Product Description

· The Zionism of the book’s title is Jewish nationalism or political Zionism as the creating and sustaining force of modern Israel – i.e. not what could be called the spiritual Zionism of Judaism.
· A key to understanding is knowledge of the difference between Judaism and Zionism. (Contrary to what most people in the Judeo-Christian world wrongly assume, Zionism is not now, nor was it ever, co-extensive with Judaism).
· Modern Israel is a Zionist state, not a Jewish state.

The underlying thesis is that because of the settlement facts pork-barrel American politics (and the impotence of the Arab regimes) have allowed to be created on the ground, it’s now too late for any U.S. administration to call and hold the nuclear-armed Zionist state to account; and that only the Jews of the diaspora, the majority of Jews in the world, have the influence to do it – cause Israel to change its ways and make peace on terms which almost all Palestinians and Arabs everywhere can accept. But… I also say that it’s unreasonable and unrealistic to expect the Jews of the diaspora to play their necessary part in bringing the Zionist state to heel, and averting a Clash of Civilisations, unless and until they receive the maximum possible in the way of reassurance about their security in the mainly Gentile world of which they are citizens. And this is why I call in my Epilogue, The Jews As the Light Unto Nations, for a New Covenant, not between the Jews and their God, but between the Jews and the Gentiles. (The primordial point here is that deep down almost every diaspora Jew lives with the unspeakable fear of Holocaust II and thus the perceived need, if only in the sub-consciousness, for Israel as the refuge of last resort; which is why, without the maximum possible in the way of reassurance, they won’t even think of obliging Israel to be serious about peace).

I do not blame the Zionist lobby for exercising its influence, now in shocking and awesome alliance with America’s born-again Christian fundamentalists and the neo cons, in association with oil interests and the MIC (Military Industrial Complex). The Zionist lobby, I say, has merely played the game, ruthlessly to be sure, according to The System’s rules. I blame most of all America’s pork-barrel politics. I say that American politicians, including presidents, always had a choice. They did not have to do the Zionist lobby’s bidding when doing so was putting America’s own longer term and best interests at great risk. They chose to do the lobby’s bidding to serve their own short-term (personal and party) interests. And I say in passing that with American politicians as friends, the Jews do not need enemies.

My book is epic in length, as sweep and substance for a good reason. The first and still existing draft of Judeo-Christian history is constructed on Zionism’s version – what I call the annihilation myth, meaning… Since its unilateral declaration of independence, Israel the Zionist state has never, ever, been in danger of annihilation. (The 1967 war – for ITN I was the first foreign correspondent to the banks of the Suez Canal with the advancing Israelis – was nothing but a long-planned war of Israeli aggression. Professor Avi Shlaim was both right and wrong when he wrote in The Iron Wall that Israel did not go to war to take territory. The government of Israel headed by Prime Minister Levi Eshkol with Rabin as Chief of Staff, DID NOT; but Defence Minister Dayan, imposed upon Eshkol after something close to a coup, DID. And Nasser, for reasons of face, was daft enough to walk into the trap Dayan had set for him). The point? To tell the truth necessary for real understanding, informed and honest debate and peacemaking, I’ve had to re-write Judeo-Christian history, DE-ZIONISE it.
ZIONISM: THE REAL ENEMY OF THE JEWS is the first ever book to put the struggle for Palestine into its global context – to show how all the pieces of a complicated jig-saw puzzle fit together. It’s also the first ever account of events to empathise with both sides: with the real fear of diaspora Jews – Holocaust II; and with the humiliation of the Arab masses – humiliation which is the product of Israel’s arrogance of power, American support for Zionism right or wrong, and the incompetence, corruption and repression of the regimes of the existing Arab Order.

Stripped down to its fundamental essence, my book is a call for the Jews to become the light unto nations. (Not least because the rest of us need them to be). In the text of the Epilogue, and highlighted on the back cover of Volume Two, I write as follows:

If the Jews of the diaspora can summon up the will and the courage to make common cause with the forces of reason in Israel before it is too late for us all, a very great prize awaits them. By demonstrating that right can triumph over might, and that there is a place for morality in politics, they would become the light unto nations. It is a prize available to no other people on earth because of the uniqueness of the suffering of the Jews. Perhaps that is the real point of the idea of the Jews as Chosen People… Chosen to endure unique suffering and, having endured it, to show the rest of us that creating a better and more just world is not a mission impossible

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #104895 in Books
• Published on: 2007-02-02
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 452 pages

From the Publisher
Historic. Momentous. Profound. Alan Hart has succeeded in producing the first ever truly balanced assessement of why Palestine is in such a mess and who must do what to prevent this greatest of all injustices leading to a greater anti-Semitism and Islamophobia around the world.

