The international community is impotent when it comes to the siege of Gaza despite being almost unanimous in its condemnation of continued Israeli violations, a prominent analyst tells Press TV.
The Gaza Strip has been blockaded since 2007, which is a situation that has caused a decline in the standard of living, unprecedented levels of unemployment, and unrelenting poverty.
Press TV has conducted an interview with Aly el-Kabbany, political analyst, to further discuss the issue. What follows is an approximate transcript of the interview.
Press TV: We have talked so many times about the situation in Gaza, the failure of the international community but I never really believe that we are sitting here mocking five years since the beginning of the Gaza siege with you. What are some of your low points from this event?
El-Kabbany: The low point is actually it shows us how the international community is impotent when it comes to the Israelis and how Israel is a rogue state which is above the international law and above the international community.
Those people are keeping 1.6 million Palestinians in a concentration camp now for five years and the whole world is keeping quiet and we are having the Organization of Muslim States in Mecca having their meeting yesterday 57 states and we did not hear anything from them saying how can they show solidarity with the Palestinian people of Gaza.
A scholar and academic Israel Shahak said that ‘the Nazi made me scared to be a Jew and the Zionist made me ashamed to be a Jew’. So if Jewish brave people are talking now like Shlomo Sand, like Gilad Atzmon and saying that they are ashamed of the Nazi practices of the Israelis and the Zionist against the Palestinian people, we can see that the Muslims and the Arabs are muted and no one really raises his voice and say enough is enough and this illegal blockade has to stop. 57 nations, one third of the United Nations members, they should go to the United Nations and demand an immediate relief of the Palestinian people.
Press TV: Yes and no more, no more...
El-Kabbany: Yes, the United Nations has to take a decision against this rogue state to stop the blockade and relieve those people from the illegal occupation and illegal blockade.
Press TV: So 1.6 million people are living in these conditions. How would you assess some of the worst aspects of life under occupation for them?
El-Kabbany: Really when I talk to a Palestinian and I am saying that they do not have medicine, they do not have electricity, they do not have clean water, he told me we do not care about that. We do not have dignity and we do not have freedom and we are humiliated daily by our occupiers and we can see that the whole world is against us, even, of course he was talking about the ousted President Mubarak, even Mubarak is worse than the Zionists because he is also helping in suffocating us inside this little piece of land which is the Gaza Strip.
And we could see that when a democratic regime hopefully is starting to be established in Egypt and Morsi met Haniya in Cairo for the first time and they agreed to get the Rafah crossing opened we saw what happened into this border unit and killing of 16 Israeli soldiers, it is of course to cripple this situation and bring it back.
Press TV: Dr. El-Kabbany it is very difficult, I mean apologies first of all for the images that we saw there, it is a little bit hazy, but this idea of international silence of governments almost without fail, siding with the Israeli authorities and I doubt very few of those ministers would have gone on the ground to see the situations for themselves?
El-Kabbany: No I would argue that actually the ministers know the exact fact and they know the oppressing practices and the illegal practices of the Zionist entity and all their criminal activities. But they choose to stay silent because of the pressure groups in America and Europe.
So they know exactly what is going on, they cannot claim that they are ignorant of the fact but they are actually sharing in the crimes by keeping quiet because they are paid by the pressure groups and by the lobbies in the United States and the Western Europe.
So they catch them very young and before they are elected and we heard from an American Congress lady that they signed blank resolution and give it to the likes of the AIPAC and other pressure groups to fill the resolution whenever they wanted them to do so.
But the change actually is in the public opinion and in the civil society because they can see clearly now the ugly face of Zionism and the Israeli practices and all these assassination, illegal blockade, ethnic cleansing practices and all the Nazi practices actually which they claimed they were victims of, they are practicing it against the Palestinian and ethnic cleansing and the transfer policy is the ideology of Zionism now and this is not what I am saying, this is the statements of brave Jewish Israeli authors.
Press TV: Fifteen seconds, just very quickly, are we hopeful with the situation changing in Egypt? There will be something of a glimmer?
El-Kabbany: Certainly with the Arab Spring and all changes from the client regimes in all the Arab states because Israel is not strong, the Arabs are weak and the Muslims are weak because if we see free democratic countries in Egypt, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, [Persian] Gulf states and Libya people never accept these practices of the Israelis.
AHK/JR
