Israel intentionally kills civilians in Gaza: Pundit

Press TV has conducted an interview with Seif Da’na, professor at the University of Wisconsin, in Chicago for his take on a testimony on Israel’s inhumane tactics during last summer's attack on the Gaza Strip.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: This testimony is only conforming what the world already knew about Israel’s tactics when it was bombarding Gaza. What do you make of it though?

Da’na: Well, it is really important to realize. This is all the piling of evidence and reports. Just last week there was another report from the UN accusing Israel of committing war crimes, because they shelled six UN schools and killed tens of civilians although they were warned earlier that these schools were overflowing with evacuees from the war and they were all civilians and there were no militants in there.

Despite that they actually did shell these schools and killed about 44 civilians and injured hundreds of them. This recent report that came out today, by breaking the silence, is actually testimonies by Israeli soldiers. So, they are not Arabs, they are not Palestinians who are saying that. What we have then here is not really to say really that “this is a violation of international law” is an understatement really.

But we have a systematic exercise of violence, systematic use of war crimes really as a tool by the Israelis, and they have been using that all along to bring the Palestinians to submission. So, they know what they are doing.

They know this is a violation of international law, but they have purpose behind that and the purpose really is to bring the Palestinians to submission and to surrender. If we just, I read the report, it is about 238 pages, and if you read the report and just read the testimonies by the soldiers some of them use idioms, you cannot actually, they are not actually military idioms like “sterilizing” the Gaza Strip. Using that medical phrase actually indicates a sense of fascism really on the part of the Israeli government and the Israeli army in this case.

Shooting anything in Gaza was allowed. If you shoot anybody in Gaza that is cool. The idea was that if you spot something, anything in Gaza shoot, but so what we have really is not a mere violation of the international law. Israel has been doing this for tens of years and there is no single report by a human rights organization, by the UN and by breaking the silence and by the Israeli human rights also like B'Tselem that did not condemn Israel with the violation of international law and committing war crimes. So, we have to start to stop ....

Press TV: As you have mentioned this is a blatant disregard of international law; however, Israel has been, as you have also mentioned disregarding international law for tens of years. Now this report goes to negate the PR (Public Relations) movement on Israel’s part; however, how much further can it be taken?  

Da’na: Israel would not have been actually acting this way, acting without impunity. If it was not for the western world support and in particular for the US’s support and protection of Israel in the international arenas in the UN, in the International Criminal Court, so if that kind of protection did not exist, Israel would not have been able to act with the impunity like this.

But again, people should start realizing, we are not really facing just violation, because some of the reports that talk about the violation of the international law might be understood that it was a mistake in the course of war.

We are not talking about mistakes, we are talking about an Israeli strategy that has been in place for tens of years and it has a political purpose to exercise the maximum kind of violence and by implication committing war crimes against the Palestinians in order to bring them to submission.

This is basic social psychology, we know that. I give you an example, during the Shuja'iyya [war] when Israel was shelling the Shuja'iyya neighborhood in Gaza during the war on July 20th, the artillery fire power, there was used at that time, led generals from the Pentagon, the American Defense Department, to say that the only way they can understand this firepower is that they are intending to kill as many people as possible. This is what the American generals said.

So, killing or core crimes are intentional, because they have a political purpose in Israel’s mind. They have not been fair but it is in Israel’s strategy.

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