From the Author
ZIONISM: THE REAL ENEMY OF THE JEWS is the first ever book to put the struggle for Palestine into its global context – to show how all the pieces of a complicated jig-saw puzzle fit together. It’s also the first ever account of events to empathise with both sides: with the real fear of diaspora Jews – Holocaust II; and with the humiliation of the Arab masses – humiliation which is the product of Israel’s arrogance of power, American support for Zionism right or wrong, and the incompetence, corruption and repression of the regimes of the existing Arab Order.

Stripped down to its fundamental essence, my book is a call for the Jews to become the light unto nations. (Not least because the rest of us need them to be). In the text of the Epilogue, and highlighted on the back cover of Volume Two, I write as follows:

If the Jews of the diaspora can summon up the will and the courage to make common cause with the forces of reason in Israel before it is too late for us all, a very great prize awaits them. By demonstrating that right can triumph over might, and that there is a place for morality in politics, they would become the light unto nations. It is a prize available to no other people on earth because of the uniqueness of the suffering of the Jews. Perhaps that is the real point of the idea of the Jews as Chosen People… Chosen to endure unique suffering and, having endured it, to show the rest of us that creating a better and more just world is not a mission impossible.I wrote this book to provoke and promote, worldwide, the first ever informed and honest debate about who must do what if there is to be a peaceful resolution of the Palestine problem, which is the prerequisite for averting a Clash of Civilisations, Judeo-Christian v Islamic.

About the Author
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY

Alan Hart has been engaged with events in the Middle East for more than 30 years:

As a correspondent for ITN’s News At Ten and the BBC’s Panorama programme.

As a researcher and author. (His first book Arafat, Terrorist or Peacemaker? was published by Sidgwick & Jackson in 1984 and subsequently in several updated editions over a decade).

As a participant at leadership level, working to a Security Council background briefing, in the covert diplomacy of the search for peace.

Over the years Alan interviewed and maintained special relationships with many of Israel’s leaders of the pre-Likud era - most notably Golda Meir, Mother Israel.

He also enjoyed intimate access to some of the Arab leaders who mattered most, including King Hussein, King Feisal, President Sadat and Yasser Arafat, Father Palestine.

Alan’s particular ability to see things from both perspectives throughout the many conflicts he covered was always the basis of the conclusions he drew, the judgements he arrived at, as an observer.

He was and is driven not only by his loathing of injustice in all its forms but also – he doesn’t mind admitting – a brazen disregard for pomp and ceremony and political double-speak.

Alan has often been ahead of his time. In the early 1970’s, for example, frustrated by what he regarded as the institutional media’s refusal to come to terms with some of the biggest issues of our time, he set up his own independent production company to produce the first ever documentary on true dimensions of global poverty and its implications for all. The film, Five Minutes To Midnight, had its world premiere at the opening of the 7th Special Session of the UN General Assembly (called to discuss the need for a New World Economic Order), was shown on television in many Western countries, was versioned for schools and became a standard work of reference. For that effort Alan was credited with having played a leading role in getting the North-South issue on to the agenda for public debate.

His new book will set another new agenda for debate.

Customer Reviews

The book that the publishers wouldn't touch. Essential reading!
Alan Hart is a former BBC Panorama and ITN Middle East correspondent with a vast first-hand knowledge of the subject. He knew, and interviewed, many of the main players in the Israel-Palestine conflict on all sides (Golda Meir, Yasser Arafat and other PLO leaders, Moshe Dayan, Nasser, King Hussein of Jordan - the list is long). Yet no publisher, major or minor, dared to publish this book for fear of offending the powerful Zionist lobby whose knee-jerk reaction to any criticism is to fling out the charge of "anti-Semitism".

Thus, like T.E. Lawrence before him, Hart had to publish his book himself (the task almost bankrupted Lawrence). It would seem that "Zionism: the Real Enemy of the Jews" is a book that some powerful people obviously don't want you to read. That was reason enough for me to purchase a copy! And I am very glad I did.

Hart establishes that Zionism is a SECULAR phenomenon: a classic European colonial, political IDEOLOGY. Judaism is a religion. Thus, Zionism and Judaism are not the same thing, but opposites. And many of the European Zionists colonising Palestine were foreign nationals who had converted to Judaism in Europe with no historic links to Palestine. As a result, many of them are not even racially Semitic whereas Arabs are Semitic.

This two volume work is a monumental history of the Israel-Palestine conflict with unique insights into many of the happenings in this region and also in US and European politics. Its comprehensive scope is breathtaking. Hart is critical of the Zionists, but he is also scathingly critical of many Arab regimes and US and European politicians too. He quotes from many anti-Zionist Jews--including the more far-sighted members of Israeli Military Intelligence. An example is Jehoshafat Harkabi, the longest serving Director of Israeli Military Intelligence, who responded to Hart's earlier book, "Arafat: Terrorist or Peacemaker?", by writing a work of his own which was critical of Zionism's policy of seeking to impose its will on the Arabs by brute force.

