The British were only the puppet, but the real person who started the Opium War is by David Sassoon.
Afghanistan and the Opium Trade - A Case Study in Ritual Destruction
If you even mention the word Helmand to experienced Danish soldiers, they get a worried look on their faces. (Helmand er soldaternes mareridt, DR Nyheder/Udland, September 27, 2007, http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Udland/2007/09/27/062206.htm)
Last fall, the Danish soldiers there came under such heavy fire that they had to leave the village Musa Qala. The defense minister, Søren Gade, thought it was the heaviest fighting since 1864. Supposedly, 10000 experienced Taliban soldiers are all ready to go. (id.) Note that in the war of 1864, there were at least 1570 Danish deaths. (Second Schleswig War, Wikipedia)
Such hard fighting! But strangely no casualties as of February 2007. The military chief of operations oberst Henrik Sommer said this was due to "chance" and "good luck". (Sofie Rønde Mathiesen, Afghanistan-soldater var heldige, DR PR Bornholm, February 23, 2007) Or maybe just plain old underreporting.
Or maybe the fighting is not so hard at all. According to major Peter Els, if the Danish soldiers are fired upon, they lay low and wait for aerial bombs
to destroy houses that may have been the source of enemy fire. Els thought maybe innocent civilians were being killed, but the soldiers never could be sure because the houses were so thoroughly destroyed. (Soldater: Vores tunge skyts dræber uskyldige afghanere, DR Nyheder / Indland, August 30, 2007)
If its this kind of "hard fighting", the civilians are ritually murdered. The enemy soldiers don't get bombed because they're too hard to find. And the Danish casualties stay low. Reminds one of the ritual slaughter operations in Hamburg and Porsgrunn.
In May of 2007, there was a first. Steen Rønn Sørensens was wounded in an open firefight in Afghanistan, and died. This was the first time this had happened in recent history. (Dansk Afghanistan-soldat død, DR Nyheder / Udland, May 3, 2007)
The rest of the time, the "hard fighting" had involved waiting for aerial bombardment to kill all the Afghans in sight. Back in June of 2007, this was confirmed. In the eastern part of the country, seven children was killed when the "coalition" dropped aerial bombs on a mosque. The mosque was "thought" to be an enemy site. The coalition put out word that they would stop killing civilians, but nothing has coming of that high resolve. (Kirsten Larsen, Drab på civile i Afghanistan skal stoppes, DR Orientering, June 19, 2007)
So why do the Danish boys stay there? Because they enjoy killing Afghan civilians with aerial bombs?
In Irak, there's oil. That's a reason for the guardians of democracy to hang around.
In Afghanistan, there's opium. In fact, a record harvest this year. This year, the Afghan harvest made up 95% of the world total, up from 92% the year before. The opium business makes up one third of the Afghan economy money-wise. When the Taliban ran Afghanistan, they had just about eradicated the opium business. (Inger Marie Vennize, Opiumshøst i Afghanistan slår rekord, DR Nyheder/Udland, August 26, 2007)
A recent report shows that opium exports have risen 29 percent since 2006. That's more than 600 tons of opium and morphine being exported (NATO til kamp mod afghansk opium, DR, November 17, 2007, http://www.dr.dk/Nyheder/Udland/2007/11/17/233621.htm)
There's the monetary component in the opium business. Are there any ritual murders going on? Afghanistan finds itself in a downward spiral. In fact, things get worse every year. As usual, most of the casualties are civilians. (Antal dræbte stiger i Afghanistan, DR Nyheder/Udland, April 17, 2007)
So. Lots of killing going on. Lots of treasure being taken.
It sounds just like Shechem. Or Ammon. Maybe there are some Jews involved here?
When the 99 year British lease on Hong Kong's New Territories expired, the Crown of the City of London's Colony was ceded to China. Of hundreds of newspaper stories and TV reports that covered this event, not one revealed how England first gained control of Hong Kong! The truth lies buried in the family line of David Sassoon, "The Rothschilds of The Far East," and their monopoly over the opium trade. Britain won Hong Kong by launching the opium Wars to give the Sassoons exclusive rights to drug an entire nation!
David Sassoon was born in Baghdad, Iran in 1792, son of Saleh Sassoon, a
wealthy banker and the treasurer to Ahmet Pasha, governor of Baghdad (making him the "court Jew" -- a highly influential position). When Ahmet was overthrown for corruption in 1829, the Sassoons fled to Bombay, India, the strategic trade route to India and gateway to the Far East. Soon the British government granted Sassoon "monopoly rights" to the manufacture of cotton goods, silk and most importantly, Opium -- at that time the most addictive drug in the world! The Jewish Encyclopedia of 1905, states that Sassoon expanded his opium trade into China and Japan. He placed his eight sons in charge of the major opium exchanges in China. According to the 1944 Jewish Encyclopedia: "He employed only Jews in
his business, and wherever he sent them he built synagogues and schools for them. He imported whole families of fellow Jews . . . and put them to
work."
Sassoon's sons were busy pushing this mind-destroying drug in Canton, China. Between 1830 and 1831 they trafficked 18,956 chests of opium, earning millions of dollars. Part of the profits went to Queen Victoria and the British government. In the year 1836 the trade increased to over 30,000 chests and drug addiction became endemic in coastal cities.
In 1839, the Manchu Emperor ordered it stopped and named Commissioner of Canton, Lin Tse-hsu, to lead a campaign against opium. Lin seized 2,000 chests of Sassoon opium and threw it into the river. An outraged David Sassoon demanded that Great Britain retaliate. Thus, the
Opium Wars began with the British Army fighting as mercenaries of the Sassoons. They attacked cities and blockaded ports. The Chinese Army, decimated by 10 years of rampant opium addiction, proved no match for the British Army. The war ended in 1839 with the signing of "The Treaty of Nanking." This included provisions especially designed to guarantee the Sassoons the right to enslave an entire population with opium. The "peace treaty" included the following provisions:-
Full legalization of the opium trade in China,
Compensation from [for] the opium stockpiles confiscated by Lin of 2 million pounds,
Territorial sovereignty for the British Crown over two hundred offshore islands.
Sassoon's use the British Army to Drug an entire Nation
British Prime Minister Palmerston wrote Crown Commissiner Captain Charles Elliot that the treaty didn't go far enough. He said it should have been rejected out of hand because: "After all, our naval power is so strong that we can tell the Emperor what we mean to hold rather than what he would cede. We must demand the admission of opium into interior China as an article of lawful commerce and increase the indemnity payments and British access to several additional Chinese ports." Thus, China not only had to reimburse Sassoon the value of his dumped opium but to pay England the sum of 21 million pounds for the cost of the war!
This gave the Sassoon's monopoly rights to distribute opium in port
cities. However, even did not satisfy him and Sassoon demanded the right to sell opium throughout the nation. The Manchus resisted and the British Army again attacked in the "Second Opium War fought 1858 - 1860. Palmerston declared that all of interior China must be open for uninterrupted opium traffic. The British suffered a defeat at the Taku Forts in June 1859, when sailors, ordered to seize the forts, were run aground in the mud-choked harbor and several hundred killed or captured. An enraged Palmerston said: "We shall teach such a lesson to these perfidious hordes that the name of Europe will hereeafter be a passport of fear."
In October, the British besieged Peking. When the city fell, British commander Lord Elgin, ordered the temples in the city sacked and burned to the ground as a show of comtempt. In the new "Peace Treaty" of Oct.25, 1860, the British were assigned rights to a vastly expanded opium trade covering seven-eights of China, which brought in over 20 million pounds in 1864 alone. In that year, the Sassoons imported 58,681 chests of opium and by 1880 it skyrocketed to 105,508 chests, making the Sassoons the richest Jews in the world. England was given the Hong Kong peninsula as a colony and large sections of Amoy, Canton, Foochow, Ningpo and Shanghai. The Sassoons were now licensing opium dens in each British occupied area with large fees being collected by their Jewish agents. Sassoon would not allow any other race to engage in "the Jews' business."
