Pilar Rahola is a Catalan Spanish journalist, writer, former politician and member of the Spanish Parliament, and member of the far left.

As a journalist, she was involved in covering the Eritrean-Ethiopian War, the Balkan Wars, the Gulf War, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. When her attempts to create an independent political party failed she decided to concentrate on journalism and writing. Her areas of interest include women’s rights, international human rights, and animal rights. In recent years she has spoken out about what she considers to be the hypocrisy of the left with regards to Israel and Zionism.

People come to hear her talking about Israel because they know that she is a serious journalist that does not cave in to the general anti-Israel media reports and opinions, exhibiting independent thinking. Here are a few quotes from a speech Pilar gave at the December 2009, Conference of the Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism in Jerusalem:

They have come together to hear my opinions on the Middle-Eastern conflict. They know that I am a heterodoxal vessel, in the shipwreck of “single thinking” regarding Israel, which rules in my country. They want to listen to me, because they ask themselves why, if Pilar is a serious journalist, does she risk losing her credibility by defending the bad guys, the guilty? I answer provocatively – You all believe that you are experts in international politics when you talk about Israel, but you really know nothing. Would you dare talk about the conflict in Rwanda, in Kashmir? In Chechnya? – No.

Cultured people, when they read about Israel, are ready to believe that Jews have six arms.

They are jurists, their turf is not geopolitics. But against Israel they dare, as does everybody else. Why? Because Israel is permanently under the media magnifying glass and the distorted image pollutes the world’s brains. And because it is part of what is politically correct, it seems part of solidarity, because talking against Israel is free. So cultured people, when they read about Israel, are ready to believe that Jews have six arms, in the same way that during the Middle Ages people believed all sorts of outrageous things.

The first question, then, is why so many intelligent people, when talking about Israel, suddenly become idiots?”

Read the full speech here.