Hilary Frances Aked, "Friends of Israel: The Backlash Against Palestine Solidarity" (Verso, 2023)

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**Roberto Mazza** (1:36)
Welcome to the New Books Network. I'm your host Roberto Mazza and today, my guest is the author of Friends of Israel, The Backlash Against Palestine Solidarity, published by Verso Hil Aked. Friends of Israel provides a forensically researched account of the activities of Israel's advocates in Britain. The book traces the history and changing fortunes of key actors within the British Zionist movement in the context of Israeli government's contemporary efforts to repress a rising tide of solidarity with Palestinians expressed through the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanction, BDS movement. Offering an important and politically relevant account of pro-Israel's actors, strategies, tactics and varying levels of success in key arenas of society, the book draws parallels with similar anti-boycott campaigns around the world.
By demystifying the actors involved in the Zionist movement, the book provides an anti-racist analysis of a pro-Israel lobby which robustly rebuffs anti-Semitic conspiracies. But before we delve into all of this, first things first, Hil, welcome.

**Hilary Frances Aked** (3:00)
Thanks very much.

**Roberto Mazza** (3:01)
Can you tell us something about yourself and the origins of the book?

**Hilary Frances Aked** (3:06)
Yeah, of course. I'm a Londoner. I grew up here, still based here. I say that because a lot of people ask me when they hear that I'm researching this topic, are you Israeli, are you Palestinian, are you Muslim, are you Jewish? I'm none of those things, but I am a British person. Obviously, as I'm sure we'll talk about, British complicity in the situation in Israel-Palestine is so deep that that ought to be in itself enough to explain my interest. I studied for a master's at SOAS in the University of London.
That's when I really got interested, I suppose, and exposed to Palestinian politics. Then I visited the West Bank twice in 2010 I suppose, seeing the situation in Palestine with my own eyes was a lesson in how ignorant I had been really. Previously, I thought I was very educated and well-informed.
But the reality on the ground was a much bigger education than any books I had read. I came up the situation initially as an activist, as a solidarity activist, aware of or having learned more about British complicity and about the Palestinian situation and liberation struggle.
I don't mention this very often because I don't really want to make it about me. But when I was doing solidarity activism in the West Bank in 2010, in a village called Nabisala, I got shot in the leg with a tea gas canister by the Israeli army. Obviously, every Palestinian has about five or 10 stories like this, and so I don't want to over emphasize the significance of that. But for me personally, it was quite a traumatic experience. After that, I was keen to engage in the situation more from an intellectual and scholarly position, I suppose. I had the opportunity to undertake doctoral research looking at the Israel lobby and that's what the book grew out. Although my thinking has developed a lot since the time I did my PhD and it's been updated a lot since I finished to the book that just came out in April with Verso.