However, the British government would not allow any opium to be imported into Europe!
Sassoon's Monopoly wrecked England's Textile Industry in
Lancashire, and made the Roosevelt's Wealthy.
Sir Albert Sassoon, the eldest of David Sassoon's sons took over the
family empire, constructing huge textile mills in Bombay where he paid slave labor wages. This expansion continued after World War One, putting England's mills in Lancashire out of business. Thousands lost their jobs. This did not deter Queen Victoria from knighting Albert Sassoon in 1872.
Solomon Sassoon moved to Hong Kong and ran the family business there until his death in 1894. Later, the entire family moved to England because with modern communications they could operate their financial empire from their luxurious estates in London and socialize with royalty. Edward Albert. Sassoon married Aline Caroline de Rothschild in 1887, linking their fortunes. The Queen also knighted Edward. All of David Sassoon's fourteen grandsons were made officers during World War One, thus most were able to avoid combat.
Franklin D. Roosevelt's fortune was inherited from his maternal
grandfather Warren Delano. In 1830 he was a senior partner of Russell &
Company whose merchant fleet carried Sassoon's opium to China and returned with tea. Warren Delano moved to Newburgh, N.Y. In 1851 his daughter Sara married well-born neighbor, James Roosevelt - the father of Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Although he knew the origin of the family fortune, he refused to discuss it. The Sassoon opium trade brought death and destruction to millions and still plagues Asia to this day. Their company was totally operated by Jews ONLY! The corrupt Khazar British monarchy honored them and although history describes them as the "great developers" of India, the source of their vast wealth is never mentioned! (http://www.biblebelievers.org.au/sassoon.htm)
So the Jews were running the business since its early days.
There are a lot of authorities which describe current Jewish involvement in the heroin trade, but the following article says it all:
HEROIN SCANDAL ROCKS LONDON'S DEVOUT JEWISH COMMUNITY
The Orthodox Jewish community has been shocked by a series of arrests of its members for alleged heroin smuggling. Police and Customs inquiries are centering on a drugs link between Israel, Antwerp and London.
Evidence of the new drugs link follows:
Two Jewish men are to appear British courts on heroin smuggling
charges.
The professional execution on an Antwerp street last week, of a Jewish jeweller and leading figure in the Russian Mafia.
A Talmudic scholar accused in Tel Aviv this month of laundering drugs money through his bank account.
The north London Orthodox community is remaining tight-lipped about the arrests although it is thought to be severely embarrassed.
Several people in the community, who did not want to be named, said that the arrests were causing anger and deep concern.
The involvement of Orthodox Jews in hard drugs has echoes of the recent case in New York State where the puritanical Amish sect was torn by the arrest of several younger members for drug dealing.
The Orthodox and ultra-orthodox communities of Stamford Hill and Golders Green in north London have a reputation for being largely crime-free. While some members of the Orthodox community have been jailed in the past for large-scale VAT frauds and other white collar crime,
it has never been associated with drugs [publically] or violent crime. The fact the arrests involve allegations of heroin has proved even more shocking.
Police in several European countries began to suspect that the diamond area of Antwerp was becoming an international centre for drug smuggling two years ago when an Orthodox Jewish man from Antwerp was arrested at Ramsgate.
Dror Hazenfratz, then 34, from Antwerp, was jailed for 11 years for trying to smuggle heroin. He was arrested by British Customs officers while travelling with his wife and child in the family Peugeot 405. Underneath the child seat in the back Customs officers found 15 kilos of heroin worth UKP750,000.
Hazenfratz, who was born in Haifa and holds an Israeli passport as well as a Belgian identity card, appeared in Canterbury court wearing traditional dress and carrying the Talmud. He had made other one-day trips to England.
Hazenfratz said he had been told to meet a Georgian Orthodox Jew at a
north London hotel. The ultimate destination of the drugs was reputedly David Santini, a Glaswegian who, at the time, was Scotland's leading heroin dealer.
In an unrelated raid, Santini was arrested while repacking a UKP1.1m
consignment of heroin. He was jailed for 13 years. A senior officer in the case said: "He had massive connections with Britain's underworld and leads to European drug cartels."
Following the arrest of Hazenfratz drugs officers began to suspect a new drugs route. The last stopping point for most drugs coming into Britain is the Netherlands, but European police forces are making it more difficult to use that country as a transshipment point.
The collapse of Communism has also opened up new smuggling routes
through Eastern Europe into London and Antwerp is ideally suited as a drugs centre.
At the end of June British Customs arrested a 19-year-old man from Antwerp in Dover with 10 kilos of heroin allegedly concealed in his hire
car. He is awaiting trial. Shortly before an older man had been arrested at
Coquelles at the French entrance to the Channel Tunnel.
British Customs allegedly found quantities of heroin and cocaine. The man was an American Orthodox Jew living in Stamford Hill.
British drugs officers suspect they are seeing the beginning of a new drug operation involving Antwerp's Orthodox Jews and the Russian Mafia. The Orthodox community has been a major player in the diamond and precious metal market. Antwerp has the largest diamond centre in the world. Other centres of the diamond business are Tel Aviv and Hatton Garden, London.
Antwerp's Orthodox community is close knitted but cosmopolitan with close links with similar communities in Israel, London, New York and Eastern Europe. It is an Askenazi community which originated mainly
from East Europe. However, over the past two years the diamond business has taken a downturn for the small trader and the trade has moved mainly into the hands of big corporations such as DeBeers. In addition, last year, police made a series of raids of diamond businesses suspected of tax evasion and money laundering.
According to one Customs source, smuggling diamonds from
Antwerp to London's Hatton Garden has been on for many years. This expertise in smuggling has now been turned to a more sinister trade. The Russian Mafia has made Antwerp a centre of its operations and has been able to use the expertise of a community that has fallen on hard times.
Last week, evidence of the violence associated with drug crime surfaced again in Antwerp. A Jewish trader in precious metals in the city, Rachmeil "Mike" Brandwain, also reputed to be a leading figure in the Russian Mafia, was shot dead. Underworld gossip has it that he had informed on another leading figure in the Russian Mafia who had been arrested in New York.
In the 1980s Brandwain had sold gold that was smuggled into Britain for a VAT fraud being run in Hatton Garden. A Customs operation codenamed "Operation Fiddler" arrested a number of men in London. Brantwain was also suspected to be a cocaine dealer.
Earlier this month in Tel Aviv, three British drugs officers were in court to see an Israeli man charged with laundering money from an international drugs ring.
According to local police, the British officers were from MI6 - the
remit of the overseas arm of British intelligence was extended to cover
international drug smuggling.
Israel Aron Albam, a 38-year-old Talmudic scholar, married with eight children, was released on a bail of 8m shekels (around UKP1.3m ). The Tel Aviv court was told that British authorities had been involved with the seizure of two boatloads of drugs, the first in 1992 with two tonnes of cocaine and one tonne of cocaine.
The shipments originated from Columbia and were heading for Holland. The second boat was seized in Portugal and a British citizen known only as "John" was arrested. He claimed that Albam had given him UKP48,000 to pay for the yacht. The court was told that a number of men are held by the British authorities in connection with the smuggling ring.
Albam is an Askenazi of the large Vishmitz sect. Police inquiries revealed that Albam was on a Israeli government grant for poor scholars to study the Talmud at the Yeshiva ( theology college ). He had travelled to New York and London, apparently collecting money for charity. However, Israeli police found 400m shekels ( UKP66m ) in his bank account. The account was in the Israeli religious bank which is tax exempt.
(Paul Lashmar, HEROIN SCANDAL ROCKS LONDON'S DEVOUT JEWISH COMMUNITY, The Independent, July 25, 1998).
All of the pieces of the puzzle are there. First we have the devout Orthodox Jews. Then there's the religious bank in Israel. Tax exempt, naturally. Plenty of money flowing around. And lots of opium/heroin. Even a poor talmudic scholar who had 66 million pounds in his religious bank account.
