by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 09, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/9/ ... transcript
Israel has declared war on Hamas after Hamas fighters launched a surprise coordinated attack over the militarized border, the largest in decades. In a military operation titled “Al-Aqsa Storm,” as many as 1,000 fighters from Hamas broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip and carried out an unprecedented attack inside Israel on Saturday morning. Hamas cited the desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, the blockade of Gaza and increasing settler violence in the occupied West Bank as reasons for the move. Israel responded by pounding the Gaza Strip with airstrikes, which hit housing blocks, tunnels and a mosque. Over the past three days at least 1,300 people have died, including over 800 inside Israel and almost 500 in Gaza. We spend the hour discussing the unprecedented developments, starting in Jerusalem with Orly Noy, chair of the Israeli human rights organization B’Tselem and editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call. “There is a really strong sense of demanding revenge within the Israeli public,” reports Noy, who says the attack catching Israel off guard is a massive military intelligence failure. “Once the immediate crisis is over, the Israeli public will be demanding answers from the government and Netanyahu.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Israel has ordered a complete siege of Gaza, two days after as many as a thousand Hamas fighters carried out an unprecedented attack Saturday morning, when Hamas fired thousands of rockets into Israel as militants broke through Israeli security barricades. Over the past three days, at least 1,300 people have died, including over 800 inside Israel, almost 500 in Gaza. One Israeli military spokesperson described Saturday as, quote, “by far the worst day in Israeli history,” unquote.
The surprise attack came almost 50 years to the day of the 1973 Yom Kippur War. The Hamas attacked killed at least 44 Israeli soldiers, including several commanders. Over 250 people were killed at an Israeli music festival attended by mostly young people. Hamas militants also took about 100 hostages. Entire Israeli communities were forced to evacuate.
Meanwhile, Israeli airstrikes have killed over 500 Palestinians in Gaza since Saturday, but the death toll is expected to soar, as Israel threatens to launch a ground war. Israel has called up 300,000 reservists, is sending heavy armor toward the Gaza border. This comes as the United States is sending more ammunition to Israel and warships to the region. Earlier today, Israeli airstrikes killed dozens of residents in the Jabaliya refugee camp.
Israel’s Defense Minister Yoav Gallant has announced a total blockade on Gaza, including a ban on food, water, electricity and fuel. Israel has imposed a siege on Gaza for the past 16 years, largely cutting off the area from the rest of the world. Gaza has been widely described as an open-air prison.
Hamas named its military operation “Al-Aqsa Storm” in response to the desecration of the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. Hamas also cited the blockade of Gaza and increasing settler violence in the occupied West Bank. The attack also came as Israel was moving to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia
In a moment, we’ll go to Israel and Gaza for response, but we begin with the voices of two parents — one in Israel, one in Gaza — whose lives have been devastated by this weekend’s violence. This is Yoni Asher, a 37-year-old father whose wife and two children have been taken hostage by Hamas.
YONI ASHER: Yesterday, while my wife, Doron, and two daughters, little girls, Raz and Aviv, 5-year-old and 2 years old, went visit my mother-in-law in Nir Oz — it’s a kibbutz near Gaza. And during the morning, I contacted my wife, and she told me on the phone that there are terrorists inside the house. Later on, I saw a video, the same video that was in the social media, in which I surely identified my wife, my two daughters and my mother-in-law on some kind of a cart, and terrorists of Hamas all around them. … I want to ask of Hamas: Don’t hurt them. Don’t hurt little children. Don’t hurt women. If you want me instead, I’m willing to come.
AMY GOODMAN: And this is a mother in Gaza, Sabreen Abu Daqqa, who survived after being trapped in rubble after an Israeli rocket hit her home. The attack killed three of her children.
SABREEN ABU DAQQA: [translated] I was at home, and suddenly we heard a sound, and everything fell over our heads. My children were next to me. One of them was next to my legs, and the others were next to me. My brother, Saber, was a bit further. Nothing happened to him. I was hiding between the sofa and the door, so there was no pressure on me, only on my leg. But I didn’t hear any sound coming from my children. I called them, but I didn’t hear a sound coming from them. Suddenly, I heard my brother Saber calling. The first moment I heard his voice, I shouted, and I said, “I’m here!” And when they recognized me, they started calming me down, and then they started removing the rubble from above me.
