Alan Hart: Global tide of anti-Israelism rising

Press TV has interviewed Alan Hart, an author and journalist based in London, to ask for his take on a recent report revealing that Jewish people around the world are becoming increasingly critical of Israel.

What follows is a rough transcription.

Press TV: Joining us now on the line from London is Mr. Alan Hart author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. Mr. Hart talk to us about this recent report. It seems that the title of your book is very accurate in this instance as Jews are trying to distance themselves from Zionism.

Hart: Let me tell you it’s very good news the fact that a growing number of Jews are very uncomfortable with what Israel is, and it’s a sign for help, and let me tell you why very simply. No American president will ever be free to use the leverage he or she has to try to cause Israel to end both its defiance of international law and denial of justice for the Palestinians, unless and until a significant majority of America’s Jews, either want him to or won’t oppose him. And the same situation is true in all the Western countries. But let us be perfectly clear about something that is very, very important. It is in the best interest of the Jews of the world themselves that they do distance themselves from Israel and even brave with it if it continues with its policies and let me explain why. What we are witnessing today is a rising global tide of anti-Israelism, which is not anti-Semitism. It’s anti-Israelism provoked by Israel’s policies and actions. But there is a danger that this anti-Israelism could be transformed into anti-Semitism. Now, as far back as 1987, Israel’s longest-serving director of military intelligence, a man called Yehoshafat Harkabi, issued a very dramatic warning to that effect, and let me just read you a very few sentences of his warning. He wrote this in the book called Israel’s Fateful Hour, “Israel is the criterion according to which all Jews will tend to be judged. Israel as a Jewish state is an example of the Jewish character, which finds free and concentrated expression within it. Anti-Semitism has deep and historical roots.” Now here is the point: “Nevertheless, any flaw in Israeli conduct, which initially is cited as anti-Israelism, is likely to be transformed into empirical proof of the validity of anti-Semitism. It would be a tragic irony if the Jewish state, which was intended to solve the problem of anti-Semitism, was to become a factor in the rise of anti-Semitism. Israelis must be aware that the price of their misconduct is paid not only by them but also Jews throughout the world.”

Now that was his warning, Harkabi, a former long-serving director of Israeli military intelligence. And that is what is happening. The transformation that he feared is ever so slowly now beginning to take place. Anti-Israelism, little by little, is being transformed into anti-Semitism. We all need to understand one other thing. Why is it for all these years the vast majority of Jews everywhere have been silent on the matter of Israel’s policies and actions? Again there is a very straightforward simple answer. Most Jews of the world have been conditioned, brainwashed, into believing that Holocaust 2, another turning against the Jews, is one day inevitable. So they look to Israel as their insurance policy, their refuge of last resort, and they say to themselves: We must say nothing, do nothing that will put this insurance policy at risk.

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