Tag Archives: David Duke

Mar 5 2012

The Guardian places Gilad Atzmon’s book back on its shelves

H/T Harry’s place

While we’re, of course, not privy to the Guardian’s decision-making process, within 24 hours of our post in November about their promotion of Gilad Atzmon’s book (The Wandering Who?) on their online bookshop, the Guardian removed the title from their site.

The Guardian bookshop page displayed this when you tried to open the link:

“sorry this product is not listed”

As we’ve noted repeatedly about Atzmon, he engages in explicit antisemitism which is indistinguishable from what is found on the extreme (white supremacist) right,

In brief, Atzmon repeatedly refers to Judaism as “supremacist“‘ faith, has questioned whether the Holocaust occurred, while simultaneously arguing that, if Hitler’s genocide did occur, it can partly be explained by Jews’ villainous behavior.  (On this latter note, he claimed that Hitler’s views about Jews may one day be proven right.)

Atzmon also explicitly charges that Jews are indeed trying to take over the world, and has endorsed of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, arguing about the document that “it is impossible to ignore its prophetic qualities and its capacity to describe” later Jewish behavior.

The CST characterized ‘The Wandering Who?’ as “quite probably the most antisemitic book published in this country in recent years.”

However, at some point since November, the book was again made available on their site,

Note the synopsis.

However, the Guardian now has a disclaimer which reads:

The Guardian Bookshop makes nearly 200,000 books available to our customers with 20% discount or better available on the majority of titles. Within this wide selection, we aim to highlight a tailored selection of handpicked books in each genre that reflect the Guardian and Observer’s well-respected literary coverage and reviews. In addition to our recommendations, our browsable selection of books also includes a feed of the top 5,000 best-selling titles through independent booksellers (not including Amazon) as supplied by Bertrams.Inclusion in this automated feed does not necessarily denote recommendation by GNM.

Though a search on the website they cited (Bertrams) lists “The Wandering Who?” with a “sales rank” of 185, it’s difficult to determine whether that ranking places Atzmon’s book among the top 5,000.

But, more importantly, the Guardian online bookshop is not run by a third-party or outside contractor. They maintain editorial control and can choose to include, or not to include, whatever they wish. Their decision, following our original post on the subject, to remove Atzmon’s book from their site is proof of this. If David Duke’s book, Jewish Supremacism, was within the top 5,000 would the Guardian similarly make it available? 

Further, even if the synopsis was written by the publisher, it is certainly within the Guardian’s authority to edit such book quotes as needed, and you don’t need to be a philo-Semite to understand how insidious it is to include a blurb championing the cause of exposing the injurious influence of “global” Jewish ideology.

While I wasn’t able to locate the editor responsible for such decisions, you may wish to Tweet the Guardian @GuardianBooks and ask how they can defend selling and promoting such explicitly antisemitic material. 

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Feb 5 2012

You know you’re an antisemitic Guardian reader when…you defend Gilad Atzmon

As comedian Jeff Foxworthy used to say during his comic musings on life in the American South, “You know you’re a redneck when….” 

Well, a Guardian reader using the moniker “genuineLeft” is an Israel hater (who has characterized Zionism as a “racist, colonialist, expansionist, violent ideology” which may one day be “genocidal”) who continues to demonstrate the strong overlap between anti-Zionism and antisemitism.

Beneath the line of Rodge Glass’s rather restrained CiF commentary on the recent CST report demonstrating an increase of antisemitic incidents in the Manchester area, genuineLeft opined as follows, (a comment which received 50 Recommends):

GenuineLeft’s annoyance is clearly directed at those who “ridiculously” condemn those Jews [like Atzmon] who engage in benign, sober and constructive criticism about the threat posed to humanity by world Jewry: a group, per Atzmon, who is literally trying to take over the world in a manner quite consistent with the sinister Semitic designs outlined in the unfairly derided Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and boldly confronted by historically misunderstood prophets like Adolf Hitler.

The comment hasn’t been deleted by CiF moderators which made me wonder whether a reader comment endorsing the views of a Neo-Nazi such as David Duke (who just so happens to be a fan of Atzmon’s brave stance against the international Jewish onslaught) would similarly remain on the thread.

No, I would never, ever, of course, suggest, under any circumstances that anyone engage in the universally discredited practice of “trolling” to test my curiosity – online apostasy which would clearly run afoul of ‘Comment is Free’s’ sacred community standards – but, merely, asking a question (ahem…screenshot…ahem) that I’d love to get a definitive answer to.

