After
my first post on the anti-Semitism and the Free Gaza Movement and the
distribution of a link concerning an anti-Semitic video
by a Eustace Mullins, which claimed that the Zionists had basically organised
the holocaust in conjunction with the Nazis, I received on October 14th
various e-mails protesting about my post and saying that Greta had never made
an anti-Semitic comment in her life.
evidence to the contrary I was prepared to let Greta put her case but the post underneath from Mondoweiss is, I believe, quite conclusive in
respect of this matter and it explains why the previous Board of the Gaza
Freedom Movement has resigned.
particular the vicious and racist attacks on Ali Abunima by Greta are
unacceptable and demonstrate, to my eyes at least, that Greta isn’t quite as
innocent as she makes out.
order to understand the background, I am publishing the e-mails I received and
my responses.
Whether I made an error of judgement is for others to decide. However what I do feel strongly about is that it is inevitable, when Zionism repeatedly attacks the Palestine Solidarity movement for ‘anti-Semitism’ that some people will respond in inappropriate ways or will be taken in.
I think it’s important that not only we do not rise to the bait but that we also throw the charge back at them. If they say we are ‘anti-Semitic’ then we are entitled to ask why they are so concerned about ‘anti-semitism’ when they have nothing to say about other forms of racism, i.e. Zionism. Do they e.g. condemn the rabbis who issued and endorsed the fatwa of Shmuel Eliyahu, Chief Rabbi of Safed barring Arabs from renting rooms in the city? Or condemn Torat HaMelech, a vicious tract which justified the murder of Palestinian children? In other words we should not be defensive and respond to every provocation. I have personal experience of late with entirely made up allegations by Zionists on the Sodastream picket. By people who of course don’t care a damn about real anti-Semitism.
What we should do is sort the wheat from the chaff. The dedidated racists and anti-Semites from those who are gullible and taken in by Zionist propaganda. The Atzmons, Shamirs, Martillos, Bards and co, who have now been joined by Ms Berlin too.
I should also thank Stephen Marks who first alerted me to this post from Mondoweiss below.
There is also A final word on Greta Berlin and the Free Gaza controversy where Ali Abunimah makes it very clear just what this group around FGM were up to when they posted
Greenstein
To: [email protected]
Sent: Sunday, 14 October 2012, 17:02
Subject: Here is my rebuttal. Thank you.
regarding a video I wanted to park in a small group and watch later
1. I grabbed the video out of a group of 1000 people, a group that is private
2. I meant to park it into a group of 30+ people that is secret (to watch it
later), but I never checked the settings before I hit SHARE, because I was in a
hurry.
3. I did not watch the video. Why would I have watched the video? I was in a
hell of a hurry and was traveling like crazy those four days. I would have
watched it in the small group. Would we have had a discussion on it? Probably.
We discuss all kinds of things as you can see from the attached conversation
4. I did not know my personal Facebook page was connected to the Free Gaza
TWITTER page. There are 3300 TWEETS on the Free Gaza page, and you all attacked
me for this mistake without even giving me a chance to clarify or figure out
what had happened.
5. Free Gaza apologized on the front page of the website, using the language
that Ali Abunimah gave us.
6. I apologized on the front page of Free Gaza after I figured out what had
happened. That should have been the end of it.
I never said a word about the video. I never hit LIKE. In fact, I have been
demonized, not for the mistake I made, but for the assumption that surely I
MUST have said something to merit all of this hatred. I assure you, I did not.
This witchhunt is not about my stupid mistake. It’s because I endorsed Gilad
Atzmon’s book, The Wandering Who,” a book I personally liked. If everyone
is going after me for my endorsement, then they need to go after the famous
endorsers of Gilad’s journey, including Richard Falk, John Mearsheimer, Karl
Sabbagh, William Gates and Dr. Samir Abed-Rabbo.
OK Tony. You said you would publish my explanation. Please do that for me. You
and I are never going to agree about Gilad, and why should we? I honor your
distaste for his book. You should honor my endorsement or go after everyone who
has endorsec
To: tony greenstein
Sent: Sunday, 14 October 2012, 16:50
Subject: Re: Your post
of me. He never called me. He suggested that I write an apology on the front
page of www.freegaza.org,
and I did exactly that. Did you watch the video? Have you seen the video? It’s
just stupid, but it is NOT anti-semitic. It’s anti-Zionist, big time. And he
does not deny the holocaust. He blames the Zionists.