And the ritual slaughter?
The Christian soldiers from Europe get killed in their protection work for the drug business. The Taliban (pictured at right) government shut down the opium trade, but thanks to the effective protection of the Christian soldiers, there was a record harvest in 2007. Plenty of Afghan Islamics get killed. And then think of all those heroin addicts. Paying lots of money to destroy their brains.
Its a typical scenario. It reminds one so much of Shechem and Ammon.
Related link: http://globheu.blogspot.com/2006/09/ch-19-jrm-in-afghanistan.html
Submitted by The Great Revealer on Sun, 2008-11-02 22:59
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Michael Kadoorie
Sir Michael David Kadoorie GBS, born 1941 in Hong Kong, is a business executive, one of the world's foremost tycoons and philanthropists. In early 2007, he is the fourth wealthiest person in Hong Kong and Greater China Region, after Li Ka Shing, Lee Shau Kee and Kwok's Brothers, with his wealth worth 9 billion US dollars.
The son of business tycoon Lord Kadoorie (Lawrence Kadoorie) (1899-1993) and his wife, Muriel Gubbay, Michael Kadoorie was educated at Institut Le Rosey in Switzerland before going on to university. His family’s roots in business in the Far East go back to his grandfather who first settled in Shanghai in 1880. A Jewish immigrant from Bombay, India, and a descendant of Iraqi Jews originally from Baghdad, his grandfather made a fortune in Shanghai and Hong Kong through opium trading, real estate and utilities. Headquartered in Hong Kong soon after 1949, Michael Kadoorie's father and uncle successfully expanded the family businesses into a sprawling empire of diversified corporations.
Michael Kadoorie is the Chairman of CLP Research Institute and CLP Holdings Ltd. which his family founded in 1890 and in which they still hold a 35% stake. The utility company provides electricity to 75% of Hong Kong and has equity interests in power plants in India, mainland China, southeast Asia and Australia. He is also the Chairman of The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels, owners of the world-renowned Peninsula Hotel, Metrojet Limited, Heliservices (Hong Kong) Limited and Tai Ping Carpets Intl. He holds a number of directorships in other companies as well. He has been a member of the Council of the University of Hong Kong since 1993 and in 2000, the Kadoorie Biological Sciences Building opened at the university. In 2004, the University of Hong Kong awarded him an honorary LLD.
A renowned philanthropist and trustee of the Kadoorie Charitable Foundation, Michael Kadoorie was made an Officer of the Legion of Honor by the government of France and a Commander of the Order of Léopold II of Belgium.
A photography buff and a discerning collector of Chinese works of art, Kadoorie is also a helicopter pilot and a fan of exotic cars. He is the owner of a number of rare automobiles including a type 57 Bugatti, a 1932 Phantom II Thrupp & Maberly, a 1934 Hispano-Suiza J12 Van Vooren Cabriolet, a 1936 Mercedes-Benz 500K, a 1969 P400 S Miura Lamborghini and a Rolls-Royce Silver Ghost. In 1998, he spent two months recovering from serious injuries at the John Radcliffe Hospital in Oxford, England after having an accident in his vintage Ferrari when the spokes in one of the rebuilt wheels tore through the tire.
On the Forbes 2004 List of billionaires, Michael Kadoorie is ranked 122nd in the world.
He was given a knighthood, as a Knight Bachelor, in the Queen's Birthday Honours List on 11th June 2005.
He lives in Hong Kong with his wife and three children.
Iran disbands drug ring in capital
Mon, 03 Nov 2008 15:23:41 GMT
Iranian intelligence officers have disbanded a drug smuggling ring in the capital of Tehran, confiscating 1,270 kilograms of narcotics.
The report comes as earlier in October, Iran announced that despite Western efforts to cut anti-drug aid to the country, it had confiscated nearly 370 tons of narcotics in the past 6 months.
Afghanistan, the largest cultivator of opium poppy, is responsible for most of the illicit opium, heroin and opium derivatives hitting world markets.
Iran, which lies at the crossroads of drug smuggling from Afghanistan to the West, has waged a 30-year campaign against the drug trade.
Secretary General of Iran's Drug Control Headquarters Ismail Ahmadi-Moqaddam said in October that the country has spent over 600 million dollars in the last two years to dig canals, build barriers and install barbed wire to seal off the country's borders.
CS/HGH
economic interests around the world--Or know of any articles treating this? The Congo for example smells of flesh due to a decades' long war however, it also has the stench of Israeli gem dealers and financiers. Israel's main reason for supporting South Afrincan Apartheid was gems--as well as a market for their arms manufacturing industry--two thirds of which are exported. Four of Irael's arms manufacturers are among the world's top 100 producers of weaponry. The conflict in Darfur is another example of intersecting Israeli economic interests and their arms manufacturing sector. This blog entry points to the conflict in Afghanistan. We have our contentiions about Iraq. Most of the conflicts in Africa are based on positioning by various actors to extract minerals--this includes Chinam, USA, etc.
Thanks in advance for your responses.
_____________________
"You shall have no pity on them until we shall have destroyed their so-called Arab culture, on the ruins of which we shall build our own civilization." –Menachem Begin
ZION'S NAZI ALLIES
Oil futures closing at around $63 per barrel today and the forecasted $100 billion of scheduled credit default of US consumers? Were the predatory pricing / speculation directly related to the bloated credit debt?
_____________________________
"You shall have no pity on them until we shall have destroyed their so-called Arab culture, on the ruins of which we shall build our own civilization." –Menachem Begin
ZION'S NAZI ALLIES
Calgary man dies after Taser used during arrest
Calgary has died, a spokesperson for the Alberta Serious Incident Response Team said Monday http://row.bc.yahoo.com/b?P=FAcR_GKIK3_nDoQySQ9mlgj4RJIFF0kPuHQAAVfk&T=1...
The man was arrested after police were called to a duplex in the 500 block of 42nd Street S.E. at about 8 p.m. Saturday following reports of a suspicious man in the neighbourhood and a break-in.
The provincial response team, which investigates any use of force by police that results in serious injury or death, has confirmed that a Taser was used during the man's arrest. The man was taken to hospital in medical distress.
Tom Allen, who lives next door to the small duplex, said he heard some loud noises Saturday night then what sounded like a barbecue being dragged from the house, which has been vacant for about a month.
He said he went outside shortly after hearing the noise.
"Didn't hear any yelling. I just heard somebody just trying to run in a panic and trying to get away from the police."
More than 20 people have died in Canada after being stunned by Tasers.
Alberta's solicitor general defended the use of stun guns by the province's police forces last week.
"I believe the Taser is a tool that's been used very effectively and in a lot of cases has prevented death," Fred Lindsay said on Oct. 30.
"These deaths that have occurred, whether it's because of excited delirium or the use of the Taser, I haven't seen a lot of evidence yet come forward that confirms at the end of the investigation that it was caused by the voltage that was put into the person's body by the Taser."
Lindsay said until there is conclusive evidence that stun guns are dangerous, police will be able to use them.
Lindsay's comments came one day after a man died after Edmonton police used a stun gun to subdue him while he was on a rampage in a west end pawn shop. Trevor Grimolfson, who was originally from Selkirk, Man., worked as a tattoo artist in Edmonton.
This doctor in China (along with MAJORITY of Western "doctors") still believes in the HIV/AIDS MYTH.
A 15-year-old boy suffering a gastro complaint was mistakenly diagnosed with AIDS and his weight dropped 30 kilograms after two months of improper treatment in Heilongjiang Province.
Two months ago, the native of Heilongjiang's Jiamusi City experienced diarrhea and his relatives sent him to a hospital in Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang. He received antibiotics for more than one month but became even weaker and had severe diarrhea, Harbin Daily reported yesterday.
His parents took him back to Jiamusi where a doctor suspected the boy had AIDS as he was thin, had a slight fever and was dehydrated. The doctor carried out anti-inflammation treatment for more than two weeks, the report said. His health deteriorated rapidly and his weight dropped from 65kg to 35kg.
