Israel wants to dehumanize Palestine: Analyst

Press TV has interviewed Bruce Katz , co-president of the Palestinian-Jews Unity, in Montreal, about a report that states some 1000 Palestinian children are suffering from permanent disabilities as a result of the 50-day war Israel imposed on Gaza last year.

Following is a rough transcription.

Press TV: How do you feel about this report on how children are suffering in Gaza, of course in the aftermath of that war?

Katz: There is nothing surprising and it is absolutely inhuman but it is part of the overall process of dehumanization that the Palestinians have suffered at the hands of Israel’s successive apartheid governments and the Netanyahu government simply seems to be the worst of all. Obviously you can only do what they have done to the Palestinians in Gaza, if you consider them to be subhumans which is exactly what the Israeli officials believe and that was reflected just recently by a statement coming from Moshe Ya’alon who is Israel’s defense minister; he as a matter of fact threatened Iran with a nuclear attack that would rival Nagasaki and Hiroshima [attacks]. He also said in that statement that he would kill as many children in Iran as in Gaza.

Now if there is any clearer statement as to just how barbarous a regime the Netanyahu regime really is, I think that statement says it all. The suffering of Palestinians in Gaza, where the blockade has now gone on for 8 years is a war crime and it screams for justice in international courts.

One wonders why no form of accusation for war crimes has yet come forward. The procedures are apparently underway and I only hope that the Palestinian authority will go forward with a formal accusation, even if I have my doubts as to whether or not the international criminal court will actually act upon it, nevertheless, it would have political ramifications.

All I can say is that the result of the attack on Gaza are evermore clear now and really I think the entire world is revolted by what they have seen and witnessed and what they now know about the effects of that attacks on Palestinian children.

Press TV: I’m wondering, when you speak about accountability wither via the ICC or other means, do you think that it is genuinely around the corner because for many years we have seen attempts to hold Israel accountable to no avail.

Katz: That is an excellent question. Is it around the corner? Some years back we thought around the corner was five, ten years ago. The reason that it is not done is precisely because the apartheid regime in Tel Aviv is able to exercise pressured influence on politicians in the world array of its pro-Israel lobbies; AIPAC in the United States, the Center for Israeli and Jewish Affairs in Canada, CRIF in France, and other organizations in Britain. These organizations and the individuals who stand behind them are complicit in Israeli war crimes because they condone it and they support it unequivocally and blindly. This is unacceptable and many Jews like myself have said this before: do not commit any crimes in the name of the Jews of the world, not in my name and not in the names of the conscientious of the Jews. There is Zionism and there is Judaism; they are not the same thing.

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