It took them three hours to remove the rubble above me, but my children died — Khaled died, Qais died, Mariam died. Assef went missing. When they pulled me out of the rubble, I saw everything damaged. The houses are damaged. That’s the only thing I saw. And then I went to the hospital. I found that everybody was injured, and we have many injured and dead people.
AMY GOODMAN: We spend the rest of the hour with four guests.
In Gaza City, Raji Sourani is an award-winning human rights lawyer, director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. He’s the 2013 Right Livelihood Award laureate, as well as in RFK Human Rights laureate. We hope to be talking to him soon in Gaza. The bombing is heavy, an unprecedented bombing, he said, in his area in Gaza.
Joining us from Mexico City, Ofer Cassif. He’s a member of the Israeli Knesset and the Hadash-Ta’al coalition. He was born in Rishon LeZion, Israel, which was hit by Hamas rocket strikes.
Here in New York, professor Rashid Khalidi is with us, the Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, author of a number of books, including The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.
And joining us from Jerusalem, Orly Noy, Israeli political activist, editor of the Hebrew-language news site Local Call. She’s also the chair of B’Tselem’s executive board. B’Tselem is an Israeli human rights organization.
Orly, let’s begin with you in Jerusalem. Can you respond to all that has happened over the weekend, the surprise attacks, the 1,300 people dead at this point in Gaza and in Israel, and now the defense minister of Israel announcing a total siege of Gaza, as tanks and military equipment head down to Gaza?
ORLY NOY: Thank you, Amy. Thank you so much for having me.
These are very, very dark days in the area, both in Palestine and in Israel. We woke up Saturday morning to the sirens rushing us into the shelters. And gradually, as the picture cleared, it just became darker.
Amid the comparisons to the 9/11 attacks on the United States, some analysts, including former U.S. officials in government at the time, have already advised that Israel should heed lessons from the successes – and failures – of the U.S. response in the weeks and years that followed. Many of the actions taken in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks are ones that have haunted the United States for decades, and that could easily have been avoided if commitment to core democratic values and the rule of law had prevailed. Moreover, those same actions needlessly alienated allies and partners, eroding the strong base of support the United States enjoyed in the immediate aftermath of the attacks.
-- Policy Alert: Key Questions in Hamas’ Attack on Israel and What Comes Next, by Brianna Rosen and Viola Gienger
-- Iraq war: the greatest intelligence failure in living memory. On the tenth anniversary of the Iraq war, Panorama's Peter Taylor reveals the sources close to Saddam Hussein whose intelligence could have changed the course of history. by Peter Taylor
-- Context of 'January 2003: Classified Intelligence Assessments Warn of Dire Consequences to Iraq Invasion', by History Commons
-- Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, by Select Committee on Intelligence, U.S. Senate, Pat Roberts, Chairman; and John D. Rockefeller IV, Vice Chairman
-- Intelligence Team Members Ordered Silent in 9/11 Probe, by Shaun Waterman
-- Pentagon Revokes Clearance of "Able Danger" Officer, by Associated Press
We have been witnessing, since the heinous Hamas attack on civilians on Saturday morning, a long list of Israeli failures, that started even before the attack with the lack of intelligence information. We are talking about an intelligence operation that basically surveils every breath every Palestinian takes, both in the West Bank and in Gaza Strip, and they knew nothing about that planned attack. It continued to the chaos that has been going on for long hours, where hostages were held, where people were slaughtered, without the army or police forces coming to the rescue. And until today, there is still a tremendous amount of unclearness. People are still searching for their loved ones, with no organized body by the government to inform those worried people.
And, of course, the Israeli government is doing the only thing that Israel knows to do, which is revenge and more force and more death and more very random bombing of civilians in Gaza Strip. There is a very strong sense of demanding revenge within the Israeli public. And even if that can be understood, it does not by any means justify the brutal attacks, that will, of course, be fruitful, like any previous promise we’ve been given by the Israeli authorities to annihilate the terrorism and so on. This is just about revenge, which will end up just in more death and more violence and more blood.
