Press TV: Nearly a dozen Palestinians are killed in the West Bank as the Israeli regime launches a major military offensive in several cities across the occupied territories.
Joining us on this edition of the News Review, we have Palestinian scientist and author Mazin Qumsiyeh joining us from Bethlehem, and also we have Editor of Veterans today, Mr. Kevin Barrett, joining us from Saidiya, Morocco. Gentlemen, welcome to the program. Let's start off with Mr. Qumsiyeh in Bethlehem. Sir, please give us your assessment of this wave of Israeli aggression, provocations, and crimes that we've been seeing increasing over the past days.
Mazin Qumsiyeh: But of course, ever since the Gaza genocide started in late October, the aggression in the West Bank is increasing as well. Indeed, what we observe is in the past months or so we had over 653 Palestinians killed in the West Bank, and about 5400 who were injured. This seems to be accelerating, because as you pointed out 11 Palestinians were killed in the West Bank in the past hours including six in Janine and five in the Tubas area. So the israeli military is accelerating its actions, especially in and around refugee camps in the north of the West Bank. And as usual it will expand to other parts of the West Bank, as (when it) started in the north of the West Bank and then it expanded to the south of the West Bank. So my prediction is that more violence will be done towards the Palestinians by both the soldiers and the settlers. Already settlers are killing also Palestinians and attacking them. I even have friends of mine who were attacked by settler gangs basically doing pogroms in places like Jit and other areas. This is all done with the blessings of the Israeli government, of course, and its military, which is part and parcel of this apartheid regime. So in the West Bank, we're catching up with Gaza, in terms of numbers slowly beginning to increase.
Mr. Kevin Barrett, many observers believe that the settler violence that is going on parallel to the Israeli occupation forces' violence against Palestinians is part of a greater plan to eliminate the Palestinians, and it has been intensified on purpose. Also, Islamic Jihad believes Israel's large-scale military campaign that we're seeing now is part of the regime's plans to tighten control over-occupied Al-Quds and also the holy Al-Aqsa Mosque. Do you see it in that light as well?
Kevin Barrett: Yes, I agree completely. And I also just wanted to mention that it's a great honor to appear in the same show with Dr. Mazin Qumsiyeh He's a hero of mine, and everybody should try to get on his email list, one of the most informative sources for what's really going on in occupied Palestine.
So the settler violence is portrayed in the Western media as though it's somehow different from the official Israeli government violence. But even now, the Western media is having to admit that the crazed, fanatical, messianic-millenarian settlers, who make no bones about the fact that what they're trying to do is force their messiah to come by ramping up these abominations in the Holy Land, believing that horrific violence is the way to force their Messiah to come—who they believe will be a world conqueror who will subjugate all of the other nations to the Jews, and every Jew will have a couple of thousand slaves, and this so-called Messiah will rule the world from a “rebuilt” blood-sacrifice temple which will supposedly replace the Al-Aqsa Mosque, the oldest and greatest Islamic architectural monument on earth.
So these people are trying to create an apocalyptic war. And their current phase of that war is the genocide of all of the people of Palestine. And the settlers are straightforward about this. What I just described sounds crazy, but if you talk to them, they will basically endorse it and say, “yeah, that's what we're trying to do. We're trying to bring back the Messiah by getting rid of the Palestinians, by killing them and driving the rest out.”
The Israeli government can't quite bring itself to admit that, or historically it hasn't, but it's starting to now with people like Ben-Gvir and Smotrich in Netanyahu's cabinet. They're also pretty straightforward about the fact that their project is the extermination of the people of Palestine. That is genocide. They're open about their genocidal intent, which means, of course, that they should be in the Hague, not in occupied Palestine. And even Netanyahu has devoted his whole life to this project, but his father was a Princeton professor who taught him how to be a little bit subtle about it.
