Max Blumenthal on Alison Weir

Gilad Atzmon

On June 30th 2015, I attended a book signing and talk by Max Blumenthal presenting his newest book  The 51 Day War: Ruin and Resistance in Gaza

I arrived about halfway through his talk, being familiar with what Max has said in the past, I didn’t feel the need for a lecture, but I was up for the Q and A.  His lecture and the questions that followed really hammered home how barbaric and racist Israeli “Jewish” culture has become.  Max did not seem to pull any punches; in the Q and A he emphasized how in control of the politicians the Jewish/Zionist money had become of both Republicans and Democrats.  He talked about the renewed efforts to smear and defame Palestinian Solidarity Activists especially on campuses, and how big money has been brought into this fight and how the risks of being called an anti-Semite and defamed had increased. 

One questioner asked why Israel had let him back in the country especially after he had written Goliath.  His response was that it was probably because he was Jewish.  Most of the questions were fairly soft ball and no rabid Zionist was in the audience.

I am aware of the smear campaign being launched by Jewish Voices for Peace against Alison Weir.  Knowing her work well, as well as personally knowing her, I found this attack beyond outrageous.  While Max was signing books I approached various activists I knew in the audience talking up Alison Weir and denouncing the attacks against her.

Finally the last book was signed, the line was through.  I approached Max and said I had perhaps a controversial question.  I asked what he thought about the JVP attack on Alison Weir.  His response was vitriolic ...

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Lots to Loathe about Zionists

RINF

I have just finished Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel by Max Blumenthal. It’s written well enough to read in just a short week of a few sittings but this took me several weeks. For those unfamiliar with it, Blumenthal wrote about the day-to-day humiliations faced by Palestinians in Occupied Palestine and Jewish activists in Greater Israel.

What makes this so difficult to read is that it paints Israel as a Jewish state doing horrible things, not just in the name of Judaism, but by an entire population who does it just because they are Jewish. The insane fanaticism of the religious elite that rules every aspect of Israeli life (including towards those who are simply Jewish) provides an argument for anti-Semitism, as awful as that is.

For the longest time I have believed that what’s going on in Palestine is the work of Israelis and Zionists, Jewish and non. Now I have to reconsider my thinking and declare that it is the work of a select group of Jewish people who are Israeli. One would never think of Jewish people world-wide, and especially in the US, being so overtly racist and jingoistic as we see in Israel. Jews, especially in the US, have often been in the forefront of progressive, and even socialist, change. Whether it be with labor, education, feminism, etc., one could easily find Jewish leaders, past and present.

Blumenthal also paints an historical account, with deeply personal stories of the development of an all-Jewish state, the Judaization of Palestine, much like Hitler’s “lebensraum”. Every aspect of Israeli law goes to favor its Jewish population, as in denying building permits to Palestinians who have owned their homes for generations yet freely provide new settlements to new Jewish arrivals, often on confiscated Palestinian land. We see how, even in today’s newspapers, the extra-judicial killings of Palestinians, especially by settlers, go unpunished while nightly raids into villages result in the snatching of children to spend fearful days in Israeli prisons.

Max Blumenthal on "Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel"

Democracy Now!

 As Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is continuing a public campaign to cast doubt on U.S. diplomatic engagement with Iran, we speak to journalist Max Blumenthal, author of the new book, "Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel." Blumenthal looks at life inside Netanyahu’s Israel and the Occupied Territories. "I was most surprised at the banality of the racism and violence that I witnessed and how it’s so widely tolerated because it’s so common," says Blumenthal about his four years of reporting in Israel. "And I’m most surprised that it hasn’t made its way to the American public ... that’s why I set out to do this endeavor, this journalistic endeavor, to paint this intimate portrait of Israeli society for Americans who don’t see what it really is." Click here to watch Part 2 of his interview.

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