Atzmon @ The 606 Jazz Club
4th Amina Figarova & Gilad Atzmon – House Concert, North West London, for details please contact [image error]info@pinemail.co.uk
6th With The Blockheads Arts Centre, Norwich
7th Gilad Atzmon & The Orient House Ensemble @ Arena Theatre at University of Wolverhampton + Workshop during the day
8th With The Blockheads ABC, Glasgow with From The Jam
9th Master Class @ EJMA - Ecole de Jazz et de Musique Actuelle, Lausanne, Switzerland
Israeli-Ukrainian soldier admits she killed Palestinians on TV
https://www.oximity.com/article/Israeli-Ukrainian-soldier-admits-she-k-1
Elena Zakusilo, an Ukrainian young women, decided at her young age to leave Ukraine and go to serve in the Israeli military. On November 4th, she participated in Ukrainian TV game show, “Lie detector” The Ukrainian version of “The moment of truth”. Contestants (connected to a truth detector) answer a series of personal and embarrassing questions to receive cash prizes. During the show she reveals horrible information on her military service.
Zakusilo admits killing Palestinians including Palestinian children. She answers the question “did you kill people” with “yes”.. she explains “we had to fire, had to kill, because it was either they [get] us, or we – them.”
Host: Did you happen to shoot at children?
Elena: Yes.
Host: How many people did you kill?
Elena: I don’t know.
November 25, 2013
GOLIATH; Life and Loathing in Greater Israel
Book Review By Eugene Schulman[image error]y Eugene Schulman
As most of you know, I have been following events in the Israel/Palestine conflict for years. I have built up a library over those years of hundreds of books, both pro and con on the issues. This is the first one I have read that has turned my stomach. Not because it is untruthful or poorly written, rather, whether you believe the author or not, the tale he describes is one of unrelenting cruelty. Have a gander at the Amazon link below for a description of what I would say is the most important book on contemporary Israel I have read. Don't forget to read the customer reviews.
Of all the reviews I had read prior to reading the book: Chris Hedges at Truthdig; Larry Gross, also at Truthdig; Tablet, a magazine of Jewish writing, which laughably calls it a novel, the best one is Gilad Atzmon at Common Dreams who, after praising the book, asks the most important question of all - WHY is Israel the way it is? Of course, anyone who has read his "Wandering Who?" will know the answer. It is a Jewish identity crisis.
I would add my own conclusion: That Israel and the US are tied at the hip in their foreign policies, and because of US support, Israel can and does get away with anything it wishes, just as the US does. Recent "deal" with Iran over its nuclear issues notwithstanding.
Amina Figarova & Gilad Atzmon in London
[image error] A special opportunity to listen to legendary New York based pianist Amina Figarova, originally from Azerbaijan and London based virtuoso saxophonist Gilad Atzmon. These two masters will be playing together in the USA in 2014 but you can listen to their incredible duo next week in London at the 606 Jazz Club on 3rd December 8:00 PM and also in a house concert in Mill Hill, NW London (contact info@pinemail.co.uk) on 4th December.
On Figarova:
"...With this rewarding date, Amina Figarova makes her case as an important composer of her generation..." www.allmusic.com
"... Figarova is among the most important composers to come into jazz in the new millennium..."
Thomas Conrad, Jazztimes
"... She is a major artist..." London Evening Standard
On Atzmon:
“A formidable improvisational array...a jazz giant steadily drawing himself up to his full height.” The Guardian.
“The best musician living in the world today” Robert Wyatt, The Guardian
“One of the most charismatic and focused reedsmen on the planet.” Chris Parker LondonJazz
November 24, 2013
Alan Hart: Are we stupid?
The following is the text of the address I made to the Seek, Speak and Spread Truth Conference in London yesterday, 23 November. Its main thrust is about the need for citizens to become politically engaged to make democracy work (before it’s as dead as the two-state solution for Israel-Palestine) in order for our children and grandchildren to have the real prospect of a future worth having.
