By Gilad Atzmon
Alan Dershowitz on Judge Goldstone: “But now I see him as a traitor… It’s as if they would have taken a Jew to edit the Protocols of the Elders of Zion. He uses his Jewish last name to kosher his slander of the Jewish People.”
For those who still cannot make their minds up about Jewish nationalism and the Zionist violent abuse of Western academic culture (tolerance, academic freedom, pluralism etc) Rabbi Shmully Hecht of Yale’s University Jewish society, gives an exemplary opportunity to see it all. Rabbi Hecht confronted Judge Goldstone last week while Goldstone was delivering an address at Yale University. Rabbi Hecht and his supporters held up a sign at the back of the conference room equating the Goldstone report with the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Dreyfus affair.
(See video: Rabbi confronts Richard Goldstone at Yale University)
For a while, the Dreyfus affair and the Protocols were pretty effective Zionist propaganda tools, they were used mainly to silence criticism of Jewish power, Jewish lobbying and Israel. However, it is about time to face the truth.
Drawing a parallel between the Dreyfus affair, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and the Goldstone report can also produce an interesting insight, but not for the reasons Rabbi Hecht or Dershowitz suggest. It allows us to look at Zionism in an historical perspective. We can review where Zionism started from and what it matured into.
The Dreyfus affair was a political scandal that divided France in the 1890s and the early 1900s. It involved the conviction for treason in 1894 of Captain Alfred Dreyfus, a young French artillery officer of Jewish descent. The Dreyfus affair had a huge impact on Herzl, the father of Zionism, who was assigned by a Viennese paper to cover the trial. Soon afterward, Herzl wrote Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State, 1896) and founded the World Zionist Organization.
During the last century Zionists regarded the Dreyfus Affair as an exemplary case of anti Semitism motivated by racial discrimination. In fact the Zionists were wrong. For a century they have been misleading themselves and others. French society at the time was divided about Dreyfus. The Left and the intelligentsia rushed to support the young officer, which led eventually to a 2nd trial.
Dreyfus was exonerated and reinstated as a Major in the French Army in 1906. However, the case of Goldstone is totally different. The images of the IDF’s white phosphorus shells bursting over UN refugee shelters are engraved in our collective memory. As if this is not enough, initial Israeli denial of the usage of white phosphorous is also stored in our minds. The perception that Israel committed a massacre in broad daylight is not going to be wiped out either.
Unlike divided France that couldn’t make up its mind about Dreyfus, we are not divided about Israel being a criminal state and the biggest threat to world peace. The repulsion towards Israel and its brutality is actually a growing unifying force amongst humanists, peace lovers and the world at large. Israel will not be exonerated and considering the fact that it defines itself as the Jewish state, its crimes reflect disastrously on Jews as a collective, something that not even a dozen Jewish anti Zionist activists around the world can change. From an historical perspective it is rather clear that Israel has been very successful in exhausting the last drops of sympathy garnered for the idea of Jewish nationalism. As it happens, not a single humanist stands up against Goldstone or his balanced report.
But the truth must be said. As much as humanists are united behind the Goldstone report, our democratically elected leaders are failing to confront Israel and its Jewish lobbies. They rush to appease AIPAC, they pocket money given by Zionist lords and Israeli Lobbies.
In the last century we have been witnessing an evolving murderous Jewish nationalist movement. For a century, the Zionist movement has managed to silence its critics using different tactics that are all explored in that fictional text (Protocols of the Elders of Zion) from 1903. Zionism was very successful; it managed to mature into a state, at the expense of the Palestinian people. Only through violent expansionist methods including massacres and racially orientated ethnic cleansing have the Zionists and Israel managed to fulfill what they define as the Jewish national aspiration. But as Goldstone reveals, this aspiration matured into a criminal state that is terrorizing its indigenous population and threatening its neighbours
If we ever want to amend the reality we live in, we must curtail the Zionist operators in our midst, in the government, in politics, in the media, in academia, in finance and in the legal system. I am not talking here about Jews but about Zionists, people who are affiliated with a specific foreign tribal interest that counters universalism, ethics and humanism. Unless we do that we may soon have to face another Goldstone report investigating a much greater Zionist crime against humanity.
If we want to help Israelis and Jewish nationalists recover from their nationalist racist fanatical dream, we must persuade them that the Goldstone report is their new Bible, a recent catalogue of their departure from humanity.
-- Gilad Atzmon (gilad.co.uk) is an Israeli-born writer and jazz musician living in London. He had previously served in the Israeli military but he is currently an anti-racism campaigner. His latest CD is In Loving Memory of America.
