Ted Honderich, a professor of philosophy
at University College London, plans to take the same message to the
Edinburgh International Book Fair on Thursday, where tickets to hear his
speech have already sold out.
The philosopher plans to begin his talk
at the Opus Theatre with a close look at definitions of terrorism,
particularly when it applies to Palestine and the expansion of Israel
outside its 1967 borders.
He concludes it is "killing and maiming
for political and social ends … illegal in terms of national or
international law", and suggests Iraq could also fall into this
definition.
"It needs remarking, seemingly, that the
plain definition of terrorism, which essentially takes it to be a kind
of illegal political violence, cannot but include terrorism by a state,"
he told Aljazeera.net on Wednesday.
Considering
causes
"America is now engaged, as I say, in
the principal piece of moral stupidity of this time … it is as if the
causes of terrorism that are neo-Zionism and Palestine do not exist," he
added.
Honderich does not limit his criticism
to Washington.
"In Britain we used to hear the
government line about being tough on crime and tough on the causes of
crime in our own society.
"The government has stopped saying that
now. I fancy that one of the reasons is anticipation of people asking
about being tough on terrorism and tough on the causes of
terrorism."
Neo-Zionism blamed
Honderich told Aljazeera.net he believed
that though "it would have been just to carve a Jewish state out of a
part of Germany … it was right to assign a part of Palestine to the
Jewish people" due to their substantial population in the region.
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Honderich says
Israeli 'rapacity'
justifies a violent
response |
In the land assigned to them by the
United Nations, "there were an equal number of Palestinians and Jews in
that part of Palestine". There were 80 times as many Palestinians as
Jews in the other part of Palestine.
However, defining "neo-Zionism" as the
movement to expand Israel outside its pre-1967 borders, he condemns some
Israeli policy today as an "ongoing rapacity of ethnic cleansing, the
violation of the remaining homeland of the remaining Palestinians".
"It dishonours the great Jewish moral
and political tradition of resolute compassion for the badly-off, a
tradition now exemplified by Noam Chomsky."
"This rape of a people and a homeland is
in its wrongfulness a kind of moral datum … and issues in a moral right
on the part of the Palestinians to their terrorism," he
concludes.
Anti-Semitism
Formerly married to a Jew, Honderich
brushes aside allegations that he is anti-Semitic.
But his objections to neo-Zionism have
lead to several vicious email campaigns and even lead to a leading UK
charity to refuse a sizeable donation.
Criticising Tel Aviv has become a
dangerous business, he claims.
"A new American dictionary,
Merriam-Websters' Third New International Dictionary, defines
anti-Semitism as 'sympathy for the opponents of Israel'," he
says.
"This tells you of the usefulness and
the responsibility of lexicographers. The brazenness of the definition
calls for a reply. It is that in the sense in question we ought all to
be anti-Semites.
Anti-Semitism, he insists "is not to be
taken as prohibiting condemnation of the violation of
Palestine".