So Netanyahu doesn't come right out and explain that what he's trying to do is conquer the world, subjugate all non-Jews, and set up a global dictatorship in Jerusalem. But that's the project that he's been groomed for for his entire life by his Princeton professor father.
So what we're seeing here is not just some kind of random violence or even normal settler colonialism. What we're seeing is the result of a long-term, centuries-old plan for a messianic military conquest and global dictatorship. And the fanatics who are open about saying this are coming out, taking their masks off, and the whole world is starting to see it.
Mr. Mazin Qumsiyeh Islamic Jihad has warned the Israeli regime is seeking the Judaization of the Al-Aqsa Mosque. That's alluding to an earlier provocative proposal by Israel's far-right minister, Itamar Ben-Gavir, to construct a synagogue in the holy site. Are the Israelis just constantly searching to escalate tensions?
Mazin Qumsiyeh: Indeed, that's what they are doing. The Israeli government sometimes claims that Ben-Gvir doesn't speak for it, but then actually funds him. He's a minister, after all, we have to remember. He's Minister of Internal Security. They handed to him both the police and the prison services. So he's in charge of torturing prisoners, already 21,000 or more Palestinian prisoners are in Israeli jails, basically being tortured, deprived of food, et cetera, and beaten regularly, and many died, over 50 died. This is all under his watch.
And on the other side, he goes regularly into Al-Aqsa Mosque, claiming that he's going to make a synagogue there, he's going to build the third temple, the supposed third temple, and so on, and he allocates money for this. He has Smotrich, after all, his partner in crime. Also another settler is another minister, the Minister of Finance. He's the one with the Israeli government purse. So the Israeli government just allocated money to those fanatical settlers that go into Al-Aqsa Mosque regularly, violating the status quo, even though Netanyahu says there's no change on the status quo. This is nonsense. He knows there's a change in the status quo. He's funding it. His government is funding it, allowing those fanatical settlers to go in there, perform rituals as if they are really religious people, but claim to perform rituals there against the status quo. The Jordanian monarchy that's supposed to be in charge of Al-Aqsa Mosque or custodian of the Al-Aqsa Mosque is not doing anything other than verbal complaints and they still actually support Israel and get it what it needs through a land bridge. Egypt is the same thing. Egypt has shipping lanes open, connecting the ports of Alexandria and Ismailiyah to Haifa and occupied ports. So we have a problem. We have a problem in verbal things don't matter to us anymore. We know what's happening on the ground. And it seems the only groups that are willing to put their lives at risk to resist it are the resistance groups.
Mr. Kevin Barrett, very briefly, if you may, because we're running short of time. Hamas has called for the Organization of Islamic Cooperation's serious action to oppose such Israeli plans. They've encouraged Arab and Islamic nations to protest Israeli aggression against the Palestinian people and their lands. A lot of criticism in that regard has been directed at Arab governments for their inaction and passivity in the face of Israel's crimes. Why are we not seeing that type of action?
Kevin Barrett: Over the years, the Zionists have managed to co-opt the leadership of a great many Islamic nations, and they've also terrorized the leadership of Islamic nations. The single biggest step forward they made in that regard was when Israel attacked the United States on September 11, using their neoconservative American assets. And that allowed the United States military to be hijacked by the Zionists to go after their regional enemies. They took the gloves off. They got rid of various leaders that were a problem to them in Iraq and Libya and elsewhere. And currently, the leadership of these Arab countries is essentially terrorized. They know that their life will be much easier if they don't do anything in public to antagonize the Zionists.
Now, I just hope that they're doing things in private. I hope that there are forces in the Islamic world below the surface that are working very, very hard to support the Palestinian resistance. And ultimately, I think this problem is going to be solved by military means, by special weapons that will be pointed at the head of the Zionist entity. It will then have to end its genocide.
But we're going to unfortunately have to wait a long time before the leaders of these regional countries have the courage to speak out and do the right thing, to do their duty to God and their faith.
Israeli Genocide Moving to West Bank?