Guardian takes down Atzmon’s ‘racist’ book

THE GUARDIAN has permanently withdrawn a book by Israeli-born antisemite Gilad Atzmon from sale in its online bookstore, following complaints from readers.

The Wandering Who? was described by its publishers as an “investigation of Jewish identity politics”, but condemned by critics as “uttererly contemporary cultural racism”.

I t was i ni t i a l l y removed f rom the newspaper’s internet sales site last October, but was later reinstated as part of an automatically-generated feed compiled by Britain’s largest book distribution database company.

Further complaints were made to the Guard- ian following the book’s s reappearance, and the e newspaper has now acted d to stop its sale through the site.

Guardian readers’ editor Chris Elliott wrote: “Gilad Atzmon’s The Wandering Who? was removed because of the controversy it has caused. Atzmon says he is anti-zionist but he has been accused of making antisemitic remarks, including past praise for the ‘prophetic qualities’ of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

In his book, Atzmon writes of his belief that “the Holocaust religion was well-established” before the Nazis carried out the Final Solution and Kristallnacht.” It is thought the Guardian decision cou could lead to the title be being automatically rem removed from other sites, in including those of other ne newspapers and some su supermarkets, because of th the way the feed system fu functions.

Mr Elliott added: “The Guardian will work to improve the processes a around the automated feed, but it will be impossible to handpick every title in the bookshop.

“Like all online booksellers sellers, the Guardian makes available almost every title in the English language (currently around 200,000). The process of making the decision [on Atzmon] has been messy, uncomfortable and, at times, confusing.”