Council of Indian Muslims (UK)

After reading reports of the much publicised visit of a delegation of Indian Muslims to Israel we contacted Alan Hart, a world renowned expert on Arab-Israeli conflict, to be enlightened on the hitherto unknown aspects of the Zionist state of Israel that has so mesmerised this delegation. Mr Hart agreed to write the following piece on our request — Council of Indian Muslims

Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama correspondent who for 20 years covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world. He enjoyed intimate access to and, on the human level friendship with, leaders on both sides of the conflicts he covered, with, for example, the two greatest opposites in all of human history - Golda Meir, Mother Israel, and Yasser Arafat, Father Palestine. He has also participated at leadership level in the secret diplomacy of the search for peace in the Middle East. As an independent documentary maker, he researched and produced Five Minutes To Midnight, the first ever (and to date only) film report on the full and true dimensions of global poverty and its implications for all. His latest book, an epic in two volumes, is Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. “The key to understanding,” Alan says, “is knowledge of the difference between Judaism and Zionism, and why they are, in fact, total opposites.” The book is a re-writing of the entire history of the making and sustaining of the conflict in and over Palestine, replacing Zionist mythology with the documented facts and truth of history. And the events in the region are given global context to enable readers to make sense of how all the pieces of the most complicated and complex jig-saw puzzle fit together. The Indian English language edition of it will shortly be published and work on a Hindi translation is underway. Alan’s blog is http://alanhartdiary.blogspot.com

Alan Hart’s article on Indian Muslim leaders visit to Israel

The Israeli report on the first ever “extensive tour” of the Zionist state by a delegation of “Indian Muslim leaders” is a prime example of pure propaganda masquerading as news. It’s not often that grotesque misrepresentations are hysterically funny, but this one is.
Imam Maulana Jamil Ilyasi, president of the All India Organisation of Imams and Mosques, is the leader of the delegation. According to the Israeli report, his group represents “about 500,000 (half a million!) imams and 200 million Indian Muslims, 40% of the global Muslim population.” (My emphasis added).

The 2001 Indian census put the total number of Indian Muslims at 138 million plus 188,240. It’s more than reasonable to assume that in the six years since the last census, Indian Muslims have done some procreating, but on a scale to produce another 62 million minus 188,240…? The obvious implication of the report by Nissan Ratzlav-Katz of IsraelNN.com is that Ilyasi’s group represents all of India’s Muslims and many millions yet to be born. My own research, with the assistance of Indian journalists I trust, is that Ilyasi’s group represents not more than about 5,000 Indian Muslims (“and that’s an exaggeration”, I was told), which amounts 0.0036% of India’s Muslims as of the last census. As a percentage of the global total, it’s too small to register. So much for the alleged 40%. And as for the half a million imams, there are probably only a few thousand serving India’s Muslim communities.

Ilyasi’s associates on the delegation were Akhtarul Wasey, the head of the department of Islamic Studies at Jamia Millia Islamia, Mahmoodur Rahman, former vice-chancellor of Aligarth Muslim University (AMU) and Sarah Samay, editor of Aziz Burney. They were described to me, again by India sources I trust, as sarkari Muslims. Apparently the literal meaning of the word is governmental but the actual meaning in the context of the visit to Israel is stooge.

One of the quotes attributed to Ilyasi invites the conclusion that he is a very ignorant man even on religious matters. He said, according to the Israeli report: “The Jews I have met here say that we are all the children of Abraham, part of the same family. This is something I didn’t hear in India.” (You really didn’t know that Imam Ilyasi?)

On political matters Ilyasi seems to have taken complete leave of his senses, or perhaps he has been completely brainwashed by his Israeli hosts. His visit had caused him, he said, to reverse many of his prejudices. “My initial impression was that the Israelis are certainly dominating Muslims out here. Once I came here, that impression was completely changed. Constant conflict is not the reality here. In Jerusalem I saw that Muslims, Christians and Jews lived side by side happily, not at each other’s throats.”

To understand the reality of Israeli domination, Ilyasi and his delegation would have had to tour the occupied West Bank without Israeli minders, and then visit the Gaza Strip which is effectively an Israeli prison camp for more than a million Palestinians. The true nature of Israeli policy would then have become clear. It is based on the belief of Israel’s military and political leaders that by means of brute force and reducing them to abject poverty, they can break the will of the Palestinians to continue the struggle for their rights. The assumption being that, at a point, and out of total despair, the Palestinians will be prepared to accept crumbs from Zionism’s table in the shape of two or three bantustans, or, better still, will abandon their homeland and seek a new life in other countries. In my view the conviction that Zionism will one day succeed in breaking the Palestinian will to continue the struggle for an acceptable minimum of justice is the product of minds which are deluded to near the point of clinical madness.

The question that’s almost too awful to think about is something like this: What will the Zionists do when it becomes apparent even to them that they can’t destroy Palestinian nationalism with bombs and bullets and brutal repressive measures of all kinds?

My guess is that they, the Zionists, will go for a final round of ethnic cleansing - to drive the Palestinians off the West Bank and into Jordan and beyond. For the purpose of defusing the demographic time-bomb of occupation, that, I fear, will be Zionism’s final solution to the Palestine problem. If it happens, the West Bank will be turned red with blood, mostly Palestinian blood. And honest reporters will describe it as a Zionist holocaust.

If they make a return visit to Israel, the very least Ilyasi and his delegation should do is insist on meetings with Israeli peace groups starting, I would suggest, with ICAHD – the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions. From its leader, Jeff Halper, there would be an explanation of why the Zionist state of Israel is a criminal state.
The first visit of the Indian Muslim delegation of stooges was arranged by the American Jewish Committee (AJC) in association with the Australian Israel Jewish Affairs Council. Rabbi David Rosen, AJC’s international director of inter-religious affairs in New York said: “This visit is of great strategic importance and hopefully will impact on the wider Muslim world as well.”

The serious question arising is something like this. What did supporters of Israel right or wrong think they had to gain from staging this propaganda publicity stunt?

My guess is that it reflects Zionism’s fear that India’s Muslims – the vast majority not represented by Ilyasi and his stooges – are becoming aware of Zionism’s wish, in association with America’s neo-cons, many of whom are also Zionists, to have India as another Israel in its region. Actually it’s more than a wish. As I have written and said on public platforms in India, it’s not too much of a secret that for the past decade and more Israeli intelligence and other agencies have been very successful at – how shall I put it? – obtaining influence within India’s security services and key Indian government departments, the ministry of finance especially.

On one of two visits to India earlier this year, I addressed with others the closing rally of an Empower India conference in Bangalore which was attended by more than 100,000 Indian Muslims. Most of them were young. Their attendance was evidence that they want to be informed enough (not mis-informed) to play their part in making democracy work for justice and peace, the perquisites for creating a future for all worth having. This, democracy that really works for the good of all, is not, I think, what Zionism and its American neo-con associates want.