An Interview With Alan Hart
In theory America is the only power on Earth with the ability to call and hold Israel to account, by which I mean require Israel to live by the rules of accepted and. civilised international behaviour and honour its obligations to UN resolutions. The trouble with America, so to speak, is that what passes for democracy there is for sale to powerful vested interests, of which the Zionist lobby, now in shocking and awesome alliance with the neo-cons and Christian fundamentalism, is one of the most powerful. Probably second only to the Military Industrial Complex. One of the themes of my book is the pork-barrel nature of American politics as it relates to the Arab-Israeli conflict – the dependence of many of those running for election to Congress and the White House on Jewish campaign finance and, in close races, Jewish swing votes. As a consequence of pork-barrel politics in the U.S., plus today American imperialism as advanced by the neo-cons, it’s already too late for any American administration to hold Israel to account. Why? Because the settlement facts gut-Zionism has been allowed to create on the ground in occupied Palestine are irreversible, making catastrophe for all inevitable unless… Unless the Jews of the world become involved to cause Israel to change its ways.
You write with great sensitivity about what you call the ‘predicament’ of very many diaspora Jews. You describe the logic of their thinking, unspeakable by almost all Jews in public, as going something like this. “We Jews of the world know we ought to be speaking out and exerting our influence to cause Israel to change its policies. But we dare not. Why not? Because there might come a day when we will need Israel as a refuge of last resort. For that reason we cannot even think of saying or doing anything that might give comfort to Israel’s enemies and put our ultimate insurance policy at risk.” If that is how most diaspora Jews do actually think, do you really believe they will rise to the challenge in the way you suggest they must?
If I believed the answer to that question was definitely “No”, I would not have bothered to write this book. My minimum hope is that it will encourage diaspora Jews to seriously debate, among themselves if they insist, why they should exert their influence on Israel, to change it from a Zionist state into a Jewish state. But I am not naive. I know that most diaspora Jews will not even think of playing their necessary part in changing Israel unless and until they receive the maximum possible in the way of reassurance about their security in the mainly Gentile lands of which they are citizens. In other words, diaspora Jews have got to be given good reason to believe that they will never have need of Israel as a refuge of last resort. It follows that the Jews of the world can only do what they must do with the assistance of the Gentiles. What assistance?
In my Epilogue, The Jews as the Light Unto Nations, I call for a New Covenant, not between the Jews and their God, but between the Jews and the Gentiles. For their part of the deal the Jews of the world, citizens of many nations, would commit to making common cause with rational Israelis for the purpose of de-Zionising Israel. For their part the Gentiles among whom most Jews live would commit to slaying the monster of anti-Semitism. An undertaking to let it die in its sleep would not be enough. There would have to be evidence that a stake was being driven into the monster’s heart.
And you write of “the very great prize” that awaits the Jews if they play their part in causing Israel to change its policies.
I put it this way. 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’s 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 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. In that context, I say, Zionism is a Great Betrayal of all our hopes, not just those of the Jews.
You have deconstructed, demolished, Zionist mythology, but do I detect underneath it all some sympathy for Zionism, even for what you call gut-Zionism?
That’s very nearly a most perceptive question! I’ll respond in two ways.
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