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World silent on Israeli crimes: Analyst

Saturday, 23 April 2016 8:28 AM [ Last Update: Saturday, 23 April 2016 8:25 AM ]

An Israeli soldier stands guard at the site where a Palestinian man was shot dead at the entrance of the al-Arroub Palestinian refugee camp, between Hebron and Bethlehem, April 14, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Press TV has conducted an interview with Richard Silverstein, a journalist and political commentator, about the Israeli regime’s increased crackdown on the Palestinians during Jewish holidays.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Every year, under various new pretexts, the Tel Aviv regime uses the situation, various events, in order to increase its harsh crackdown on the local Palestinians and local Arabs living in Jerusalem al-Quds. What is your evaluation of the situation?

Silverstein: Well, I think that we have to note that there are three major holidays in the Jewish calendar, this being one of them. And Israel basically closes all of its borders to Palestinians for all of these holidays, which amounts to at least a month out of the entire year.

When Israel is completely closed, that means no Palestinian workers may enter Israel and it poses a tremendous economic hardship.

And I wanted to tell your viewers also about this Jewish holiday, Passover... about to begin, which represents the time when the Jews, the Israelites, were freed from slavery in Egypt. And it seems terrible irony that Israel is imposing a form of slavery on the Palestinians by not permitting them to move into and out of Israel. And this is tremendous hardship and it evokes the same kind of suffering that the Jews themselves were inflicted on in Egypt... many thousands of years ago when the Passover holiday happened.

Press TV: These harsh crackdowns are nothing new. There are common scenes throughout the territory, especially in Jerusalem al-Quds, as you mentioned, but also common is the silence of the international community. What’s the reason?

Silverstein: Well, I think that the international community has fallen asleep essentially. There’s been so many decades of occupation and they have learned somehow to accept this, accept the continuing closures and the oppression of the Palestinians and the violence against the Palestinians.

And most people in the world, if they can just get by, would prefer to deal with their own troubles in their own countries. And it’s going to take a huge amount of effort and pressure by the BDS movement and others to change things.

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