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Jan 26 2012

Gilad Atzmon takes aim at CiF Watch, accusing us of running “a Jewish supremacist site”!

As I’ve noted previously, merely characterizing Gilad Atzmon as antisemitic doesn’t do him justice.  Atzmon advances hateful, demonizing rhetoric about Jews which is on par with the most vile Judeophobic charges ever leveled, and which is often as crude and malevolent as what would be heard at a meeting of neo-Nazis or Islamist extremists.  

In brief, he repeatedly refers to Judaism as “supremacist“‘ faith, a term popularized by David Duke.  And, Duke, the former grand wizard of the KKK, has strongly praised Atzmon’s writings.

Atzmon also has questioned whether the Holocaust occurred, while simultaneously arguing that, if Hitler’s genocide did occur, it can partly be explained by Jews’ villainous behavior.  On this latter note, he claimed that Hitler’s views about Jews may one day be proven right. 

Atzmon also explicitly charges that Jews are indeed trying to take over the world, and has endorsed of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, arguing about the document that “it is impossible to ignore its prophetic qualities and its capacity to describe” later Jewish behavior.

The Guardian has a history with Atzmon which includes; a 2009 review of his music (Atzmon is an Israeli born Jazz artist now living in the UK), which barely touched on, as the Guardian’s John Lewis so carefully put it, Atzmon’s  ”provocatively anti-Jewish rhetoric”. Additional reviews of Atzmon’s music in the Guardian, in pieces published in 2011, 2006, 2004, 2003 and 2001 virtually ignored his politics altogether.

Then following a CiF essay by Andy Newman last September which included Atzmon in his (rather mild) criticism of leftist antisemitism, the Guardian published a letter by Atzmon in response, defending the ideas in his book, The Wandering Who? – a work which the CST has characterized one of the most antisemitic book published in the UK in years.

Shortly after that incident, CiF Watch discovered and subsequently posted about the fact that the Guardian’s online bookstore was selling Atzmon’s book, which included this chilling synopsis:

“An explosive unique crucial book tackling the issues of Jewish identity Politics and ideology and their global influence.“

Evidently embarrassed, and unable to defend their decision to carry and promote such hate, the book was removed form their site within 24 hours of our post.

The latest incident involving Atzmon involved an essay at CiF by Khaled Diab published last week which positively cited an Atzmon observation in the context of what Diab characterized as Israeli surprise over the alleged Saudi hacking of computers at El Al and the Tel Aviv Stock Exchange.

Here’s this passage:

Some commentators went even further. “The Jewish state is pretty devastated by the idea that a bunch of ‘indigenous Arabs’ are far more technologically advanced than its own chosen cyber pirates,” Israeli jazz musician Gilad Atzmon observed wryly on his blog.

After we objected to Guardian editors about both the positive reference to Atzmon, as well as his specific pejorative reference to Jews as “chosen” – which, per the Deborah Orr affair, they had acknowledged was antisemitic – the piece was amended and the passage removed, noting that the language was inconsistent with their standards.

Well, sometime after the piece was amended, Atzmon learned of the incident and wrote about it in his blog, beginning:

Two days ago, I discovered that CIF Watch, a Jewish supremacist site interested solely in cleansing British press of any criticism of Israel and Jewish power, was boasting that the Guardian surrendered to their pressure and removed an Atzmon passage [which included the "chosen" comment]. [emphasis added]

Interesting. While we now only typically check our blog’s rankings in Technorati’s world politics category (where we’ve been consistently ranked within the top 25), it looks like we’d now be wise to similarly check our listings in the evidently new category of “Jewish supremacist blogs” – a blog niche I must admit that I never previously considered!

Atzmon continues:

Shocking but typically, the Guardian surrendered immediately to the Zionist’s demands.

Yes, Guardian editors consistently, and cravenly, succumbing to Zionist demands!  What only appears to the untrained eye as a media group viscerally hostile to the Jewish state is, in fact, yet another institution bullied by Jews into Zionist subservience.

Turning to his book, Atzmon writes:

The book attempts to grasp the bizarre continuum between Israeli barbarism…the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign surrender to rabid Zionist bodies and the ‘Guardian’s regulation’. [emphasis added]

In conclusion, Atzmon writes:

I’m not one bit surprised by the surge of Jewish power. I wrote a book about it. But, being intimately familiar with Jewish history, I know exactly where it will lead. Jewish political arrogance has always proved to be, above all, devastatingly dangerous for Jews.

