West must start impsoing boycotts on Israel: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Kevork Almassian, a political commentator in Beirut, to get his views on South Africa’s plans to boycott Israel over its crimes against Palestinians.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: South Africa is now jumping on the bandwagon of international boycott campaign against Israel. Give us your thoughts on what is taking place.

Almassian: I want to highlight several points regarding this issue. First, Israel is a lunatic [regime]; its sole existence is based on aggression on its neighboring states, occupation and racial discrimination; it’s an apartheid [regime]. The arrogance of the Israeli entity now has reached a level to insult foreign officials who criticize the aggressions of Israelis on its neighboring states and its colonial plans to expand its territories at the expense of the Palestinian rights. We all know that South Africa was a former apartheid state; therefore, its people and the government know quite well what is the meaning of an apartheid state, and what is the meaning of racism and racial discrimination.

Therefore, it would be a great start for South Africa to boycott Israel, maybe starting a cultural boycott, economic boycott and a political boycott. Our audience should know that Israel, during the South African apartheid era, was in the same bed with the apartheid South Africa. They had great military cooperation and Israel was sending a lot of arms and ammunition to the apartheid state of South Africa in order to crack down on the revolutionary movements in that era.

Now is the time not only for South Africa, but this boycott movement should extend also to Western countries. They should start with the academic boycott, with cultural boycott, they should put Israel under the scope that what this lunatic [regime] is doing in the Middle East is not only targeting the Palestinians or the Muslims, as they try to portray in the mainstream media, they are targeting all the Palestinians regardless of their sects or religion.

Therefore, the Western community and the international community should take a better stance regarding the Palestinian issue because the Israeli officials especially in the right-wing [regime], they will not stop their colonial plans. They will not stop the settlements. They will not stop the occupation unless there is a serious pressure on the Israeli [regime] to end this occupation. All the cure of most of the problems in the Middle East is by ending the occupation of the Zionists of the Arab lands especially in Lebanon, in Palestine and in Syria.

Press TV: You said that the arrogance and the audacity of the Israeli regime has reached an all-time high. Maybe, would you believe, opposing that the isolation of the Israelis and public awareness with regards to what the Israeli occupation is, is also reaching an all-time high as well?

Almassian: Isolating Israel is a great idea. As I said, Israel is a lunatic [regime] and its officials are warmongers. If you isolate them, they will make severe reactions, just like [Foreign Affairs Minister Avigdor] Liberman does and [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu does in the mainstream media.

As long as we are isolating the Israeli [regime], they will make severe reactions against the western countries, and his will help the Palestinian issue because this [regime] does not have a good strategy on how to continue to survive in Palestine without occupation. Their only way to continue is to occupy more and more of Palestinian territories.

So by isolating and imposing an economic and cultural siege on Israel we will shed light on these crimes not only through the mainstream media, but also through social media outlets and through raising awareness by ourselves as intellectuals in the Middle East.

We have to convince and speak to the brains of the Western people that what is happening in the Middle East with the Israelis is an equation between an occupation and occupied people.

MTM/MKA

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