My earlier post about Avraham Burg has generated some sharp exchanges in the comments. One contributor feels that I unfairly compared Burg with Norman Finkelstein. But I stand by that comparison and I will now make one more.
Burg also reminds me of Gilad Atzmon.
Atzmon - variously an ex-Israeli, an ex-Jew or both - has written an article in which he states:
“Folman’s amnesia of the events of the war is explained as a repression due to a prior remote memory of the Holocaust. This is indeed the ultimate Jewish Catharsis, the revival of the tragedy (to come) in the light of a past one. The trauma is set up in advance.”
The Folman he refers to is Ari Folman, the Israeli director of the animated film about the Lebanon War, “Waltz With Bashir.” (Incidentally, Atzmon says the film is “breath-taking.” I haven’t seen it yet, but judging by the trailer, I have a feeling this will turn out to be the only occasion upon which I am in agreement with him. So before you read further, have a look at this.)
Atzmon relates that he went to see the film at the London Jewish Film Festival and that he asked the art director, David Polonsky, the following question: “If the Israelis find it so difficult to remember what happened to them just 26 years ago, how is it that every Israeli remembers exactly what happened in Europe between 1942 and 1944?”
Typically, Atzmon says that Polonsky “couldn’t really provide an answer.” We’ll never know exactly what he said, because the article is largely taken up with Atzmon’s diagnosis of a new form of neurosis called “Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder.” This comes across as a kind of mental equivalent of Tay-Sachs Disease, in that it appears to affect Jews predominantly or exclusively.
What unites Atzmon with Avraham Burg - whom he cites approvingly in a list of Israelis “who are producing the most eloquent and sharp criticism of Israel, Zionism and the Jewish identity” - is this notion of the Holocaust as a mindset which filters everything. Now, I won’t repeat what I said in my earlier post here. I’ll just make two points. Firstly, that the substance of what Avraham Burg says does significantly overlap with the arguments of the sort of people, like Finkelstein and Atzmon, his supporters might want to keep at arms length. They need, therefore, to assess the merits of those arguments, rather than angrily flail at those of us who merely point out the similarity.
Secondly, it strikes me that this endless examining of the “Holocaust narrative” - and the distortion, manipulation and psychobabble that goes with it - is not accompanied by a similar deconstruction of other narratives. The “Naqba,” to take an obvious case, is sacred both as history and as memory. Palestinians or their supporters who argue, as some did on the eve of the Iraq war, that Israel is going to embark on a new round of “ethnic cleansing” are not, apparently, suffering from Pre-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
Again, another example of the angst generated by the sight, as my co-writer Eamonn McDonagh so elegantly puts it, of Jews behaving normally.
Gilad Atzmon is one of those individuals with whom it is a waste of time discussing any thing rationally.
He is truly a bizarre character a Jew who has a Nazi like hatred of Jews. Add to this his professed love for Heidegger the National Socialist philosopher and you get one confused dude.
What does he think would have happened to him under Nazi rule?
Has anyone ever asked him that? I have seen any interview where he was really confronted about his bizarre set of beliefs.
In any case, why does anyone take him seriously; because he knows how to blow into a saxophone?
Over at Engage many commenters made the point that he is a ‘superb musician.’ So what? Would any of them listen to a great pianist if he were also a member of a Nazi party and advocated the murder of non-White people?
Why have different standards for antisemites.
I don’t agree with Burg’s politics which do remind one at time of Norman Finkelstein, but he is no Atzmon.
Azmoned is invited again to swim with us in chicken soup this coming shabbat. At the end of the day, we must remember he is a Jew, no matter what he chooses to call himself. We must love him because he is one of us, our brother. His schwantzle is probably chopped, but if not Uncle Shlommi can arrange a bris for him in two seconds, very cheap for ex-Israelis, special offer.
Anyone confused by the above comment might want to know that the author is Gilad Atzmon.
