As Israel and its Western allies mark “International Holocaust Memorial Day”, Israeli-born musician, writer and anti-racism campaigner Gilad Atzmon argues that the best way to honour the memory of Holocaust victims is to oppose the Jewish state and Jewish nationalism, and that to say no to Israel is to say no to racism.
The Israeli news website Ynet reported on 25 January: “Peres in Berlin, Netanyahu in Auschwitz, Lieberman in Budapest and Edelstein at the UN headquarters in New York all plan to attack the Goldstone report into the Gaza war on international Holocaust day.”
Israel's political echelon will again try to divert attention from the fact that Israel’s own crimes are beyond comparison.
Israeli Minister of Information and Diaspora – the propaganda minister – Yuli Edelstein told Ynet before leaving for New York: "The connection between the Goldstone report and the International Holocaust Memorial Day is not an easy thing.”
Israel's mass murder of women, children and the elderly is now part of our collective memory
He is indeed correct. The true interpretation of the Goldstone report is that Israelis are the Nazis of our time.
“We must learn the lessons from what happened,” says Edelstein, “then too, those who yelled out were told that Hitler is a clown and that all the gloomy predictions of the 1930s were nonsense.”
Someone should advise the Israeli propaganda man that by now no one regards mass murderer Ehud Barak, nuclear enthusiast Shimon Peres, warmonger Tzipi Livni or ultra-racist Avigdor Lieberman as clowns. We see them for what they are. Therefore, we prefer to see them locked behind bars.
In fact, those leaders around the world who bowed to Jewish pressure and made the Holocaust into an international memorial day must have been persuaded that the Holocaust carries a universal message against oppression and racism. They were actually correct: if the Holocaust has any universal and ethical meaning, stopping the “Jews-only state” and bringing its criminal political and military leaders to justice is the true interpretation of the lesson of the Holocaust.
Propaganda Minister Edelstein said: "On the Holocaust memorial day of all days, which also marks the battle against global anti-Semitism, we must discuss this connection, because today the soldiers of the ‘Israel Defence Forces’ are accused of harvesting organs and murdering children.”
The Israelis had better recognize that the truth of Israeli brutality is now common knowledge. The mass murder of children, women and elderly people by the IDF is part of our collective memory. The Israeli institutional involvement in organ harvesting is also well documented and an accepted fact.
Minister Edelstein is wrong when he argues that "after World War II and the establishment of the State of Israel, anti-Semitism is not directed at Jews but at Israel and the Israelis. The Goldstone report, the publications in Sweden about organ harvesting and similar reports are simply a type of anti-Semitism." Edelstein is wrong because all the accusations against Israel are well founded. Furthermore, the opposition to Israel, its Jewish lobbies and Jewish power in general is politically oriented and not racially motivated.
On “International Holocaust Memorial Day” I say loudly and openly: to oppose the Jewish state and Jewish nationalism is the true meaning of the memory of the Holocaust. To say NO to Israel is to say NO to racism. This is what ethics and universalism are all about.
Gilad Atzmon is an Israeli-born musician, writer and anti-racism campaigner. His latest jazz album, "In loving memory of America", was released on 1 March 2009 and can be purchased here.
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