As the hope rises with the change in the American government and expectation of a good foreign policy which would make this world a conducive place to live in, there are discussions on how President-elect Barack Obama would impact a political change, especially in the Middle East, which remains to be one of the most volatile regions in the world. Muslim intelligentsia in the capital were not lagging behind others to throw a light on this hot topic. For a discourse on this issue Allan Hart, former presenter of BBC’s Panorama programme, was invited to deliver a lecture on Impact of Political Change in the USA on Palestine-Israel Relations and the Muslim World at Jamia Millia Islamia’s Nehru House.
Allan Hart, an expert of Zionism, who for most part of his journalistic career reported from the Middle-East for the BBC and has a wide ranging knowledge of that area, and who has been educating students, social organisations and intellectuals about the crisis in West Asia, an issue very close to his heart, said, “I want the world to know the truth. People have been conditioned to believe that there is a threat to Israel from the Muslim world, that Israel is in danger. This is not at all true.”
He added, “This is merely a Zionist propaganda to project the world that anything goes wrong at anywhere in the world it is the Muslims who have to be blamed.”
Hart has written two books – Arafat: A Political Biography and Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews (two volumes). He says these books of his will help people to know about the truth behind the propaganda.
He has many of his Jew friends who have objected to the title of his second book, and suggested to him to change the title. But he refused to do so saying, “That is your problem.”
The man, who has witnessed many heart-wrenching incidents, hasn’t lost his wit as he speaks amusing the listeners when delivering the lecture. He says, “Obama can change the world, but he does not have a magic wand.”
About the present scenario related to the Muslims and about the ongoing propaganda about the Muslims being alleged as terrorists the world over, he said, “There is a ‘Demon’ of ‘Islamophobia’ projected in the minds of the people the world over, and the American thinks that Islam is a threat to the American security.” But as it is not true, he adds, “It is not Islam that is threat to the American Security but the American foreign policy that is the biggest threat itself.”
He urges the Muslims scholars to come forward to explain to the world what the Qur’an says and what it does not. “They (Muslim scholars) have to clear the miasma of misunderstanding among other people related to Islam.”
Explaining how the Zionists have been successful in conditioning that ‘Islam is danger’, he said that the war now is not by force; now it is an intellectual war and in the similar way the Muslims need to fight intellectually with whatever methods they feel suitable.
When asked about the solution or the possibility of how peace can be effected in that area, he suggested three possibilities which can happen or may take place inevitably: first, as Israel gets 80 per cent of the water from the aquifers, from the Gaza Strip it is impossible to tell the Israelis to leave that piece of the Gaza and West Bank; so the solution is that whatever land the Israelis have given them, take and make a consensus of the Palestine and Israel government for a peace settlement. Secondly, there can be a formation of a secular state i.e. combination of Palestine and Israel that he says is next to impossible; and thirdly, he said it would be very sad that the Israel may create a ‘Zionist holocaust’ which may wipe out whole of the Palestinians and eventually only Israel exists.
About the change in the regime in the USA he said Obama can help change the world. But he predicted that he (Obama) is unpredictable. Quoting some of the statements made by Obama, Allan said that he is unpredictable, but yet there is hope that the political scenario may change.