But that’s not the point. I didn’t watch the video until two days later. I just
meant to park it in my small group, and that was it.
As far as distancing myself from Gilad, I don’t walk away from my friends. Have
you seen the endorsers of his book? I am in honorable company. Are you going
after Richard Falk, John Meirsheimer, Ramzy Baroud, Mazin Qumsieh, Paul Larudee
and a host of others? Did you even read the book? Why do I have to distance
myself from Gilad’s point of view?
This is ALL that happened. .
1. I grabbed the video out of a group of 1000 people, a group that is private
2. I meant to park it into a group of 30+ people that is secret (to watch it
later), but I never checked the settings before I hit SHARE, because I was in a
hurry.
3. I did not watch the video. Why would I have watched the video? I was in a
hell of a hurry and was traveling like crazy those four days. I would have watched
it in the small group. Would we have had a discussion on it? Probably. We
discuss all kinds of things as you can see from the attached conversation
4. I did not know my personal Facebook page was connected to the Free Gaza
TWITTER page. There are 3300 TWEETS on the Free Gaza page, and you all attacked
me for this mistake without even giving me a chance to clarify or figure out
what had happened.
5. Free Gaza apologized on the front page of the website, using the language
that Ali Abunimah gave us.
6. I apologized after I figured out what had happened. That should have been
the end of it.
I never said a word about the video. I never hit LIKE. I have never said
anything. In fact, I have been demonized, not for the mistake I made, but for
the assumption that surely I MUST have said something to merit all of this
hatred. I assure you, I did not.
Greta,
I have tried to penetrate what is a very impenetrable story about who was
discussing what and a video which was anti-Semitic but which I’ve not
seen. What is and isn’t true is difficult to unravel and therefore many
of us will rely on people who have investigated it like Ali Abunimah and
Gabriel Ash.
I suggest you post a response which I will put up which includes responding to
one of the main points which have riled many of us, which is concerning Gilad
Atzmon. The fact that you lauded his book, which is without doubt
anti-Semitic and also locates the oppression of the Palestinians and Zionism’s
barbarities in Jewish identity is something that has weighed heavily with
us. Settler colonialism, be it in southern Africa, Palestine or Ireland
has nothing to do with the inherent characteristics of the settler. That
is to accept their ideology.
Leaving aside all the stuff he has posted which is anti-Semitic http://www.azvsas.blogspot.co.uk/2011/03/guide-to-sayings-of-gilad-atzmon-anti.html
which I put on my site 18 months ago, his book on Jewish identity is nothing of
the sort. It simply draws a straight line between the Mosaic god 3,500
years ago and what Israeli Jews do today. Anyone who wasn’t so ignorant
would know that Jewish identity has changed many times over the centuries,
indeed many times within the last century from the Bund and Jewish working
class movements of the pre-war years to Zionism now. It is one of the
arguments of the Zionists that they have a claim to the land based on what
their forefathers were ‘given’ 3,500 years ago. It’s the myth of the
thousand year Reich.
Atzmon has done a great deal of damage, by associating some in the PS movement
with anti-Semitism and drawn in others like Kenneth O’Keefe, at the same time
as openly opposing BDS as ‘book burning’ and dissociating himself from the
academic and cultural boycotts, which he has termed ‘Jewish’. My and
others’ criticism of him hasn’t been because we have been particularly offended
but because it hurts the Palestinian cause. I can only speak for myself
but in endorsing Atzmon you lent substance to the other charges.
I should add that having picketted much of yesterday outside the Sodastream
shop in Brighton with the Chair of the Zionist Federation, one Jonathan Hoffman
going on about ‘nazi boycotts’ I also noted that they made numerous references
to you although no member of the public would have had the foggiest what they
were on about. If you are sincere, and I hope you are, in your disavowal
of anti-Semitism, then a clear distancing from Atzmon would indeed enable some
of us to come out and say you’ve been misrepresented etc.