It is its many-sided approach which makes Hart's book essential reading for anyone with an interest in Middle Eastern politics.

Hart documents the behind the scenes arm-twisting of the powerful, well-financed US Zionist political lobby since the 1940s. And he establishes that it actually succeeded in dictating US Middle Eastern policy during many presidential administrations--especially via the corrupt, pork-barrel politics of the Democratic Party.

Hart's style of writing is engaging and accessible--it is written in an entertainingly earthy, no-nonsense way--spiced with more than a dash of ridicule and scorn. Hart does not suffer fools gladly and he doesn't mince words either when it comes to exposing political folly, mendacity and corruption. He nevertheless comes across as deeply humane and fair-minded. The book is a masterpiece of even-handedness, humanity and compassion. He manages to produce a work that is both rigorous and substantiated, but is also a good read--almost like a novel. Hart's communication skills gained while serving as a broadcaster are evident here.

Hart recounts his own contribution to diplomatic efforts to solve the Israel-Palestine conflict with the support of some leading Jews e.g. Marcus Sieff of Marks and Spencers. It was an attempt to get Arafat and the Israelis talking directly to each other on the assumption that Shimon Peres would be elected to power. This initiative was sabotaged by the election of of ultra-hawk Menachem Begin. However, the Oslo agreement had its beginnings in this initiative.

One of Hart's many themes is that Israel has never at any point in its existence been at threat from the front-line Arab states. This was a myth generated by the Zionist propaganda machine to frighten Israelis and diaspora Jews into supporting Israel's adventures and aggressive expansionism. Hart establishes that from 1948 onwards Israel had the upper hand in terms of military hardware, air power and capability. It was from the beginning a well financed First World nation of European colonialists facing an essentially feudal Third World Arab nation. And some of these European Zionists carried with them some of the European racism towards Arabs. Hart refers to (US Jewish writer) Lenni Brenner's classic book: "Zionism in the Age of the Dictators" which documents the collaboration between Zionists and Hitler and Mussolini. And one of the most astonishing revelations of Hart's book is that Ben Gurion and the Zionist lobby opposed and sabotaged President's Trueman's proposal to allow all European Jewish Holocaust victims to be given sanctuary in the USA after World War 2. This was because Ben Gurion needed them for his colonial project in Palestine.

Even if you disagree with Hart's conclusions, it is worth buying the book for the wealth of unique information contained within these weighty volumes.

A book for every Shelf!
Wow what a comprehendible account! Hart has really done literature justice and the countless of Israeli and Palestinians who have suffered and those continuing to suffer. Whatever your political allegiance to the current political crisis in the middle-east, this book is a must read for those who genuinely want an honest, non-Jewish and non-Muslim, historical and contextualised understanding of the Palestinian- Israel conflict. Whether you are an astute academic or a high school student this book is really easy to read as it is aimed for all without being patronising or over sensationalised in its vocabulary.

Writing in a novel format this book is far from fiction. There are references to all sources used so if you are unsure about any particular facts you can easily confirm them via Google (watch out for devious sources on the internet though). The book even goes as far as providing a workable solution to the conflict (something our so-called leaders have failed to do). They key message here is that the hype that Israel's existence is under threat is a myth (not that I completely agree) but Hart puts a compelling argument forward nevertheless. He argues that by Israel maintaining that its existence is under threat it will give them a carte blanche licence to kill and maim, and therefore to not bother with peace, current facts actually support his theory.

For people who want an unbiased version of the world's worst conflict and those who are really interested in seeing justice prevail and for all those who do not want to be exposed to another terror attack, read this book please. There will be, inevitably, claims by the Zionist lobbies that this is just another anti-Semitism piece of rabble, but you will be doing yourself a disservice if you fall for that claptrap. I now have so much respect to the unheard voices of the Jewish people who really do have the key to peace in the region, by making Israel see that's its worst enemy is itself.

Finally - an insider telling the story.
Alan Hart has written a greatly needed book (Vols 1 & 2). He offers a factual account and not one suited to a particular taste. Hart is able to give an insider's account as he was a correspondent from Jerusalem and a witness to the 1967 war, and more importantly, because he also was a secret peace mediator who held private talks with the leaders on both sides. The details he therefore is able to provide are not ones you would find published in books on this conflict. They are the result of one on one talks with the key players.

This is a must read for anyone wishing to learn about the facts, mentalities of the politicians, and what the future could hold - if people, "the citizens of nations", and not their governments, got informed and pursued justice. This book is definitely a first step in that direction.

Hart has a message for Jews and non-Jews and he appeals for REASON and not violence - calling him a propagandist is a mere display of a person's own bias. He is not in favor of apocolyptic scenarios (by extremists from either side) but rather of a genuine just and peacful future for those involved in the conflict and the world at large.

A MUST.