AMY GOODMAN: One of the questions: Will this lead to the fall of the Netanyahu government? I mean, allied with the far right, for example, Itamar Ben-Gvir, the national security head, himself convicted in Israeli court 15 years ago of inciting hatred against Palestinians — he is the national security chief. Are there so many in the leadership here that have been so focused on — who are part of the Israeli settler movement on the West Bank, that they weren’t paying attention to Gaza?
ORLY NOY: Absolutely. This is one of the — I mean, first, it should be mentioned that Itamar Ben-Gvir was convicted with more than just a hatred towards Palestinians; he was convicted with supporting a terrorist organization. So he’s a convicted supporter of terrorism.
There is a tremendous amount of anger directed towards the government in general, and specifically toward Netanyahu and the leadership. We know now that most of the military troops that were supposed to be posted in the south protecting the southern borders have been relocated to protect the settlers in the West Bank. These are things that — I mean, right now the Israeli public is too much — too deep into the grief and shock, in a state of shock, but there will come a time that they will demand those answers from the government, and personally from Netanyahu. In the short, short term, it looks like we are going to a broad emergency coalition joined by Gantz and probably also Lapid. This is not unprecedented. Israel tends to unite politically around the leadership in times of crisis. But there is no doubt that once the immediate crisis is over, the Israeli public will be demanding answers from the government and from Netanyahu.
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“Do You Hear the Bombing?”: Gazan Human Rights Lawyer Raji Sourani Describes Israeli Siege of Gaza City
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 09, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/9/ ... transcript
“Do you hear the bombing?” asks our guest Raji Sourani in Gaza City, as Israel reportedly bombed the Islamic University of Gaza nearby him and intensified its bombardment after it declared war against Hamas. The award-winning human rights lawyer and director of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza describes the situation in Gaza, where Israel has now cut off food and electricity, and responds to the Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu telling Gazans to leave, calling it “nonsense,” and asks, “Where to? We don’t have safe passage.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to go from Orly Noy right now in Jerusalem — you can hear the wind blow on her mic as she talks to us about the Israeli reaction — to Raji Sourani, head of the Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza. I want to go to you quickly, Raji, because I understand you’re experiencing unprecedented bombing in your area. Can you describe what’s happening in Gaza? The media in the United States, there’s almost no one in Gaza to bring us voices of Gazans. Raji, can you hear us?
RAJI SOURANI: — the last 60 hours, I mean, Gaza subject to nonstop bombing. It’s ongoing all over the place. There is no single place you can call a safe haven in Gaza, airplane fighters, drones ruling all over the sky. And it’s your lottery number, whether it’s an apartment, whether it’s tower with hundreds of apartments, whether it’s a house, whether it’s a hospital, whether it’s a school, a shelter used by UNRWA. I mean, even the marketplace of Jabaliya, the biggest refugee camp in the Middle East for Palestinians — 300,000 Palestinians there — were bombed, and almost 80 have been killed, I mean, this morning, and tens injured in very, very critical situation. And all this is happening in the daylight, and no one is caring about that.
Netanyahu says Gazans should leave Gaza. Where to? Even we don’t have safe passage. And the minister of defense say, “We are going to cut electricity, water, food, oil” — everything, I mean, will be cut on Gaza. So, 2.4 million civilians in Gaza are subject to unprecedented situation, which it’s very genocidal.
It’s coming from the highest level in Israel. If they have a problem with Hamas, we have no problem. They can contact them. If they have with Jihad Islamic, with Fatah, with the fighters of the resistance, that’s fine. This is not our area of interest. But our area of interest, it’s the civilians, and the civilians who are really in the eye of the storm, and they are the subject for the Israeli ongoing crimes.
And still Mr. KK, the ICC prosecutor, keeps silent, doing nothing, moving nowhere in this conflict, and doesn’t hold Israel accountable for the ongoing crimes they committed over the course of years — suppression, oppression, killing, blockade, apartheid — name it. I mean, all the menu of the crimes are there, which listed at Rome Statute, and no one is moving. No one is moving to provide any level of protection toward Palestinian civilians.
