Israel seeks to ethnically cleanse Palestine – activist
Press TV has conducted an interview with Mark Glenn, with the Crescent and Cross Solidarity Movement, in Idaho, about Palestine.
Press TV: What is your perspective as to what happened back in 1948?
Glenn: In essence, this is a repeat performance of what the English did to the Irish; about what the English and the Americans did to the native Americans, which is to push what are considered inferior people – people of inferior culture and I use that term only in the sense that this was the way the Irish and Native Americans were described – is to push them off lands that were rich in natural resources.
Now... in the case of Palestine, yes, of course it does have natural resources, but more important than that, the entire Zionist operation from the beginning was based upon the premise of pushing these people out and making it a Jewish state using the exact same words that Benyamin Netanyahu recently used when he was talking about having a law passed that would basically qualify Israel as a “Jewish State.”
This of course is the sticking point that seems to be preventing any kind of subsidy discussion from taking place between Israel and the Palestinians, [i.e.] this issue of it being a Jewish state.
And so, in effect, what the entire Nakba has been is an exercise in underscoring the utter hypocrisy of the West and of these other peoples who are constantly lecturing the rest of the world on human rights and pointing to examples in history that have place where oppressed people have been taken advantage of, have been murdered, where you have seen ethnic cleansing taking place – lecturing the rest of the world when they have absolutely no business doing this because they are guilty of doing the very same things themselves.
If it were any other group other than the Palestinians and if it were any other group perpetuating this crime against humanity other than the West and Jews doing it, it would be rightly categorized for what it is, which is a crime against humanity.
But because of the players involved in it, all of a sudden, now, all of the rules of the game have to be switched around.
Press TV: The idea that a Jewish state has ‘no right to exist’ and I’d like to go back to 1948 when that deal was brokered with the UN and of course Britain being a part of that. At that point there were up to one million, let’s say, Palestinians that were living there and you had about 500-600 Jews; and correct me on any of these facts... But at the same time you had all these Arab countries, which amounted to millions, they were against this deal and some say that Arabs are embarrassed by the fact that they didn’t move against the Jewish people coming into Palestine, which is part of the reason why some say it is called the Nakba.
Do you think that Arabs should have acted back then in order not to have this deal that was brokered to have happened, which pushed eventually the Palestinians out of their land?
Glenn: Well, that’s good question, that’s a very good point, but at the same time we have 60-plus years of hindsight where you and I and others can look back on this and say, 'Well, they should have known this and they should have known that.' I don’t think they foresaw the true extent of the devastation that has taken place in the region.
And remember it’s not just Palestine, it’s Lebanon, it’s Jordan, it’s Syria now, it’s Egypt now, it’s Iraq – I don’t think that they truly envisioned the scope of where this was going particularly given the small numbers of European Jews who were coming into the region. So that’s number one.
Number two. I’d just like to address something that your (other) guest said before when he referenced that the term “Jewish state” has not been used since 1993. I would beg to differ. In fact, his reference was Theodor Herzl. Theodor Herzl’s book arguing for the creation of a Jewish homeland was entitled after... the Jewish state.
So, this notion that this is just a new thing that has just popped up lately like an embarrassing pimple, this notion that Israel has to be a Jewish state and that this is something that is to be attributed purely to the likes of Benyamin Netanyahu and the Likud, this is not accurate. This is just slight-of-hand using a fancy language and lawyerly talk.
The problem is and why there will never be a peace deal in the region is because of the fact that it is hardwired into Israel’s existence that she has to be a Jewish state.
This is the way that this was created from the beginning and all of this talk about a two-state solution and about peace with the Palestinians and other things like that, you know, this is just fancy verbiage being used in order to keep the Arabs coming back to the bargaining table year after year after year after which time the talks fall apart, the organized Jewish interests with their control throughout the Western media can paint this as being the fault of these intransigent and hard-headed Arabs who just can’t seem to get it into their heads that it has to be a certain way – that’s really what this is all about, it’s controlling the narrative.
And until the Arabs begin to understand how to use this to their advantage, I’m afraid that the Nakba is something that is going to be going on for the foreseeable future.
Press TV: You called this two-state solution and all this idea of talks, you called it “fancy verbiage.” Perhaps. Future US presidential hopeful Hillary Clinton... she has said there is no great mystery in what a final agreement is going to look like and that Israel and the Palestinians know what that is.
But that hasn’t happened. Is she right? Are they aware and have they discussed what the final agreement is going to look like? And of course then, why hasn’t it happened yet?
Glenn: Nothing is going to happen substantively until Israel loses her base of support, which is American money, American military power and American political protection in the UN and throughout the international community. Until that is cut off, until that plug is pulled out of the outlet in the wall, you’re never going to be able to bring Israel to heel. She’s got the biggest, meanest, most vicious dog in the neighborhood on her leash and anytime she needs to set that dog loose on somebody or even to terrorize somebody, all she has to do is point a finger and say, 'Go get him, boy!' and the whole world knows that.
Let’s face it, if the United States was truly interested in bringing an equitable situation to bear in the Middle East, all Obama needs to do is pick up the phone and to call the prime minister and to say, 'No more money, no more military support, no more political support from the international community. You’re on your own.'
And within microseconds, Netanyahu – after he went and changed his shorts – would be doing whatever he had to do in order to bring this situation back into his favor.
But, unfortunately, this is not going to happen because whether it’s politicians on the left such as Obama or whether it’s politicians on the right, they are still beholden to the same money interests in this country.
So let’s face it... If Israel can get away with bombing a United States’ ship for two hours – the USS Liberty – and killing 34 of our sailors that day and receiving no sanctions whatsoever for this... I mean the last country that did this to the United States had two nuclear weapons dropped on her country. If Israel can get away with this, Israel can get away with anything.
This is just theatrics, all of this talk of peace negotiations and two-state solutions, this is just something that is meant to pacify people to keep people moving along the process towards what is the eventual complete ethnic cleansing of Palestine and beyond – because let’s face it, when Israel talks about a “Greater Israel,” she’s talking about not just this little sliver of land along the eastern shores of the Mediterranean, but rather everything between the Nile and the Euphrates Rivers.
And anybody who entertains any notions to the contrary, that this is what Israel eventually has in mind for herself, they need to check back into the... reality.