Tony
Dear Tony. I have never made an anti-semitic comment in my life. I
really am upset that you would legitimize what I consider to be a witch hunt on
activists who stand up for justice in Palestine. I can’t be any clearer about
what happened than what was posted on the front page of http://www.freegaza.org/.
I’ll reiterate:
I’m so done with this nonsense. I’ll say it one more time.
1. I grabbed the video out of a group of 1000 people, a group that is private
2. I meant to park it into a group of 30+ people that is secret (to watch it
later), but I never checked the settings before I hit SHARE, because I was in a
hurry.
3. I did not watch the video. Why would I have watched the video? I was in a
hell of a hurry and was traveling like crazy those four days. I would have
watched it in the small group. Would we have had a discussion on it? Probably.
We discuss all kinds of things as you can see from the attached conversation
4. I did not know my personal Facebook page was connected to the Free Gaza
TWITTER page. There are 3300 TWEETS on the Free Gaza page, and you all attacked
me for this mistake without even giving me a chance to clarify or figure out
what had happened.
5. Free Gaza apologized on the front page of the website, using the language
that Ali Abunimah gave us. What is his problem?
6. I apologized after I figured out what had happened. That should have been
the end of it.And that is the extent of what happened.
I made no comment about the video. I did not LIKE the video. I thought it was
parked into a small group for discussion later. I fail to see why we could not
have discussed it, as we have discussed homophobia, racism, propaganda and
other topics. So I am being demonized for a posting mistake and not for
anything I EVER said. I am attaching a sample of the conversations in that
small group. My attorneys have the original thread with the names.
Thank you. Greta
Thank you Tony. That is what free speech is all about. I’m 71 years old. I
remember the witch hunts of the 50s and how people demonized my own father. I
never suggested you agree with me. You said you would post my comments, and I’m
happy you are honoring that. Greta
I did indeed say I would publish your comments and I will. I will also
publish underneath my own viewpoint but I will put yours up and mine as a comment
below. I think it is unfortunate that you don’t dissociate yourself from
Atzmon, as he is so clearly anti-Semitic and he has been disavowed by virtually
everyone in the PS movement in Britain. But it is your choice
Tony
Wolf on October 18, 2012
months ago, I was added to a Facebook group called “Our Land” much of which,
when I finally looked at the content, immediately struck me as anti-Semitic in
nature, so I complained to the person who had added me.
person was Greta Berlin. The “Our Land” page currently has 13 administrators,
including Greta, and is a combination of posts from legitimate sources such as Ma’an
News Agency and Al Jazeera on current events in Palestine, along
with anti-Semitic rants and comments. The video of anti-Semitic conspiracy
theorist Eustace Mullins that Greta tweeted out on the Free Gaza Movement’s
Twitter account on September 30 originated in this group.
people have come to Greta’s defense, accepting her assertion that this was a
technical mistake, that she did not support the content of the video, and that
those who have criticized her response to the “mistake” are on a witch hunt.
I’d like to acknowledge that the Free Gaza Movement was not synonymous with
Greta Berlin; some of my good friends and people I deeply respect were leaders
of that movement and their work and commitment should in no way be minimized by
this.
Settingaside Greta’s woefully inadequate explanations for the tweet (of which there
were several), the fact remains: Greta is an active administrator of a Facebook
group that is full of unabashedly anti-Semitic rhetoric and has been called out
before by activists for it but has never done anything to challenge or stop it.
Since the controversy broke, the “Our Land” group has attempted to cover some
of its tracks. The fact that Greta remains an active administrator of a
Facebook group that accommodates this kind of bigotry raises serious issues
about her commitment to building an anti-racist movement committed to justice
and equality. Moreover, her unprincipled,
vicious and Islamophobic
attacks on the Palestinians who have called her to task for her behavior
should alarm all of us who are committed to Palestine solidarity work.
While I
am personally disappointed in Greta the stakes here are much higher than one
person’s lack of judgement. This moment is a challenge to the Palestine
solidarity movement and for us to define the movement we want to be, and the
rhetoric and ideas we are willing to embrace. I hope by writing this, I can
explain what led me to address these concerns, and what I hope we can all learn
from the experience.