His family later took him to The Fourth Hospital affiliated to Harbin Medical University. After a careful check-up, he was diagnosed with acute gastroenteritis. Doctors at the hospital altered his treatment and he fully recovered in two weeks, the report said.
(Shanghai Daily November 4, 2008)
Follow these DOCUMENTARIES on ZIONISM from Iran.
http://www.presstv.ir/Programs/player/?id=73942
http://www.presstv.ir/Programs/player/?id=73303
Related link: http://www.presstv.ir/Programs/player/?id=73942
Interview with Professor Ilan Pappe, Israel’s historian. [Part 1]
Professor Ilan Pappe is Israel’s leading “new” or “revisionist” historian. The terms new and revisionist really mean honest. The title of his latest book, The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, says everything about his integrity and commitment to the truth of history. As well as his passion for justice.
One of very many revelations in Ilan’s latest book is in the form of a statement made by David Ben-Gurion, Israel’s founding father, in a letter to his son. It was written in 1937. “The Arabs will have to go,” Ben-Gurion wrote, “but one needs an opportune moment for making it happen, such as war.”
Like all Israelis, Ilan was brought up, conditioned, to believe Zionism’s version of the history of the making and sustaining of the Arab-Israeli conflict. It wasn’t until he went to England to continue his academic studies that he had access to documentation which enabled him to understand that Zionism’s version is a propaganda lie.
Until the summer of last year (twenty o seven), Ilan was a Senior Lecturer of Political Science at Haifa University. In conversation with me, he explains why that chapter of his life came to an end and why, today, he is living in England and teaching at Exeter University.
An indication of how much Zionism fears the truth of history is in this fact. The now completely Zionised Board of Deputies of British Jews tried and failed to block Ilan’s appointment to Eexter University. It was one of those rare occasions when the blackmail power of the Zionst lobby was resisted.
For his books and his public speaking, Ilan is respected and admired by many people around the world with the exception, of course, of supporters of Israel right or wrong and Zionists in particular.
Alan: Ilan, Zionism has named and listed more than 7,000 Israeli Jews that regards as more enemies. The list is available on Zionist web site and it is called the Shiit list. Shiit standing for self hating Israeli traitor. Now you have to distinction and I suspect the honor of being at the very top of this list. You are Zionism’s Jewish enemy number one. I like to start by asking you to explain to me the Zionist mindset that perceives you as a traitor. From Zionism’s perspective, what is it exactly that you have betrayed?
Ilan: I think Alan that the main betrayal as far as the Zionist movement is concerned, is that I could have been a prodigy of the movement. I could have been a very effective spokesperson for that movement being a leading academic, someone who graduated from Oxford, someone who was born in the country and really represents everything which the country- or the state rather- is proud of and instead of that if you want, all these assets are being employed to expose the crimes of Zionism and to tackle Zionist as an unacceptable ideology.
Alan: You mean you could have become magnificent for them in the selling of their propaganda lies?
Ilan: Absolutely, as some of their leading academics are doing, willing to serve as ambassadors and ambassadress for the Zionist cause. So it is not just a particular view which I hold that condemns Zionism for its policies towards the Palestinians that are the heart of this matter. Although they are also part of it, but they are many other people who share my view. But I think this particular position which I occupy as part of my career and the way my life had progressed, that makes it very difficult for them to digest.
Alan: We will come to some of the truth of history a little later. I wanted to look at self hating. Is a label Zionism pins on its Jewish opponents because it can not accuse them as it accuses gentiles of being anti-Semitic for the blackmail purpose of closing down debate. But what is the logic? Twisted, though it might be, behind this Zionist concept of the self hating Jew which incidentally is a concept described by the Jewish writer Will Self as hideous and reductive. What is the logic?
Ilan: The logic is actually an attempt to create a Genealogy of self hating Jews that goes back to the biblical times. It is almost a religious journey as much as it is and ethnic one. If you read very carefully the works that were written about people like myself. They always begin by drawing Genealogical tree of self hating Jews.
Alan: I wondered what actually mean...
Ilan: I will come to that. It means that it is almost part of the Jewish existence and psyche to have, if you want, insane Jews unwell Jews, people who there could not be any logical or moral explanation for the position that they had taken, apart from something which is wrong with them mentally. It is a kind of a mental illness to offer a Jew to criticize Judaism. Now, of course, most of the Jews in the world would never regard someone like me as a self hating Jew. It is very particular group of ideological Zionists. They would take criticism on Israel’s policies as criticism on Judaism. One should not, and I am sure we will talk about it a bit later, at all forget the distinction between the two. But this is the idea that it is very much the other side of the anti-Semitic accusation. If you deal with Zionism, you deal with Judaism and if you deal with Judaism and you do not endorse it, you are an anti-Semite.
Alan: Let’s come straight to that point. In the first program of the series, I explained the difference between Judaism and Zionism, and I said of this difference is "the Key" to understand, not the second key, not the first key, “the Key”. How would you characterize the difference between Judaism and Zionism and its significance?
Ilan:I think, in the nutshell, Zionism is a version and interpretation of Judaism that, at least to my mind and to the minds of quite a few Jews known around the world, abuses the basic values and heritage of Judaism. It is an attempt to take a religion, a culture, a civilization in a way, and condense it into an ethnic identity in a colonialist context.
Alan: All right, could we be even more specific and say that Judaism is the religion of Jews, not all Jews because not all Jews are religious and like Islam, like Christianity it has as its core, a set of moral values and ethical principles.
Ilan: Absolutely.
Alan: Whereas Zionism is a sectarian colonial enterprise which founded a state on terrorism and ethnic cleansing we should talk about in due course and makes a complete mockery of the principles of Judaism.
Ilan: Yes I do not know about mockery, but definitely it stands for ethnic values of supremacy, of exclusivity which are not part of the humanist Jewish heritage. It is actually more than mockery. It is manipulating humanist International values in order that it could be used for pursuing ethnic policies on the ground in Palestine.
Alan: And could we say that the real significance is in two things, when you know, I am talking about the gentile world now essentially among who most Jews live, When you know the difference between the two, you understand: A) Why you can be critical of the Zionist state of Israel without being anti-Semitic and perhaps, even more importantly, you understand why it is wrong to blame all Jews everywhere for the crimes of the minority. That is what I see as the significance. Does that make sense to you?
Ilan: Especially if you treat the world minority as a state organ, I would go even further; I would say that the state policies do not implicate every Jew lives in Israel.
Alan: Right
Ilan: In fact the majority of the Jews in Israel are not implicated by these policies and it is a state ideology. It is a certain political and military elite that carries out these policies. It is endorsed by sections of the society and that is where their blame lies
Alan: This one for the democracy.
Ilan: Exactly, but I do think it is very important to understand it is a very narrow part of Judaism, Zionism. It has much more to do, to my mind, with German National Romanticism and colonialist heritages than with the Jewish world.
Alan: Let’s come to you personally for a moment. In August last year, you decided, it was time for you and your family to leave Israel and you came here to live. I know the authorities and their agencies in Israel were making your academic work in Haifa University impossible and your life in general impossible. But was it also the case that you really had to take seriously threats to kill you?
Ilan: Yes. That is also part of the atmosphere. It was not so much the threats against me that I was terrified about, the threats against my children, my two boys, which really were the final nail on the coffin.
Alan: You mean there were threats against their lives.
Ilan: Very specific, Very specific and therefore I thought this is something which I can endanger myself, but I have no right to endanger my kids for something I am doing. When they are 18 they can decide for themselves, whether they want to pursue this line in life or not but definitely this was part of it. But that by itself was not enough to cause someone to live and I still do hope to be in both places to work from the inside and the outside as much as the circumstances would allow it.
Alan: But the bottom line point is, your life and the lives of your children were in danger for opposing Zionism.
Ilan: Oh yes, definitely. Of course, everybody who opposes such a hegemonic ideology, I think runs into trouble. It is true that Palestinians who do it suffer much more than Jews like myself who do it, because then the state has no inhibitions. In our case it is a bit more complicated.
