[mobglob-discuss] Fw: (en) US, NY, Open City Anarchist collective: Statement on "Rock of Dissent" by Israel Shamir.

[Macdonald Stainsby]

Israel Shamir: Jewish Nazi-sympathiser?

Now I've heard it all in this sad saga.

I guess we'll have to use our old stand by, class analysis and solidarity. No
"anti-tax" schemes, no conspiracy-driven rants, nothing but boring old stories
about the wealth of power deconstruction and the poverty of right wing politics
and their supporters.

Bummer, really ....
Macdonald

----- Original Message -----
From: <christinekaratnytsky at juno.com>
To: <a-infos-en at ainfos.ca>
Sent: Saturday, August 17, 2002 10:27 PM
Subject: (en) US, NY, Open City Anarchist collective: Statement on "Rock of
Dissent" by Israel Shamir.


> ________________________________________________
>       A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
>             http://www.ainfos.ca/
>         http://ainfos.ca/index24.html
>  ________________________________________________
>
> Below is an article by Israel Shamir (who turns out to be quite a
> shady character despite his eloquent attacks on zionism, see the
> Electronic Intifada at http://www.nigelparry.com/issues/shamir/ for
> the real scoop on Shamir) and below that is the Open City Anarchist
> Collective's reply to him. His broadside was in response to calls to
> action put out in response to the Nazi National Alliance's "Rock
> Against Israel" called for DC on Aug. 24. (go to leftturn.org, under
> event calendar to find calls to action).
>
> ---------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Rock of Dissent
>
> By Israel Shamir
>
> A victim can develop mental attachment to the tormentor. Patty
> Hearst, a millionaire's daughter, was kidnapped and fell in love with
> her kidnappers. In the Night Porter, the dark movie by Liliana
> Cavani, an ex-inmate of a Nazi camp and an ex-SS-man, her tormentor
> of past, run a passionate love affair.
>
> Now something similar happens in the Palestinian American community.
> The most reviled and wronged group of American population is called
> to defend the most prosperous and powerful one against their own
> supporters. On 24th of August '02, there will be an event in
> Washington, Rock for Palestine, or Rock against Israel, as it is also
> called. The event is organised by some right-wing Americans, loosely
> connected to a small group called National Alliance (NA). Whatever
> one thinks about NA, one would expect a satisfied shrug, at least, if
> not outright support coming from Palestinians and their friends in
> the US.
>
> Instead, in the emails there is a hysterical letter addressed to
> "all my Arab sisters and brothers", calling to violently confront the
> event in a military manner (!) "in several different contingents with
> various risk levels". The letter is extremely violent and is written
> in intemperate language of hate, the like of it we have not seen
> before: "We have to stop this racist scum from polluting the
> Palestinian cause", no less. The organisers of the event are
> described as "neo-Nazis", "fascists", "Nazi enemies" and
> "anti-Semites". It is composed by a mysterious East Coast
> Anti-Fascist Network, and has some Arab names attached to it, though
> for sure it isn't written by an Arab.
>
> Now, nobody likes Nazis, but I wonder why this militant Anti-Fascist
> Network did not go out to confront gatherings and demonstrations of
> Judeo-Nazis? What is so wonderful about us Jews that so many people
> wish to go out and fight for us "in different contingents with
> various risk levels"? Why this fighting Uruk-hai does not describe
> Mort Zuckerman or Richard Perle, "racist scum"? Not even Israeli
> settlers, as racist as anybody, were ever described as "racist scum"
> that "should not pollute Palestine".
>
> It is a mistake to describe anybody as "scum". We should promote more
> tolerant discourse, accepting or arguing, not fighting somebody
> else's war. The letter of this "anti-fascist Network" looks like an
> attempt of the Jewish lobby to make its adversaries to fight each
> other.
>
> This thing has no end. Today they want us to fight NA, tomorrow they
> would ask us to condemn Farrakhan, and next day - to reject Hezbollah
> and Hamas. Maybe some of us would like to be approved and promoted
> only by the Yale professors. But we live in real world. Israel
> accepts support of every racist that extends its support: be it South
> African apartheid of old, or present-say fundamentalists, and it does
> not hurt its "credibility".
>
> It does not mean that one should run forward and endorse the NA
> get-together. But these people should be worked with, not rejected
> out of hand. Some of their erroneous ideas could be corrected. If
> they would just say "affirmation of European legacy" instead of
> "white supremacy" you would discover that the arguments against them
> collapse. It is like saying "let us make love" instead of 'fuck you'
> - the meaning is quite similar, but wording is important.
>
> I do not intend even to enter discussion, whether the organisers of
> the event are good guys or bad guys. They can't be more racist than
> the present Israeli government and the American Jewish community
> leadership. They can't be more racist than Pat Roberson and his bunch
> of (anti-)Christian Zionists. Let this anti-fascist (and surely
> crypto-Jewish) network go out and fight them first. I would bless
> whoever supports the cause of Palestine without checking their
> ideological credentials. I bless all supporters of Palestine
