My first guest for this series, the Israeli historian, Professor Ilan Pappe, told us that he had taken his leave of Israel because the lives of his two young sons as well as his own life were being threatened.
My guest tonight is another man who receives death threats from supporters of Israel right or wrong for daring to tell the truth they want suppressed. He is one of the world’s best, most courageous and distinguished journalists. Our paths crossed for the first time more years ago than either of us care to remember when we were covering the war in Vietnam. He is John Pilger.
John is also a prolific author and the maker of award-winning documentary films. It was after his 2002 film, Palestine Is Still The issue, that he received death threats and what he described as “slanderous abuse” from supporters of Israel right or wrong. Most of the organised hate mail he received came out of America where the film was never shown.
Harold Pinter, the great Jewish playright, wrote the following: “John Pilger unearths, with steely attention, the facts and the filfthy truth, and tells it like it is.”
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Dear Alan
I loved the opening statement of John Pilger in answer to your first question.
It resonates with me as the eternal truth: That without justice and respect for humans/individuals, no system will endure the test of time, and that every individual regardless of their colour or creed has the full and equal right under this universal law.
I have just subscribed to your website. As you can see from my name, I am a mix of Arab and Persian with a hint of Jew in my ancestry born and bred in Bahrain; a unique combination, I might add! And which I adore because it gives me the right to be part of any of those races or have nothing to do with either of them!! It all depends on who believes in the universality of the human form. I see them as potentially perfect human beings but sadly they do not see that in themselves.
I love every human and would long for a day when I see someone who mirrors my feeling. For the record, I have many friends who have similar feelings and meet many individuals daily who agree with me. What is needed is to put what we feel into practice.
It has taken me a few years to do so, and I am glad to report that at the age of sixty, there is no other way to an eternal life except through a loving heart. Yours is a truly loving Hart.
Thank you for allowing me to express myself.
I've long been an admirer of anyone who stands up for truth
and (moral)justice. When I lived in the UK thirty some years ago
I often admired your work on the Beeb and wondered what happened to you. John Pilger has always been a voice for the disposessed and his docos from Palestine, Cambodia and most recently Venezuela,
have been my main source of real news. While living in New Zealand is certainly a pleasant life style, it is a rather self centred country where the real world news hardly percolates the local press unless it has a local angle. Keep up up the good work.
Len
I would agree with almost all of Pilger's assessment of the tragedy in the Middle East, with possibly one exception. He, Mr. Hart, and you as well, recognize a "clear division" between Zionism and Judaism. I'm not sure I do. Because, arguably, Zionism may be the culmination of the deepest Jewish aspirations. It is the most pronounced expression of the Jewish Zeitgeist. Most religious Jews,(and at least subconsciously, many secular Jews, as well), adhere at one level or another to attitudes and teachings revealed in the Talmud. On balance, the Talmud tells us that Jews are superior to gentiles, as humans are to lower animal forms. Jews must eventually, at some point, subdue gentile 'animals' and rule over them.
Which leads to another issue: What exactly is Judaism? What are its theological components? Is it possible in a short paragraph, perhaps, to describe the major tenets of Judaism? I contend that the dimensions of modern Judaism are not so easily delineated. Judaism is a name attached to disparate modes of religious, political and social thought, none of which are necessarily related to one another or cohere in a readily identifiable whole. As a Catholic, I can easily set down in a short paragraph what the essential docrines of my faith are. I defy a Jew, of whatever stripe he may be, to do the same. I would say, in summary, that Judaism is more of an attitude or understanding that Jews have about themselves and the role they feel destined to play in the world, than it is an immutable set of religious principles and dogmas. I would conclude finally then that there may well be no "clear division" between Zionism and Judaism, but that the former is merely the present face of the latter. I would say further that most Jews connect at some level with the Zionist cause. I think this contention is indisputable.