Roy Bard is a known figure within Britain\u2019s far left, anti-war and the Palestinian Solidarity Movement. He is a member of the Indymedia UK collective, a leading British anti-capitalist media outlet. I first encountered Bard five years ago.\u00a0 At the time the site was subjected to an international Jewish \u2018anti\u2019-Zionist campaign: a cabal of ethnic activists demanded that Indymedia deleted my articles.\u00a0 Being a principled man, Bard didn\u2019t bow to their pressure. Bard has been subjected to a malicious slanderous campaign ever since.<\/h5>\nThe article below is about sadness \u2013 if the personal is political, as some progressives insist, this article is an intimate insight into the medium in which such a transition takes place. It reveals the measures of brutality and intolerance that are unfortunately intrinsic to the Jewish Left. I was really moved when I read this article.<\/h5>\nMe, Gilad Atzmon and the’Truth’<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/Roy-Bard-and-Atzmon.jpg\" "\\"Roy")
<\/a><\/span>Roy Bard and Gilad Atzmon – London 25\/9\/13<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cWere you tortured by your own thirst
\nIn those pleasures that you seek
\nThat made you Tom the curious
\nThat makes you James the weak?\u201d
\nRodriguez (Searching for Sugarman)- <\/span>Crucify Your <\/span><\/span>Mind<\/span><\/a><\/h5>\nMe:<\/h5>\nI was born in Johannesburg, Apartheid South Africa in 1960. My mom was a trainee nurse and she met my dad while he was recovering from an accident in which he had lost a leg. She was 19, him 28 (I think). Before he left the hospital she was pregnant \u2013 with me. They tried to build a life together but it didn\u2019t work out. When I was two and a half, he took a car out and put a hosepipe from the exhaust to the window. An aunt tells me she talked him out of taking me with him. It would have saved me much pain if she hadn’t – conversely it would have caused others even more pain. Life is so complicated.<\/h5>\nMy dad’s suicide led to me being put into the care system and being moved from pillar to post until shortly before I was 5 when I was adopted by a dysfunctional couple, as a substitute for the children they thought they couldn\u2019t have. By this time, I was a very disturbed little boy and my adoptive father, who was an immigrant from the UK, thought he could beat the disturbance out of me. My mother egged him on \u2013 and I learnt to dislike her even more than I hated him…<\/h5>\nThe more he beat me, the more disturbed I became,
\nThe more disturbed I became, the more he beat me
\n\u2013 how\u2019s that for a vicious circle?<\/h5>\nHere are two defining moments that spring out from the time I spent with them. (By the time I was 11 I was mainly back in institutions, and back to moving from pillar to post).<\/h5>\nWhen I was around 8 or 9 I had cause to go to our maid\u2019s room, which was about 15 yards from the adoptive folks’ very comfortable and large suburban house outside of Durban. Her room was cramped, and blackened by candle smoke because she didn\u2019t have electricity \u2013 it was furnished with cheap furniture and very little of it. I asked my adoptive Mother why our maid lived in such terrible conditions, and she replied:<\/h5>\n\u201cThey have different needs to us.\u201d<\/h5>\nEven at that age I knew that was a blatant lie and thus I learned to question what was going on around me and came to an understanding that none of us should be treated as a lesser being, nor judged, nor subjected to abuse and poverty or even death because of who brought us into this world \u2026\u2026\u2026. Perhaps because of my own disturbance I was unable to muster the supremacist ego of the racists around me \u2013 and I was further marginalised for not being one of them\u2026\u2026 It is one of the greatest tragedies of my life, that my birth brother, from whom I was separated in my toddler-hood, and only found again a quarter of a century later, did become one of them, and still is. I love him so dearly \u2013 but our political differences prevent us from enjoying each other.<\/h5>\nA year or so later I had done something else \u2018naughty\u2019 and my father was punching and kicking me around my room.<\/h5>\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d (He beats me for not knowing).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cYou\u2019re a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d (He beats me for being this).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI\u2019m a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d* (He beats me worse than before)…
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cNo child of mine ever talks about themselves like that…\u201d
\n(*This is why I don\u2019t believe torture can ever do any good whatsoever)<\/h5>\nThis may help those of you who know me to understand more about the tortured, disturbed, sometimes shy, sometimes outrageous, difficult individual that I have grown to be. It may help you understand why I have problems forming attachments, building relationships, accepting authority and believing that the world is an okay place\u2026.. why I have spent the last decade mired in a deep depression from which I am still struggling (so far without any success whatsoever) to emerge.<\/h5>\n\u201cSmile they said, things could be worse, so I did and they were\u2026.\u201d
\nOne of my mantras<\/h5>\nMy experiences have led to me search for ways to build a better world \u2013 I was a liberal until I knew better \u2013 I believed that I could be part of changing the world into a better place \u2013 but the harder I tried the worse it seemed to become. I thought I had found a \u2018spiritual home\u2019 and a group I belonged to when I discovered Anarchism and Direct Action, but like all my relationships it became problematic as I discovered that this group too was riddled with hypocrisies, double standards and, as it turned out, a rather distorted sense of what freedom <\/span>means<\/span><\/a>\u2026\u2026. The systemic problems of the society and system I live in were mirrored in the very group that was trying to free itself from them. As I think Kurt Vonnegut might say, \u201cHow do you like them apples?\u201d<\/h5>\nGilad Atzmon and the ‘Truth’<\/h2>\nGilad was a key part of accelerating that disenchantment \u2013 he has taught me so much and cost me so much\u2026\u2026 I love him like the birth brother I am prevented from loving \u2013 although I have only met him a few times and we are in no sense close friends\u2026.. we too have political differences but at least we can try talking about them \u2013 and sometimes we even resolve them. Sometimes we tackle issues together \u2013 for most of the time I remain connected to him through his writings, which I read often \u2013 I must have read most of what he has written by now, and there is lots of it.<\/h5>\nI understand that truth too is myth \u2013 even what we have seen with our own eyes, and experienced with our own lives, and which seems blatantly true to us, changes when we come to understand the motivations and reasons for the parts that other actors played in the event. It shifts as we learn more, and as we realise that our own issues have clouded our interpretation. Our culture, our upbringing and our personal pain all affect how we experience the world, and how we perceive it. I know this but Ali <\/span>Abunimah, it seems, has yet to learn it<\/span><\/a>\u2026.. as have others.<\/h5>\nSo, this is how I see Gilad and understand his work. It is part of an evolving view and it is possible that in time I may see it all completely differently. Gilad himself may identify with parts of it, and disagree with other parts. He may even help to change my view of him\u2026\u2026 and maybe I can help change his view of him \u2013 all things are possible.<\/h5>\nLike me, Gilad was born in an Apartheid society \u2013 in his case Israel. I should tell you that one of our key differences is around whether or not Israel is an Apartheid state \u2013 I am an Aye \u2013 he is a Nay. Unlike me, he bought into it as a kid. It was only when he was coming to the end of his time in the misleadingly named Israeli Defence Force, where he was a medic and musician, that he had cause to go to Lebanon and see the conditions that Palestinian prisoners were kept in. This led him to start questioning all that he had learnt and the society in which he grew up.<\/h5>\nHe left Israel and moved to Europe where he developed his music and also studied philosophy and did some training in psychotherapy. He found himself profoundly influenced by Otto Weineger, a disturbed and brilliant soul who wrote some disgusting stuff and killed himself at a very young age.<\/h5>\nInfluenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
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Me, Gilad Atzmon and the’Truth’<\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n<\/a><\/span>Roy Bard and Gilad Atzmon – London 25\/9\/13<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cWere you tortured by your own thirst
\nIn those pleasures that you seek
\nThat made you Tom the curious
