Prince Harry hosts online interview with guest who compared Hamas to Warsaw Ghetto heroes
The Duke of Sussex has hosted an online interview with a 'toxic trauma' doctor who compared antisemitic terror group Hamas to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
The Duke of Sussex has hosted an online interview with a ‘toxic trauma’ doctor who compared terror group Hamas to the heroes of the Warsaw Ghetto uprising.
Gabor Maté, author of The Myth Of Normal: Trauma, Illness & Healing In A Toxic Culture, who has also defended Palestinian rocket fire at Israeli civilians, joined the Duke on Saturday for an ‘intimate’ £17-a-head virtual conference to discuss ‘living with loss and the importance of personal healing’.
Dr Maté was born in Nazi-occupied Hungary in 1944. His grandparents were murdered in Auschwitz.
Ahead of the broadcast, Rabbi Abraham Cooper of the Simon Wiesenthal Centre in New York told the Jewish Chronicle: ‘Whoever made the arrangements to have this individual appear with Prince Harry, did him no favours. If Prince Harry knew this man’s record and still chose him for the interview, our centre would criticise the prince for such an inappropriate choice.”
The livestreamed event was produced by Penguin Random House in partnership with Barnes & Noble, Waterstones and Indigo Books & Music.
In his memoir Spare, Harry admitted to regular drug-taking and describes how in 2015, while living in Nottingham Cottage in the grounds of Kensington Palace, he smoked marijuana.
He told Dr Mate: “(Cocaine) didn’t do anything for me, it was more a social thing and gave me a sense of belonging for sure, I think it probably also made me feel different to the way I was feeling, which was kind of the point. Marijuana is different, that actually really did help me.”
Harry also spoke about the death of his mother, Diana, Princess of Wales, who died in a car crash in Paris in 1997 when the duke was just 12 years old.
Dr Mate told him: “Reading the book, I diagnose you with ADD… I see it as a normal response to normal stress.” He said this can be “healed at any age”.
The term is used for people who have difficulties with concentration without the presence of symptoms of attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD), such as impulsiveness or hyperactivity.
Tickets for the event cost £17, plus a £2.12 fee for UK customers, and included a copy of Spare which became the fastest-selling non-fiction book in the UK since records began following its release in January.
Harry’s ghost-written tell-all autobiography laid bare his frustrations with his family. He claimed his brother William, now the Prince of Wales, had knocked him to the floor at Harry’s then home Nottingham Cottage after calling the Duchess of Sussex “difficult”, “rude” and “abrasive”.
The duke claimed his father, now the King, put his own interests above Harry’s and was jealous of Meghan and Kate, and that the Queen Consort sacrificed him on “her personal PR altar”.
Speaking about negative reaction to the book, Harry said: “Sometimes I’m surprised and sometimes I’m not. It is the same group of people who react the same way when someone in a position like myself talk about their trauma. As we’ve already discussed, I’m not a victim in this, but there’s almost a balancing act. The more they criticise, the more they comment, the more I feel the need to share. I found a way to be able to look around, and firstly ignore, the criticisms and the abuse.”
The duke, who lives in California after moving to the US in 2020, has revealed he has enough material for two books but held back because he does not think his father and brother would “ever forgive” him.
It has not yet been confirmed whether Harry will be invited to attend his father’s coronation in May.
Dr Mate claims to have expertise on a range of topics including addiction, stress and childhood development.
According to reports, he is an outspoken supporter of decriminalising drugs, and has allegedly used the Amazonian plant ayahuasca to treat patients suffering from mental illness.
Thank you for helping to make Jewish News the leading source of news and opinion for the UK Jewish community. Today we're asking for your invaluable help to continue putting our community first in everything we do.
For as little as £5 a month you can help sustain the vital work we do in celebrating and standing up for Jewish life in Britain.
Jewish News holds our community together and keeps us connected. Like a synagogue, it’s where people turn to feel part of something bigger. It also proudly shows the rest of Britain the vibrancy and rich culture of modern Jewish life.
You can make a quick and easy one-off or monthly contribution of £5, £10, £20 or any other sum you’re comfortable with.
100% of your donation will help us continue celebrating our community, in all its dynamic diversity...
Engaging
Being a community platform means so much more than producing a newspaper and website. One of our proudest roles is media partnering with our invaluable charities to amplify the outstanding work they do to help us all.
Celebrating
There’s no shortage of oys in the world but Jewish News takes every opportunity to celebrate the joys too, through projects like Night of Heroes, 40 Under 40 and other compelling countdowns that make the community kvell with pride.
Pioneering
In the first collaboration between media outlets from different faiths, Jewish News worked with British Muslim TV and Church Times to produce a list of young activists leading the way on interfaith understanding.
Campaigning
Royal Mail issued a stamp honouring Holocaust hero Sir Nicholas Winton after a Jewish News campaign attracted more than 100,000 backers. Jewish Newsalso produces special editions of the paper highlighting pressing issues including mental health and Holocaust remembrance.
Easy access
In an age when news is readily accessible, Jewish News provides high-quality content free online and offline, removing any financial barriers to connecting people.
Voice of our community to wider society
The Jewish News team regularly appears on TV, radio and on the pages of the national press to comment on stories about the Jewish community. Easy access to the paper on the streets of London also means Jewish News provides an invaluable window into the community for the country at large.
We hope you agree all this is worth preserving.