Alan: Ilan, when you came here and you were offered a new, and you took up, a post at Exeter University which, in my understanding, has possibly the best Middle East studies group in the country. The board of deputies of British Jews tried to block your appointment. Do you have any idea what the board told the university to try and stop them appointing you?
Ilan: I can only guess from the public announcement that they made that they were portraying me as a person who would use the classroom in order to preach anti-Semitism and to my great relief; this seemed so ridiculous in the eyes of the university authorities that it was rejected out of hand. In fact had they done a better job from their point of view, they could have probably scored some points. But it was so stupid and silly that I do not think it worked for them. For some reason they still believe in the board of deputies that if you shoot the ammunition of anti-Semitism everybody cowards and everybody gives in. I do not think it works that well anymore.
Alan: People like you and, if I may say so, me, we are beginning to explain the difference.
Ilan: That is what I meant. I think we are exposing that.
Alan: Later on, I am going to ask you why you think most Jews are silent on the matter of the Zionist state’s crimes, but I want to press that you about the board once more. Would it be right to regard the board’s attempt to block your appointment as evidence that it, the board of deputies, has now been completely hijacked by supporters of Israel, right or wrong, and as a consequence the board’s claim to be the voice of all British Jews is no longer credible?
Ilan: Yes I agree. I think it is true also about the Jewish union students. I think bodies like this who were supposed to represent the community of believers have become embassies of the state of Israel. I do not know exactly what works for them in that kind of self-appointment, but it definitely seems to be the line that they are taking, even when the crimes of Israel are particularly abhorrent and evident.
Alan: But, we will come to this question of the silence of Jews later. Lets now come to grips with the truth of history as opposed to Zionism’s propaganda lies and state of Israel was created mainly by Zionist terrorism and ethnic cleansing and in your latest book, in this magnificent book, “The ethnic cleansing of Palestine”, you revealed that this crime against the Palestinians did not happen by accident and was completely pre-planned. Now what is the essence of the true story as you uncovered it from the documented record? I am asking you to summarize it in some minutes, some of the guts of your book.
Ilan: The essence of the story is that the ideology of ethnic cleansing, the idea that you have to totally uproot the Palestinians from their home land was at the very centre of Zionist policy at least from the 1930's onwards and definitely these ideas were already rife.
Alan: Which is a long time before the obscenity of the holocaust?
Ilan: Absolutely, exactly and definitely where there even before, but because the early Zionist settlers were busy in a war for survival. These ideas were not developed and were not translated into strategy, but from the 1930's onwards under the guidance of the person who would become the first prime minister of Israel, David Ben-Gurion a group of Zionist leaders began to systematically plan the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians. They could not do it in 1930's, because: A) they were not ruling the country, Britain was still responsible for law and order under the mandatory regime and secondly they did not possess the military means to carry out such an operation. All these changed after the Second World War because, first of all, Britain decided that had enough of Palestine. It was very clear that there was going to be a vacuum that could be utilized by the Zionist movement and secondly under the impression of the genocide of the Jews in Europe, it was easier to recruit money and weapons for the Jewish community in Palestine, supposedly against the second holocaust, this time to be carried out by the Arab world and so on, which of course was a complete fabrication of the Arab governments, or the Palestinian leaderships’ plans. But this was very effective and in a matter of three years they , the Zionist leadership, created very effective military organization while one should say at the same time that Palestinians were naively waiting for the British to hand them over Palestine as they handed over Iraq to the Iraqis and Egypt to the Egyptians and these three years were very well and effectively used by the Zionist leadership, until The British did leave eventually in February or decided to leave in February 1947 and even before they actually left ,which is May 1948, the Zionist forces started to ethnically cleans Palestine from February 1947 onwards and in earnest the ethnic cleansing started a year later in February 1948, but they were experiments a year before to see whether it works.
Alan: What are some of the worst or even any examples of actual ethnic cleansing in practice?
Ilan: Well, I think there are two chapters which stand out particularly as worse than others as all of them are not very sympathetic. One is in April 1948 that is a month before the British leave and actually a month before the Arab Armies entered Palestine which is important to understand. So, the whole myth that some or all critical Israelis are trying to put forward that there were expulsions but there were response to an Arab Military invasion are not true because the worst kind of ethnic cleansing took place a month before the Arab army…
Alan: That was the first 300.000.
Ilan: Exactly, exactly and how wrong it actually went in to try to stop it. So in April there was something which I call in my book the Arabic side of Palestine, the destruction of the urban centers. In Haifa and Jafa, in both cases, 10,000 of people, in one day, were pushed to the harbor and were shot in order to trigger their escape and mountain boats which could hardly contain them and the scenes in these two harbors of whole Arab cities being evicted by Israeli soldiers in one day, few hours and, by the way, the watch of the British soldiers who saw it did nothing.
Alan: And all running to a pre-determined plan?
Ilan: Absolutely, all according to the pre-determined plan is something which, what is probably more surprising than anything else, is not so much the silence of the world or the British or so on, but the silence of the same Jews who knew what happened in Europe, maybe some of them even saw what happened in Europe, and yet had no scruples, no inhibitions in doing almost the same to the Palestinians. The second chapter which just turns out as its cruelty and callousness is towards the end of the ethnic cleansing operation in October 1948, where the Palestinians in Upper Galilee already knew what awaits them and therefore put some fight and like the other villages and that triggered the worst kind of atrocities, raping of woman, killing of babies, and a forceful and very barbaric ethnic cleansing took place there. Although to the credit of the Palestinian one should say: few of the villages succeeded in even withstanding this assault.
Alan: And the end result of the ethnic cleansing is 800.000 Palestinians driven from homes. Ilan the world is only aware of one great denial, the denial of the Natzi holocaust in Europe. But of course there is another, the denial of Zionist ethnic cleansing in Palestine. Now surly yes, those two crimes against humanity were different in scale, but is not the denial of one as obscene as the denial of the other?
Ilan: Definitely it is, especially because the people who lead the campaign for the denial of the other are the people who claim to represent the first catastrophe, in other words, the people who fight against the holocaust denial and those who quite often denied the Naqba, the Palestinian catastrophe and I think that is why the moral absurdity and ethical position lies.
Alan: Coming back to the moral absurdity, just occurred to me, one of our great UK Jewish play writes, I can’t remember which one, in a radio interview once he was asked to describe what you are talking about and he made a very simple statement. He said the child abused becomes the child abuser. In a way, is there something in that?
Ilan: Oh very much so, there is this victim becoming victimizer, in a very quick process, although one should say that the people who executed the ethnic cleansing definitely the people who contemplated it, were not the direct victims of the holocaust.
Alan: Right.
Ilan: They were there long before the holocaust but it is true about some of the people who took part in it definitely.
Alan: Right, I would like now to examine with you the two great propaganda lies which underpin Zionism’s version of history since the creation of the state of Israel in 48.A version of history which the political and media establishments of the gentile world accept as real history. One is that Israel has lived in constant danger of annihilation. The driving into the sea of its Jews. The other is that Israel did not have a Palestinian or other Arab partners for peace. Do either of these assertions contain elements of truth or are they complete propaganda nonsense?
Ilan: Well, the first one is not complete propaganda nonsense although as my colleague Avi Shlaim has showed me in his excellent book “The Iron Wall”. In fact, in most junctures in history when the Arab world a offered chance for peace, it was Israel that rejected it and not vice versa.
Alan: Yes, there is no question about that. There was always an Israeli rejection.
Ilan: Absolutely, but on the other hand, it is true of course that the kind of policy Zionism pursued and later on the state of Israel, did not make it the friend of the Arab world and it is not surprising that there was a high level of hostility towards the Jewish state in the Arab world and therefore objectively one could say that there was definitely a willingness to defend the Palestinians.
Alan: But the possibility of driving the Jews, it was never real.
Ilan: No, I do not think it was.
