Israel to drive Palestinians to total despair: Analyst

Press TV has conducted an interview with Alan Hart, an author, journalist and researcher in London, to discuss the rising tensions between Israeli regime forces and Palestinians.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: You tighten the noose on a people, you take away their lands, you kill their people, you deny them their basic human rights and when they react out of desperation, then you portray them as terrorists and take punitive measures against them. Is that the case?

Hart: Let me put it this way. I think it is wrong to view and consider these latest incidents of violence including the killing of two or three Jews in isolation incident by incident. I mean what you were saying in your intro is approximately right.

There is a context that can be summarized as follows. Since 1967, Israeli’s policy has been to make life hell for the occupied, oppressed, humiliated Palestinians in the hope that they will abandon their struggle, surrender under Zionism terms or better still pack their bags and leave because that would save Israel’s leaders at some point in the future from having to resort to a final round of ethnic cleansing.

So Palestinians are being driven to despair. Now given that and the fact that the western-led major powers and the corrupt and authoritarian Arab regimes are doing nothing to see to end Israel’s defiance of international law and denial of justice for the Palestinians, is it really any wonder that occasionally Palestinians resort to violence and to kill Israeli Jews? I mean in my honest opinion, I think the really surprising thing is that so few Israeli Jews get killed but there is one more question that needs asking and answering. Israel’s responses are always counterproductive. They make matters worse, they escalate the situation and that begs this question - are Israel leaders made dangerously stupid by their sickening self-righteousness or do they actually want an escalation in Palestinian violence to give them the pretext to finally launch a final Zionist ethnic cleansing of Palestine? I think only the future will answer that question.

Press TV: What do you think about the censorship of the western media, mass media when it comes to talking about the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians?

I was reading different stories on different newswires about these Palestinians being called terrorists and the act of what Israel is doing now being quite justified as it is dealing with terrorist. Are Palestinians really terrorists?

Hart: Well those guys who in the last few weeks have killed four, five or six Israelis, they are not I think drawn to label them terrorists. They are Palestinian individuals who as I said earlier have been driven to total despair, no hope and total despair. Is it any wonder then that just occasionally some of them resort to … Jews and even killing them?

But you mentioned the media. There really is no secret about the western media. I mean there is a view which I do not totally subscribe to that the Jews control the western media. Yes in some instances they do but there is something much more sinister than that. The main problem in the western mainstream media is self-censorship. Editors and even journalists now, they are frightened of offending Zionism too much, it is as simple as that.

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