\nThat makes you James the weak?\u201d
\nRodriguez (Searching for Sugarman)- <\/span>Crucify Your <\/span><\/span>Mind<\/span><\/a><\/h5>\nMe:<\/h5>\nI was born in Johannesburg, Apartheid South Africa in 1960. My mom was a trainee nurse and she met my dad while he was recovering from an accident in which he had lost a leg. She was 19, him 28 (I think). Before he left the hospital she was pregnant \u2013 with me. They tried to build a life together but it didn\u2019t work out. When I was two and a half, he took a car out and put a hosepipe from the exhaust to the window. An aunt tells me she talked him out of taking me with him. It would have saved me much pain if she hadn’t – conversely it would have caused others even more pain. Life is so complicated.<\/h5>\nMy dad’s suicide led to me being put into the care system and being moved from pillar to post until shortly before I was 5 when I was adopted by a dysfunctional couple, as a substitute for the children they thought they couldn\u2019t have. By this time, I was a very disturbed little boy and my adoptive father, who was an immigrant from the UK, thought he could beat the disturbance out of me. My mother egged him on \u2013 and I learnt to dislike her even more than I hated him…<\/h5>\nThe more he beat me, the more disturbed I became,
\nThe more disturbed I became, the more he beat me
\n\u2013 how\u2019s that for a vicious circle?<\/h5>\nHere are two defining moments that spring out from the time I spent with them. (By the time I was 11 I was mainly back in institutions, and back to moving from pillar to post).<\/h5>\nWhen I was around 8 or 9 I had cause to go to our maid\u2019s room, which was about 15 yards from the adoptive folks’ very comfortable and large suburban house outside of Durban. Her room was cramped, and blackened by candle smoke because she didn\u2019t have electricity \u2013 it was furnished with cheap furniture and very little of it. I asked my adoptive Mother why our maid lived in such terrible conditions, and she replied:<\/h5>\n\u201cThey have different needs to us.\u201d<\/h5>\nEven at that age I knew that was a blatant lie and thus I learned to question what was going on around me and came to an understanding that none of us should be treated as a lesser being, nor judged, nor subjected to abuse and poverty or even death because of who brought us into this world \u2026\u2026\u2026. Perhaps because of my own disturbance I was unable to muster the supremacist ego of the racists around me \u2013 and I was further marginalised for not being one of them\u2026\u2026 It is one of the greatest tragedies of my life, that my birth brother, from whom I was separated in my toddler-hood, and only found again a quarter of a century later, did become one of them, and still is. I love him so dearly \u2013 but our political differences prevent us from enjoying each other.<\/h5>\nA year or so later I had done something else \u2018naughty\u2019 and my father was punching and kicking me around my room.<\/h5>\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d (He beats me for not knowing).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cYou\u2019re a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d (He beats me for being this).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI\u2019m a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d* (He beats me worse than before)…
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cNo child of mine ever talks about themselves like that…\u201d
\n(*This is why I don\u2019t believe torture can ever do any good whatsoever)<\/h5>\nThis may help those of you who know me to understand more about the tortured, disturbed, sometimes shy, sometimes outrageous, difficult individual that I have grown to be. It may help you understand why I have problems forming attachments, building relationships, accepting authority and believing that the world is an okay place\u2026.. why I have spent the last decade mired in a deep depression from which I am still struggling (so far without any success whatsoever) to emerge.<\/h5>\n\u201cSmile they said, things could be worse, so I did and they were\u2026.\u201d
\nOne of my mantras<\/h5>\nMy experiences have led to me search for ways to build a better world \u2013 I was a liberal until I knew better \u2013 I believed that I could be part of changing the world into a better place \u2013 but the harder I tried the worse it seemed to become. I thought I had found a \u2018spiritual home\u2019 and a group I belonged to when I discovered Anarchism and Direct Action, but like all my relationships it became problematic as I discovered that this group too was riddled with hypocrisies, double standards and, as it turned out, a rather distorted sense of what freedom <\/span>means<\/span><\/a>\u2026\u2026. The systemic problems of the society and system I live in were mirrored in the very group that was trying to free itself from them. As I think Kurt Vonnegut might say, \u201cHow do you like them apples?\u201d<\/h5>\nGilad Atzmon and the ‘Truth’<\/h2>\nGilad was a key part of accelerating that disenchantment \u2013 he has taught me so much and cost me so much\u2026\u2026 I love him like the birth brother I am prevented from loving \u2013 although I have only met him a few times and we are in no sense close friends\u2026.. we too have political differences but at least we can try talking about them \u2013 and sometimes we even resolve them. Sometimes we tackle issues together \u2013 for most of the time I remain connected to him through his writings, which I read often \u2013 I must have read most of what he has written by now, and there is lots of it.<\/h5>\nI understand that truth too is myth \u2013 even what we have seen with our own eyes, and experienced with our own lives, and which seems blatantly true to us, changes when we come to understand the motivations and reasons for the parts that other actors played in the event. It shifts as we learn more, and as we realise that our own issues have clouded our interpretation. Our culture, our upbringing and our personal pain all affect how we experience the world, and how we perceive it. I know this but Ali <\/span>Abunimah, it seems, has yet to learn it<\/span><\/a>\u2026.. as have others.<\/h5>\nSo, this is how I see Gilad and understand his work. It is part of an evolving view and it is possible that in time I may see it all completely differently. Gilad himself may identify with parts of it, and disagree with other parts. He may even help to change my view of him\u2026\u2026 and maybe I can help change his view of him \u2013 all things are possible.<\/h5>\nLike me, Gilad was born in an Apartheid society \u2013 in his case Israel. I should tell you that one of our key differences is around whether or not Israel is an Apartheid state \u2013 I am an Aye \u2013 he is a Nay. Unlike me, he bought into it as a kid. It was only when he was coming to the end of his time in the misleadingly named Israeli Defence Force, where he was a medic and musician, that he had cause to go to Lebanon and see the conditions that Palestinian prisoners were kept in. This led him to start questioning all that he had learnt and the society in which he grew up.<\/h5>\nHe left Israel and moved to Europe where he developed his music and also studied philosophy and did some training in psychotherapy. He found himself profoundly influenced by Otto Weineger, a disturbed and brilliant soul who wrote some disgusting stuff and killed himself at a very young age.<\/h5>\nInfluenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/a><\/span>Roy Bard and Gilad Atzmon – London 25\/9\/13<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cWere you tortured by your own thirst
\nIn those pleasures that you seek
\nThat made you Tom the curious
\nThat makes you James the weak?\u201d
\nRodriguez (Searching for Sugarman)- <\/span>Crucify Your <\/span><\/span>Mind<\/span><\/a><\/h5>\nMe:<\/h5>\nI was born in Johannesburg, Apartheid South Africa in 1960. My mom was a trainee nurse and she met my dad while he was recovering from an accident in which he had lost a leg. She was 19, him 28 (I think). Before he left the hospital she was pregnant \u2013 with me. They tried to build a life together but it didn\u2019t work out. When I was two and a half, he took a car out and put a hosepipe from the exhaust to the window. An aunt tells me she talked him out of taking me with him. It would have saved me much pain if she hadn’t – conversely it would have caused others even more pain. Life is so complicated.<\/h5>\nMy dad’s suicide led to me being put into the care system and being moved from pillar to post until shortly before I was 5 when I was adopted by a dysfunctional couple, as a substitute for the children they thought they couldn\u2019t have. By this time, I was a very disturbed little boy and my adoptive father, who was an immigrant from the UK, thought he could beat the disturbance out of me. My mother egged him on \u2013 and I learnt to dislike her even more than I hated him…<\/h5>\nThe more he beat me, the more disturbed I became,
\nThe more disturbed I became, the more he beat me