Once and again, this is going on now. At the course of these 60 or 70 hours, I mean, we’re having hundreds of people have been killed. Just children, we have above 100 children have been killed. Women, almost the same number. And the worst yet to come. We are sure, and we know that.
AMY GOODMAN: The Israeli prime minister has told Gazans to leave. It’s unclear, of course, where you’d be able to go. Then they said that he was misunderstood, that he was saying you should leave the Hamas sites in Gaza. Can you respond to this, Raji Sourani?
RAJI SOURANI: This is nonsense. This is nonsense. He is leading Smotrich and Ben-Gvir. He is leading people who say Palestinians don’t exist, and who said, “Palestinians should leave. This is the land of Israel. This is the historical land of Israel, and we are taking over. There is no other state, and there is no other people. There is one people. There is one self-determination. It’s for the Israeli Jews.” So, he’s a big liar. It wasn’t a slip of tongue. He came after cabinet meeting and after a meeting with his top security and military people, and he was reading from a paper. So, it cannot be a mistake. He knows what he said, and he meant what he said. And I do believe what they are doing, deliberately, will lead to that, if this is continued and they don’t stop.
AMY GOODMAN: What level of support does Hamas have — Hamas is the government of Gaza — right now, since Saturday morning, the actions of the thousands or so Hamas fighters breaching the wall?
RAJI SOURANI: I don’t think it’s matter — I don’t think it’s matter of the people’s support or not. You have to know, when you are suppressed deeply by a criminal, belligerent occupation, when you are suffocated — do you hear? Do you hear the bombing?
AMY GOODMAN: We hear it.
RAJI SOURANI: And here right now the entire house shaking, while I’m talking to you. I’m living in the best area of Gaza — all right? — and should be away from every problem, but everything around us has been bombed. And you don’t know, never, your lottery number, when it can be. There is no safe haven in this place. I lived all my life in this part of the world. I lived the mathematics and the chemistry. But I never, ever witnessed anything as such. And I’m telling you, I mean, if the Israelis made it — and they did — the land incursion, situation will be much, much worse than this. Massacres will happen, I mean, to civilians.
AMY GOODMAN: You have heard, I assume, that Israeli tanks and military equipment are making their way to Gaza right now. So you’re being bombed by the air, but the question is: Will there be a total land invasion? Can you respond to what this means? Just to give people a sense, you’re talking about this strip of land, Gaza, that’s about the size of Detroit. There are about 600,000 people in Detroit. We’re talking about 2.4 million people. It’s one of the most densely populated areas on Earth. Raji, if you could take it from there?
RAJI SOURANI: Exactly, Amy. Gaza is one of the most densely populated areas on Earth, as you know. And if the army comes in, it will be like elephant in the garden. But I don’t think any would love to be a good victim. They want to strip us not from our own security. They don’t want to strip us from the food of our children. They were not satisfied of having this criminal, belligerent occupation. They are not satisfied with the blockade. They are not satisfied with the killing and the bombing and [inaudible] wars that’s been happening in the last 10 years. But they want to do more. I think it’s not human to be a good victim. We are the stones of the valley. We have been here since ever. We will continue here forever. And I think, I mean, if the Israelis did that, that means they are just melting the people of Palestine, of Gaza, just to be one body defending their very existence. This is our right and obligation. As the French say, resistance, it’s not only, I mean, right, it’s your dignity, Amy. And people shouldn’t be good victim for a criminal, belligerent occupation.
When Russia invaded Ukraine and occupied Ukraine, the whole world stopped, and they said, “We cannot support Russia, and we have to support the Ukrainians against the occupation of the Russians. And we will support them not only politically. We will support them with money. We will support them with arms. We will support them with all what we can.” And they asked all the free people of Europe and U.S. to go and join the forces and to join the resistance in Ukraine against the occupation.
