The False Messiah is Volume I of a monumental history of the Israel-Palestine conflict, Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews, by a seasoned reporter with a vast first-hand knowledge of the Middle East. It is the first book to put the struggle for Palestine into its global context—to show how all the pieces of a complicated jig-saw puzzle fit together. It’s also the first ever account of events to address the motives, needs, and dilemmas faced by all sides: diaspora Jews’ real fear of Holocaust II; the Palestinian right to justice and self-determination; the legitimate anger of the Arab masses at American support for Zionism right or wrong; and the inevitable corruption and repression of the regimes of the existing Arab Order who, fearing harsher Israeli assaults, have tried to contain them. As a former BBC Panorama and ITN Middle East correspondent, Alan Hart knew and interviewed most of the main players in the Israel-Palestine conflict (Golda Meir, Moshe Dayan, Shimon Peres, Yasser Arafat and other PLO leaders, George Habash, Nasser, King Hussein of Jordan, King Feisal of Saudi Arabia, and many others). He also exhibits a wealth of research into a full spectrum of viewpoints, to unearth how and by whom the levers of US policy in the Middle East have been pulled from pre-creation of Israel to the end of the Clinton era. Hart takes us well beyond the existing written record, weaving events play by play/player by player, prying out the motivating factors and sequences of events which the surface flow of official histories leave uncovered, where, truly, the devil is in the details. This series is key to understanding US/Israeli relations as developed over the long term, and who has been the primary determiner of policy in the region.
BRIEF BIOGRAPHY
Alan Hart has been engaged with events in the Middle East for more than 30 years:
As a correspondent for ITN’s News At Ten and the BBC’s Panorama programme.
As a researcher and author. (His first book Arafat, Terrorist or Peacemaker? was published by Sidgwick & Jackson in 1984 and subsequently in several updated editions over a decade).
As a participant at leadership level, working to a Security Council background briefing, in the covert diplomacy of the search for peace.
Over the years Alan interviewed and maintained special relationships with many of Israel’s leaders of the pre-Likud era - most notably Golda Meir, Mother Israel.
He also enjoyed intimate access to some of the Arab leaders who mattered most, including King Hussein, King Feisal, President Sadat and Yasser Arafat, Father Palestine.
Alan’s particular ability to see things from both perspectives throughout the many conflicts he covered was always the basis of the conclusions he drew, the judgements he arrived at, as an observer.
He was and is driven not only by his loathing of injustice in all its forms but also – he doesn’t mind admitting – a brazen disregard for pomp and ceremony and political double-speak.
Alan has often been ahead of his time. In the early 1970’s, for example, frustrated by what he regarded as the institutional media’s refusal to come to terms with some of the biggest issues of our time, he set up his own independent production company to produce the first ever documentary on true dimensions of global poverty and its implications for all. The film, Five Minutes To Midnight, had its world premiere at the opening of the 7th Special Session of the UN General Assembly (called to discuss the need for a New World Economic Order), was shown on television in many Western countries, was versioned for schools and became a standard work of reference. For that effort Alan was credited with having played a leading role in getting the North-South issue on to the agenda for public debate.
His new book will set another new agenda for debate.
