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Holding Zionism To Account
Open Letter to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice
From Alan Hart, author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews
Dear Secretary Rice,
11/06/07 "ICH" -- - -According to a widely quoted Reuters
report, you are “so anxious not to repeat mistakes of past
Middle East peace-making” that you sought the advice of, among
others, former President Jimmy Carter. (The others included,
apparently, former President Bill Clinton and three of your
predecessors – Henry Kissinger, James Baker and Madeleine
Albright).
Your spokesman, Sean McCormack, was quoted as saying: “She’s
trying to draw on the historical record and the experience of
others to see what she can glean and how far that may be
applicable to the current day… She is a student of history and
has a keen appreciation for how we can apply the lessons of
history, what we can learn from those who have gone before us.”
Apparently you’ve also been “scouring historical records for
pointers”.
And, most impressive of all, you’ve made it clear that you will
devote all of your energy in the Bush administration’s final 14
months “to get what others have failed to attain in the past – a
viable, independent Palestinian state living side by side with a
secure Israel.”
Secretary of State, in principle it really IS do-able, it’s the
practise that’s the problem, and I’ll come to that in a moment.
I am presuming to offer you some advice because, although I say
it myself, I know the Middle East at least as well and perhaps
even better than any of those (the named ones) you have
consulted on your side of the water. In my television reporting
and early book-writing days, for example, I enjoyed, uniquely,
initimate access to, and on the human level friendship with, the
two greatest opposite in all of human history, Golda Meir,
Mother Israel, and Yasser Arafat, Father Palestine. One way and
another I have been engaged with the conflict in and over
Palestine, and why a resolution of it has remained beyond the
reach of politics and diplomacy, for slightly more than four
decades. (The Gentile me first went to Israel as a 23 year-old
ITN reporter in 1965).
The problem with the “historical record” - I mean the first and
still existing draft of Judeo-Christian history - is that it’s
mostly nonsense. Propaganda nonsense. Zionist propaganda
nonsense. At its core are two myths.
One is that the Zionist state of Israel has lived in constant
danger of annihilation, the “driving into the sea” of its Jews.
The truth of history is that Israel’s existence has never, ever,
been in danger. Not in 19448/49. Not in 1956. Not in 1967. And
not even in 1973. Zionism’s assertion to the contrary was the
cover which allowed Israel to get away where it mattered most,
America and Western Europe, with presenting its aggression as
self-defence and itself as the victim when it was, and is, the
oppressor.
The other is that Israel has not had a Palestinian partner for
peace. The truth of history on this account is that the ground
for peace on the Palestinian side was prepared by Yasser Arafat
as far back as 1979 – more than a quarter of a century ago. In
that year, 1979, Arafat persuaded the Palestine National
Council, the highest decision-making body on the Palestinian
side, to back his policy of politics and (until then)
unthinkable compromise with Israel.
As I recorded in my book Arafat (the title of the American
edition, the original title was Arafat, Terrorist or
Peacemaker?), it took him six long years to persuade first his
Fatah leadership colleagues and then other PNC members to accept
the reality of Israel’s existence. When the vote was eventually
taken, in 1979, it was 296 for his policy of politics and
compromise and four against. Arafat, who had risked his life as
well as his credibility to turn his people around, was then at
the height of his powers; and from that moment on, and as
President Carter knew, there could have been successful
negotiations for a real and lasting peace based on a genuine
two-state solution - Israel back behind its pre-1967 borders
with Jerusalem, preferably as an open city, the capital of two
states.
The problem was that Arafat did not have a partner for peace on
the Israeli side - because Zionism was not, and is not,
interested in peace on any terms the vast majority of
Palestinians and other Arabs and most Muslims everywhere could
accept. It’s true that in 1993, and thanks in part to President
Clinton’s stage management and pulling power, Arafat did have a
“perhaps” Israeli partner for peace in the shape of Yitzhak
Rabin, but he was assassinated by a gut-Zionist. And Rabin was
succeeded by Israeli leaders whose prime objective was to re-demonise
and destroy the Palestinian leader. Arafat the terrorist they
could handle. Arafat the peacemaker they could not. (Didn’t
Barak offer Arafat “95 percent” of everything he had said he
wanted? No, he did not! That, too, is a propaganda lie).
One of the few Westerners - they could be counted on the fingers
of two hands - who understood that by the end of 1979 Arafat had
prepared the ground on his side for peace on terms which any
rational government and people in Israel would have accepted
with relief, was Brian (now Sir Brian and long-retired)
Urquhart. In my view he was in his working life one of the the
greatest Englishmen of his time. In 1979 he was
Under-Secretary-General of the UN, and in that capacity he was,
effectively, the world’s number one trouble-shooter and hands-on
crisis manager. He knew the Middle East better than anybody else
and he was respected by leaders in the East as well as the West,
and by Israelis as well Arabs.
