‘Israel uses talks to keep up Palestine occupation’

Q: Your take sir. We have to have the rule of law for everyone including the Palestinians, but we see that that is not the case, and at the same time we see very little pressure coming from most Western capitals?
 
Hawash: Yes. I think the first thing to say is that Israel operates above the law. It has done so since its creation. It has acted in defiance of over 60 United Nations resolutions, which called for it to end occupation and allow the Palestinian refugees to return. So, I completely agree with the previous speaker that what we want is the application of the rule of law, but we have a state that actually operates above it.
 
It is really very surprising that continuously, the international community allows it to get away with this, and particularly the United Nations. I know the United Nations is a collective of the states in it and it has to rely on Security Council to come up with resolutions, but 2014 has been designated the year of solidarity with the Palestinian people. Well, where is this solidarity that the United Nations is showing if it can’t even say to Israel, charge these prisoners or release them?
 
Q: Your take Mr. Hawash, in general, as Mr. Budowsky said that [United Nations Secretary General] Ban Ki-moon has mentioned it and there have been some talks with the Pope, but this has been going on for a while. We see so many abuses being repeated time and time again by Tel Aviv and continually going against international law and little is done against Israel. What will it take to change the Israelis from basically, committing all these illegal acts against the Palestinians?
 
Hawash: Well, first of all I think, and I really wouldn’t want to criticize the Pope, because when he visited the occupied territories, he was genuinely by looks of it moved by what he saw. Particularly, when he stood at the wall and he saw Bethlehem, the most precious city Christians, surrounded by this wall and movement of Palestinian Christians restricted to it. So, I admire his efforts to bring [Israeli President] Shimon Peres and [Acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud] Abbas together. But let’s not forget Shimon Peres is a war criminal. He is the person who is responsible for massacre in Lebanon and various wars. So this man is not exactly someone to be held up as an example to a soul. I think the only thing now that will bring Israel to its senses, because its current extremist settler-led government has lost its sense and the only thing that will bring it to its sense is this escalating Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) and isolation. And I am not being an extremist by saying this. It is Israel that acts in the way that it does and brings the world’s wrath upon itself. It is Israel that through abductions and imprisonment of Palestinians, including children, and we should spend a bit of time talking about Palestinian children taken in the middle of the night and trampled on in jeeps, handcuffed, shackled, and brought to military courts, children as young as 12 and 13 years old.
 
    So we must stop pandering to Israel and by that I mean the so-called international community. They always said, "well, we mustn’t do anything to affect the peace process," but there is no peace process. It’s a sham. It’s a cover for Israel to continue its occupation and to entrench the occupation and therefore we should move now to a situation and ordinary people have, of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement until Israel comes to its senses.
 
Q: Why do we not see more aggressiveness coming out of the United Nations in dealing with this subject and what will it take in order for it to put more pressure o Tel Aviv?
 
Hawash: Well, again, the UN is made up of its member states and really, it’s for the member states to start to do that. They do it in the general assembly. After all, that is where the Palestinian status was upgraded in the UN to an observer member state, but it’s the US really that is at fault because it gives Israel carte blanche to do absolutely anything it wants. If that’s an exaggeration it will be interesting to hear what the United States has done to stop Israel from doing anything. It doesn’t. It is the pro-Israeli lobby, strong in the United States and it has an impact on the American foreign policy. The US gives Israel three billion dollars a year.
 
Imagine the situation if US President Barack Obama tomorrow made the announcement that one settlement unit is announced, that aid would stop. That is pressure. That would be pressure on Israel. Is there a will to do it? That is where we have doubt.
 
Q: Mr. Hawash, your take. Mr. Budowsky has a lot of hope that the Pope can help resolve this situation. Are you optimistic when the international community, like the United Nations have not been able to resolve this situation and seems they cannot really even put pressure on the regime in Tel Aviv? Are you optimistic that the Pope will be able to do something that the United Nations have not been able to do for more than 60 years now?
 
Hawash: No. I mean let’s face it. He wasn’t even able to get sovereignty for the Vatican. In the building where history says Jesus had the last super. He wasn’t even able to do that, and to expect his to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is just… I obviously hope he continues to pray for everyone. That he can do. And the stronger he prays the happier I am, but this about politics and it is about, your guest from Washington said in the beginning, justice. What I want is for the Palestinian refugees who were terrorized into leaving their homeland in 1948, to be able, those who want to, to return to their homes. Then we can have some reconciliation and genuine peace between the Palestinians and Israelis.
 
For that to happen, we need an enlightened Israeli leader. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu isn’t that leader and there isn’t a single one in the current Israeli government.
 
Q: Have you seen an enlightened leader at all in the last few decades?
 
Hawash: Well, the closest was Yitzhak Rabin. He was the closest, but unfortunately he was assassinated and we were not able to see if he would have taken the matter all the way with Yasser Arafat to a peace treaty with the Palestinians and Israelis. The problem we have is that the Israelis will not recognize what happened in 1948. They will not apologize for it and they will not sit down and form a state that will allow everyone to live in peace and prosperity as our colleague in Washington wants.