\n\u2013 how\u2019s that for a vicious circle?<\/h5>\nHere are two defining moments that spring out from the time I spent with them. (By the time I was 11 I was mainly back in institutions, and back to moving from pillar to post).<\/h5>\nWhen I was around 8 or 9 I had cause to go to our maid\u2019s room, which was about 15 yards from the adoptive folks’ very comfortable and large suburban house outside of Durban. Her room was cramped, and blackened by candle smoke because she didn\u2019t have electricity \u2013 it was furnished with cheap furniture and very little of it. I asked my adoptive Mother why our maid lived in such terrible conditions, and she replied:<\/h5>\n\u201cThey have different needs to us.\u201d<\/h5>\nEven at that age I knew that was a blatant lie and thus I learned to question what was going on around me and came to an understanding that none of us should be treated as a lesser being, nor judged, nor subjected to abuse and poverty or even death because of who brought us into this world \u2026\u2026\u2026. Perhaps because of my own disturbance I was unable to muster the supremacist ego of the racists around me \u2013 and I was further marginalised for not being one of them\u2026\u2026 It is one of the greatest tragedies of my life, that my birth brother, from whom I was separated in my toddler-hood, and only found again a quarter of a century later, did become one of them, and still is. I love him so dearly \u2013 but our political differences prevent us from enjoying each other.<\/h5>\nA year or so later I had done something else \u2018naughty\u2019 and my father was punching and kicking me around my room.<\/h5>\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d (He beats me for not knowing).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cYou\u2019re a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d (He beats me for being this).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI\u2019m a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d* (He beats me worse than before)…
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cNo child of mine ever talks about themselves like that…\u201d
\n(*This is why I don\u2019t believe torture can ever do any good whatsoever)<\/h5>\nThis may help those of you who know me to understand more about the tortured, disturbed, sometimes shy, sometimes outrageous, difficult individual that I have grown to be. It may help you understand why I have problems forming attachments, building relationships, accepting authority and believing that the world is an okay place\u2026.. why I have spent the last decade mired in a deep depression from which I am still struggling (so far without any success whatsoever) to emerge.<\/h5>\n\u201cSmile they said, things could be worse, so I did and they were\u2026.\u201d
\nOne of my mantras<\/h5>\nMy experiences have led to me search for ways to build a better world \u2013 I was a liberal until I knew better \u2013 I believed that I could be part of changing the world into a better place \u2013 but the harder I tried the worse it seemed to become. I thought I had found a \u2018spiritual home\u2019 and a group I belonged to when I discovered Anarchism and Direct Action, but like all my relationships it became problematic as I discovered that this group too was riddled with hypocrisies, double standards and, as it turned out, a rather distorted sense of what freedom <\/span>means<\/span><\/a>\u2026\u2026. The systemic problems of the society and system I live in were mirrored in the very group that was trying to free itself from them. As I think Kurt Vonnegut might say, \u201cHow do you like them apples?\u201d<\/h5>\nGilad Atzmon and the ‘Truth’<\/h2>\nGilad was a key part of accelerating that disenchantment \u2013 he has taught me so much and cost me so much\u2026\u2026 I love him like the birth brother I am prevented from loving \u2013 although I have only met him a few times and we are in no sense close friends\u2026.. we too have political differences but at least we can try talking about them \u2013 and sometimes we even resolve them. Sometimes we tackle issues together \u2013 for most of the time I remain connected to him through his writings, which I read often \u2013 I must have read most of what he has written by now, and there is lots of it.<\/h5>\nI understand that truth too is myth \u2013 even what we have seen with our own eyes, and experienced with our own lives, and which seems blatantly true to us, changes when we come to understand the motivations and reasons for the parts that other actors played in the event. It shifts as we learn more, and as we realise that our own issues have clouded our interpretation. Our culture, our upbringing and our personal pain all affect how we experience the world, and how we perceive it. I know this but Ali <\/span>Abunimah, it seems, has yet to learn it<\/span><\/a>\u2026.. as have others.<\/h5>\nSo, this is how I see Gilad and understand his work. It is part of an evolving view and it is possible that in time I may see it all completely differently. Gilad himself may identify with parts of it, and disagree with other parts. He may even help to change my view of him\u2026\u2026 and maybe I can help change his view of him \u2013 all things are possible.<\/h5>\nLike me, Gilad was born in an Apartheid society \u2013 in his case Israel. I should tell you that one of our key differences is around whether or not Israel is an Apartheid state \u2013 I am an Aye \u2013 he is a Nay. Unlike me, he bought into it as a kid. It was only when he was coming to the end of his time in the misleadingly named Israeli Defence Force, where he was a medic and musician, that he had cause to go to Lebanon and see the conditions that Palestinian prisoners were kept in. This led him to start questioning all that he had learnt and the society in which he grew up.<\/h5>\nHe left Israel and moved to Europe where he developed his music and also studied philosophy and did some training in psychotherapy. He found himself profoundly influenced by Otto Weineger, a disturbed and brilliant soul who wrote some disgusting stuff and killed himself at a very young age.<\/h5>\nInfluenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I was born in Johannesburg, Apartheid South Africa in 1960. My mom was a trainee nurse and she met my dad while he was recovering from an accident in which he had lost a leg. She was 19, him 28 (I think). Before he left the hospital she was pregnant \u2013 with me. They tried to build a life together but it didn\u2019t work out. When I was two and a half, he took a car out and put a hosepipe from the exhaust to the window. An aunt tells me she talked him out of taking me with him. It would have saved me much pain if she hadn’t – conversely it would have caused others even more pain. Life is so complicated.<\/h5>\nMy dad’s suicide led to me being put into the care system and being moved from pillar to post until shortly before I was 5 when I was adopted by a dysfunctional couple, as a substitute for the children they thought they couldn\u2019t have. By this time, I was a very disturbed little boy and my adoptive father, who was an immigrant from the UK, thought he could beat the disturbance out of me. My mother egged him on \u2013 and I learnt to dislike her even more than I hated him…<\/h5>\nThe more he beat me, the more disturbed I became,
\nThe more disturbed I became, the more he beat me
\n\u2013 how\u2019s that for a vicious circle?<\/h5>\nHere are two defining moments that spring out from the time I spent with them. (By the time I was 11 I was mainly back in institutions, and back to moving from pillar to post).<\/h5>\nWhen I was around 8 or 9 I had cause to go to our maid\u2019s room, which was about 15 yards from the adoptive folks’ very comfortable and large suburban house outside of Durban. Her room was cramped, and blackened by candle smoke because she didn\u2019t have electricity \u2013 it was furnished with cheap furniture and very little of it. I asked my adoptive Mother why our maid lived in such terrible conditions, and she replied:<\/h5>\n\u201cThey have different needs to us.\u201d<\/h5>\nEven at that age I knew that was a blatant lie and thus I learned to question what was going on around me and came to an understanding that none of us should be treated as a lesser being, nor judged, nor subjected to abuse and poverty or even death because of who brought us into this world \u2026\u2026\u2026. Perhaps because of my own disturbance I was unable to muster the supremacist ego of the racists around me \u2013 and I was further marginalised for not being one of them\u2026\u2026 It is one of the greatest tragedies of my life, that my birth brother, from whom I was separated in my toddler-hood, and only found again a quarter of a century later, did become one of them, and still is. I love him so dearly \u2013 but our political differences prevent us from enjoying each other.<\/h5>\nA year or so later I had done something else \u2018naughty\u2019 and my father was punching and kicking me around my room.<\/h5>\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d (He beats me for not knowing).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cYou\u2019re a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d (He beats me for being this).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI\u2019m a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d* (He beats me worse than before)…
