Alan Hart

There is no doubt it. More and more people all over the world, and probably many of their governments behind closed doors, are beginning to see the Zionist state of Israel for what it really is

– not only the obstacle to peace but a monster apparently beyond control; and they, more and more so-called ordinary folk everywhere, are beginning to turn against it.
That explains why Prime Minister Netanyahu is leading Zionism’s hysterical call for the world to stop demonizing Israel.

At the Yad Vashem Holocaust memorial museum in Jerusalem on 25 January, he said: “There is evil in the world, and it doesn’t stop, it spreads. There is a new call to destroy the Jewish state. It’s our problem but not only our problem. This (the re-emergence and growth of anti-Semitism according to Netanyahu) is a crime against the Jews, and a crime against humanity, and it is a test of humanity.”

That was quite something from the man who has done more than most to assist Zionism in its transformation of the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust from a lesson against racism and fascism and all the evils associated with them into an ideology that seeks to justify anything and everything Israel does. War crimes and all.

Zionism can’t see, is too blinded by its own insufferable self-righteousness to see, that the behaviour of its monster child is the prime cause of the re-awakening of the sleeping giant of anti-Semitism – except that in most cases it’s not anti-Semitism.

It’s anti-Israelism. (The danger is that it could easily become anti-Semitism in its Western sense – loathing and even hatred of Jews just because they are Jews – if the Western world is not assisted to understand the difference between Judaism and Zionism. The difference explains why it is perfectly possible to be passionately anti-Zionist without being in any way, shape or form anti-Jew and, also, why it is wrong to blame all Jews everywhere for the crimes of the relative few in Israel, and not all Israelis).

It is a fact that prior to the Nazi holocaust, almost all the Jews of the world were opposed to Zionism’s colonial enterprise. One of several reasons for the opposition of the most informed and thoughtful of them was the fear that if Zionism was allowed by the big powers to have its way, it would one day provoke classical anti-Semitism.

As I note in my book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, this fear was given a fresh airing in 1986 by Yehoshafat Harkabi, Israel’s longest serving Director of Military Intelligence. In his remarkable book, Israel’s Fateful Hour, he gave this warning (my emphasis added):

“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. 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.”

Three particular events guaranteed that Israel’s “misconduct” became not only “a factor” but the prime factor in the re-emergence and the rise of what Zionism asserts is anti-Semitism but is actually anti-Israelism. They were:

- Israel’s invasion of Lebanon all the way to Beirut in 1982, the initial purpose of this offensive being to destroy the PLO, its leadership and infrastructure.

- Israel’s war on Lebanon in 2006, the main purposes of this offensive being to cause enough destruction and death to force Lebanon’s political institutions and military to confront and defeat Hizbollah (which would not have come into existence if Israel had not invaded Lebanon and occupied the south of it in 1982); and to teach the Arabs, all Arabs, a lesson.

- Israel’s most recent war on the Gaza Strip, the main purposes of it being to collectively punish all Palestinians there (for supporting Hamas) and destroying Hamas militarily and politically, in the belief that when it had done so, Israel would have more freedom to bully and bribe Abbas’s quisling Palestinian National Authority into accepting crumbs from Zionism’s table.

By any objective consideration those three offensives were demonstrations of Israeli state terrorism. (I have just finished updating the story for Volume Three of the American edition of my book and it has chapter titled State Terrorism Becomes Israel’s Norm).

Because the Western world had been conditioned to see the 1967 conflict as a war of Israeli self-defense – i.e. not what it actually was, a war of Israeli aggression, Israel’s 1982 invasion of Lebanon was the first real opportunity for the watching Western world to see what until then only the Arabs in general, and the Palestinians in particular, had seen in close-up – the ugly face of Zionism. A face so ugly that 400,000 Israelis assembled to express their outrage of what had been done in their name.

On the subject of the self-righteousness that is the cause of Zionism’s congenital blindness, Harkabi wrote this (again my emphasis added):

“Self-criticism is imperative in order to counterbalance the tendencies to self-righteousness and self-pity that stem from basic Jewish attitudes, from the historical experience of persecution, and from the ethos fostered by Menachem Begin. No factor endangers Israel’s future more than self-righteousness, which blinds us to reality, prevents a complex understanding of the situation and legitimizes extreme behaviour.”

Footnote: There may be readers of this article who object a little or a lot to my description of the Zionist state as a monster. It’s not an original Alan Hart idea. In 1984, and as quoted by Harkabi, Israeli journalist Teddy Preuss published a book with the title Begin, His Regime. In it he wrote (my emphasis added): “I have no doubt that Begin’s rule will lead to the destruction of the state. In any case, his rule will turn Israel into a monster.”

