Monday, October 11, 2010

Are Israeli settlers backing their government?




Interview with Khaled Amayreh, Palestinian journalist and Jamal Joum'ah, activist and member of Stop the Wall Campaign

Press TV

"...Palestinians believe that the expansion of the Jewish settlements on their occupied lands will make the establishment of a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip impossible.

Israel's settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories is deemed to be illegal as it violates UN Security Council Resolutions 446, 452, and 465.

The following is the transcript of an interview with two senior Palestinian political analysts, Khaled Amayreh, a Palestinian journalist and Jamal Joum'ah, an activist and member of Stop the Wall Campaign.

Press TV: What brings all this escalation of violence by the Israeli settlers against the Palestinians at this time, the burning of the mosques as we have seen earlier in this program?

Khaled Amayreh: Well these settlers would like to complete what the Jewish gangs started in 1948 when Israel was created in Palestine. They are trying to narrow the Palestinian horizons. And they are trying to effect more ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and certainly in the East Jerusalem by using low level terror. They hope that by terrorizing the Palestinians and targeting their symbols such as mosques and the olive trees, the Palestinians would contemplate leaving their homeland. That is the essence of what is happening.

Press TV: But this is destroying the image of Israel before the International Community and increasing the pressure by the International Community on Israel. Am I right?

Jamal Joum'ah: I think yes. But, Israel does not care about its image because they are sure that the American Administration and the European Union are fully backing Israel on its policies and on what they are doing in Palestine. But, if I want to add something, one thing to what Mr. Amayreh has been saying is that what the Israeli settlers are doing now is that they are complementing their government's position. They are playing the game of dividing the rules.

So the government is the one who is like issuing building the housing units and the settlements and permitting the settlements to be built in the West Bank. And what the settlers are doing now with this escalation is just like to back up the government's position. So Netanyahu went to the world and told them look I cannot work with this issue, this issue is very difficult. And the Palestinians and the world should accept that this poor people should stay in this land and should continue to build the settlements. So, it is a Zionist plan that has been witnessed the same that was going on now and it is the same that was going on in 1948. Now they are exceeding their steps because it seems that the international atmosphere is supporting and enabling them to do that. According to the image, here Israel is going on into something fundamental and it goes into their colonial plan that is going into the West Bank.

Since 2002, I would say Israel's incursions and invading Palestinian areas and the whole political game has been changed. So Israel started since then to oppose things on the ground clearly by building the wall. We are totally telling the world there is no more the so-called green line....."

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