Hart Disease

As many readers will know by now, Alan Hart is no more.  Aged 75, the (non-Jewish) inveterate Israel-demoniser, whose Twitter page shows that he was tweeting anti-Israel propaganda almost to the end, shuffled off this mortal coil last week, deeply mourned by inveterate Israel-demoniser Gilad Atzmon (see, for instance, here) and others of that ilk.

Hart (Arafat's biographer and author of the odious 2010 book Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews) was a former newspaper journalist, chief Middle East correspondent for Independent Television News (ITN), and presenter of the BBC's flagship current affairs programme Panorama.  He became a regular on Iran's satellite news channel Press TV, delighting his masters with his diatribes against the Jewish State and its supporters.

Wikipedia's article about him (which provides footnoted sources) tells us of such sentiments of his as:

"The colonial enterprise that Zionism is has corrupted everything it touched, beginning with the United Nations and including the mainstream media, what passes for democracy in the Western world (America especially) and Judaism itself"

And:

"[T]he Zionist state, which came into being as a consequence of Zionism terrorism and ethnic cleansing, had no right to exist and, more to the point, could have no right to exist ... In international law only the Palestinians could give Israel the legitimacy it craved. And that legitimacy was the only thing the Zionists could not and cannot take from the Palestinians by force.... 

Jews who went to Palestine in answer to Zionism's call had no biological connection to the ancient Hebrews. The incoming Zionist Jews were mainly foreign nationals of many lands... The notion that there are two entire peoples with an equally valid claim to the same land is an historical nonsense."

Hart described Zionists as "The New Nazis" and argued that

"Europeans and Americans could have stopped the original Nazis and prevented the extermination of six million Jews. If Europeans and Americans do not stop the New Nazis, it is likely that their end game will be the extermination of millions of Palestinians."

Regarding 9/11 he stated on various media outlets that

 "The twin towers were brought down by a controlled ground explosion, not the planes." 

He speculated that the planes had been fitted with transponders and that Israeli Mossad agents guided them into the towers.

“My guess is that at an early point they said to the bad guys in the CIA – hey this operation's running what do we do, and the Zionists and the neo-cons said let's use it."

Moreover:

"In my analysis there's enough evidence – visual, technical and scientific, and from eye-witnesses including fire fighters – to invite the conclusion that the Twin Towers, like Building Seven, were pre-wired for controlled demolition with nanothermite, the highest-tech military explosive."

 In a guest post on the well-known UK blog Harry's Place in 2009, Middle East analyst Jonathan Sacerdoti analysed Hart's modus operandi on his Press TV discussion programme:

 "The fact that Alan Hart was presenter, chairman and organiser of the ‘debate’ (he selected the panel and even the audience) only added to the sense of foreboding surrounding the programme.... [A] quick web-search will tell you all you need to know about his unconventional views on Israel and Zionism, and how they cannot possibly be rooted in antisemitic sentiment because he has a Jewish accountant....

Hart’s choice of panellists for the programme made it clear before anyone said a word that the project was nothing more than a thinly disguised hate-fest. He was joined by his regular sidekicks, Ilan Pappe and Hajo Meyer (both Jews, he boasted), in arguing that ‘Zionism’ was to blame for antisemitism. The estimable Jonathan Hoffman and Carol Gould represented the ‘other side’ as the cameras recorded what was to be one of the more surreal and amateur television productions I’ve experienced.

Alan and his regular helpers continued their desperate ongoing attempts to be recognised as ‘revisionists’, rewriting history and current thought as they see fit, while Hoffman and Gould were clearly intended to act as nothing more than fig leaves for this brazen, three-pronged attack on Israel, reason, and polite debate. With the dice weighted against them, it wasn’t easy, but Jonathan Hoffman, the co-Vice Chairman of the Zionist Federation, and Carol Gould, an author with an informed and authoritative perspective on the Middle East, held their ground well in the face of unrelenting bullying tactics....

Hart, it seems, is a man with a pronounced fear of being criticised, despite his frothing tirades against the Jewish state of Israel and its right to exist. His aggressive manner and apparent inability to form a logical line of argument don’t help his case.

From start to finish, the programme was a stitch-up....

[Hart's] fanatical assertions were usually backed up (if at all) by reference only to his own absurd books, while anything that Hoffman and Gould said was shouted down as ‘propaganda’, even when they gave accurate and specific references and figures. Instead of engaging with them, Hart threatened to chuck out Hoffman from the room.

It was Hart’s impotent and repeated threats to have Hoffman removed from the studio that really laid bare the true, absurd nature of the programme ... [N]o chairman interested in facilitating such a debate would ever invite guests to participate, only to shout over them, repeatedly cut them short, fail to offer them a chance to answer questions, and threaten to have them ‘evicted’ simply for expressing the views they had been invited to express in the first place....'

De mortuis nihil nisi bonum is an ancient adage.

But what about Jew-haters? Does "Speak no ill of the dead" apply to them?

On Atzmon's Facebook page Mr Hoffman has observed amid the tributes to Hart:

And brought upon himself criticism for his criticism, including personal attacks from Hart fans framed in antisemitic terms.  Here's an example:

Yes, Mr Hoffman does not flinch.  He isn't made that way.