> full stop.
>
> However, navigating to the home page of the NA, one finds a
> cartoon to sympathise with. It is rather crude depiction of a
> Neo-Con, looking like a cross between Kissinger and Perle, asking
> America to kill his enemies: Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia and so forth.
> Yes, these guys are short of finesse, some of their ideas are weird,
> but they came to correct conclusion: America should not fight the
> WWIII for the Zionists' sake.
>
> In our Togethernet, "the freest discussion group in the known
> Universe" J, we had some people who will attend the concert. One of
> them wrote: "I don't know of ANY white "supremacists" outside of a
> couple of fantasizing juvenile delinquents in the World Church of the
> Creator and some Hollywood Nazis. And a section of the Republican
> Party personified by George Bush. "Supremacist" is a label created by
> the Zionists of the ADL and kindred spirits. It was used for the same
> purpose as calling all Palestinian opposition to Zionist occupation
> and invasion, 'terrorism'. Methinks the Zionists engage in a lot of
> projectionism when they cast their epithets".
>
> If we go out now to defend the powerful American Jews and to fight
> these 'White' guys, because we do not like their ideology, our next
> step should be to go out and defend Israel with our own bodies
> against possible attack from Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Saddam is also
> supposed to be a bad guy, and I am ready to accept he is. In 1991, I
> wrote in the leading Russian newspaper, "Probably Saddam is a bad
> guy, but the Middle East needs a strong bad guy to counteract other,
> Zionist bad guys".
>
> The world is full of bad guys, and things are good only if and when
> the bad guys balance each other. Saddam would balance Sharon, while
> the White supremacists would balance the Jewish supremacists. If
> indeed these men are not supremacists, but cultural separatists, as
> they claim, we certainly can do things together with them, and with
> another group of cultural separatists, the Black Muslims, too.
>
> The author of the epistle offers, with his low grade cunning, an
> additional reason for Palestinians to go and fight for Jews: "If we
> don't do this, our Nazi enemies will claim our noble cause and our
> Zionist enemies will try to present them as our face". Let him rest
> assured. In Israel, and in Jewish communities overseas, Palestinians
> are presented as Nazis on daily basis. Menachem Begin called Arafat,
> "Hitler" years ago. If there is a nasty thing that the Jewish-owned
> media could say and print about Palestinians, they already did it.
> When Palestinian children are shot, Palestinians are blamed
> that they let their children out. The Palestinians are already
> smeared so much that they can not be smeared more: they are already
> described as Jew-haters and baby-killers. How come we Jews do not
> become "discredited" because of Kahane terrorists or Sharon's
> assassins? Because people understand: not every Jew is a Judeo-Nazi.
> In the same way, Americans can distinguish between different
> opponents of the Israeli apartheid.
>
> Let us suppose for the sake of argument, that these 'white
> supremacists' are real Nazis. (They are not). It would be enough for
> them to cease attacking Jews, and they would become perfectly good in
> the eyes of the US media. After that, they would be permitted to say
> whatever they wish against Muslims, Palestinians, Blacks. All this
> talk against fascism lasts only as long as the fascists are against
> Jews. The moment they switch sides, they get kosher approval. Now, an
> Israeli government delegation participated in deliberations of
> European extreme right ("fascists") in Brussels. In the US, the
> "pro-white" people are not courted by the Jewish community, but
> it still could happen, if we do not watch out.
>
> Probably you had seen this last Bruce Willis movie, Last Man
> Standing. In a small Texan town there are two gangs, and Willis helps
> them to fight it out. The Jewish supremacists are a million times
> stronger than all White supremacists put together. Elementary
> strategy calls us to avoid giving any support to the Jewish cause,
> until the apartheid in Palestine is dismantled.
>
> As for the concert, probably some Palestinians and their friends
> will get there, and the rest would stay away. The organisers did not
> ask for anybody's endorsement. Let the anti-fascists keep their
> strength for more worthy cause. And whoever will go to fight for the
> American Jewish community, let him be prepared for disappointment.
> His chivalry will not be reciprocated.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
> Statement of the Open City Anarchist Collective (NYC) of the
> Northeastern Federation of Anarcho-Communists, with Bilal El-Amine.
>
>
> We condemn Israel Shamir's unprincipled and dangerous article, "Rock
> of Dissent", which seeks to malign the demonstration against the nazi
> white power rally by the National Alliance at the US Capitol building
> on August 24th.
>
> Through a shroud of unsavory and often tangled rhetoric, Israel
> Shamir takes the honorable position of opposing the State of Israel's
> oppression of Palestinian Arabs who are fighting Zionism.
> Unfortunately, his political preferences are disoriented.  His chosen
> allies, enemies of both Palestinians and Jews, as well as of all
> working people, are suspect. Shamir makes clear that he will support
> any political force, no matter how vile, if it will oppose Zionism.
