A Tale of Two Book-Burners

18 May 2013

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Details: Created on Monday, 23 July 2012 19:15; Written by Gilad Atzmon

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Burner Against Burner

by Gilad Atzmon l DeLiberation

Earlier last week we learned that Israeli Knesset Member Michael Ben-Ari (National Union) tore the New Testament to pieces and then threw it in the trash.

MK Ben –Ari was quoted as saying “This abhorrent book (The New Testament) promoted the murders of millions of Jews during the Inquisition and the autos da fé… this is an ugly missionary provocation by the Church, there’s no doubt that the book and its senders belong in the trash of history.”

Unfortunately, such a disgraceful attitude towards a text is no more or less than one would expect from a Zionist Jew, after all, herem, excommunication, boycott and book burning are all firmly embedded in both Jewish culture and Jewish politics. Still, I was a little surprised to read Ali Abunimah’s critical report on the event, because, only three months ago Abunmiah himself joined forces with Abe Foxman, Alan Dershowitz and the entire AZZ community in a desperate book burning campaign.

That time it was my book The Wandering Who? that was the ‘abhorrent book’ desperately in need of binning.

United in their loathing of One man and his Book

But Abunimah learned quickly that book burning is a dangerous game. Unfortunately for him my book didn’t catch light, it just became more popular – and in many more languages. In fact rather than my book, it was Abunimah’s credibility that became the object of scrutiny by a growing number of leading analysts and commentators (see below).

Anyway, I’m sure that Abunimah drew the necessary lessons. This week he was even gracious enough to offer MK Ben Ari some moral advice. At the end of his article Abunimah cleverly asks “What would the thousands of Christian Zionists attending CUFI say if they saw an Israeli Knesset member destroying the Bible and dumping it in the trash?”

An astute question indeed and I suspect we all know the answer. For some strange reason, books do not burn well – but book burners do.

A collection of reactions to Ali Abunimah’s call for Disavowal:

*Washington Report- Gilad Atzmon´s Answer to Ali Abunimah

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/washington-report-to-disavow-or-debate-gilad-atzmon.html#entry15431769

Youtube “Atzmon versus Abunimah”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hrJcMO88EI&feature=youtu.be

Roger Tucker, DeLiberation “Ali Abunimah and Gilad Atzmon at the OK Corral”

http://www.deliberation.info/ali-abunimah-and-gilad-atzmon-at-the-ok-corral/

Rich Siegel, Voltairnet “Permission to examine ‘Jewishness’”

http://www.voltairenet.org/Permission-to-examine-Jewishness

Cynthia McKinney interviews Gilad Atzmon

http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/cynthia-mckinney-interviews-gilad-atzmon-about-israel-zionis.html#entry15488474