I don’t know why Palestinians, if they die, are a criminal; if we think, we are a criminal and terrorist; if we do peaceful intifada, we are terrorists. And when the Israelis doing massacres, one after another, they’re just being supported, as had happened yesterday, by U.S. and by major European countries. It’s shame. It’s shame to leave Israel practicing the rule of jungle in this way against the Palestinian civilians.
AMY GOODMAN: I’m not sure if the —
RAJI SOURANI: All what we want — all what we want is simple and clear: end of occupation. We want dignity and freedom, period, like any other people on Earth.
AMY GOODMAN: Raji, I’m not sure if this is the blast we just heard, but Middle East Eye is reporting Israel just bombed the Islamic University of Gaza. Is that near you?
RAJI SOURANI: It’s exactly 800 meters from me. And that’s when I wasn’t able, Amy, to talk to you. I mean, the entire building was like collapsing on our head.
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Hamas Killed His Friend, But Knesset Member Cassif Says End the Occupation Now, All “Pay the Price”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 09, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/9/ ... transcript
We speak to Ofer Cassif, an Israeli Jewish Knesset member with the Hadash-Ta’al coalition, about Hamas’ surprise attack and Israel’s response. Cassif condemns the violence and killing of civilians “on both sides,” adding that both “Israelis and Palestinians pay the price of the arrogant, criminal, ongoing occupation that Israel refuses to end.” He then calls for an immediate end to occupation and of Israel’s “fascist subjugation” of Palestinians, an act which he says will “also liberate the Israelis.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: I want to bring a Knesset member into this conversation. And this may be unusual in U.S. television to be joined by the leading Palestinian human rights lawyer in Gaza, Raji Sourani, and to also bring in Ofer Cassif, a member of the Israeli Knesset. Ofer, as you listened to Raji speak from Gaza and, before that, Orly Noy, the board chair of B’Tselem, the human rights organization — Ofer Cassif is a member of the Knesset with the Hadash-Ta’al coalition. You were born in Rishon LeZion, which was hit by rocket fire, Hamas rocket fire, on Saturday. Can you respond to what’s happening right now and the decision of the prime minister of Israel and the Cabinet to declare war on Hamas?
OFER CASSIF: Thank you for hosting me. And I would like to express my gratitude for the former speaker, Orly Noy, who’s a very good friend of mine. And, Raji, I wish you, Raji and all of you, security, peace and health, of course.
First of all, allow me to begin with some personal statements. My family lives in Israel. I’m at the moment in Mexico, before this war began, in a conference, in an international conference of leftist parties, including a delegation from Palestine. And we also had a press conference together, the Palestinian delegation and myself, because we share the ideas against the occupation and against war. I must say that, unfortunately, two days ago, I got a WhatsApp message from a very good friend of mine, who was hiding with her husband in the kibbutz. And she told me she was very afraid and she could hear the Hamas fighters outside. Unfortunately, those were probably the last words she ever wrote, because she was murdered with her husband just after she sent me that message — a very good friend of mine who was also against the occupation, a voter with our party. What I’m trying to say is that innocent people, innocent civilians on both sides, Israelis and Palestinians, pay the price of the arrogant, criminal, ongoing occupation that Israel refuses to end.
And I want to say something very, very clear and very, very blunt. Nothing, absolutely nothing, justify — can justify or legitimize the carnage that Hamas carried out in the towns and kibbutzim and the villages in the southern of Israel. Nothing can justify it. It is appalling. And even the occupation crimes, the crimes that Israel is guilty of, crimes of occupation, apartheid, ethnic cleansing and the Nakba, those, either, cannot justify such carnage. At the same time, nothing, and absolutely nothing, can justify the massacre that the Israelis carries out now in Gaza, not even the crimes of Hamas.
So, what I would like to say, in the bottom line, following what Orly and Raji said — and I totally agree with them — the Palestinians deserve their rights. They deserve their national and individual rights. They reserve their rights to be realized, the right of self-determination, to enjoy their own independent sovereign state, their own government, their freedom of movement. They deserve to live in peace and security without the daily pogroms by fascist settlers under the auspices of the occupation forces and the encouragement of this fascist government of Benjamin Netanyahu. The Israelis deserve peace and security. They deserve to live in a state which doesn’t occupy, which doesn’t oppress, a state whose government is not a fascist and racist one.
