Palestine Think Tank

Free Minds for a Free Palestine

Author Archive

Anatomy of a Conditionally Unresolved Conflict

By Gilad Atzmon • May 8th, 2008 • Category: Analysis, Gilad Atzmon, Gilad's Choice, Israel, Our Authors, Religion, Zionism

According to Hegel, attaining ’self-consciousness’ is a process that necessarily involves the other. How am I to become conscious of myself in general? It is simply through desire or anger, for example. Unlike animals that overcome biological needs by destroying another organic entity, human desire is a desire for recognition.
In Hegelian terms, recognition is accomplished [...]



Gideon Levy “You have to be sad, then happy”

By Gilad Atzmon • May 4th, 2008 • Category: Israel, Nakba and Right of Return, Opinions and Letters, Palestine, Zionism

Haaretz

In a short period of seven days the State of Israel dictates three times what its citizens should feel: They should grieve twice - on Holocaust Remembrance Day and on Memorial Day, and to be happy once - on Independence Day. These three days are commemorated in Israel with near zealous totality, a sort of [...]



Homeland Lost exhibit criticised by UK’s Israeli community

By Gilad Atzmon • Apr 30th, 2008 • Category: Culture and Heritage, Israel, Nakba and Right of Return, Opinions and Letters, Palestine

(from The Independent) As far as the organisers of the exhibition are concerned, these photographs of Arab refugees, displaced from their homes in Israel in 1948, are merely an artistic slice of life from a dramatic point in Middle Eastern history.

But the Barbican Arts Centre’s show Homeland Lost, consisting of 16 black and white images [...]



Swindler’s List

By Gilad Atzmon • Apr 11th, 2008 • Category: Culture and Heritage, Gilad's Choice, Religion, Zionism

It is a common trend amongst rabid Zionists and notorious Islamophobes to quote some isolated and mistranslated verses from the Qur’an for the purpose of collectively libeling Muslims and presenting Islam as a regressive and violent belief system.
Needless to say, so far, such repetitive attempts have been found futile if not actually counter-effective. Not a [...]



The Right to Self-Determination: a fake exercise in universalism

By Gilad Atzmon • Mar 19th, 2008 • Category: Gilad Atzmon, Human Rights, Israel, Nakba and Right of Return, Opinions and Letters, Palestine, Zionism

In the picture, a visual explanation of Jewish Self-Determination
The right to self-determination is a luxurious approach at conservation of power reserved for the rich, strong and privileged. Since Zionists hold the reigns on international political power through their influence in important positions as well as the military might to maintain their right to self-determination, any [...]



The Primacy of the Ear

By Gilad Atzmon • Jan 10th, 2008 • Category: Gilad Atzmon, Israel, Mary's Choice, Music, Poetry, Events, Palestine, Resistance, Zionism

The Road from Music to Ethics by Gilad Atzmon
An alternative take on the Israeli Palestinian conflict and peace activism
(Postscript by Manuel Talens)Rather often I face the same question when interviewed by Arab media outlets: Gilad, how is it that you observe that which so many Israelis fail to see? Indeed, not many Israelis interpret the [...]



The Tzabar and the Sabbar - A reflection on memory and nostalgia

By Gilad Atzmon • Jan 3rd, 2008 • Category: Analysis, Gilad Atzmon, Israel, Nakba and Right of Return, Palestine, Zionism

Illustration The Memory of Land by Juan Kalvellido for Tlaxcala and PeacepalestineThe Politics Of Anti-Semitism, I explored the role of Zionism as the cultural identifier of the contemporary Diaspora Jew. I argued that Zionism has managed to win its ideological foes by offering a transparent collective structural set of symbolic identifiers. Rather than ideology and [...]



The Politics of Anti-Semitism: Zionism, the Bund and Jewish Identity Politics

By Gilad Atzmon • Nov 28th, 2007 • Category: Analysis, Documents, Gilad Atzmon, Zionism

(illustration: Zionist recruitment poster “Salvation and Vengeance!”)
Those amongst us who support the Palestinian people, those amongst us who are devastated by the growing scale of Israeli atrocities, those who want to bring justice to Palestine and this includes bringing Palestinians back to their land, will have to make up their minds sooner or later. From [...]