A History
of Anti-Semitism
On July11, 2012 I started poking around “Our Land”. I found this article, with a
personalized introduction posted by Greta, about Zionist-Nazi collaboration:
time, the group had just begun, and it included a wide range of voices. While
the issue of Zionist leaders having some level of coordination with the Nazi
government is well-established, someone immediately took issue with the
introduction, which did not come from the article itself but was added by
Greta. Particularly, the idea that “The H” was “to a large degree created” by
Zionists.
assertion that the introduction was not hers but was a comment her “Jewish
friend” wrote could not be verified, as the comments on this article had been
turned off by countercurrents.org due to “racism”. This excuse, however, once
again reeks of the same rationale she used about the tweet: these aren’t her
words, yet she still chooses to disseminate them, without qualification.
began to engage in the discussion, challenging the anti-Semitic claim that Jews
orchestrated the Holocaust, I was immediately attacked by a prolific poster to
the group: Joachim Martillo. He posted to the group often; his area of interest
seemed to be the inherent viciousness and evilness of Ashkenazi (Eastern
European) Jews. When I challenged both his outrageous bigotry, and his penchant
for posting pseudo-scientific rants on Facebook, this is what he said to me:
Wolf is expressing the same sort of bigotry that Jews commonly express when
they claim non-Jews can’t write about Jewish history or the Holocaust because
they are not sufficiently in touch with the Jewish experience.[…]
For the record, I tend to comment
here in the morning to get my mind working — sort of like calisthenics.
At one
time I was trying to focus on becoming a scholar of modern Eastern European and
Jewish historical political economics.
But it is
really hard to obtain a university position if one does not write what rich
Jewish donors want to read.
Then I
moved into packet switching technology (cash flows in an economy are
mathematically indistinguishable to packet flows in an Internet) and invented one
of the key building blocks of the Internet.”
I then,
in a private direct message to Greta, complained about him, and the group in
general, for its content, questioning why she had added me to it in the first
place. She had this to say:
July 11
Greta Berlin
I just posted this to the idiots ganging up on you in Our Land. I have not been
online or I would have stopped it much sooner. …….Sorry Bekah, the page is
not mine. I belong to it just like you do. And, for everyone else in here,
Bekah has more cred in her little finger than many of you do in your entire
body. She lives in Beit Ommar, a Palestinian village in the Hebron District
where PSP is based and puts her feet where her mouth goes. She’s too modest to
tell you these things, but she is an amazing women who works nonstop for the
Palestinians…….
Berlin
I was laughing at Joachim though. He has his good moments but his head is
sometimes up his ass…ertions. And they have no idea who you are, so I just
had to smack them a bit
shocking to me was the fact that she in no way addressed the issue I was
bringing up: that Martillo was habitually making virulently and anti-Jewish
postings in the group. And she just plain lied, she wasn’t just a member of the
group, she was an administrator who had been added as one in June:
look at that list of administrators, by the way. Eight of the 12 besides Greta
are the same people who
signed a letter on her behalf as members of another “secret” Facebook group
in which she claims she intended to post the Eustace Mullins video.
I leftthe group in July, but when I heard about the tweet she posted, and her claim
that it was just a mistaken posting intended for a Facebook group, I was
reminded of Our Land. On September 30, I requested to rejoin the group. Greta
approved me within 15 minutes of my request, clearly still an active administrator.
At the same time, I notified a couple of Palestine solidarity activists,
including editors at The Electronic Intifada, about the existence of the
group and my belief that it was probably involved. Sure enough, there, on Sept.
28, was the video posted by another of the administrators. This is the posting
Ali Abunimah referred in his October 6 post on The Electronic Intifada,
(“Greta
Berlin’s statement is not correct“).
Anti-Semitism
looked through the posts of the group, my suspicions that anti-Zionism was
consistently confused with overt anti-Semitism was confirmed. For example,
another video posted on the same day as the one Greta tweeted was entitled:
“The Holocaust Hoax.”
When onecontributor posted an article with the introduction “we must never generalise
about Jews and Zionist Jews” Joachim Martillo came back with this explanation
of why we, in fact, should:
the same man who Greta told me “had his good moments”. She also welcomed him
back after he was banned from the forum for the week.
What
needs to be understood and emphasized is that this kind of virulently racist
material was common in the group, and, as far as I could see, never challenged
by the administrators, including Greta.