I want to start with a promise. I won’t be disturbed and you won’t be disturbed by my mobile ‘phone because I don’t have one. I have thrown mine away because I am trying to stay human.
That said I’ll give you my one-sentence overview of the state of affairs on our small, fragile, endangered planet. Modern life is a de-humanizing process which has reduced us, most of us, to units of consumption, digits in corporate computers, figures on accountants’ balance sheets.
What this suggests to me is that the prime task for each and every one of us is to claim back our humanity. I’ll be offering some thoughts on how we can do this, but first of all we have to address what I consider to be THE most important of all questions - the question of human nature.
What, really, is the quality of it?
There are, broadly speaking, two views.
One, the pessimistic view, which is more or less an article of faith for most politicians and mainstream media people and many corporate executives, bankers especially, is that we human beings are inherently and unchangeably short-sighted, selfish and greedy, preferring to live for today at the expense of tomorrow and are, on balance, more “bad” than “good”. In other words, we are really quite stupid. And that, our so-called leaders tell themselves, is why they can’t tell us the truth about real choices and options for the future.
If the pessimistic view is the correct one, it seems to me that nothing matters because the end, catastrophe for all, was inevitable from the beginning; in which case we would all be well advised, as individuals, as communities and as nations, to go on screwing each other for all we can get. Praising the lord and passing the ammunition.
Iranian Jews rally in support of nation's nuclear program
Haartetz reported last week that “hundreds of Iranians, including university students and members of the country's Jewish community, rallied Tuesday in support of the Islamic Republic's disputed nuclear program on the eve of the resumption of talks with world powers.” Unlike the so-called ‘progressive’ and ‘cosmopolitan’ Jews who, for some reason, occasionally support Zionist interventionist wars, Iranian Jews are actually patriotic and authentic.
“Iranian state TV showed students gathered at the gate of Fordo enrichment facility, carved into a mountain south of Tehran. They formed a human chain, chanted "Fordo is in our hearts" and denounced the West, which has put pressure on Iran to curb enrichment activity which can be a step toward weapons development.
In Tehran, meanwhile, several dozen people identifying themselves as Iranian Jews gathered outside a UN building. It was a rare public display by the community, which tends to keep a low profile despite being the largest in the region outside Israel and Turkey.”
Incredible!!!
November 22, 2013
Gilad Atzmon gets globetrotting at the Queen Elizabeth Hall – EFG London Jazz Festival 2013
http://www.jazzwisemagazine.com
Gilad Atzmon’s performances inspire a quirky and contradictory set of adjectives not usually applied to other jazz musicians: exuberant, belligerent, droll, generous, unapologetic, outrageous, exquisite, tragi-comic, edgy, folksy, caricatured, tumultuous… should I go on? It’s that edge-of-your-seat quality that I like so much; never quite knowing either in a solo, a setlist or his guest line-up, what’s going to happen next to deliberately disrupt the flow.
Tonight’s show was no exception, beginning with a whistle-stop tour of a few favourite cities: ‘Paris’, ‘Tel Aviv’, and ‘Moscow’. Yaron Stavi (bass), Frank Harrison (keys) and Eddie Hick (drums) who make up the other three quarters of the Orient House Ensemble, know how to conjure up a sense of place that’s vibrant and dynamic. But the OHE were just the opening act in terms of what Gilad had up his sleeve. Having warmed up his instruments (accordion, clarinet, soprano, alto), wound up his audience with some nicely non-PC jokes, and chatted up the very fine Sigamos String Quartet, arranged and led by Ros Stephen, ‘the hippies’ – Jennifer Bennett (violin and viola de gamba) and Yair Avidor (theorbo) – joined him on stage for the deconstructed and expansive ‘Scarborough (Fair)’ and ‘Leipzig’, a rendition of a portion of Bach’s St Matthew passion. The set ended impeccably with a tour through sleazy, carnivalesque ‘Berlin’.
