Why does Indymedia Tolerate an anti-Semitic article by Gilad Atzmon?

In its guidelines, Indymedia gives as one reason (under Discrimination) to hide an article the fact that it uses: ‘language, imagery, or other forms of communication promoting racism, fascism, xenophobia, sexism, homophobia or any other form of discrimination.’

The Features Collective have failed to apply this criteria to a clearly anti-Semitic article by Gilad Atzmon.

On 22nd October, in response to an e-mail from Moshe Machover, a founder of the anti-Zionist Israeli group Matzpen, alerting myself and others to this article ‘Saying NO to the Hunters of Goliath’  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2007/08/378213.html?c=on#c183225 ,.

I sent an e-mail to Indymedia at  imc-uk-contact@lists.indymedia.org asking them to take the said posting down. I received no response and so posted a reminder 6 days later.
I eventually received a response from ‘Ana’ informing me that ‘the features collective is currently discussing and trying to make a decision on this, hence the delay in answering. Thanks for your understanding.
Ana, one of imc.’

On November 3rd I was pointed to an article on the anti-Semitic 'Peace Palestine' site where an article by Atzmon, entitled, ‘Censorship and “Hiding” Texts: Big and Little Gatekeepers of the World UNITE!’  http://peacepalestine.blogspot.com/ was published, detailing the fact that the features collective had passed my request to Atzmon and asked for his comments. Presumably the Indymedia collective were unable to decide what is and is not racist without asking the racist in question.

If anyone has any doubts about whether or not the article is anti-Semitic, then the following extracts should convince them:

‘Within the Judaic worldview, history and ethics are often reduced into a banal single binary opposition principle…. the Jewish state and the sons of Israel are at least as unpopular in the Middle East as their grandparents were in Europe just six decades ago’.

What is the ‘Judaic’ world view? Do all Jews hold the same view? If so this is nothing other than another version of the world Jewish conspiracy that some of us thought had disappeared.

The Holocaust was therefore not the result of the rise of fascism in Germany, the portrayal of Jews as the personifiers of German capitalism, but on account of their ‘unpopularity’. A better example of blaming the victim would be harder to imagine. It is little more than a justification for the Holocaust.

Maybe gypsies and gays should ask themselves why they too are so 'unpopular'?

I sent a blunt e-mail to the said Ana protesting at the duplicity of herself and the features collective who still haven’t, to date done anything. She replied saying that she was going to do nothing more, though to date neither she nor the collective had done anything anyway.

The following comments from Atzmon have been posted on Indymedia below the article, courtesy of his ‘friend’ Knuckles (who is in fact Atzmon):

‘For my readers and myself, it is absolutely clear that every form of Jewish secular politics (no matter where they find themselves located, Left, Right or Centre) is based on racial orientation….
I am suggesting that the only way to internalise the meaning of the Jewish Holocaust is to teach Jews how to start looking in the mirror, to teach Jews to ask themselves why conflicts with others happen to them time after time. Rather than blaming the Goyim, the Germans, the Muslims, the Arabs, it is about time the Jewish subject learns to ask the 6 million $ question: “why do they pick on me?”
… However, maybe Greenstein can tell us whether or not Jews were involved with Bolshevism....or was it just a Nazi fantasy?….

knuckles: How exactly, Tony? By suggesting that Jews look into their endless tale of destruction and try to understand what is it about them that doesn't agree with the world?
…. Atzmon: …the Jewish state and the sons of Israel are at least as unpopular in the Middle East as their racial brothers Tony Greastein, Mark Elf and Roland Rance were unpopular in the PSC AGM just a few months ago.'

In most 'Knuckes' contributions like the above Atzmon purports to suggest that he is not Atzmon. However in a post at 00.04 of 23.10.07. he forgets his alias and both writes in the first person and signs off as Atzmon:

In June 2005 Jews Against Zionism, and members of the Jewish Socialists Group, picketed a meeting that the SWP held, at which Atzmon spoke. We did it because Atzmon’s writings are clearly anti-Semitic. A sample of his virulent anti-Semitism was the following, which is on his own site:
 http://www.gilad.co.uk/html%20files/onanti.html
American Jewry makes any debate on whether the 'Protocols of the elder of Zion' are an authentic document or rather a forgery irrelevant. American Jews do try to control the world, by proxy. So far they are doing pretty well for themselves at least. Whether the Americans enjoy the deterioration of their state's affairs will no doubt be revealed soon.

I can only assume that the Indymedia Features Collective cannot form a judgment as to whether a statement asserting that it is ‘irrelevant’ whether the Protocols of the Elders of Zion are genuine is anti-Semitic. The Times managed to make up its mind in 1921. Mein Kampf had no doubt as to their provenance. But according to Atzmon, since what the Protocols say is true, what does it matter if they are a forgery?

Tony Greenstein