RePortersNoteBook.com: Gilad Atzmon: An Interesting Exchange With A Jewish Anti Zionist

Aug 17, 2011

Gilad Atzmon: An Interesting Exchange With A Jewish Anti Zionist

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/gilad-atzmon-an-interesting-exchange-with-a-jewish-anti-zion.html

Daniel: If you ask, for instance, why were the Jews repeatedly hated in so many places along their history, as you do in some of your texts, you create room for anti-Semites who may say it is because they are intrinsically evil.

Gilad: To start with, as a thinking being full of curiosity, I do not take instructions from anti Semites or Zionists or Jewish anti Zionist campaigners. I instead follow my instincts and go along with my sincere ethically driven truth-seeking adventure. Also, I believe that the answer you attributed to anti Semites can be easily addressed. Jews cannot be 'intrinsically evil' because Jews do not form a racial or ethnic continuum. Any racial attribution to Jews is clearly wrong and silly.

Daniel: I actually do not agree with your approach. The appropriate answer to the above question is that in the Middle Ages Jews were barred from many professions except money trade and peddling, two professions which could easily arouse disdain and hate.

Gilad: Dear Daniel, with all due respect, such an answer is far from being sufficient. In Europe at least, Jews have been emancipated since the French Revolution. By the end of the 19th century most European Jews enjoyed equal rights. And yet, something went horribly wrong in the 1920s-30's. Our duty then, is to understand, what was it? Why did it happen? Why do Jews encounter resentment all too often and in many different places?

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2. Visit Palestine 2011

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/visit-palestine-2011.html

The 2011 delegation will take place in October ( Starting 15th October 2011 )

Olive Picking Program 2011 [Global participation welcome: Africa, Asia, Latin America and Europe! ] Contact us at visitpalestine@yahoo.co.uk and ask for a registration form:

Invitation to olive picking [Palestine, October, 2011]
( Starting Saturday 15th October 2011 for 9 nights )

http://visitpalestine.webs.com/olivepickingoct2011.htm

2011 will be the 8th year the annual JAI / ATG Olive Picking Program in Palestine from October 15th to 24th 2011. This event is of special significance to the Palestinian economy when all energies and efforts are mobilised.

Since the beginning of the second Intifada in 2000, the olive harvest has been overshadowed by the Israeli policies of repression, closure, blockage of streets, confiscation of agricultural lands, as well as repeated attacks against Palestinian farmers by Israeli settlers. Now with the construction the Apartheid Wall and the continuous expansion of Israeli settlements at the expense of agricultural land in the occupied Palestine , many farmers are separated from their trees, and help is most needed.

The objective of this program is to mobilise as many people as possible for olive picking, especially in areas that are situated in proximity to Israeli settlements and bypass roads, in order to help Palestinian farmers harvest their olive trees which they might be unable to do without international support. Also, the event has brought up awareness to hundreds of people from many countries around the world about real life under the Israeli Military Occupation, and the experience itself was referred to by several participants as a life changing one. You too are invited to join us for this event.

Besides picking olives, the program will feature introductory presentations about the organising institutions, the current situation in Palestine and the effect of the Apartheid Wall, tours in the old city of Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem , a tour of Hebron , cultural evenings and social gatherings.

There will be opportunities to visit the dead sea prior to and after the program and on the day off as well as visiting holy places of interest including historical sites such as the Al Aqsa and Ibrahimi mosques and Nativity.

Olive Picking 2011–