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cNo child of mine ever talks about themselves like that…\u201d
\n(*This is why I don\u2019t believe torture can ever do any good whatsoever)<\/h5>\nThis may help those of you who know me to understand more about the tortured, disturbed, sometimes shy, sometimes outrageous, difficult individual that I have grown to be. It may help you understand why I have problems forming attachments, building relationships, accepting authority and believing that the world is an okay place\u2026.. why I have spent the last decade mired in a deep depression from which I am still struggling (so far without any success whatsoever) to emerge.<\/h5>\n\u201cSmile they said, things could be worse, so I did and they were\u2026.\u201d
\nOne of my mantras<\/h5>\nMy experiences have led to me search for ways to build a better world \u2013 I was a liberal until I knew better \u2013 I believed that I could be part of changing the world into a better place \u2013 but the harder I tried the worse it seemed to become. I thought I had found a \u2018spiritual home\u2019 and a group I belonged to when I discovered Anarchism and Direct Action, but like all my relationships it became problematic as I discovered that this group too was riddled with hypocrisies, double standards and, as it turned out, a rather distorted sense of what freedom <\/span>means<\/span><\/a>\u2026\u2026. The systemic problems of the society and system I live in were mirrored in the very group that was trying to free itself from them. As I think Kurt Vonnegut might say, \u201cHow do you like them apples?\u201d<\/h5>\nGilad Atzmon and the ‘Truth’<\/h2>\nGilad was a key part of accelerating that disenchantment \u2013 he has taught me so much and cost me so much\u2026\u2026 I love him like the birth brother I am prevented from loving \u2013 although I have only met him a few times and we are in no sense close friends\u2026.. we too have political differences but at least we can try talking about them \u2013 and sometimes we even resolve them. Sometimes we tackle issues together \u2013 for most of the time I remain connected to him through his writings, which I read often \u2013 I must have read most of what he has written by now, and there is lots of it.<\/h5>\nI understand that truth too is myth \u2013 even what we have seen with our own eyes, and experienced with our own lives, and which seems blatantly true to us, changes when we come to understand the motivations and reasons for the parts that other actors played in the event. It shifts as we learn more, and as we realise that our own issues have clouded our interpretation. Our culture, our upbringing and our personal pain all affect how we experience the world, and how we perceive it. I know this but Ali <\/span>Abunimah, it seems, has yet to learn it<\/span><\/a>\u2026.. as have others.<\/h5>\nSo, this is how I see Gilad and understand his work. It is part of an evolving view and it is possible that in time I may see it all completely differently. Gilad himself may identify with parts of it, and disagree with other parts. He may even help to change my view of him\u2026\u2026 and maybe I can help change his view of him \u2013 all things are possible.<\/h5>\nLike me, Gilad was born in an Apartheid society \u2013 in his case Israel. I should tell you that one of our key differences is around whether or not Israel is an Apartheid state \u2013 I am an Aye \u2013 he is a Nay. Unlike me, he bought into it as a kid. It was only when he was coming to the end of his time in the misleadingly named Israeli Defence Force, where he was a medic and musician, that he had cause to go to Lebanon and see the conditions that Palestinian prisoners were kept in. This led him to start questioning all that he had learnt and the society in which he grew up.<\/h5>\nHe left Israel and moved to Europe where he developed his music and also studied philosophy and did some training in psychotherapy. He found himself profoundly influenced by Otto Weineger, a disturbed and brilliant soul who wrote some disgusting stuff and killed himself at a very young age.<\/h5>\nInfluenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
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The more he beat me, the more disturbed I became,
\nThe more disturbed I became, the more he beat me
\n\u2013 how\u2019s that for a vicious circle?<\/h5>\nHere are two defining moments that spring out from the time I spent with them. (By the time I was 11 I was mainly back in institutions, and back to moving from pillar to post).<\/h5>\nWhen I was around 8 or 9 I had cause to go to our maid\u2019s room, which was about 15 yards from the adoptive folks’ very comfortable and large suburban house outside of Durban. Her room was cramped, and blackened by candle smoke because she didn\u2019t have electricity \u2013 it was furnished with cheap furniture and very little of it. I asked my adoptive Mother why our maid lived in such terrible conditions, and she replied:<\/h5>\n\u201cThey have different needs to us.\u201d<\/h5>\nEven at that age I knew that was a blatant lie and thus I learned to question what was going on around me and came to an understanding that none of us should be treated as a lesser being, nor judged, nor subjected to abuse and poverty or even death because of who brought us into this world \u2026\u2026\u2026. Perhaps because of my own disturbance I was unable to muster the supremacist ego of the racists around me \u2013 and I was further marginalised for not being one of them\u2026\u2026 It is one of the greatest tragedies of my life, that my birth brother, from whom I was separated in my toddler-hood, and only found again a quarter of a century later, did become one of them, and still is. I love him so dearly \u2013 but our political differences prevent us from enjoying each other.<\/h5>\nA year or so later I had done something else \u2018naughty\u2019 and my father was punching and kicking me around my room.<\/h5>\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d (He beats me for not knowing).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cYou\u2019re a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d (He beats me for being this).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI\u2019m a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d* (He beats me worse than before)…
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cNo child of mine ever talks about themselves like that…\u201d
\n(*This is why I don\u2019t believe torture can ever do any good whatsoever)<\/h5>\nThis may help those of you who know me to understand more about the tortured, disturbed, sometimes shy, sometimes outrageous, difficult individual that I have grown to be. It may help you understand why I have problems forming attachments, building relationships, accepting authority and believing that the world is an okay place\u2026.. why I have spent the last decade mired in a deep depression from which I am still struggling (so far without any success whatsoever) to emerge.<\/h5>\n\u201cSmile they said, things could be worse, so I did and they were\u2026.\u201d
\nOne of my mantras<\/h5>\nMy experiences have led to me search for ways to build a better world \u2013 I was a liberal until I knew better \u2013 I believed that I could be part of changing the world into a better place \u2013 but the harder I tried the worse it seemed to become. I thought I had found a \u2018spiritual home\u2019 and a group I belonged to when I discovered Anarchism and Direct Action, but like all my relationships it became problematic as I discovered that this group too was riddled with hypocrisies, double standards and, as it turned out, a rather distorted sense of what freedom <\/span>means<\/span><\/a>\u2026\u2026. The systemic problems of the society and system I live in were mirrored in the very group that was trying to free itself from them. As I think Kurt Vonnegut might say, \u201cHow do you like them apples?\u201d<\/h5>\nGilad Atzmon and the ‘Truth’<\/h2>\nGilad was a key part of accelerating that disenchantment \u2013 he has taught me so much and cost me so much\u2026\u2026 I love him like the birth brother I am prevented from loving \u2013 although I have only met him a few times and we are in no sense close friends\u2026.. we too have political differences but at least we can try talking about them \u2013 and sometimes we even resolve them. Sometimes we tackle issues together \u2013 for most of the time I remain connected to him through his writings, which I read often \u2013 I must have read most of what he has written by now, and there is lots of it.