Gilad Atzmon (Hebrew: גלעד עצמון‎, born June 9, 1963) is a jazz musician, author and anti-Zionist activist who was born in Israel and currently lives in London.

"Anti-Semite is an empty signifier, no one actually can be an Anti-Semite and this includes me of course. In short, you are either a racist - which I am not - or have an ideological disagreement with Zionism... which I have."

He was born a secular Israeli Jew in Tel Aviv, and trained at the Rubin Academy of Music in Jerusalem. His service in the Israeli military convinced him Israel had become a militarized state controlled by religious extremists. In 1994, Atzmon emigrated from Israel to London, where he studied philosophy. Atzmon is an anti-Zionist who critiques Jewish identity issues and supports the Palestinian Right of Return as well as the establishment of a single state in Israel/Palestine. He is a signatory to the "Palestinians are the Priority Petition" which states “full and unconditional support of the Palestinian people is a condition sine qua non for activists to adopt.

Israel faces another disastrous report as an 'Independent and impartial' fact-finding team appointed by the UN Human Rights Council will look into Israel's 'violations of international law' during her commando raid on the Gaza-bound Turkish ship.

Seemingly the UN Human Rights Council wasn’t overwhelmingly impressed by Israel's own ‘truth finding’ missions. I guess that this is understandable. The Israelis should accept the UN concerns.  It is very uncommon to let the murderer or the rapist investigate himself.

The UN team is expected to travel to Israel, Turkey and Gaza in August to interview witnesses and gather information before reporting back to the Council in September.

I guess that in order to complete its job satisfyingly, the UN mission should consider taking advice from some Old Testament experts who can elaborate on the cultural and spiritual heritage that led to the current state of Israeli barbarism. As I've mentioned many times before, Zionism , is  an attempt to revive the ancient Israelite nation. Hence it shouldn’t take us by surprise to discover that this has created a contemporary Israeli who follows the most sinister possible interpretation of the Judaic text. 

Moreover, The UN mission would also benefit by recruiting some leading psychologists who can turn on a floodlight on the issues to do with Israeli collective lethal aggression. We all know the dry facts to do with the Israeli murder in the high seas. Yet, we are still perplexed that a so-called ‘democratic government’ made a decision to unleash its   deadliest naval unit against civilians delivering humanitarian aid in international waters.  If the UN wants to prevent future Israeli crimes, we better grasp, once and for all, what  kind of needs the massacre was there to satisfy. We better understand once and for all why it is that Israeli politicians believe that providing their  followers with fresh blood is translated into electoral power?

It is not yet clear whether Israel, which has a long history of rejecting UN probes, would cooperate and allow the team to visit. However, we have to bear in mind that Israel's  political manoeuvring capacity in the international arena has shrunk considerably since her genocidal attacks on Lebanon 2006 and Gaza 2008-9.

The Israeli reaction wasn’t late in coming. Officials in Jerusalem told the Israeli Ynet that the Human Right Council's decision to look into the May 31st raid on the Gaza-bound Turkish ship is “pointless”,  “obsessed” and “weird”*.

It is unfortunately typical for Israelis to believe that the Goyim are ‘obsessed’ and ‘weird’. I guess that the only possible interpretation of such a statement is that Israelis believe that killing peace activists better become an international norm. Indeed, it has already become a norm in Israel.

Knesset Member Otniel Schneller (Kadima), went even further arguing that “instead of focusing on the flotilla raid, the international community should investigate the continued captivity of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in Gaza, which he says constitutes a violation of international law.

I myself wonder what law it violates exactly. Gilad Shalit was a soldier in uniform serving as a post guard in a concentration-camp in an occupied territory.  Abducting Shalit was a fully legitimate act of resistance. Furthermore, the Hamas struggle to keep Shalit alive should be realised as an act of compassion and kindness.  However, I wonder whether KM Schneller would also insist that an hypothetical case in which Jewish camp inmates abducted a Nazi officer from a bunker at the outskirts of Auschwitz would also constitute a “violation of international law"? I guess we all know the answer.

As it happens, the Jewish State is now in a siege. This siege is mental, spiritual, intellectual, physical and political.  Israel can only blame itself.

* For obvious reasons, the word ‘weird’ appeared only in the Hebrew edition.