"I thought I was doing the right thing. I was completely brainwashed by Zionism," he said.
Mr Amir spent several years beyond his mandatory service period in the Israel Defence Forces in the 1980s and 1990s.
But in 2019, after more than a decade living on-and-off in Australia, he came to believe Zionism was an inherently "racist ideology".
"The only implementation of it would be violence and death," he said.
"At the core of it is the erasure of Palestinians."
Mr Amir, who has a daughter working to support Palestinians on the West Bank, is now estranged from his family and most friends in Israel, along with large swathes of the Australian Jewish community, as a result of his views.
He told AAP he did not feel Jewish Australians who held anti-Zionist beliefs had been heard fairly in the inquiry.
His experiences cut to the core of tension surrounding a royal commission into anti-Semitism and hate speech in which both Zionist and pro-Palestine Jews have said they are targeted.
Jewish Liberal politician Julian Leeser on Friday called for university courses that teach about Israel and Palestine to be audited for quality so students could make up their own minds about the conflict.
The conservative Australian Jewish Association, which says it has thousands of members, is expected to front the commission next week.
It will tell officials about torrents of online abuse, including a reference to wanting organisers to "dissolve in an acid bath".
Death threats left in mailboxes, ending with the words "kill and fumigate all Jews", will also be shown to the commission.
A statement from the association said much of the abuse received was because the group held to Zionist ideology, which it described as a right for Jewish people to have self-determination.Â
The commission will focus on security on Monday, before a four-day block on training and guidance frameworks for combating anti-Semitism.
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