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Zionist lobby preventing West from criticizing Israel: Analyst

Friday, 16 December 2016 11:48 AM [ Last Update: Friday, 16 December 2016 11:48 AM ]

A Palestinian man searches through his belongings after his family home was demolished by Israelis in East Jerusalem al-Quds neighborhood of Beit Hanina on October 26, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

The European Union has censured the Israeli regime for destroying Palestinian shelters and structures in the occupied territories. According to a statement by the European bloc, the Tel Aviv regime has demolished 866 structures so far in 2016 in Area C of the West Bank, which is under full Israeli military control.

Anthony Hall, editor-in-chief of the American Herald Tribune from Alberta, told Press TV that the European states have been under the influence of the Zionist lobby to go along with the Israeli interests and refuse to slam crimes against the Palestinian people.

“Every government within the EU has a very strong Israeli lobby and this is one of the dilemmas that the Western people are facing,” Hall said on Thursday night.

“Not only the governing parties but the opposition parties as well are constraining discussion and discourse within a very narrow range that puts Israeli priorities at the top of the list in all our Western countries,” he added.

The professor also called on the Western citizens to “intervene directly and make contacts with Palestinian people directly.”

“We as the citizens in the EU, citizens in Canada and citizens in the United States have to find ways to bypass the constraints of our governments and the biases and the power of this lobby over our governments,” he noted.

Hall criticized the EU for the forensic accounting of homes demolished in Palestine.

“This type of numerical accounting fails to really describe the nature of this destruction of homes in its broader context where thousands of Palestinian people are in dungeons and being tortured in Israeli incarceration facilities,” he said.

“The reality that the world is letting this (Israeli demolitions of Palestinians homes) happen is very discouraging,” he added.

Hall warned that the prospect of a Palestinian state is no longer viable given the emphasis on building up settlements and destroying the structures of indigenous people of Palestine.

"This goes beyond apartheid,” he said.

The Israeli policy of demolishing houses in the West Bank to construct illegal settler units has affected 5,704 Palestinians of whom 1,221 people have been rendered homeless including 586 children.

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