Thanks, Ben, for the information. I was indeed puzzled by the comment. In the past, I tried to make sense of Atzmon’s problem with his Jewishness. I may have looked too far and too deep and missed the obvious. Of the 72 words comment above, 25 words are about his Jewishly-truncated penis. I wouldn’t want to make too much of it, but it does raise the possibility that:
1. As antisemites like to refer to Jews in ugly sexual terms, suspecting Atzmon of being an antisemite (rather than just another Jew not too comfortable in his own skin) is not that far fetched; and
2. that he is still suffering from the trauma of having his foreskin removed when he was eight days old. Could be that the moel made a big booboo, and cut more than he strictly needed to (poor Gil!) or that the baby Gilad was not given to suck on wine before the procedure. It could also be a sort of an excuse by which to explain some disfunction during adolescence. We all know how humiliations suffered during adolescence affect the
rest of our life and direct our loves and hatreds.
All of which leads me to the conclusion that loathing should not be the response to Atzmon. Compassion and pity are more appropriate and those I’m quite determined to feel towards him.
Here we go again.
Hitler liked children. So do I. Does that mean I have a “significant overlap” with, and remind you of Hitler?
Perhaps you would be”merely pointing out the similarity.” So dishonest.
“Hitler liked children. ”
“Godwin’s Law (also known as Godwin’s Rule of Nazi Analogies… states:
“As a … discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one.”
It’s actually a rhetorical fallacy and intends to clog up the conversation, even when inserted in sarcastic form.
David, you would have a lot more credibility with me if you didn’t try to defend every scummy antisemitic pronouncement.
What is it about the “Auntie Shelomi” comment that appealed to you?
Did you take a look at his website?
Perhaps you found this gem posted there appealing?
“United Against Shoa Education!”
I can see now why Ben thought Burg and Atzmon had something in common.
shriber: You say “I can see now why Ben thought Burg and Atzmon had something in common.”
I don’t think this is a correct impression. Burg is pretty much a shallow braggart of limited talents, making a lot of noise where he thinks he can generate some attention to himself. He made a pretty nice and cushy life for himself, enjoying the political fruits that his name provided for him, within mainstream politics.. Now that his peak is over (and for good reason - what has he ever achieved as a political leader?) he finds he can still generate some mild interest in himself and his books by making these provocative statements. Essentially, he is still a spoiled kid from Rehavia.
Atzmon, on the other hand, is a true believer. His is a soul haunted by the specter of his own “evil blood”. He is a Jew, and no amount of words and pleading and disavowing is going to redeem him from this fate, this tainted blood.
I wasn’t being ironic when I said he deserves our pity.
I daresay his most enthusiastic supporters know and exploit his pathological neediness, for their own ends. From the way his rhetoric gets more extreme and demented, I suspect he also knows it.
I don’t disagree with any thing you wrote, Noga.
I was just comparing Burg’s distaste for Holocaust remembrance with Atzmon’s hysterical cris de Coeur on his blog: “United Against Shoa Education!”
This little gem made me understand why Ben wrote above that “Burg also reminds me of Gilad Atzmon.”
That’s all I had in mind.
I have just returned from a screening of this film and it is deeply shocking to watch. Whilst the massacre at Sabra and Chatilla was not carried out by Israelis, as the film shows very well, the Israelis cannot wash their hands of this massacre.
I think the article on the film in the The Independent makes some important points:
“Whilst the massacre at Sabra and Chatilla was not carried out by Israelis, as the film shows very well, the Israelis cannot wash their hands of this massacre.”
What is the point of bringing this up, now 26 years after the fact?
Is Israel still in Lebanon?
I have no right wing point of view but I agree with Gerald Steinberg’s view that “foreign audiences will be blaming Israel for everything and this could reinforce that.”
Besides, the Independent isn’t known as an Israeli friendly newspaper. It tends to take a pretty consistent anti-Israel point of view.
In any case, films and grand juries have this in common, the can make anyone, and anything, look guilty or innocent.
However, I have one final question did the film only deal with the massacres of 1982 which took about a thousand (the exact number is in dispute) lives.
Or, did the film also deal with the so called war of the camps in 1985, 1986 in which different sects of Muslims fought each other for control of the camps. The number of casualties in these battles for Sabra and Shatilla between Amal and Palestinians took the lives of over three and a half thousand people.