Alan: In 1948-49, the Arabs, as I understand it, invaded only to try to secure the land that they…
Ilan: Absolutely,The balance of power was always such that the Jewish state was never in any danger of annihilation.
Alan: So, could we sum up those lies by saying that the conclusion they support is this, that Zionism’s assertion that it lived in danger of annihilation was the cover which allowed Israel to get away where it mattered most in America and Western Europe with presenting its aggression as self-defense and itself as the victim and actually it is the oppressor.
Ilan: But I would add to this. It was the manipulation of the fear that is inherent to the group of Jews who came to Palestine and you can not forcefully represent what you have just talked about without a high degree of fear among the people that you control.
Alan: Yes ..
Ilan: And it is this fear that I stress because it is combating this fear that would be part of the reconciliation process. It is not just the matter of saving the Palestinians, but if you want to create any chance for peace, one has to understand how this fear was manipulated...
Alan: Deliberately by the Israeli leaders,
Ilan: By the political elite,
Alan: Now, if Israel’s political and military leaders had been seriously interested in peace on terms of the majority of Palestinians and I think most Arabs and Muslims every where could accept, is there not a case for saying that the best moment to rabbit came at the end of 1979,almost a quarter of a century ago, when the pragmatic Yasser Arafat persuaded the decision making institutions on the Palestinian side to be ready to face the reality of Israel’s existence and to make a genuine two state solution to it? Is not that the moment when it was there for the grabbing?
Ilan: Probably, I do not think it was my historical take on this. It was not the only moment. There were others before in 1967 and 1949 even before that. I think what is important to understand about these moments that they do occur, more or less, I would agree maybe 1979 is a water shed.
Alan: Because the Palestinians have crossed the treasure or they say we recognize the reality of Israel.
Ilan: Yes, but I see it differently.1979 is the water shed because they established facts on the ground in what should have become the independent Palestinian state next to Israel after 1979 as such, that its ridiculous to talk about two-state solution after 79, because already urban infrastructure for Jewish settlement which someone calls them settlements is not settlements, these are real cities that were built in 79, so it was the two things: one is the appeal or readiness to recognize Israel came at the point when Israeli consensus dictated no compromise what so ever with the Palestinians.
Alan: OK, we will return to that shortly. Now, I think you were never a supporter of the idea of the two state solution based on Israel to withdraw from the 1967 borders, but I also believe that you would have welcomed such an outcome to negotiations in the hope that within a generation of that happening. With a consent of all it would have evolved into the one-state solution, one secular democratic state for all. Can I ask you first? Why do you believe that a genuine two-state solution even if it was possible, could not be the end game? Could not guarantee a real and lasting peace?
Ilan: The main reason is, first of all, geographical. Even at the best of times, the Palestinian state would compromise or would stretch over %20 of what used to be Palestine and it would not be a coherent territorial unit. It would be divided to the west bank and a Gaza strip. Under these circumstances, you can not solve the Palestinian refugee problem, you can not guarantee even a modicum of sovereignty and independence for the Palestinians and you actually, with all the good intensions, create the band to stand instead of a Palestinian state or a political outfit that would satisfy the liberation movement or a national movement and therefore it could have been at best of time only temporary step towards a genuine solution of the problem.
Alan: But if it were a final solution, as you are saying, the injustice have not been dealt with and they go on festering and festering.
Ilan: Exactly, I think today the problem, as I have pointed before, is that even that is impossible because of the fact established on the ground, you can not even go through that fence, whether is good or bad, you have to go directly now to one-state solution, because there is no room after what Israel had done in the occupied territories for creating the independent Palestinian state.
Alan: Well I have got two prepared questions that goes directly to that until, I think there is a good time to ... Now, there are moments, Ilan, in these conversations, when I have to ask a question that takes a minute or so to ask. The purpose is to give background to our viewers. Now, western politicians and diplomats and main stream media people are still clinging to the idea of a two-state solution. I think as you do, that its dead and been dead for a long time, but I have a particular reason and it goes back to a private conversation I had with Shimon Peres in 1980 when he was the leader of Israel’s main Labor opposition hoping to replace Begin as Prime Minister. He said to me in 1980. It is already too late for peace on any terms Arafat can accept and I asked him why? And Perry said: "every day that passes sees new bricks on new settlements. Begin knows exactly what he is doing. He is stuffing the west bank with settlers to create the conditions for a Jewish civil war He knows that no Israeli Prime Minister is going down in history as the one who gave the order to the Jewish army to shoot Jews to get them out of the west bank.” He paused and said I am not. My point is this and you have already touched upon it. If it was too late in 1980, when they were only 70.000 settlers, how much more too late is it today when they are half a million settlers. That number is rising on a daily basis and Palestinian lands are being taken on a daily basis.
Ilan: Well, I think that is part of the plan that actually Perez today as the president of Israel endorses. May be he did not endorse at the time, but now he totally endorses it. This is the idea that is even more complicated. What the Israeli consensus or consensus of position tries to create on the ground is two things: To annex directly to Israel, large chunks of the west bank and at the same time declaring to the world at large that they do not mind if what is left, is being declared as a Palestinian State. In fact what happens now, which couldnt have happened in 79 that the same Israeli policy can be seen as part of a so-called peace process or even a peaceful solution of a two-state model.
Alan: Ilan, there are Israeli commentators who say that for real peace many of the settlers in the occupied west bank would leave, be prepared to move out in return for generous financial compensation. I think that up to half of them probably would, but that would still leave about a quarter of a million who I think would fight a civil war and that is why I think: A. That no Israeli Prime Minister is ever going to take on the settlers that is why I think: B. No American President is ever going to ask an Israeli Prime Minister to take on the settlers. What do you think?
Ilan: I think it is even more than that. I think it was true again. I think what you described is very true about 1980's. It is a very fair description. I think today it is a different picture. Today it is not a matter of an Israeli government and willing to evict settlers from the major settlement blocks because of the fear of civil war. It is because the basic Israeli position is that this land belongs to them and actually those who regard themselves as part of the Labor Party or a part of the peace camp would say we are making concessions to the Palestinians. We are giving them something which belongs to them.
Alan: I hate this word, concessions. How can you steal somebody's land and be talking about it? But BBC even uses this word as always concessions.
Ilan: I know and this is the mentality.
Interview with Professor Ilan Pappe, Israel’s historian. [Part 2]
Alan: Ilan just take a historical prospective. Is that not the case for saying that the real villains in the story since 1967 are actually the governments of the major western powers, the one in Washington D.C. especially, for allowing Israel to defy International law by settling the occupied territory?
Ilan: Yes, I totally agree. I think it was probably difficult in 67 to demand the deconstruction of 1948 situation, it was much more difficult. I agree, but definitely after 67, when the Israeli occupation was formed and it was so easy to see what they were doing on the ground and they violated very clear International law and regulations in the United Nations’ resolution, I agree that they were the main culprits because the reality of the occupation was created with very close watch by the western powers who knew what was going on and allowed it for their own reasons.
Alan: So, what you are saying is, in the aftermath of the 67 war, had the major powers led by America simply read the right act to Israel and so we have got to sort out the peace, but we are not going to allow you to build settlements as a complete violation of International Law.
Ilan: At least they could have not solved the Palestine problem as it is, but could have eased the lives of the people who fell under the Israeli occupation in 1967
Alan: Could we also say that they could have stopped the Palestine problem for becoming unmanageable perhaps?
Ilan: Maybe, maybe yes. Definitely, but anyway, this is spilled milk.
Alan: Ilan, how would you characterize Israeli policy today? I mean the policy it is implementing as opposed to its public policy statements.
Ilan: I think the Israeli policies are aimed to completing what the Israelis would call the Zionist project which is securing a final map of the state of Israel with a clear ethnic reality in it. Starting from the North, I do not think they have yet settled on the Northern Border with Lebanon. I think they are still hoping to get the Litani river. They do not know exactly how to do it, whereas I think that in the Golan heights they are willing to have some sort of the territorial compromise with the Syrians, in the west bank, we already talked about and repeated it. It is very important. They want to ethnically cleans half of the west bank, in order not to change the demographic balance inside what they would call the Jewish state, but even that is not the end of the story I think, because there are too many Palestinians in Israel.