A Guilty
Mind?
became clear that The Electronic Intifada had gained access to the
group, there was a belated attempt at a cover-up. On October 9th, several
prominent members of Greta’s support network, along with the most racist
contributor, deleted their Facebook pages, eliminating their previous posts to
the group. When administrator Sam Siddiqui deleted her Facebook profile,
she took with it a post in which another member of the group wrote that she did
not support Greta because she too had confronted Greta about her anti-Semitic
rhetoric on Facebook (in one example I saw, Greta blamed bad coverage of
Israel/Palestine in the Economist on the fact that it is “50% owned
by the Rothchilds.” Besides playing into tropes of Jews running the media,
this is also factually inaccurate).
addition, Joachim Martillo also deleted his Facebook profile, taking with it
all traces of his previous posts.
What is
perhaps even more disturbing is that while Greta refused to condemn these posts
(let alone exercise her authority as an administrator to remove them and ban
the contributors), she is totally unapologetic. When someone posted one of the
articles in an Israeli newspaper about the tweet, she said about her
detractors, “I find them hysterical. What they don’t seem to realize is that,
like Gilad Atzmon, people are now buying the book. What morons.”
Greta
Berlin continues to defend and openly participate in a Facebook group that
posts videos exactly like the one she tweeted two weeks ago and reportedly
finds “disgusting.”
She is unapologetic about it now, and has been in every interaction I’ve had
with her about it. I do not think that Greta is a Nazi-sympathizer, but I have
seen her engage, accept, and encourage anti-Semitic rhetoric, and this is
incredibly damaging to the Palestine solidarity movement. What she, and this
group, represents is dangerous to our movement in solidarity with Palestinians:
a complete disregard for the basic principles of anti-racism and anti-bigotry
most of us hold dear.
Lessons
Learned
people, particularly Palestinians in Palestine, have criticized the amount of
attention Greta and her tweet have gotten. Some have criticized her for making
this about her and drawing attention away from the people who are actually
suffering. Others have criticized those in the movement who have tried to hold
Greta accountable. What people seem to be missing, however, are two key reasons
why we cannot tolerate this rhetoric in our movement.
First, as
a movement based on universal principles of human rights, freedom, and dignity,
we should not allow any bigotry, racism, Islamophobia or anti-Semitism in our
midst. This was a point eloquently made in recent days in a statement
signed by more than 100 Palestinian activists, academics and cultural workers.
Secondly,
there are some utilitarian reasons why we should avoid this kind of rhetoric.
Every time a Palestine solidarity activist takes on the issue of Holocaust and
its connections to Zionism, every time they conflate Judaism with Zionism, they
are making an inherently Zionist argument. The horrific historical reality of the
Holocaust does not, and never can, trivialize or justify the dispossession and
suffering of the Palestinian people. But Greta and others, by insisting on
making such topics a primary concern are tacitly conceding a key Zionist claim
that the legitimacy of Zionism and its past and present deeds in Palestine
stems from the Holocaust.
As an
anti-Zionist Jew who has been active in Palestine for 10 years, Greta Berlin’s
statements and the content of “Our Land” not only offend me, but they have
damaged my ability to combat Zionist rhetoric by claiming that I cannot be both
religiously Jewish and anti-Zionist. Zionists routinely argue that to be Jewish
is to be Zionist and the kind of rhetoric displayed on “Our Land” concedes this
important point and supports this fundamental Zionist claim. In addition, this
episode regarding Berlin’s tweet has damaged our movement as a whole and has
shown deep short-sightedness by opening us up to attack and dismissal by
Zionists who are desperately
trying to paint us as a movement as anti-Semitic. Palestinians have not
asked the solidarity movement to concern itself with notions of Jewish
identity, authenticity, and the Holocaust, but to offer active and effective
solidarity in restoring their rights in their country.
I am
hopeful, however, because of the principled stances prominent members of our
movement took against this offensive and misguided rhetoric. In my experience,
a majority of Palestine solidarity activists are genuinely anti-Zionist and
desire to combat a modern-day political movement, not an ancient religion or
group of people. To paraphrase what a fantastic Palestinian activist once said,
there were Jews in Palestine long before Zionism, and there will be Jews there
long after Zionism as well.