Alan Hart is an author, former Middle East Chief Correspondent for Independent Television News, and former BBC Panorama presenter specialising in the Middle East.
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Anti-Israelism: Why Zionism doesn’t and can’t get it

Haaretz .com

United Nations Secretary General Ban ki-Moon on Thursday urged Palestinians and Israelis to resume peace negotiations, declaring that failure to do so could destroy any chances of progress.

“In the absence of talks, confidence between the parties has diminished,” the UN chief said at a meeting of the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People in New York.

“Tensions have risen in East Jerusalem. People in Gaza and southern Israel continue to suffer from violence,” he added. “If we do not move forward on the political process soon, we risk sliding backwards.”
Ban reiterated that the international community opposed Israel’s continued construction and presence in Arab East Jerusalem, and warned that settlement activity would prevent the achievement of a viable two-state solution.

“This is in no one’s interest, least of all Israel’s,” he said. “Settlement activity undermines trust between the two parties, seems to pre-judge the outcome of the future permanent status negotiations, and imperils the basis for the two-State solution.”

He added that Israel’s activity in East Jerusalem – including demolitions of Arab houses, revocation of Palestinian identity cards, and construction – have not only “stoked tensions in the city, but also has the potential to endanger stability in the region.”

“It bears repeating that the international community does not recognize Israel’s annexation of East Jerusalem, which remains part of the occupied Palestinian territory,” said Ban. “A way must be found, through negotiations, for Jerusalem to emerge as the capital of two states living side-by-side in peace and security, with arrangements for the holy sites acceptable to all.”

Officials in Jerusalem slammed Ban’s comments as one-sided, saying it was time the international body reevaluate its own approach and ask why it has failed to follow through with its own resolutions.

In particular, the officials were referring to the continued flow of arms between Hezbollah, Iran and Hamas.

Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Ban has misread the obstacles preventing a resumption of peace talks, adding that the failure was a result of conditions set by the Palestinians and Arab states.

U.S. launches new Mideast effort

Meanwhile, the U.S.’ special Middle East envoy has launched a new effort aimed at restarting Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, just as President Barack Obama expressed pessimism about the prospects.

Already complicating envoy George Mitchell’s mission was a new demand by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for an Israeli military presence in the West Bank to stop weapons smuggling, even after formation of a Palestinian state.

Mitchell met late Thursday with Netanyahu, whose office released a brief statement saying they discussed ways to move the peace process forward and that contacts would continue.

As Mitchell began his mission, Obama admitted that he overreached in the Middle East.

In an interview with Time Magazine published Thursday, Obama said “internal conflicts made it hard for the Israelis and Palestinians to restart talks, and I think that we overestimated our ability to persuade them to do so when their politics ran contrary to that.”

He said Israel found it very hard to move with any bold gestures, while
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had Hamas looking over his shoulder.

“I think it is absolutely true that what we did this year didn’t produce the kind of breakthrough that we wanted and if we had anticipated some of these political problems on both sides earlier, we might not have raised expectations as high,” Obama concluded.

Before meeting President Shimon Peres earlier on Thursday, Mitchell pledged to soldier on. He said Obama’s vision is a Palestinian state alongside Israel in peace. “We will pursue [that] until we achieve that objective,” Mitchell said.

The envoy is set to meet with Palestinian officials in the West Bank on Friday.

Mitchell has been laboring without success for a year to get both sides back to the negotiating table, and Netanyahu’s new demand made his mission even tougher.

Netanyahu said Israel must maintain a presence on the eastern side of a prospective Palestinian state to keep militants from using the territory to launch rockets at Israel’s heartland.

The eastern side of such a state would be the part of the Jordan Valley that lies in the West Bank.

Abbas aide Nabil Abu Rdeneh rejected the demand. “The Palestinian leadership will not accept a single Israeli soldier on Palestinian land after ending the Israeli occupation,” he told The Associated Press.

The Palestinians have refused to sit down with Israel until it stops all construction in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, saying it is eating up lands they claim for their future state. Israel, which captured both areas in the 1967 Six-Day War, has slowed settlement construction in the West Bank, but has applied no restrictions in east Jerusalem, which Netanyahu hopes to retain.

Israel also says negotiations should begin immediately with no conditions, but the Palestinians accuse Israel of heaping plenty of conditions of its own, including the demilitarization of a future Palestinian state, the retention of East Jerusalem and now, a military presence along Jordan’s border.