<\/h5>\nI understand that truth too is myth \u2013 even what we have seen with our own eyes, and experienced with our own lives, and which seems blatantly true to us, changes when we come to understand the motivations and reasons for the parts that other actors played in the event. It shifts as we learn more, and as we realise that our own issues have clouded our interpretation. Our culture, our upbringing and our personal pain all affect how we experience the world, and how we perceive it. I know this but Ali <\/span>Abunimah, it seems, has yet to learn it<\/span><\/a>\u2026.. as have others.<\/h5>\nSo, this is how I see Gilad and understand his work. It is part of an evolving view and it is possible that in time I may see it all completely differently. Gilad himself may identify with parts of it, and disagree with other parts. He may even help to change my view of him\u2026\u2026 and maybe I can help change his view of him \u2013 all things are possible.<\/h5>\nLike me, Gilad was born in an Apartheid society \u2013 in his case Israel. I should tell you that one of our key differences is around whether or not Israel is an Apartheid state \u2013 I am an Aye \u2013 he is a Nay. Unlike me, he bought into it as a kid. It was only when he was coming to the end of his time in the misleadingly named Israeli Defence Force, where he was a medic and musician, that he had cause to go to Lebanon and see the conditions that Palestinian prisoners were kept in. This led him to start questioning all that he had learnt and the society in which he grew up.<\/h5>\nHe left Israel and moved to Europe where he developed his music and also studied philosophy and did some training in psychotherapy. He found himself profoundly influenced by Otto Weineger, a disturbed and brilliant soul who wrote some disgusting stuff and killed himself at a very young age.<\/h5>\nInfluenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
When I was around 8 or 9 I had cause to go to our maid\u2019s room, which was about 15 yards from the adoptive folks’ very comfortable and large suburban house outside of Durban. Her room was cramped, and blackened by candle smoke because she didn\u2019t have electricity \u2013 it was furnished with cheap furniture and very little of it. I asked my adoptive Mother why our maid lived in such terrible conditions, and she replied:<\/h5>\n\u201cThey have different needs to us.\u201d<\/h5>\nEven at that age I knew that was a blatant lie and thus I learned to question what was going on around me and came to an understanding that none of us should be treated as a lesser being, nor judged, nor subjected to abuse and poverty or even death because of who brought us into this world \u2026\u2026\u2026. Perhaps because of my own disturbance I was unable to muster the supremacist ego of the racists around me \u2013 and I was further marginalised for not being one of them\u2026\u2026 It is one of the greatest tragedies of my life, that my birth brother, from whom I was separated in my toddler-hood, and only found again a quarter of a century later, did become one of them, and still is. I love him so dearly \u2013 but our political differences prevent us from enjoying each other.<\/h5>\nA year or so later I had done something else \u2018naughty\u2019 and my father was punching and kicking me around my room.<\/h5>\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d (He beats me for not knowing).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cYou\u2019re a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d (He beats me for being this).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI\u2019m a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d* (He beats me worse than before)…
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cNo child of mine ever talks about themselves like that…\u201d
\n(*This is why I don\u2019t believe torture can ever do any good whatsoever)<\/h5>\nThis may help those of you who know me to understand more about the tortured, disturbed, sometimes shy, sometimes outrageous, difficult individual that I have grown to be. It may help you understand why I have problems forming attachments, building relationships, accepting authority and believing that the world is an okay place\u2026.. why I have spent the last decade mired in a deep depression from which I am still struggling (so far without any success whatsoever) to emerge.<\/h5>\n\u201cSmile they said, things could be worse, so I did and they were\u2026.\u201d
\nOne of my mantras<\/h5>\nMy experiences have led to me search for ways to build a better world \u2013 I was a liberal until I knew better \u2013 I believed that I could be part of changing the world into a better place \u2013 but the harder I tried the worse it seemed to become. I thought I had found a \u2018spiritual home\u2019 and a group I belonged to when I discovered Anarchism and Direct Action, but like all my relationships it became problematic as I discovered that this group too was riddled with hypocrisies, double standards and, as it turned out, a rather distorted sense of what freedom <\/span>means<\/span><\/a>\u2026\u2026. The systemic problems of the society and system I live in were mirrored in the very group that was trying to free itself from them. As I think Kurt Vonnegut might say, \u201cHow do you like them apples?\u201d<\/h5>\nGilad Atzmon and the ‘Truth’<\/h2>\nGilad was a key part of accelerating that disenchantment \u2013 he has taught me so much and cost me so much\u2026\u2026 I love him like the birth brother I am prevented from loving \u2013 although I have only met him a few times and we are in no sense close friends\u2026.. we too have political differences but at least we can try talking about them \u2013 and sometimes we even resolve them. Sometimes we tackle issues together \u2013 for most of the time I remain connected to him through his writings, which I read often \u2013 I must have read most of what he has written by now, and there is lots of it.<\/h5>\nI understand that truth too is myth \u2013 even what we have seen with our own eyes, and experienced with our own lives, and which seems blatantly true to us, changes when we come to understand the motivations and reasons for the parts that other actors played in the event. It shifts as we learn more, and as we realise that our own issues have clouded our interpretation. Our culture, our upbringing and our personal pain all affect how we experience the world, and how we perceive it. I know this but Ali <\/span>Abunimah, it seems, has yet to learn it<\/span><\/a>\u2026.. as have others.<\/h5>\nSo, this is how I see Gilad and understand his work. It is part of an evolving view and it is possible that in time I may see it all completely differently. Gilad himself may identify with parts of it, and disagree with other parts. He may even help to change my view of him\u2026\u2026 and maybe I can help change his view of him \u2013 all things are possible.<\/h5>\nLike me, Gilad was born in an Apartheid society \u2013 in his case Israel. I should tell you that one of our key differences is around whether or not Israel is an Apartheid state \u2013 I am an Aye \u2013 he is a Nay. Unlike me, he bought into it as a kid. It was only when he was coming to the end of his time in the misleadingly named Israeli Defence Force, where he was a medic and musician, that he had cause to go to Lebanon and see the conditions that Palestinian prisoners were kept in. This led him to start questioning all that he had learnt and the society in which he grew up.<\/h5>\nHe left Israel and moved to Europe where he developed his music and also studied philosophy and did some training in psychotherapy. He found himself profoundly influenced by Otto Weineger, a disturbed and brilliant soul who wrote some disgusting stuff and killed himself at a very young age.<\/h5>\nInfluenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Even at that age I knew that was a blatant lie and thus I learned to question what was going on around me and came to an understanding that none of us should be treated as a lesser being, nor judged, nor subjected to abuse and poverty or even death because of who brought us into this world \u2026\u2026\u2026. Perhaps because of my own disturbance I was unable to muster the supremacist ego of the racists around me \u2013 and I was further marginalised for not being one of them\u2026\u2026 It is one of the greatest tragedies of my life, that my birth brother, from whom I was separated in my toddler-hood, and only found again a quarter of a century later, did become one of them, and still is. I love him so dearly \u2013 but our political differences prevent us from enjoying each other.<\/h5>\nA year or so later I had done something else \u2018naughty\u2019 and my father was punching and kicking me around my room.<\/h5>\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d (He beats me for not knowing).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cYou\u2019re a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d (He beats me for being this).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI\u2019m a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d* (He beats me worse than before)…
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cNo child of mine ever talks about themselves like that…\u201d
