Large Banner Ad
Small Banner Ad

June 10, 2010

Zionism, the Real Enemy of the Jews - author speaks at the Charger dinners

Scott Stockdale

More by this author...

Due to the Harper government's one-sided support for Israel, Canada has lost a lot of prestige in the world, said British Television journalist and author Alan Hart at fundraising dinners for the Canadian Charger. Hart is the author of three volumes Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews.

Mr. Hart said that for most of his four decades as a journalist Canada was widely respected around the world for the vision, moral authority and integrity of its political leadership, but this is no longer the case.

Mr. Hart was a Middle East reporter for the ITN (Independent Television News) before, during and after the 1967 war. He had extensive access to Israel Prime Minister Golda Meir, culminating in a five-hour interview with her shortly before she died; and he spent a year living with PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat.

“Your politicians, almost all of them, not just your PM and his colleagues, have become like their American counterparts, stooges of the awesomely powerful Zionist lobby,” Mr. Hart said.

He added that he doesn't blame the Zionist lobby for exercising its influence because it is just playing the game according to the rules.

“I blame America's pork-barrel system of politics which puts democracy up for sale to the highest bidders. I don’t know Canada well enough to have an informed view about whether or not you have the same system here. Perhaps you can tell me.”

The Palestinians' struggle for justice, and refusal to be broken by the brutality of the Zionist occupiers, is the cornerstone which all people who care about justice stand on, Mr. Hart said.

He said this is a struggle that will not be won or lost “over there” in a far-off land, but in western democracies, principally, but not solely, the United States. And consequently, as citizens of these democracies, we all have a responsibility to make them work for justice and peace.

After Israel won the 1948 War, Mr. Hart said most of the world, including Arab regimes, hoped this would be the end of the “Palestinian problem”

“In the script written by Zionism, and endorsed by all the major powers and the Arab regimes, the Palestinians were supposed to accept their lot as the sacrificial lamb on the altar of political expediency.”

Because the Palestinian struggle hasn't disappeared, after more than half a century, and there seems to be no end in sight, Mr. Hart said Israeli leaders are likely to resort to another round of ethnic cleansing as the only solution to the “Palestinian problem.”

“Zionism wants today what it has always wanted: a maximum amount of land with a minimum number of Arabs on it.”

While a two-state solution has been under negotiation for several decades, little progress has been made, Mr. Hart said, because Israeli government leaders have never made a reasonable offer to this day.

“The Palestinian state he (Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu) has in mind is the same as Sharon had in mind - two or three Bantustans on a maximum of 40 to 50 per cent of the West Bank, which the Palestinians could call a state, if they wished. In this scenario the main Israeli settlements, all of them illegal, would remain where they are, sitting on top of the main water sources.”

Consequently, he feels that western governments, led by the United States, must use the leverage they have over Israel to persuade enough Israelis to offer an acceptable degree of justice to Palestinians, otherwise there is no hope for peace.

Although the creation of Israel was supposed to be, in part, a response to anti-Semitism, Mr. Hart said that Israel's treatment of the Palestinians has actually stoked anti-Semitism, in no small part because most citizens in western democracies don't know the difference between Zionism and Judaism.

“Judaism is the religion of Jews, not 'the' Jews because not all Jews are religious. Like Christianity and Islam, Judaism has at its core a set of moral values and ethical principles.

“Zionism as Jewish nationalism is a sectarian, colonial ideology and enterprise which, in the process of creating, in the Arab heartland, a state for some Jews - mainly by terrorism and ethnic cleansing - made a mockery of, and demonstrated contempt for, Judaism’s moral values and ethical principles.”

When this difference is clear a couple of conclusions are also clear, Mr. Hart said.

First, it's possible to be anti-Zionist, without being anti-Semitic, and second, it's not right to blame all Jews in the world for the crimes of a hardcore Zionist few, who've turned little Israel into greater Israel, often in violation of international law.

“Though it is not well known, even by many Jews today, the fact is that prior to the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust, Zionism’s colonial enterprise was of no interest to more than a tiny minority of the Jews of the world and was opposed by many of them”

After watching four decades of western governments' inconsequential action in the Middle East, Mr. Hart believes the situation won't change until these governments are pushed by informed public opinion.

While many in the western democracies may wonder what a longstanding problem in the Middle East has to do with them, Mr. Hart had the answer for them, in an interview after his presentation.

“The Israeli-Palestinian crisis is a cancer at the heart of international affairs that has the potential to consume us all unless it's cured. Every man, woman and child has a stake in it.”

  • Think green before you print
  • Respond to the editor
  • Email
  • Delicious
  • Twitter
  • Facebook
  • MySpace
  • StumbleUpon
Subscribe to the E-bulletin

Praying in the time of genocide

Subscribe to our YouTube Channel