The Israeli leader heads a coalition largely opposed to the sweeping territorial concessions that would be necessary to clinch a peace deal with the Palestinians. He himself had long refused to endorse the concept of Palestinian statehood, doing so only in June under intense U.S. pressure

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UN Chief: Mideast conflict worsening amid stalled talks

By Edward C, Corrigan[i]

There is some controversy over Einstein’s political views especially on the issue of Palestine and the creation of a Jewish State.

Many Zionists claim Einstein as one of their own. Einstein, however, was a pacifist, a universalist and abhorred nationalism.

The recently published book, Einstein on Israel and Zionism: His Provocative Ideas About the Middle East, by Fred Jerome, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009) has brought Einstein’s political views on the Middle East back into the spotlight.

The evidence of Einstein’s position on Palestine and Zionism is best seen in his own words and actions on the subject.

For example Einstein made a presentation to the Anglo-American Committee of Inquiry, which was examining the Palestine issue in January 1946 and argued against the creation of a Jewish State.[ii]

Here is a quote from Einstein’s testimony before Judge Hutcheson, the American Chairman of the Committee:

Judge Hutcheson: It has been told to our committee by the Zionists that the passionate heart of every Jew will never be satisfied until they have a Jewish state in Palestine. It is contended, I suppose, that they must have a majority over the Arabs. It has been told to us by the Arab representatives that the Arabs are not going to permit such condition as that, they [sic] will not permit having themselves converted from a majority to a minority.

Dr. Einstein: Yes.

Judge Hutcheson: I have asked these various persons if it is essential to the right or the privilege of the Jews to go to Palestine, if it is essential to real Zionism that a setup be fixed so that the Jews have a Jewish state and a Jewish majority without regard to the Arab view. Do you share that point of view, or do you think the matter can be handled on any other basis?

Dr. Einstein: Yes, absolutely. The state idea is not according to my heart. I cannot understand why it is needed. It is connected with many difficulties and narrow-mindedness. I believe it is bad.

Judge Hutcheson: Isn’t it spiritual and ethical B I do not mean this particular Zionist movement, I do not mean the idea of insisting that a Jewish state must be created isn’t it anachronistic?

Dr. Einstein: In my opinion, yes. I am against it . . .[iii]

Albert Einstein wrote in a letter to American Friends of the Fighters for the Freedom of Israel shortly after the 1948 Deir Yassin massacre and referred to the Irgun, led by Menachem Begin later a Prime Minister of Israel, and the Stern Gang, where Yitzhak Shamir also a future Prime Minister of Israel was a member, as terrorist organizations and refused to support these “misled and criminal people.”[iv]

Albert Einstein, Sidney Hook, Hannah Arendt and twenty-five other prominent Jews, in a letter to The New York Times (December 4, 1948), condemned Menachem Begin’s and Yitzhak Shamir’s Likud party as “fascist” and espousing “an admixture of ultra-nationalism, religious mysticism and racial superiority.”[v]

In 1950 Einstein published the following statement on the question of Zionism. This speech was originally given to the National Labor Committee for Palestine, in New York, on April 17, 1938 but republished by Einstein after Israel’s creation.

I should much rather see reasonable agreement with the Arabs on the basis of living together in peace than the creation of a Jewish state. Apart from the practical considerations, my awareness of the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power no matter how modest. I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain – especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks, against which we have already had to fight without a Jewish state.[vi]

Einstein also turned down the presidency of the state of Israel.[vii] In Albert Einstein: A Biography (Viking, 1997), Albrecht Folsing shares the following revelation about the offer to Einstein to become Israel’s second president: “While Ben-Gurion was awaiting Einstein’s decision, he asked his assistant, the future president Yitzak Navon, over a cup of coffee: ‘Tell me what to do if he says yes! I have had to offer the post to him because it’s impossible not to. But if he accepts we’re in for trouble. [viii]

Einstein wrote to his stepdaughter Margot after declining the presidency of Israel. He said, AIf I were to be president, sometime I would have to say to the Israeli people things they would not like to hear. [ix]

Einstein did participate in the Sixteenth Zionist Congress in 1929. The World Zionist Organization (WZ0) mentioned and described Einstein in a document published in 1997. It is rather revealing and WZO ought to know who was and who was not a Zionist.