\n(*This is why I don\u2019t believe torture can ever do any good whatsoever)<\/h5>\nThis may help those of you who know me to understand more about the tortured, disturbed, sometimes shy, sometimes outrageous, difficult individual that I have grown to be. It may help you understand why I have problems forming attachments, building relationships, accepting authority and believing that the world is an okay place\u2026.. why I have spent the last decade mired in a deep depression from which I am still struggling (so far without any success whatsoever) to emerge.<\/h5>\n\u201cSmile they said, things could be worse, so I did and they were\u2026.\u201d
\nOne of my mantras<\/h5>\nMy experiences have led to me search for ways to build a better world \u2013 I was a liberal until I knew better \u2013 I believed that I could be part of changing the world into a better place \u2013 but the harder I tried the worse it seemed to become. I thought I had found a \u2018spiritual home\u2019 and a group I belonged to when I discovered Anarchism and Direct Action, but like all my relationships it became problematic as I discovered that this group too was riddled with hypocrisies, double standards and, as it turned out, a rather distorted sense of what freedom <\/span>means<\/span><\/a>\u2026\u2026. The systemic problems of the society and system I live in were mirrored in the very group that was trying to free itself from them. As I think Kurt Vonnegut might say, \u201cHow do you like them apples?\u201d<\/h5>\nGilad Atzmon and the ‘Truth’<\/h2>\nGilad was a key part of accelerating that disenchantment \u2013 he has taught me so much and cost me so much\u2026\u2026 I love him like the birth brother I am prevented from loving \u2013 although I have only met him a few times and we are in no sense close friends\u2026.. we too have political differences but at least we can try talking about them \u2013 and sometimes we even resolve them. Sometimes we tackle issues together \u2013 for most of the time I remain connected to him through his writings, which I read often \u2013 I must have read most of what he has written by now, and there is lots of it.<\/h5>\nI understand that truth too is myth \u2013 even what we have seen with our own eyes, and experienced with our own lives, and which seems blatantly true to us, changes when we come to understand the motivations and reasons for the parts that other actors played in the event. It shifts as we learn more, and as we realise that our own issues have clouded our interpretation. Our culture, our upbringing and our personal pain all affect how we experience the world, and how we perceive it. I know this but Ali <\/span>Abunimah, it seems, has yet to learn it<\/span><\/a>\u2026.. as have others.<\/h5>\nSo, this is how I see Gilad and understand his work. It is part of an evolving view and it is possible that in time I may see it all completely differently. Gilad himself may identify with parts of it, and disagree with other parts. He may even help to change my view of him\u2026\u2026 and maybe I can help change his view of him \u2013 all things are possible.<\/h5>\nLike me, Gilad was born in an Apartheid society \u2013 in his case Israel. I should tell you that one of our key differences is around whether or not Israel is an Apartheid state \u2013 I am an Aye \u2013 he is a Nay. Unlike me, he bought into it as a kid. It was only when he was coming to the end of his time in the misleadingly named Israeli Defence Force, where he was a medic and musician, that he had cause to go to Lebanon and see the conditions that Palestinian prisoners were kept in. This led him to start questioning all that he had learnt and the society in which he grew up.<\/h5>\nHe left Israel and moved to Europe where he developed his music and also studied philosophy and did some training in psychotherapy. He found himself profoundly influenced by Otto Weineger, a disturbed and brilliant soul who wrote some disgusting stuff and killed himself at a very young age.<\/h5>\nInfluenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Him<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI don\u2019t know.\u201d (He beats me for not knowing).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cYou\u2019re a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d (He beats me for being this).
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cWhat are you?\u201d
\nMe<\/strong>: \u201cI\u2019m a yellow liver bellied snake.\u201d* (He beats me worse than before)…
\nHim<\/strong>: \u201cNo child of mine ever talks about themselves like that…\u201d
\n(*This is why I don\u2019t believe torture can ever do any good whatsoever)<\/h5>\nThis may help those of you who know me to understand more about the tortured, disturbed, sometimes shy, sometimes outrageous, difficult individual that I have grown to be. It may help you understand why I have problems forming attachments, building relationships, accepting authority and believing that the world is an okay place\u2026.. why I have spent the last decade mired in a deep depression from which I am still struggling (so far without any success whatsoever) to emerge.<\/h5>\n\u201cSmile they said, things could be worse, so I did and they were\u2026.\u201d
\nOne of my mantras<\/h5>\nMy experiences have led to me search for ways to build a better world \u2013 I was a liberal until I knew better \u2013 I believed that I could be part of changing the world into a better place \u2013 but the harder I tried the worse it seemed to become. I thought I had found a \u2018spiritual home\u2019 and a group I belonged to when I discovered Anarchism and Direct Action, but like all my relationships it became problematic as I discovered that this group too was riddled with hypocrisies, double standards and, as it turned out, a rather distorted sense of what freedom <\/span>means<\/span><\/a>\u2026\u2026. The systemic problems of the society and system I live in were mirrored in the very group that was trying to free itself from them. As I think Kurt Vonnegut might say, \u201cHow do you like them apples?\u201d<\/h5>\nGilad Atzmon and the ‘Truth’<\/h2>\nGilad was a key part of accelerating that disenchantment \u2013 he has taught me so much and cost me so much\u2026\u2026 I love him like the birth brother I am prevented from loving \u2013 although I have only met him a few times and we are in no sense close friends\u2026.. we too have political differences but at least we can try talking about them \u2013 and sometimes we even resolve them. Sometimes we tackle issues together \u2013 for most of the time I remain connected to him through his writings, which I read often \u2013 I must have read most of what he has written by now, and there is lots of it.<\/h5>\nI understand that truth too is myth \u2013 even what we have seen with our own eyes, and experienced with our own lives, and which seems blatantly true to us, changes when we come to understand the motivations and reasons for the parts that other actors played in the event. It shifts as we learn more, and as we realise that our own issues have clouded our interpretation. Our culture, our upbringing and our personal pain all affect how we experience the world, and how we perceive it. I know this but Ali <\/span>Abunimah, it seems, has yet to learn it<\/span><\/a>\u2026.. as have others.<\/h5>\nSo, this is how I see Gilad and understand his work. It is part of an evolving view and it is possible that in time I may see it all completely differently. Gilad himself may identify with parts of it, and disagree with other parts. He may even help to change my view of him\u2026\u2026 and maybe I can help change his view of him \u2013 all things are possible.<\/h5>\nLike me, Gilad was born in an Apartheid society \u2013 in his case Israel. I should tell you that one of our key differences is around whether or not Israel is an Apartheid state \u2013 I am an Aye \u2013 he is a Nay. Unlike me, he bought into it as a kid. It was only when he was coming to the end of his time in the misleadingly named Israeli Defence Force, where he was a medic and musician, that he had cause to go to Lebanon and see the conditions that Palestinian prisoners were kept in. This led him to start questioning all that he had learnt and the society in which he grew up.<\/h5>\nHe left Israel and moved to Europe where he developed his music and also studied philosophy and did some training in psychotherapy. He found himself profoundly influenced by Otto Weineger, a disturbed and brilliant soul who wrote some disgusting stuff and killed himself at a very young age.<\/h5>\nInfluenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\u201cSmile they said, things could be worse, so I did and they were\u2026.\u201d