And I would like to conclude, if I may, by saying and by taking the whole issue into and explaining it within a political frame. Israel wanted this violence. In 2017, Smotrich, who was then a member of the Knesset, but at the moment, unfortunately, this racist thug is a minister, a minister of finance, but, as well, minister within the Defense Ministry, he published six years ago — and it is explicit. You can read it. I mean, you can google and read it. It was entitled the “Subjugation Plan,” which boils down to three. First, the Palestinian Occupied Territories should be annexed to Israel as a whole, without granting basic rights to the Palestinians. Second, those Palestinians who do not agree to live under this subjugation are going to be expelled from their homeland. And third, those Palestinians who are going to resist are going to be killed. What we see now, and the coup, by the way, that the government of Israel has been carrying out within Israel, all of those are means to that goal. The goal is to realize this horrific, racist, colonialist, fascist plan of Smotrich’s. And the attack on Gaza is part of it. They use the terrible, horrifying, unacceptable carnage in the struggle of Israel as an excuse to attack Gaza as part of the realization of this fascist subjugation plan.
And we should stand together, join forces. All peace lovers, Palestinians and Israelis, Arabs, Jews, and the international community, must stand together and join forces to say to Israel, “You are going to end the occupation now. You are going to end the occupation. The Palestinians must be liberated.” The liberation of the Palestinian people is a just cause. It will also liberate the Israelis from the occupation, because although the plan — of course, the Palestinians are the victims primarily, but the Israelis are victims of the occupation, as well, as we just saw two days ago. So we must push and put the pressure on the government to end it. It’s up to the international community. It’s up to us to act together against all violence, in Gaza, in West Bank and in Israel.
AMY GOODMAN: Ofer Cassif, we’re going to turn now to the leading Palestinian American professor, Columbia University, Rashid Khalid in a moment. We have to break. Ofer Cassif is a Knesset member in the Israeli parliament with the Hadash-Ta’al coalition. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in 30 seconds.
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Historian Rashid Khalidi: Palestinians “Living Under Incredible Oppression, … It Had to Explode”
by Amy Goodman
DemocracyNow!
October 09, 2023
https://www.democracynow.org/2023/10/9/ ... transcript
In New York, we speak with Rashid Khalidi, author of The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine, who lays out how this weekend’s extreme violence between Hamas and Israel will force “a paradigm shift.” Colonial powers will no longer believe they can force people to live under the conditions Israel has subjected Palestinians to and expect no retaliation of the oppressed, says Khalidi. “That idea has exploded as a result of the horrific events over the past two-and-a-half days,” says Khalidi, who calls the blockade of Gaza “a pressure cooker. It had to explode.” In response to the escalated conflict, the U.S. promised Israel would have “what it needs to defend itself,” pledging more military aid and munitions to Israel, already the largest annual recipient of U.S. military funding, as the Biden administration moved warships toward Israel. “We finance this occupation. We finance this violence,” says Khalidi, who calls on Biden to defuse the situation instead of escalating it. “You cannot make peace over the bodies of Palestinians.”
Transcript
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman.
Israel has ordered a complete siege of Gaza after Hamas broke out of the blockaded Gaza Strip Saturday, carried out an unprecedented attack by air, land and sea on Israel. Over the past three days, at least 1,300 people have died, including over 800 inside Israel, over 500 in Gaza. We’ve been to Gaza and Jerusalem. Now we’re joined here in New York by Rashid Khalidi, Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University, author of a number of books, including The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine.
Professor Khalidi, thank you for being with us. As you listened to voices of Orly Noy in Jerusalem, of Raji Sourani, the human rights lawyer in Gaza, the attack we heard on air live, and Ofer Cassif, the Knesset member of Israel, can you respond to what has taken place and what it looks like is about to take place? Israeli military equipment and tanks are headed down to Gaza now.