The Sixteenth Zionist Congress (1929) decided on the establishment of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which would be a joint body of the World Zionist Organization and those known as “non-Zionists” in the belief that all Jews wished to participate in building the National Home. Upon conclusion of the Congress, Board of the Jewish Agency convened. Of its 224 members, 112 were Zionists (members of the World Zionist Organization) including Prof. Chaim Weizmann who was elected as President of the Jewish Agency, Nahum Sokolow, Menahem Ussishkin, Shemaryahu Levin, David Ben-Gurion, Rabbi Uziel; the 112 “non-Zionist” members included Louis Marshall, Shalom Asch, Albert Einstein, Leon Blum, and members of the Rothschild family.[x]

To quote David Horowitz: “Einstein’s opposition to Israel was widely known and reported on during his life. In fact, the myth of Einstein’s support of Israel was born the day after Einstein’s death in his obituary in The New York Times, which shamelessly wrote that he championed the establishment of the Jewish state. This contradicted decades of reporting from the Paper of Record. Jerome provides some examples, including a 1930 article headlined Einstein attacks British Zion Policy, a 1938 article stating Einstein was Against Palestine State and a 1946 article stating Einstein Bars Jewish State.[xi]

1. It is clear that Albert Einstein did not support political Zionism and opposed a Jewish State based on an ethnic or racial basis. His political views were remarkably consistent and supported universal human rights. He was opposed to war and chauvinistic ethnic nationalism. Today Einstein is a revered as a political and scientific icon. However, many unfortunately forget his wise words on the issue of Palestine and its conflict with political Zionism.

___________________

[i] Edward C. Corrigan is a lawyer certified as a Specialist in Citizenship and Immigration Law and Immigration and Refugee Protection by the Law Society of Upper Canada in London, Ontario, Canada. He can be reached at corriganlaw@edcorrigan.ca or at (519) 439-4015. He has published many articles on Middle East issues and Citizenship and Immigration law.

[ii] Einstein on Israel reveals essential history of debate over Zionism and a Jewish state, by Adam Horowitz, Mondoweiss, May 28, 2009.

[iii] Ibid.

[iv] See http://www.ifamericansknew.org/history/ter-einstein.html

[v] The New York Times letter is reproduced in Prophets Outcast: A Century of Dissident Jewish Writing about Zionism and Israel, edited by Adam Shatz, (New York: Nation Books, 2004), pp. 65-67.

[vi] Albert Einstein, Out of My Later Years, (New York: Philosophical Library, 1950), p. 263. This speech is reproduced in Prophets Outcast: A Century of Dissident Jewish Writing about Zionism and Israel, edited by Adam Shatz (New York: Nation Books, 2004), pp. 63-64. For a discussion of what Alfred Lilienthal calls the “kidnapping” of Albert Einstein by the Zionists, see Alfred Lilienthal, The Zionist Connection II, (New Brunswick, New Jersey: North American, 1982), pp. 340‑343. Also see Einstein on Israel and Zionism: His Provocative Ideas About the Middle East, by Fred Jerome, (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 2009).

[vii] See Evan Wilson, Decision on Palestine, (Stanford, California: Hoover Institution Press, 1979), p. 27. Wilson served on the Palestine desk of the United States State Department during the time of Israel’s creation.

[viii] Albrecht Folsing, Albert Einstein: A Biography, (Viking, 1997), p. 735. Cited in Einstein, Zionism and Israel: Setting the Record Straight, by Dr. Mohammad Omar Farooq, Updated: July 2006, http://www.globalwebpost.com/farooqm/writings/other/einstein.htm

[ix] Farooq citing Fred Jerome and Rodger Taylor, Einstein on Race and Racism, (Rutgers University Press, 2005), p. 111; further sources given in p. 307, note #25. Bold added.

[x] ‘Year of Zionism, by the Zionist General Council, World Zionist Organization: The National Institutions, Structure and Functions, 1997, p. 47 Cited in Farooq Ibid. The quotations around “non-Zionists” are in the original document.

[xi] Ibid. See also Israel’s supporters unwilling to wrestle with Einstein’s change of heart towards Zionism, by Adam Horowitz, Mondoweiss, July 29, 2009. And see also Kim Petersen,. “A Myth Exposed: Albert Einstein Was Not a Zionist, Dissident Voice, May 1, 2003.

After months of speculation that Israel is ready to attack Iranian nuclear facilities, a Pentagon official said any such move would have “profoundly destabilising consequences….

Israel’s defiance threatens US peace drive

The Sunday Times

A senior European Union official rules out any compromise with Israel over the issue of settlements, unless reached in the framework of a final-status agreement with the Palestinians.

EU official: No chance of settlements deal with Israel

By Akiva Eldar haaretz.com