Alan Hart

Dear President Obama,

A photo op with Netanyahu and Abbas is no disguise for the fact that on the matter of getting a real peace process going in the Middle East, “Yes, we can” has become “No, we can’t”. And there’s no mystery about why. Prime Minister Netanyahu’s rejection of your call for a complete settlement freeze is merely a symptom of the underlying problem. It is that Zionism – a colonial enterprise pure and simple – is not interested in peace on terms virtually all Palestinians and most other Arabs and Muslims everywhere could accept.

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Dear Admiral Mullen,

I think the whole Muslim world should salute you for your refreshingly honest statement about what must be done if America is to establish some credibility with it.

You have to be right when you say (actually wrote in JFQ) that “no amount of public relations will establish credibility if American behaviour overseas is perceived as arrogant, uncaring or insulting”, and that “each time we fail to live up to our values or don’t follow up on a promise, we look more and more like the arrogant Americans the enemy claims we are.”

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Follow-up to yesterday’s open letter to President Obama

Dear President Obama,

In my open letter to you yesterday, I said that your decision in the teeth of Zionist lobby opposition to give Charles W. Freeman the responsibility for producing the National Intelligence Estimate added real substance to the belief “that you really do want to prevent this lobby from determining (more or less) your foreign policy agenda as it relates to ending the Israel-Palestine conflict and, beyond that, winning what your predecessor called “the war against global terrorism.” Very soon after I posted the letter and it was published here on the admirable ICH web site, news came that Ambassador Freeman “had asked for the appointment not to proceed”.

My own immediate response was … continue reading

Dear President Obama,

In the teeth of Zionist lobby opposition, your decision to give veteran diplomat Charles W. Freeman the responsibility for producing the National Intelligence Estimate adds substance to the case for believing that you really do want to prevent this lobby from determining (more or less) your foreign policy agenda as it relates to ending the Israel-Palestine conflict and, beyond that, winning what your predecessor called “the war against global terrorism”. … continue reading

Dear President Bush,

This is to assist your reflections on your return from the Middle East. I am writing in the belief that you do want to stop the countdown to Armageddon but don’t have the courage to do what is necessary.

An end to the conflict in and over Palestine on the basis of a viable two-state solution was possible so far as the vast majority of Palestinians and other Arabs and most Muslims everywhere were concerned from the end of1979, more than a quarter of a century ago. It follows, again so far as the vast majority of Palestinians and other Arabs and most Muslims everywhere are concerned, that, before you leave office, you could make for yourself a place in history as the greatest of all peacemakers. But only if you are prepared to use the leverage you have to require Israel to end its occupation of allthe Arab land it grabbed in 1967. The following is some advice about why you should and how you could use the leverage you have. … continue reading

Dear Director General,

Because it didn’t make any reference to Muslim hurt and anger and the reasons for it, your address (as reported) to the Society of Editors on 5 November will, I fear, give momentum to Islamophobia in our country and, also, will be counter-productive in its impact on many (but not all) Muslims.

I am not a Muslim. I am a white Englishman who does not subscribe to any religion and who does not buy the notion of a creator and omnipotent God “up there” or anywhere. (I believe God is the name that can be given to the potential for goodness inside each one of us. God so defined is a prisoner in man and it’s my view that the prime task of each and every one of us is to liberate the prisoner within).

It’s true that I dohave an agenda but it is, I think, quite a noble one. I’m a former ITN and BBC Panoramacorrespondent and now an author and public speaker. In my advancing years I’m trying to educate citizens about a critical matter in order to empower them to make democracy work … continue reading

Dear Lord Guthrie,

The gentlemen who are members of Britain’s military elite, its Top Brass, don’t come more distinguished than your good self. You rose to become Chief of the General Staff (Head of the Army) in 1994; from 1997 to 2001 you were Chief of the Defence Staff and the Principal Military Adviser to two prime ministers and three Secretaries of State for Defence; and you are Colonel of The Life Guards, Gold Stick to Her Majesty The Queen and Colonel Commandant of the SAS. (You also find time to be, among other things, a Director of N.M.Rothschild & Sons Limited).

All that and more being so, I was astonished to hear you this morning, on BBC Radio Four’s Today programme shortly after 0835, make (forgive the Americanisation) a colossalally wrong statement … continue reading

Dear Mr. Cameron,

After reading the published text of your answers to questions put to you by Danny Finkelstein at the annual business lunch of the Conservative Friends of Israel, the following question occurred to me:

Would you still declare yourself to be a “Zionist” if you knew what Zionism actually was and is?

I’ll be suggesting, not asserting, that if your answer is “yes”, it would amount to an endorsement by you of Zionism’s crimes, as well as putting you at odds with the moral values and ethical principles of Judaism.

But let’s start with what you actually said … continue reading

Dear Prime Minister Blair,

“Giving the impossible a go” in Israel-Palestine

I write to you with the warning words of Yehoshafat Harkabi reverberating in my mind. (He was, before your time, Israel’s longest serving and most enlightened Director of Military Intelligence. I’ll get to his warning words in due course).

After you cease to be burdened by the constraints of high political office, you could secure for yourself a place in history as the leader above all others (in all of human history) if you could do for the Middle East what you’ve done for Northern Ireland … continue reading