RASHID KHALIDI: I’m afraid that the horrific casualties among civilians, Israelis and, increasingly, Palestinians, is just the beginning of what’s going to be an awful, awful, awful massacre in Gaza. The desire for revenge after the killing of a very large number — hundreds, apparently — of innocent Israeli civilians is going to lead to a horrific massacre in Gaza of probably many, many more people than we can imagine. And I agree with what Raji said, of course, my friend Raji, who I hope is OK. And I agree with what Orly said and with what Ofer Cassif said. War crimes don’t justify other war crimes. And we are about to see horrific war crimes.
But I think there are two things that have to be added. This has to be put within the context. And the context is not just occupation. The context is settler colonialism and apartheid. The people of Gaza, the refugees in Gaza, originate in the areas where Hamas fighters were attacking in the last couple of days. Those were Palestinian towns and villages in 1948. The ethnic cleansing of Palestine led to the cooping up of what are now 2.4 million people in Gaza. Today is Indigenous Peoples’ Day in the United States. These are the Indigenous people of the southern parts of Israel that the Hamas fighters were attacking over the past few days. That’s the first thing.
The second thing is, I think that we’re about to see a paradigm shift. The idea that you can coop up 5 million people, put them behind walls, tighten the siege on them, use an eyedropper to allow them some food, some water, some electricity, that idea has exploded as a result of the horrific events of the past two-and-a-half days. This cannot continue. It’s not just a matter of occupation. We have to recognize that you cannot treat an entire people the way Israel, not just under this neofascist government, but under all of its previous governments, have treated them. You cannot expel three-quarters of a million people in 1948 and not expect the return of the repressed. You cannot commit daily violence against Palestinians — one Palestinian has died every day this year — in fact, slightly more — in the occupied West Bank. You cannot expect that not to lead to a reaction. The reaction will be violent. The reaction sometimes may include things that are unquestionably war crimes.
But that kind of pressure put on an entire people over three-quarters of a century will necessarily, inevitably bring a violent reaction. And this pressure cooker that the Palestinians are in, which the Hamas military commander listed — he said what they’re doing in Jerusalem, trying to take over the Al-Aqsa Mosque and turn it into a site of Jewish prayer, what they are doing in the occupied West Bank in terms of the effective annexation of more and more Palestinian land to Israel, and the application of Israeli law to Israelis and military law to Palestinians — apartheid, two legal systems in one place — the imprisonment of 5,000 Palestinians and the administrative detention of hundreds, and, finally, the siege of Gaza — when Gallant, Yoav Gallant, the minister of defense, announced that he was cutting off fuel, food, water and electricity to Gaza, he called the Gazans “human animals.” That’s 2.4 million people who are being treated as if they are animals. They’re not Hamas fighters. As Raji said, the fighters are one thing. Hamas is one thing. Hamas has imposed itself on the people of Gaza. The people of Gaza are the ones who are going to suffer. As in every one of these wars, almost all of the casualties are going to be civilians, that Israel has waged on Gaza. This will be the fifth or the sixth attack on Gaza. And I’m very, very afraid that Raji is right: We are going to see unparalleled massacres. But I think we have to see that this may be the end of an era, when people in Washington and people in Arab capitals assume you could just fly over Palestine, ignore it and pretend that we’re in a new Middle East of peace, while an entire people is living under this kind of incredible oppression, in a pressure cooker. It had to explode.
AMY GOODMAN: And talk about what’s happening now. You have the Republicans attacking Biden, saying that it’s his support for Iran, making that $6 billion deal, unfreezing Iranian assets, that has allowed this to happen, The Wall Street Journal saying Iran is behind us, the White House pushing back, Blinken saying they don’t have the evidence at this point. What this means? And also Hezbollah on the border of Lebanon and the incursion this weekend, as well?
RASHID KHALIDI: Well, I mean, the possibility of a wider conflict should terrify everybody. And instead of moving aircraft carriers, the United States should be trying to defuse the situation. Instead, I think they’re blindly going ahead with the policies that they have followed in the past. You do not send presents, as President Biden has done, to an apartheid government that is moving towards basically destroying the protections of the Israeli constitution for Israeli Jews and annexing the West Bank. And that’s what this administration has been doing. That’s what previous administrations have done. We finance this occupation. We finance this violence. There are American weapons that are being used today, right now, in Gaza to kill innocent civilians in violation of U.S. law. And American politicians blithely talk as if they live on another planet.
