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Press TV has conducted an interview with Henry Norr, with the Palestine Solidarity Movement, in Berkeley about the illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian lands.

- Would you describe the settlement constructions and new plans for these constructions as Israel’s way of using this new window of opportunity for talks with the Palestinians to its own advantage using this time now to build it settlements?

- Well, that’s certainly true. It’s been expanding the settlements all along, peace process of no peace process, actually even more so when there are negotiations going on.

I think the specific timing of this announcement may have to do more with the diplomatic dance between Netanyahu and Kerry about negotiations with your country, Iran, around the so-called nuclear issue.

Basically, if you look at Netanyahu’s speeches and his Youtube videos over the last week, he is really out of control. I think he is losing whatever bit of sanity he may have had. I think he is basically saying to the world and to the Americans and to the Palestinians, ‘Look, we’re not going to do any two-state solution.’

And of course the Americans and so far, the Palestinian Authority, just keep nodding saying, ‘Oh, well we’ll just continue the peace process.’

I think this is a statement of open defiance.

If you look at the map, at where these new settlements are planned, they are just continuing to tighten the noose around Jerusalem. They are surrounding Jerusalem with these Jewish-only settlements.

And I just hope the Palestinians and the Palestinian Authority in particular draw a conclusion from this and stop playing along with this charade.

- That is the major question here; should the Palestinians continue to negotiate with Israel under these circumstances?

Those who are promoting these talks and encouraging these talks say, ‘Well, Israel has been releasing Palestinian prisoners, that’s the concessions it’s been giving, so, why shouldn’t we trust Israel to enter into negotiations?’ Yet at the same time we’re seeing these settlement activities.

So, what do you think the PA should do at this stage for any kind of peace to happen?

- I hesitate to speak for the Palestinians, but if I were the PA, I would never have gone into these negotiations and if were them now, I would break them off.

But I think the most important thing is for them to move to a new strategy - a new way of looking at their situation and stop depending on the Americans and the so-called peace process as their strategy for the future.

They need to go to the International Criminal Court; they need to mobilize grass roots popular resistance, nonviolent demonstrations, mass marches, strikes - a whole new way of trying to confront the situation.

It’s clear that this approach that they’ve been pursuing for 25 years now of dabbling with the Americans and trying to negotiate something... it’s just led nowhere. It’s a dead end and it’s designed to be a dead end.

And a lot of critics have seen that, from the beginning, this was leading nowhere. How many years, how many decades do we have to keep reproving the same point? It seems obvious and I hope the Palestinian people will draw that conclusion and force the PA to draw that conclusion itself and come up with some new approach.

- You say that if there isn’t a will from the Israeli side to conduct meaningful negotiations with the Palestinians, this is something that for instance the United States - the main mediator here, or the one who has been portrayed as the mediator trying to bring peace to the region, should understand by now or should realize by now and should take some action against, but we’re not seeing that.

Why is Israel being allowed to do this despite the fact that we’ve got the United Nations; we’ve got the United States as mediator?

- Well, I think the Americans understand pretty well what the game is. I don’t think they’re surprised or that they had any illusions about where this was going. I think there is probably some tactical difference between the American government and John Kerry compared to Netanyahu.

Kerry wants to preserve more of an air of serious negotiation. Netanyahu, partly because of his political pressures within his own coalition, needs to be more defiant and keep expanding these settlements publicly. The Americans would probably prefer that he would do it more quietly.

But, basically, the problem is the American government is Israel’s agent. They are acting and they’ve acted that way all along and through this so-called peace process. 

The power of the pro-Israel forces in this country, the so-called Israel lobby, the power of the pro-Israel American media and the US Congress... All the centers of power in the United States are lined up behind Israel no matter what it does.

So, the illusion or the idea that the American government is somehow a disinterested broker, a neutral party to bring the two sides together is an illusion. It’s the American government and the Israeli government lined up together against the poor powerless Palestinians. That’s the way it’ been since before the Oslo agreement and more so today.

- You say countries like the US are wielding this much pressure; we know of course the influence the United States has in the United Nations. This means then that the Palestinians would be on their own.

How can they, on their own, under this situation, achieve anything in terms of their own causes? What must be done would you say by the Palestinians?

- Well, I’m not optimistic that they can achieve any real victory, but at least they can struggle more effectively. They do have, because of their member observer status at the UN, they now do have access to the international criminal court and I don’t understand why thy haven’t taken advantage of that. I guess I understand it is a sense that the Americans probably threatened to take them off the payroll if they did; but, at this point, I think that’s a vey important direction they should take.

The other thing I mentioned before is that they really need to mobilize the Palestinian people in a new kind of intifada - whether they call it an intifada or not - a mass movement, to say to the world that this current situation that’s dragged on for all these decades is just not acceptable, we’re not going to sit back and keep taking it.

I don’t know where that will lead. The array is such that I don’t see how... they don’t have the power to stand up to match the Americans and the Israelis together, but at least they could put up a fight instead of this continuing to grovel and accept these humiliations.

I mean it’s almost as if Netanyahu just keeps throwing sand in the face of the Palestinian people. Every week there is some new announcement like this and it’s time to stand up and say, “No more.”