\nOne of my mantras<\/h5>\nMy experiences have led to me search for ways to build a better world \u2013 I was a liberal until I knew better \u2013 I believed that I could be part of changing the world into a better place \u2013 but the harder I tried the worse it seemed to become. I thought I had found a \u2018spiritual home\u2019 and a group I belonged to when I discovered Anarchism and Direct Action, but like all my relationships it became problematic as I discovered that this group too was riddled with hypocrisies, double standards and, as it turned out, a rather distorted sense of what freedom <\/span>means<\/span><\/a>\u2026\u2026. The systemic problems of the society and system I live in were mirrored in the very group that was trying to free itself from them. As I think Kurt Vonnegut might say, \u201cHow do you like them apples?\u201d<\/h5>\nGilad Atzmon and the ‘Truth’<\/h2>\nGilad was a key part of accelerating that disenchantment \u2013 he has taught me so much and cost me so much\u2026\u2026 I love him like the birth brother I am prevented from loving \u2013 although I have only met him a few times and we are in no sense close friends\u2026.. we too have political differences but at least we can try talking about them \u2013 and sometimes we even resolve them. Sometimes we tackle issues together \u2013 for most of the time I remain connected to him through his writings, which I read often \u2013 I must have read most of what he has written by now, and there is lots of it.<\/h5>\nI understand that truth too is myth \u2013 even what we have seen with our own eyes, and experienced with our own lives, and which seems blatantly true to us, changes when we come to understand the motivations and reasons for the parts that other actors played in the event. It shifts as we learn more, and as we realise that our own issues have clouded our interpretation. Our culture, our upbringing and our personal pain all affect how we experience the world, and how we perceive it. I know this but Ali <\/span>Abunimah, it seems, has yet to learn it<\/span><\/a>\u2026.. as have others.<\/h5>\nSo, this is how I see Gilad and understand his work. It is part of an evolving view and it is possible that in time I may see it all completely differently. Gilad himself may identify with parts of it, and disagree with other parts. He may even help to change my view of him\u2026\u2026 and maybe I can help change his view of him \u2013 all things are possible.<\/h5>\nLike me, Gilad was born in an Apartheid society \u2013 in his case Israel. I should tell you that one of our key differences is around whether or not Israel is an Apartheid state \u2013 I am an Aye \u2013 he is a Nay. Unlike me, he bought into it as a kid. It was only when he was coming to the end of his time in the misleadingly named Israeli Defence Force, where he was a medic and musician, that he had cause to go to Lebanon and see the conditions that Palestinian prisoners were kept in. This led him to start questioning all that he had learnt and the society in which he grew up.<\/h5>\nHe left Israel and moved to Europe where he developed his music and also studied philosophy and did some training in psychotherapy. He found himself profoundly influenced by Otto Weineger, a disturbed and brilliant soul who wrote some disgusting stuff and killed himself at a very young age.<\/h5>\nInfluenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Gilad Atzmon and the ‘Truth’<\/h2>\nGilad was a key part of accelerating that disenchantment \u2013 he has taught me so much and cost me so much\u2026\u2026 I love him like the birth brother I am prevented from loving \u2013 although I have only met him a few times and we are in no sense close friends\u2026.. we too have political differences but at least we can try talking about them \u2013 and sometimes we even resolve them. Sometimes we tackle issues together \u2013 for most of the time I remain connected to him through his writings, which I read often \u2013 I must have read most of what he has written by now, and there is lots of it.<\/h5>\nI understand that truth too is myth \u2013 even what we have seen with our own eyes, and experienced with our own lives, and which seems blatantly true to us, changes when we come to understand the motivations and reasons for the parts that other actors played in the event. It shifts as we learn more, and as we realise that our own issues have clouded our interpretation. Our culture, our upbringing and our personal pain all affect how we experience the world, and how we perceive it. I know this but Ali <\/span>Abunimah, it seems, has yet to learn it<\/span><\/a>\u2026.. as have others.<\/h5>\nSo, this is how I see Gilad and understand his work. It is part of an evolving view and it is possible that in time I may see it all completely differently. Gilad himself may identify with parts of it, and disagree with other parts. He may even help to change my view of him\u2026\u2026 and maybe I can help change his view of him \u2013 all things are possible.<\/h5>\nLike me, Gilad was born in an Apartheid society \u2013 in his case Israel. I should tell you that one of our key differences is around whether or not Israel is an Apartheid state \u2013 I am an Aye \u2013 he is a Nay. Unlike me, he bought into it as a kid. It was only when he was coming to the end of his time in the misleadingly named Israeli Defence Force, where he was a medic and musician, that he had cause to go to Lebanon and see the conditions that Palestinian prisoners were kept in. This led him to start questioning all that he had learnt and the society in which he grew up.<\/h5>\nHe left Israel and moved to Europe where he developed his music and also studied philosophy and did some training in psychotherapy. He found himself profoundly influenced by Otto Weineger, a disturbed and brilliant soul who wrote some disgusting stuff and killed himself at a very young age.<\/h5>\nInfluenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I understand that truth too is myth \u2013 even what we have seen with our own eyes, and experienced with our own lives, and which seems blatantly true to us, changes when we come to understand the motivations and reasons for the parts that other actors played in the event. It shifts as we learn more, and as we realise that our own issues have clouded our interpretation. Our culture, our upbringing and our personal pain all affect how we experience the world, and how we perceive it. I know this but Ali <\/span>Abunimah, it seems, has yet to learn it<\/span><\/a>\u2026.. as have others.<\/h5>\nSo, this is how I see Gilad and understand his work. It is part of an evolving view and it is possible that in time I may see it all completely differently. Gilad himself may identify with parts of it, and disagree with other parts. He may even help to change my view of him\u2026\u2026 and maybe I can help change his view of him \u2013 all things are possible.<\/h5>\nLike me, Gilad was born in an Apartheid society \u2013 in his case Israel. I should tell you that one of our key differences is around whether or not Israel is an Apartheid state \u2013 I am an Aye \u2013 he is a Nay. Unlike me, he bought into it as a kid. It was only when he was coming to the end of his time in the misleadingly named Israeli Defence Force, where he was a medic and musician, that he had cause to go to Lebanon and see the conditions that Palestinian prisoners were kept in. This led him to start questioning all that he had learnt and the society in which he grew up.<\/h5>\nHe left Israel and moved to Europe where he developed his music and also studied philosophy and did some training in psychotherapy. He found himself profoundly influenced by Otto Weineger, a disturbed and brilliant soul who wrote some disgusting stuff and killed himself at a very young age.<\/h5>\nInfluenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Like me, Gilad was born in an Apartheid society \u2013 in his case Israel. I should tell you that one of our key differences is around whether or not Israel is an Apartheid state \u2013 I am an Aye \u2013 he is a Nay. Unlike me, he bought into it as a kid. It was only when he was coming to the end of his time in the misleadingly named Israeli Defence Force, where he was a medic and musician, that he had cause to go to Lebanon and see the conditions that Palestinian prisoners were kept in. This led him to start questioning all that he had learnt and the society in which he grew up.<\/h5>\nHe left Israel and moved to Europe where he developed his music and also studied philosophy and did some training in psychotherapy. He found himself profoundly influenced by Otto Weineger, a disturbed and brilliant soul who wrote some disgusting stuff and killed himself at a very young age.<\/h5>\nInfluenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Influenced by Weineger, Gilad began examining himself \u2013 a process of looking into the mirror, and examining what he didn\u2019t like about himself in minute detail. He came to think that Jewish identity was a part of his problem, and his study of this aspect of himself was further developed when he expanded his navel gazing to include a small but influential group of Jewish anti-Zionists, centred mainly in London where he also lives, and whom he publicly <\/span>attacked<\/span><\/a> after they (JAZ) started attacking a group whom he discovered were also critically exploring the issue of Jewish ideology, often in an very offensive and unpleasant way. The group included Paul Eisen and Israel Shamir. I am not very clear on how close they were, or the interactions between them, but it does seem that they were all influenced by each other, and learnt from each other.<\/h5>\nUnsurprisingly, it didn\u2019t take long for accusations of anti-Semitism to start flying around \u2013 and for destruction to occur. The more the group developed their critique of Jewish <\/span>Power<\/span><\/a>, it seems the more Jewish Power was unleashed in an attempt to marginalise and destroy them. Gilad chose to face the onslaught full on, and despite serious attempts to marginalise and destroy him, he continues to develop his critique of them, their ideology and their power. He still works as an accomplished and popular Jazz musician and his writings are widely read \u2013 Erdog<\/span>an<\/span><\/a> even quoted him once which caused a major furore, and some respectable and respected individuals such as Richard<\/span> Falk<\/span><\/a> and Mearshei<\/span>mer<\/span><\/a> <\/span>have been seriously attacked for coming out in support of his work. I too have been under sustained <\/span>attack<\/span><\/a> by Jewish anti-Zionists and <\/span>Zionist<\/span>s<\/span><\/a> alike.<\/h5>\nThe attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