I think, though, that the ground has shifted, and even though American politicians live in Never-Never Land, as far as Palestine is concerned, reality is going to intrude itself sooner or later. There is a widespread revulsion across the Arab world against what Israel does in Palestine. Authoritarian, dictatorial, absolute monarchies are trying to ignore that, ignore the feelings of their own people, the sentiments of their own people. That’s not going to work. You cannot make peace over the bodies of Palestinians. That’s not peace. That is the peace of the dead. And the kind of repression that is being exerted day in, day out — theft of land, expansion of settlements and so on — necessarily, inevitably is going to bring a reaction. So, whether the people living in Washington, D.C., and in their own alternative reality believe it today or tomorrow, sooner or later, I think that reality is going to dawn. But you cannot do this forever.
AMY GOODMAN: The national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, just 10 days ago said, you know, it has been very quiet in the Middle East, which has allowed the U.S. to move on to other areas of the world. “Very quiet,” he said. And I’m wondering if you can comment on that. And do you think what led to this attack by Hamas fighters on Saturday had anything to do with Saudi Arabia and Israel normalizing relations at the behest of the United States?
RASHID KHALIDI: I don’t doubt that that was a factor. I think the basic factor was that people couldn’t live under these circumstances. And Hamas has basically acted in a way involving enormous brutality against the civilians, things that are unquestionably war crimes. But it has acted in a way to shatter that whole paradigm. I think people are thinking very carefully in places that have normalized with Israel.
... Finally, a number of jets from the Washington DC area were on an informal training flight over North Carolina on 9/11, a circumstance that took them away from the national capital airspace.
-- Covert Uses of Military Exercises; Amalgam Virgo: Cover Story for 9/11, from 9/11 Synthetic Terror Made in USA, by Webster Griffin Tarpley
The other thing that should be said — I think Orly mentioned this — this is a massive intelligence failure, on the part of American intelligence and especially on the part of the Israeli intelligence services. They had absolutely no idea this was coming. They transferred three battalions from the Gaza front to the West Bank to protect settler rampages against Palestinians, denuding the towns on the southern borders of the Gaza Strip of the people who could have defended against the attack by Hamas. This was one of the great deception operations in modern military history, and people are going to teach this. Leaving aside the war crimes, they’re going to teach this in military academies for years and years to come. This is on level with the 1973 war in terms of deception, and an entirely mistaken concept on the part of Israelis, thinking that you could do this to Gaza forever and that they would just lie down and take it.
AMY GOODMAN: And, Rashid Khalidi —
RASHID KHALIDI: — thinking that you can do it — sorry, go ahead.
AMY GOODMAN: This news just came out from Times of Israel, also from the Associated Press: Egyptian intelligence repeatedly told Israel Hamas was planning something big, warnings were discounted, this according to an intelligence official in Cairo.
RASHID KHALIDI: Right.
AMY GOODMAN: Your thoughts on this, in the last 30 seconds?
RASHID KHALIDI: It’s very similar to what happened before the 1973 war, when Israel was getting intelligence that the Egyptian and Syrian armies were planning a major attack. And the conception — the concepsia, in Hebrew — that these people would never do such a thing, they’re not capable of this, the arrogance that was involved in ignoring those intelligence reports in 1973 and in 2023 are among the things that led to this catastrophic outcome, which I think is going to change a lot of things in the Middle East in the months and years to come.
AMY GOODMAN: Rashid Khalidi, we want to thank you for being with us, Edward Said professor of modern Arab studies at Columbia University. His latest book, The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine. Raji Sourani, Palestinian Center for Human Rights in Gaza, leading human rights lawyer, speaking to us from Gaza as the bombs went off. Ofer Cassif, member of the Israeli Knesset. And Orly Noy, board chair of B’Tselem, Israeli human rights organization. That does it for our show. I’m Amy Goodman. Thanks for joining us.