For the sake of peace, both Jews and gentiles must confront the prominence of Jewish identity politics. We should never be afraid to question ideologies and lobbies that impose a threat to peace, our value systems, freedom of thought, humanity and humanism. [emphasis added]

In that comically gratuitous passage lay the rhetorical thread which runs through much of the hardcore antisemitic bravado through the ages – their belief that they are not just criticizing Jews and Judaism, but speaking truth to power, and boldly defending civilization from a dangerous, yet furtive, Jewish onslaught.   

CiF Watch may appear to be merely a media watchdog blog, but Atzmon’s piercing intellect sees us for who we really are: a threat to freedom of thought, world peace and humanity itself.

On a shoestring budget, and a group of dedicated volunteers, we have managed to become larger than ourselves:

Grassroots pro-Israel activism no more.

The Protocols of the Elders of CiF Watch Zionists have arrived!

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Oct 16 2011

At the Guardian’s online bookshop, antisemitism is shipped within 24 hours!

Earlier in the month, after a mild rebuke of Gilad Atzmon in a CiF essay for engaging in antisemitism which hurt the Palestinian cause, the Guardian provided Atzmon a platform to respond.

As we noted at the time, it is no exaggeration to state that Atzmon’s antisemitism is no less virulent or odious than what can be found on the website of David Duke.

Briefly, Atzmon believes that Jews control the world, has given credibility to Holocaust denial, and indicated that modern-day antisemitism should be seen as a justifiable reaction to Jewish villainy. 

A review of Atzmon’s latest book, “The wandering who?” – which rehashes many of the same antisemitic narratives advanced in his blog – by the CST’s Mark Gardner, can be read here.  

But, who needs to rely on reviews of “The wandering who?” written by Jews who, Atzmon would no doubt argue, are immutably crippled by obtuse ethnic loyalties when you can read the book yourself and reach your own conclusions.  

In fact, you don’t even have to go to Atzmon’s website to purchase his book, as the Guardian decided that Atzmon’s musings on Jewish villainy is something their discerning readers need to know:

Per the Guardian’s online bookshop:

Note the editor’s synopsis of Atzmon’s book:

“An explosive unique crucial book tackling the issues of Jewish identity Politics and ideology and their global influence.“

To be clear, here’s how the Guardian describes the aim of their online bookshop:

“The aim of this site is to present you with a tailored selection of handpicked books that reflect the Guardian and Observer’s well-respected literary coverage and reviews.

So among the “tailored selection of handpicked books which reflect the Guardian and Observers well-respected literary coverage and reviews” is an expose on world Jewry’s injurious “global influence”.

And, how helpful of “the world’s leading liberal voice”: the extremist Judeophobia of Gilad Atzmon is ready to ship in just one business day – and 20% off the cover price!

The Guardian: Your one-stop, hassle-free, 24/7 purveyor of antisemitism. 

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Sep 7 2011

When CiF commentary about the Holocaust elicits contempt for Jews by Guardian readers

H/T David T.

Tom Gross’s CiF commentary on September 2, “Goodbye, Golden Rose“ was a truly sad tale of how Ukrainian authorities are callously erasing the last remaining traces of the 420,000 Polish an Ukrainian Jews murdered by the Nazis  in Lviv (also called Lvov, Lwow, and Lemberg) and its environs.  The author described witnessing bulldozers demolishing parts of the remnants of what was once one of Europe’s most beautiful synagogue complexes, the 16th-century Golden Rose in Lviv.

Most of the rest of the synagogue was burned down, with Jews inside, by the Nazis in 1941 – one of 42 synagogues destroyed by the Nazis in Lviv – and is to be replaced with a hotel.

The Golden Rose represents one of the few remaining vestiges of Jewish existence in Lviv, the majority of whose residents, in 1940, were Jewish.

Two years ago, another site of mass murder in Lviv, the Citadel – where tens of thousands of Jews and others were tortured to death – was converted into a five-star hotel.

There is no monument to the murdered Jews in Lviv’s old town.

The essay, as with any CiF commentary pertaining to Jews, Israel or the Holocaust, elicited quite a high volume of reader comments beneath the line – including this:

What the commenter is referring to is The Soviet caused Ukrainian famine (1932–1933), or Holodomor (literally in Ukrainian, “death by hunger”), which was one of the largest national catastrophes in the modern history of the Ukraine, and is widely recognized as a “crime against humanity” or an outright “genocide” by many.  

The number of deaths in Ukraine’s Holodomer – which was caused by the forced Soviet collectivization, along with the murderous purges of the Ukrainian intelligentsia, religious leaders and politicians under Stalin – are often cited as over 7 million – which includes an estimated 80,000 or so Jews.