The attempts to silence Gilad have been sustained and brutal, and it is difficult to read him if your introduction is the out of context snippets circulated with the intention of destroying him.<\/h5>\nAn example of this: I went to the launch of his book – and was met with the spectacle of folk I have been involved in BDS actions with, picketing the meeting and handing out a leaflet, written by arch rival Tony Greenstein which claimed to be snippets of the book (The wandering who says \u2026.) They were not from the book at all. In order to attend the launch, I had to cross a picket line of people I have previously faced arrest with, and that pretty much ended my involvement as an activist who had been intensely involved in BDS Direct Actions. I now share many of Gilad\u2019s reservations about, and critiques of BDS… although I continue to believe that every attempt should be made to isolate Israel as a brutal, Apartheid state.<\/h5>\nIndymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Indymedia UK, a project I have a long association with, has been profoundly<\/span> damaged<\/span><\/a> by an insistence that it ban <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a>, which didn’t happen, partly because I opposed the demand. It seems to me that if Indymedia UK lived up to its own aims and intentions it would be a good forum for the debate he is trying to launch \u2013 but it proved to be moribund by its own inconsistencies, and has so far not been able to stand up to the attacks on it by Atzmon\u2019s opponents.<\/h5>\nRecently my attention has been mainly focused on the brutal attack on the poor in the UK, currently being orchestrated by the nasties in the coalition, and their dismantling of all that made Britain a bearable place to live for those like me who feel unable to cope in the countries of their birth. I haven\u2019t been writing on Palestine, and haven\u2019t been involved in activism around it. I avoid demos because of the <\/span>intense victimisation I have suffered at the hands of the<\/span> police<\/span><\/a> \u2013 who have helped me understand that the police are the enemy of freedom, and that for as long as we have police we cannot be free.<\/h5>\nI have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I have been horrified by how muted the so-called radical Left\u2019s response has been to these brutal attacks on our own society’s most vulnerable. At times it has seemed as if I am back in an Apartheid state, with much of the left being in the position that Liberal white South Africans found themselves in \u2013 they knew it was wrong, but they were benefiting enough from it not to want seriously to destroy it. I have personally been affected by the cuts to services that have hindered my own attempts to free myself enough from my own disturbances and depression so that I can find a way of being in this world that allows to me function in a better way than I am able to now… In order that I don’t spend much of my time wishing I could go to sleep and never wake up, or fighting strong suicidal impulses.<\/h5>\nI am wondering if it is even possible to be well-adjusted in a maladjusted world. If being well-adjusted means accepting inequality and injustice and allowing it to flourish, then I guess my project is doomed to failure.<\/h5>\nIf you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
If you believe the hype about Atzmon, as represented by his rivals, then he aims to turn us all into jack-booted racists. I know enough about him to think this is preposterous, and I am beginning to believe that part of what makes them most uncomfortable and angry about him – all that he hates most about the way that his Jewish upbringing has affected him – makes them profoundly uncomfortable about themselves too because, when we are confronted with parts of ourselves that repulse us, we often lash out.<\/h5>\nI do believe that Gilad is part of a much wider struggle towards a world where we can live in dignity, and at peace with one another \u2013 for a while he ended all his performances with \u201cWhat a wonderful World\u201d. In any case, any new and improved society will have to include all, including those who offend us, disturb us or are from the far Right, regardless of whether we like them or not.<\/h5>\nAt the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
At the least Atzmon opens a debate that I think needs to be had \u2013 and which has been censored at a major cost to many \u2013 but he has chipped away at it and it seems to me that the debate is beginning to open up.<\/h5>\nDespite all the time I have spent reading Atzmon, and listening to him, and recording<\/span> him<\/span><\/a>, I still don\u2019t hate anyone on the basis that their mother or father happened to be Jewish. In fact, some of the most influential and loved people in my life fall into that category. So if his opponents are right about his project then it appears to be a failed project.<\/h5>\nIf his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
If his project is the deJudaization of Atzmon, it too is doomed to failure because his upbringing is central to who he is now. But his argument that people need to find a way of understanding and reducing the influence of the environments we grew up in and relinquishing the identities foisted upon us by them, has some validity in it, and it does seem that an increasing number of Jews are starting to explore the path.<\/h5>\nI am out of energy \u2013 follow the links if you want to know more \u2013 and read <\/span>Atzmon<\/span><\/a> if you are able to open your mind enough to hear what he has to say, or perhaps start by listening to his <\/span>music<\/span><\/a>. If you insist on judging him solely on what his opponents say, then you aren’t going to be able to do it. And if you insist that you will only relate to me if I denounce him and stop reading his writings, then farewell until such time that you are ready to allow me the freedom to follow my own instincts and respect my right to live a life with as much integrity as I can muster.<\/h5>\nI will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I will end with one more part of my truth.<\/h5>\nWhen I arrived at my adoptive home \u2013 having been stripped of my mother, my father, my brother, my home and my culture – they tried to rename me. Even at 5 I was stubborn enough to refuse to answer to the new name they wanted to foist onto me.<\/h5>\nIn my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
In my essence I am still that stubborn kid, who insists on being himself and I still thirst for a world which is propelled by a desire to meet need, not greed \u2013 where we do our utmost to ensure the dignity of all, and where we do not have states and corporations that rob so many of so much.<\/h5>\nMaybe we\u2019re part of the same struggle \u2013 but I have to do it my way – and that may sometimes make you uncomfortable. It certainly causes me great personal discomfort and costs me much.<\/h5>\nIf you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
If you read this far, I hope it has helped you understand some of the things I have done \u2013 and dispelled some of the preposterous myths about me (and, co-incidentally, Atzmon).<\/h5>\nI thank you.<\/h5>\nfreethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
freethepeeps aka Roy Bard<\/strong><\/h5>\nSource <\/a><\/a>
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A personal perspective on Atzmon and elements in the anti-Zionist movement<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80796","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-Israel_Anti-Semitism_Zionism_and_US-UK_allies"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=80796"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81050,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80796\/revisions\/81050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=80796"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=80796"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=80796"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}