Urquhart told me of the message Arafat had asked him to give to
Israel’s leaders when Sharon, then Prime Minister Begin’s
defence minister, was preparing to invade Lebanon to exterminate
Arafat and all of his PLO leadership colleagues. Arafat said to
Urquhart: “Please tell these stupid people in Jerusalem that
they will be sorry when I am go. I am the only one who can
deliver the compromise to make peace.” To me, and as quoted in
my book on Arafat, Urquhart said: “It’s tragic. Arafat was
speaking nothng less than the truth. From the beginning he has
been the only Palestinian leader who could talk about dealing
with Israel and not be killed the next day for saying so.”
Subsequently Urquhart said to me that he feared it would only be
when Arafat was dead that Israelis would realise how much they
had needed him for peace.
Secretary of State, if you really want the best advice, you
should talk to Urquhart.
And if you really want to come to grips with the truth of
history in order to formulate a real policy for peace, I suggest
you read my latest book, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews.
It’s epic in length (two volumes) as well as sweep and substance
because I’ve re-written the whole history of the making and
sustaining of what used to be called the Arab-Israeli conflict,
replacing Zionist mythology with the documented facts and truth
of history. Though it’s available from Amazon, it’s not yet
published in America because all American publishers are too
terrified of totally offending Zionism to take it on. I should
stress that it’s the opposite of anti-Semitic. It’s my Gentile
call for the Jews to become the light unto nations by
demonstrating that right can triumph over might, and that there
is a place for morality in politics.. The key to understanding
is knowledge of the difference between Judaism and Zionism - why
they are total opposites: and thus why it is (a) perfectly
possible to be passionately anti-Zionist (opposed to Zionism’s
colonial enterprise) without being in any way, shape or form
anti-Semitic; and (b) why it is wrong to blame all Jews for the
crimes of the hardcore Zionist few.
Now to the principle of real peace-making. Often on public
speaking platforms I put it this way:
If the President of America had a magic wand, and if he could
wave it overnight to get Israel back behind its borders as they
were on the eve of the 1967 war, with Jerusalem and open city
and the capital of two states, he would have (with one wave of
the wand) the thanks, respect, friendship and support of not
less than 95%, and probably 99%, of all Arabs and Muslims
everywhere.
In other words, with one wave of the magic wand to end Israel’s
occupation of Arab land grabbed in 1967, the President and you
as his Secretary of State would go down in history as the
greatest of all peacemakers; and you would undo all the damage
that’s been done to America’s standing in the world by neo-con
driven policies including support for Israel right or wrong.
And, the bonus, you would make winning “the war against global
terrorism” by political means a mission possible.
The question is: What can the President do without a magic wand?
Short answer: He could use the leverage he has to require Israel
to end its occupation in accordance with UN Security Council
Resolution 242 and international law. (I am aware that President
Bush promised Prime Minister Sharon that Israel could keep the
main settlements it has established on the occupied West Bank,
but it was a promise the President should not have made and was,
is, without legal authority of any kind. On this the President
would have to come clean and say, “I made a mistake and I am now
correcting it.”)
The truth of the matter, or so it seems to me, is that in his
last 14 months in the White House, President Bush is well placed
to be the first American President to call and hold Zionism to
account – because he can’t run for office again and so doesn’t
need Zionist lobby support in the form of campaign funds and
votes. Simply stated, he now has 14 months of freedom to do what
is right and best for America’s real interests. (And also those
of the Jews of the world).
Secretary of State, I am aware that right now the Mother and
Father of all political battles is going on behind closed doors
in Washington DC – to determine whether or not Vice-President
Cheney and his neo-con-and-Zionist associates will continue to
call the policy shots. If he and they do, I think it’s highly
likely that two things will happen. Iran will be bombed by
America or Israel (probably in February, March or April)
triggering catstrophe, possibly even a nuclear one, for all; and
Israel, after it has failed to impose its will on the
Palestinians (they won’t accept crumbs from Zionism’s table in
the shape of two or three bantustans) will be given the
greenlight to go for a final round of ethnic cleansing. (The
full horror of the first round is now fully documented by
Professor Ilan Pappe, Israel’s leading “revisionist” historian,
in his latest book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine).
It’s my understanding that Defence Secretary Gates is quietly
leading the campaign to stop the madness Cheney and his
associates represent. Once upon a time you, Secretary Rice, had
great influence on President Bush. You were subsequently
sidelined to a very large extent by Cheney and Zionism’s
watchers in the White House and your own department. But what of
today? I have the impression that your seven visits to
Israel/Palestine have led you to the conclusion (of course you
can’t say so in public) that the Zionist state of Israel is the
obstacle to peace.
If my impression is correct (and, of course, I could be wrong),
it’s my hope that you’ll now use your influence to tip the
balance of power in Washington DC in favour of those on the side
of justice and peace and sanity.
Yours sincerely,
Alan Hart
Alan Hart, author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews
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