> He praises Saddam Hussein as a strong "bad guy" who is needed to
> oppose Israel.   In a public statement brought to our attention by
> Tim Hall of Struggle magazine, Shamir cheers the French vote
> for the fascist Jean-Marie Le Pen, who is hostile to both Jewish and
> Arab immigrants.  (Shamir agrees about the need to limit
> immigration.)  In these remarks, which anticipate his coziness with
> nazis in "Rock Of Dissent", Shamir gives advice to them of ways to
> appear less offensive.  In "Rock of Dissent", Shamir adopts an
> "enemy-of-my-enemy-is-my-friend" posture in an attempt to fool the
> naive and neutralize the militant.  We repudiate him.
>
> Israel Shamir lies.  Arguing that Palestinians and the Palestinian
> solidarity movement should be grateful for the backing from them, he
> denies the National Alliance is nazi or white supremacist.  This is
> important for his argument, given that white supremacists in the
> United States are known to despise Arabs and Muslims.  But the
> temporary, opportunistic support of racist extremists for Arabs in
> other countries does not change this. Shamir's denial that the
> National Alliance is racist runs counter to documented facts.
>
> The National Alliance has been the largest nazi group in North
> America for years.  Founded by the late William Pierce in 1974,
> it has built an organization of over a thousand members.  Pierce's
> novel "The Turner Diaries" has served as a blueprint for many white
> supremacist mass murders, from those of the Fort Bragg nazi gang "The
> Order" to Timothy McVeigh's Oklahoma City bombing.  Furthermore, with
> the acquisition of Resistance Records and Nordland Records, two well
> known white supremacist labels, the National Alliance not only earns
> millions of dollars annually from music sales but, more importantly,
> enacts a greatly expanded involvement in the fascist youth
> subculture.  Finally, the National Alliance maintains one of the most
> technologically sophisticated web sites on the Internet, bringing
> hate to a mass audience.  Shamir's facile dismissal of these virulent
> murderers and would-be murderers ("Now, nobody likes Nazis") is a
> contemptible understatement.
>
> Shamir vilifies the U.S. Arab anti-fascists who call for
> participation in the demonstration against the nazis.   On no
> evidence whatsoever, in a bizarre claim they are not even Arab, he
> calls them a front group for Jews, part of a "crypto-Jewish"
> "network".  He falsely implies that they and other members of the
> anti-fascist movement have not opposed Zionism in the past.
> In fact, the activists who wrote the call for Arab opposition to the
> National Alliance are indeed Arabs.
>
> We are long-time activists for the Palestinian cause who do not
> intend to fight on anyone's behalf but our own. Our view is that the
> National Alliance is a very dangerous and sophisticated nazi
> organization that must be stopped.  We will not stand by to allow the
> Palestinian issue to be exploited for racist ends--not only against
> Jews but against all immigrants, including Arabs and Muslims.
> Furthermore, the anti-fascist, anti-Zionist movement has worked in
> mutual support and solidarity, with numerous examples of public
> opposition to the State of Israel's brutal, illegal occupation of
> Palestinian land, including, in New York City, at the most recent
> Salute to Israel Day parade. But anti-fascist anti-Zionists are
> united in yet another area: against anti-Semitism. We will not
> dehumanize or denigrate any group of human beings for the noble cause
> of Palestinian liberty.  We will not ally ourselves with those who
> do.
>
> We reject Shamir's notion that fascists, nazis and racists are
> acceptable if they manufacture a reason to support the cause of
> Palestinian liberty. We are aware that Shamir has become notorious
> among people of principle for explicit anti-Jewish statements.  We
> stand with them in opposition to him.
>
> Shamir argues that pro-Israeli U.S. Jews are more influential than
> U.S. Nazis.  This is true, for now. Yet, all around us, we see cities
> and towns infested with racism. Racism against Jews.  Racism against
> blacks. Against Hispanics, Asians, South Asians, Arabs and Muslims.
> Hatemongering and institutional racism are far more widespread than
> support for Zionism. The National Alliance understands this.  In a
> climate of governmental and social hostility, amid everyday problems
> of poverty, homelessness, drug abuse and police brutality, the nazis
> appeal through this widespread racial tension in an attempt to expand
> their ranks.  The fascism of white racists, and of all those who
> advance their cause, is a threat to any "non white" people, as well
> as to women, queers, and people with disabilities.  It is a threat to
> their declared enemies--liberals, progressives and anarchists.  It is
> a threat to the empowerment of the working classes.  Shall we wait to
> oppose the National Alliance until their sadistic redistribution of
> power becomes more of a threat?  Shall we wait to oppose the National
> Alliance until they become more numerous and dangerous?
>
> We say no.  We affirm our intention to defeat racism in all its
> forms, from the front steps to the back rooms of the U. S. Capitol.
>
> In true solidarity with the Intifada,
>
> Bill Bachman, Christine Karatnytsky, John Korber and Wayne Price
> opencity45 at hotmail.com
>
> Bilal El-Amine  zaloom33 at yahoo.com
>
>
> *******
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