Alan: Well, that takes me to my next question and it is one of those moments and it is quiet a long question. My view, picking up from where you left off, is that Zionism’ own end-the-game strategy, now leaves nothing to the imagination. Israel’s leaders believe that by means of brut force and reducing them to abject poverty, they can break the will of the Palestinians to continue to struggle for their rights. This assumption being that, at a point, out of total despair, the Palestinians will prepare to say OK, we will accept crumbs from Zionism’s table. The question that is almost too awful to think about is this: Bearing in mind what you said in your previous answer, what will the Zionist do when it becomes apparent even to them that they can not destroy Palestinian Nationalism, with bombs and bullets and brutal repressive measures. My guess is that they, the Zionist, will go for a final round of ethnic cleansing to drive the Palestinians off the west bank into Jordan and beyond. That I fear will be Zionism’s final solution to the Palestine problem and if it happens, the west bank will be turned red with blood, mostly Palestinian blood and if there be any honest reporters, they would describe it as a Zionist holocaust. Ilan, do you think that is too pessimistic a view of a possible future, if a Zionist dictated course is followed?
Ilan: I think it has ingredients of what, I think, will happen. I think what will happen is only in part. I do not think Zionist movement, or what is called the state of Israel, does not need the kind of scenario that you described. I think what it needs is to clear situations in the west bank. One is the part that is totally annexed to them and there may be through bloodshed or maybe without bloodshed. First things that are quiet weakened now. They would get a free ride in a way nobody stopping them to annex these areas to Israel and ethnically clean the Palestinians who live there, but I do not think, at least the majority of them in the leadership, would mind seeing a Palestinian clave surrounded by high walls and electric fences, very much is existing in the Gaza strip, especially if they could convince the Palestinian leadership to keep it as a state that does not disturb them. However, if this would be impossible, may be what you described could be the second phase.
Alan: It was Moshe Dayn, Israel’s one-eyed war lord who said “it is them or us”. Could it not be said that those three little words: them or us tell us everything and particular that the hardest core Zionist do not have a category of thought that enable s them to seriously consider making accommodation with the Palestinians. I mean the accommodation which is acceptable to the Palestinians.
Ilan: I think this is the state ideology that you described. The state ideology that Jews will not be able to survive in Palestine will not be able to have quality of life and survival, if the Palestinians are there. I think the reality on the ground places like the Galilee and Jerusalem, so it is a bit more complicated and part of the thing that may defeat that ideology, is not only the Palestinian resistance movement, but also the fact that on a daily basis there does not always work although the government puts a lot of effort in great segregation that would prove that point very much like what happened in South Africa.
Alan: I think, what I am really asking you, is that do you think Zionism has ever seriously been interested in peace of the Palestinians?
Ilan: Oh no, no, I do not think. Zionism as a state ideology, as a political movement was only interested in one thing, in creating a clean, clear Jewish space within the Arab world which has no Arabs or Palestinians in it and is connected to the west and has very little to do with the Arab world. That was the main strategy and still is the main strategy of the state of Israel.
Alan: The one I aspect of the Israeli policy is that always struck me as devious in the extreme, is the insistence that the Palestinians end or violence against Israel as a precondition for Israel’s participation in so-called serious negotiations for peace. Leaving aside the fact that the Palestinians have the right in International law to resist occupation by all means including violence, all of human history tells us that you make peace in order to have security. It is not the other way round. So, why is it that Israel’s leaders have always insisted and continued to insist in putting the security cart before the peace force?
Ilan: I think the main reason is that by that you totally disarm the other side and then you can dictate to them what ever you want. Weaken Palestinian leadership that has no military base is a peon in the great game and Israel can dictate to it what it wants it was always a surprise when even under these circumstances Palestinian leaders so far were unwilling in the right moment of truth to surrender to this dictate. The second reason is that the basis of Israel is an ethnic state, is the ability not just to deter the Palestinians but to deter the Arab world at large.They need military superiority over the Middle East as a whole in their view. I do not think it is true that they need it, but that is what they deceive as a basis for their survival and therefore you have to totally disarm any one who wants to be part of an American led peace operation.
Alan: But it is really a ploy to pretend that you are interested in peace while actually you frustrate the process and you go on creating facts.
Ilam: Absolutely, absolutely.
Alan: Ilan, let me now ask you what I think is the single most important question of all. Why are most Jews in the world today silent on the matter of the crimes of the Zionist state? Is it simply that most Jews do not know that Israel has committed crimes which would imply that they would speak out if they did know or is it that they do not want to know and if that they do not want to know, why?
Ilan: I think it is the combination of two or, may be even, third factor. First of all, there was a silent Jewish support ever since the creation of the state of Israel to the States policies. So, if you begin to acknowledge that what was done was wrong, you acknowledge that you played a role in it. Whether you were a citizen at the state or you were not. And I think that deters people from going to such a journey. Second thing is that any Jew who tried in the past to voice clear criticism on the state of Israel was immediately branded as self-hating Jew and people ask themselves whether it is worth being engulfed in such a confrontation, in very strong and vicious lobby, apparatus. Thirdly, I think, some of the Jews do not know, because newspapers such as Jewish chronicles or the Jerusalem post are their only source of information and through these kinds of media, you get a very rosy picture, very twisted picture of what Israel is doing.
Alan: Here is the question where I put myself on the line. You know, Ilan, better than most people, why this gentile me believes that Jews must speak out, but let me summarize my thoughts before I ask you to speak from your heart as well as your historian’s head. I believe the key to peace is in the hands mainly of the Jews of the world, Jewish Americans specially. I believe this because I think no American President is ever going to call and hold the Zionist state into count, unless and until he or she knows that most Jewish Americans want him to do so. I also know that the sleeping giant of classical of anti-Semitism is coming alive again in the western world. A prime cause of this is the Zionist states behavior, hence the title of my book "Zionism the real enemy of the Jews". As things are going and look like going I can therefore see: A future scenario in which all Jews are blamed for the crimes of the few with the possibility of that happens of another great turning against the Jews. Holocaust two for short-hand terminology, so it is my view that the Jews of the world have a vested interest in speaking out to protect themselves by saying in effect Zionism does not speak for us and we are not complicit in its crimes. Now, those are my thoughts, the thoughts of a concerned and caring gentile. There will probably be no impact on Jews because I am a gentile, but you are not only Jewish. You are Israeli Jew. What are your thoughts on that subject?
Ilan: I think again it is part of the reality. Let me start with what I agree. I do agree that the Jews in general in the world and American Jews in particular can play a very significant crucial role in changing the reality on the ground and I do agree also that present policies of Israel and the present American support for Israel is going to end in a catastrophe for which the Jews in America will be blamed and therefore anti-Semitism would come and rise again. Therefore you are right they have a vested interest in doing that. I also think that American support for Israel is a bit more complicated than that. There is a Christian element, very strong Christian Zionist. Element that has very little to do with the Jews, has to do with history of American Christian fundamentalism ..
Alan: The Christian Zionist.
Ilan: Christian Fundamentalism and therefore the task is more formidable in the United States than just that. But I do agree that there is a great, I do not know about the second holocaust or not, but I do agree that if things go wrong and things will go wrong for them for America if these policies continue.The scapegoat would be the Jewish community in America rightly or wrongly and I would be very worried as an American Jew, if not on a moral basis and I think they should on moral basis oppose the state of Israel. At least from their own survival point of view they should be much more critical about what Israelis are doing to the Palestinians and in the Arab world.