Why is it that we don’t hear about this more often, Mikey?
The one point that Hitchens’ made on another thread here with which I agree is that
“One can just about picture a worldwide campaign to redress the injustices of Pakistan, in which unions of British teachers and journalists would join with their own courageous boycotts, but I confess to a slight difficulty in picturing the same level of enthusiasm and commitment. There is some sense in which any challenge to what can be viewed as specifically Jewish power is more exciting and possibly more “transgressive”, and we might be more honest if we admitted as much.”
http://blog.z-word.com/2008/11/hitchens-on-antisemitism/#comments
One more question, Mikey, why did you post this comment on a Holocaust discussion thread? I am just asking.
Shriber,
You ask “What is the point of bringing it up now, 26 years after the Fact?” I find this a bizarre question. Are people not allowed to talk about historical issues? Can we no longer discuss the war in Vietnam that took place 40 years ago, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan from almost 30 years ago and the list goes on?
Whilst I do care what foreign audiences may or may not do with some of the information in the film or how they will abuse it, I do not care so much that I would silence Israelis from making such a film in the first place. Nor would I want to be a censor and say “This film is only for Israelis or Diaspora Jews who have donated money to the United Joint Israel Appeal in the last year.”
The film is about the 1982 war. It is not about 1985 or 1986 and it is not so much about the war as to the recollections of Israeli soldiers who participated in that war and how they dealt with the memory of their own actions and what they lived through. It is about soldiers confronting their past. Since it is about Israeli soldiers and the army is quite central to Israeli life, it is also about the Israeli nation confronting its own past.
The reason I posted my comment on this thread was because a large part of Ben’s post is about Atzmon’s discussion of this film. Ben also placed a Youtibe clip from this film on his post. I mentioned that I also liked this film and that does not mean to say that I think the same way as Atzmon! A lot of Israelis liked the film and it was highly acclaimed in Israel. The film won 6 Ophir Israeli Academy Awards.
I think the film was superb and I urge everyone to go and see it.
“I find this a bizarre question. Are people not allowed to talk about historical issues? Can we no longer discuss the war in Vietnam that took place 40 years ago, the Russian invasion of Afghanistan from almost 30 years ago and the list goes on?”
Of course they are Mikey, but to make film, say of the Viet-Nam war and concentrate narrowly on one battle without looking at the wider war including the immediate aftermath is to make a propaganda film and not an historical one.
The same with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan; any such film that doesn’t include the Western creation of an Islamist resistance movement isn’t going to understand the history of Afghanistan.
What is the point of making a film about the Lebanon civil war if you are not going to examine its contemporary history?
The film may be a good one from a cinematographic point of view but is it good history?
The fact that it won a number of cinema awards in Israel doesn’t answer that question.
One more thing, I never said that people shouldn’t see it. I am just questioning its validity as an historical document.
Shriber, it is not either a political film or a historical film. It is a film about the contemporary memories of the soldiers and coming to terms with their own historical actions. It is not about much else. No film can look at everything. Films such as “Born on the Fourth of July” just look at one aspect of the Vietnam war. I do not see why you are getting all hot and bothered about this film. It is simply a film about Israeli soldiers and their memories. If you want to read a scholarly account of the whole history of the Lebanese civil war including the War in Lebanon in 1982 then you can do so, but this film does not even pretend to do so. That does not make it a propaganda film.
I assume you do not believe that the film “Shindler’s List” was a propaganda movie because it only dealt with one specific part of WWII and did not include information about the Weimar Republic or the bombing of Dresden.
The film is about the memories of soldiers in a war, it just so happens that these were Israeli soldiers in a war that they were involved with. It just so happens that the psychological issues that the former soldiers had in their recollections may well be applicable to soldiers from other countries in any amount of other wars - and that is in my opinion one of the reasons why the film is so good.
“It is a film about the contemporary memories of the soldiers and coming to terms with their own historical actions.”
Mikey, it’s a film worth seeing on its own terms.
I just read the novel Beaufort on the same subject which I also found fascinating.
However, I don’t know what any of this has to do with the thread subject which is Burg’s notion of the Holocaust mindset.