The notion, advanced by the Guardian reader, that Jews played a role in Stalin’s ethnic cleansing is simply perverse, and literally beyond comprehension. 

You can find such insidious commentary at the site of White Supremacists such as David Duke and conspiracy theory sites like Rense.com.

Moreover, there’s something disturbing about this perverse moral tick displayed by some Guardian readers – those, as we’ve documented, who can’t simply express unqualified sympathy for Jewish victims of the Holocaust without either evoking alleged Israeli villainy against Palestinians or suggesting Jewish complicity in Soviet crimes – what David Duke refers to as the crimes of “Jewish Bolsheviks”.

The comment above garnered 16 recommends and has not been deleted. 

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Aug 7 2011

Guardian correspondent inspired by Arab resolve to overcome Zionism & Jewish Supremacism

In Joel Kovel’s book, Overcoming Zionism, Zionists are characterized as an evil force in the world, those who he terms “the splinters under the skin of humanity”, and the pro-Israel groups as “the tentacular Zionist lobby.”

Though our two responses on Friday (our cross-post from Anne’s Opinions and a guest post by Sarka)  quite effectively took apart David Hearst’s CiF piece on Friday, “Could Arab staying power overcome Zionism”, (and you should also read Just Journalism’s response here) I wanted to add a few thoughts on just how malicious the piece really is.

The headline alone is extraordinary:

This isn’t an eye-catching teaser. The headline adequately captures Hearst’s sympathetic characterization of the struggle by not just Palestinians, but Israel’s Arab citizens, against not just perceived injustices, but against the existence of the Jewish state in any form.

Hearst seems quite impressed with a term his bucolic Arabs have been tossing around of late – Sumud, which, we’re informed, means steadfastness (& staying power), against Zionism.

That is, Hearst’s Arabs (quite reasonably it seems to him) see Jewish self-determination, (unlike every other group’s unreserved national rights) as not a national enterprise which needs to be improved upon but as a movement to be defeated, overcome, vanquished.

Hearst’s subsequent litany of Israeli injustices doesn’t concern itself with distinguishing between Arab citizens and Palestinian non-citizens or between squatters legally evicted from land rightfully owned by others.

They are all equally Zionism’s victims, those involved in a “civil rights movement” no longer content with the evidently quaint idea of an independent Palestinian state living peacefully with Israel, but, for a complete end of Zionism – what Sam Bahour described, in an Aug. 4th CiF piece,  that “settler, colonial, apartheid, racialist, exclusivist ideology”.

Hearst quotes Ilan Pappe, the notorious and highly discredited Israeli “historian” – among those who never retracted false allegations of a massacre by Israeli troops in Jenin in 2o02 – as a reliable source in confirming Israel’s inherently “expulsionist” nature, and, further, in denying Israel’s regionally unique, and simply undeniable, participatory democracy (which protects the civil rights of its religious minorities), states that, “Non-Jews, be they Christian or Muslim, are excluded from any serious decision-making process in their lives.” 

However, Hearst saves his the most appalling, and chilling, passage for last.

“But the terrain of their changing identity and allegiance is not so well mapped. Israel demands expressions of loyalty from them [Arab citizens of Israel]. Loyality to what, they ask. A democracy or a supremacist state?

As Adam Holland pointed out recently:

“The phrase “Jewish supremacism” was coined by David Duke to counter his being labeled a white supremacist.  Duke came up with the term in writing (with editorial assistance from David Irving) a book called “My Awakening”, which described Duke’s “Aryan vision for America”.  (Read here.)

Joel Kovel joins a chorus of anti-Semites and radical Islamists whose voice grows louder and louder in their unshakable belief that “the world would be a far better place without Zionism”,

And, increasingly prevalent are ‘respectable” commentators like Hearst who, at the very least, seem to view such patently malevolent aims as somehow consistent with the values of peace and justice.

Hearst’s essay at Comment is Free is a disturbing example of the Guardian’s increasing identification with the political aspirations of those not content anymore with the mere delegitimization of Israel – and represents something much darker than a mere obsession with imperfections of the region’s lone democratic holdout.

By employing terms normally reserved for the most hideous movements of the 20th century, those properly assigned to the dustbin of history, and by sanctioning voices opposed to peaceful reconciliation, the Guardian’s commentary on Israel represents nothing short of incitement – not liberal, progressive, or enlightened but, rather, malicious, hateful, intolerant and genuinely dangerous. 

When, it seems quite fitting to ask, especially in light of a recent row involving the Jerusalem Post, will the Guardian apologize to Israel?

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