Alan: On the question of how to end the silence of the Jews, I am talking about most Jews; it seems to me that the answer is straight forward and very simple in principle. Because of the history of persecution which climax with the obscenity of the Nazi Holocaust, most Jews have been conditioned by Zionism to believe that they can never again trust gentiles and the day might come when they would be persecuted again and would have need of Israel perhaps as a refuge of last resort. Now, that way of thinking being so, if it is so, it follows or it seems to me that the only way of ending the silence of the Jews, is by assisting them to understand that the anti-Semitism which could threaten them is being provoked by the Zionist state’s behavior and American support for it. Is that analysis or the gentile analysis that strikes chords with you?
Ilan: Yes, it does, I think there is a lot in it. The suspicion as they put it in Israel, the world is against us, we can not trust any one, we can only trust ourselves and so on is very strongly embedded in the Israeli psyche and definitely one way of unpacking it, is by trying to show that the very demon that they are afraid of is the demon that they themselves help to nurture. Then again I think that situations of these kinds of more complex, in other words, I think you need not just to convince them that they are responsible for increasing anti-Semitism, but they really complicate unnecessarily and endanger their relationship between the West and the Arab world and the Muslim world and this is a role, a negative role that they will play and the world will probably not forgive them for playing.
Alan: So, for me there is a great and tragic irony in the probability that after the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust and because of it, the giant of classical anti-Semitism might well have gone back to sleep, remained sleep and eventually died in sleep, if the major powers had not allowed Zionism’s ethnic cleansing colonial enterprise to go ahead.
Ilan: Yes, I think it is true, at least it would not have been as powerful and still relevant today. I agree with that assumption.
Alan: Now in the preface of volume two of my book, there is an explicit massage from me to the media and publishing executives and politicians. I say to them: you are dangerously wrong to believe that by being complicit in Zionism’s suppression of the truth; you are doing, serving the Jewish interest best in your own. What I say to them is: by not coming to grips with the truth of history in particular what we discussed about the difference between Judaism and Zionism. You are helping to set up all Jews to be blamed. Now that is a very serious charge for me to make. Do you think there is substance to it?
Ilan: There is substance to it. I think it stands on the fact that policies of Israel are very important factor in the re-emergence of anti-Semitism or the new anti-Semitism, as it is called, or the old anti-Semitism, and therefore any one or any important body that allows these policies to continue, there is a criticism or even endorses them is culpable of creating that kind of reality we are talking about.
Alan: Now, the one state Ilan, It is, of course, one thing to talk about the need for one state and even to make the case convincingly for it as being the only real hope for justice and lasting peace. But, how can it come about when nuclear armed gut Zionists in greater Israel and their awesomely powerful lobby in America are absolutely opposed to it?
Ilan: Well I think it does not start with one-state solution. It starts with the fact that if we will say to ourselves as peace activist or moral conscientious persons. Because of the Israeli nuclear power and unlimited support Israel gets from the United States, we can do nothing. It means that the scenario that we were talking about or destruction of Palestine will be implemented. So, it is not important that whether the Israelis and the Americans reject one state solution. The important thing is that unopposed the destruction of Palestine become reality and it is a big question whether the civil society in the west or civil society around the world conserned governments, conscientious Israelis and the resistance movement of the Palestinian can face this coalition and create a different reality of reconciliation and peace for everyone who lives there, instead of this scenario where one group of people excludes and exterminates in a way, the other group of people, and therefore it is such as that one-state solution that is at stake here. It is the future of the Palestinians, as people, as human beings that is at stake.
Alan: But it is also the future of the Jews who live in the region.
Ilan: Absolutely,
Alan: I mean you know Iran's president has been quoted to say that he wants to wipe Israel of the map. He said nothing like that. I think we both know that. Both know what he actually said. But the point is: Yes one state solution means the end of Zionism. It means de-Zionisation of Palestine, but it does not harm the Jews who currently live there. All those who want to stay, become citizens with complete full equal rights with the Palestinians. If enough Jews in the world understood this concept, do you think it could gain attraction?
Ilan: Yes, I think this is the core of the issue of the one-state. The core of the issue of the one-state that it would replace a racist state, an apartheid state with shared democracy, with state for all its citizens, this is the idea, but I would add something else. It would replace a Zionist state. It would create a state which would be far more Jewish than the Zionist state, because Zionist state is not the Jewish state. Everything that the Zionist state was doing, abuses, therefore this is a very important issue.
Alan: Right, I have two more questions to ask you. There is a global assumption that only an American President has the leverage to call on hold the Zionist state of Israel to count or at least compel it to be serious about peace. I can see that is true in principle, but would it necessarily be the case in practice. I ask because of something Moshe Dayan once said to me, true in private, but I have quoted it in my book. I asked him why Israel had nuclear weapons. I said we both know you do not need them vis-à-vis the Arab world. Bit them any day you like with conventional weapons and he said roughly the following: Ben-Gurion was not stupid, I am not stupid, we know how the world works & we have always assumed that a day could come, when our best friends would seek to make us do something that was not in Israel’s interest. The clear implication was that the day could come when Israel said to an American President do not push us too far because we are capable of using our nukes in anger. In other words, Israel's nuclear weapons are indeed the ultimate deterrent but not against the Arabs. They are having them to prevent them even the possibility of an American President requiring Israel to be serious about peace on terms the Arabs could accept. The further implication, here I am speculating is that the Zionist state is actually beyond control by any power on earth, except perhaps the influence of the Jews of the world. Is that a consideration that should be a part of informed honest debate?
Ilan: Part of it, yes I do think the idea of nuclear weapons is there to ensure that Israel can also stand American pressure. I agree with that part. I 'm not sure that means the Jews of the world have the influence on Israel. I think again history is more complex in my mind from these analyses. Because it means that in the end of the day, they are a variety of pressures that they can work on Israel and the American one is only one of them. There is a business community in Israel. This business community is not interested in nuclear weapons. You can not convince that they are safe because Israel has nuclear weapons. They need the connections with the west. There are other sections of the society that would not go that far. So I think actually what it tells us is that not only America is the key but also The Europe is the key. Very strong European alternative position to the American one could change Israeli policy. But Europe doesn't give a reason to be with them. If Europe would have sanctioned Israel, tomorrow a great change would happen on the ground in Israel but Europe does not dare to do it
Alan: Let’s try to end on a very positive note. I have written & often say on public platforms that I believe, that the Jews generally speaking are the intellectual elite of the western civilization and, generally speaking, the Palestinians are the intellectually elite in the Arab world. It follows or seems to me that what these two peoples could do together in peace and partnership is the stuff that real dreams are made of. They could change the region for the better and by doing that give new hope and inspiration to the whole world. Am I only dreaming?
Ilan: No, I think you are absolutely right. I do not know if they are the intellectually elite but, definitely, there is a synergic power of these two people who have been created in the land of Palestine, wonderful things and what you are also implying is how close they are and how similar they are and this similarity is something that could easily fortify the idea of one-state solution that I am believing in and I do think that if you salvage the whole issue for the political elites in Israel, in America and in the west and you allow the basic human energy to flow.
Alan: There is the ordinary decency of people.
Ilan: Exactly, you will see that this is a solvable problem and not the one that has to endanger the stability of the world.
Alan: A very last question that occurred to me while we were talking, in my book, I say to readers that they were times in the writing of it, when I wanted to cry out with the pain of knowing how much Israel’s leaders have deceived the Jews of Israel and Jews of the world, now, if this gentile can truly feel that pain and he does, how much worse is it for you an Israeli Jew?
Ilan: It is worse, because I was deceived from the very moment I was part of the educational system. The deceivers here is not just politicians. I never believed in politicians any way from the age of 12, but I think what really important is that your moral supervisors, your teachers, your family, your parents, anyone who was moral role model, was selling actually a fabricated version of the reality and was lying to you and that is very painful and standing against it, is definitely not an easy process.
Alan: Ilan, bless your heart, thank you very much.
Check holyland's blog for a series of stories on Israel and their involvement in wars through out the decades including, El Savador, South Africa, and most recently Israeli diamond interests in the Congo.
They were involed in arms sales in just about every conflict over the last fifty years.