Video Interview: The Law is Clear: Palestinians Have Right to Resist Occupation w/ Vijay Prashad
President Joe Biden is joining with Trump backers in Congress in imposing sanctions on the International Criminal Court – the ICC – because the court issued a statement that Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested for war crimes. Meanwhile the U.S. is sending more bombs and missiles to Israel as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians flee Rafah.
Brian Becker is joined by renowned journalist and author Vijay Prashad, the Executive Director of the Tricontinental Institute for Social Research and Chief Editor of LeftWord Books.
Transcript
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we need a new system we need a new Society we need to demand that which may
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have sounded impossible even a few weeks ago but is not only realizable but an
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imperative
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[Music] necessity President Joe Biden has
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announced that he is joining with Republic repan Trump backers in Congress
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to impose sanctions on the international criminal court because that Court dared
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to suggest that Benjamin Netanyahu The Head of State in Israel should be
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arrested for war crimes meanwhile the United States is sending more bombs and
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missiles again to Israel as Israel launches its invasion of Rafa and
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hundreds of thousands of Palestinians Flee for their lives
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welcome to this week's episode of the Socialist program I'm your host Brian Becker today we're talking with renowned
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journalist and author VJ Pasad VJ is the executive director of The tricontinental
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Institute for social research he is the chief editor of left word books BJ
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welcome back thanks a lot it's great to be with
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you thanks a lot well thank you for joining uh I have to say I was a bit astonished VJ when um but not really
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when when Joe Biden angrily went to the podium to say he was going to join with the Republicans to impose sanctions not
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on Israel not on those who are committing a genocide in Gaza but
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against the international criminal court that dared to suggest that Benjamin Netanyahu should be in fact arrested for
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war crimes anyway your take well the first thing to uh note is
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that the United States government has a very contentious relationship with the
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international criminal court it's not a participant in the Rome statute doesn't
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really um doesn't actually not doesn't really but doesn't accept the
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jurisdiction of the Court some years ago the former special prosecutor lead
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prosecutor at the international criminal court fatti Ben suda had actually opened
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an investigation into both the crimes in Afghanistan and the question of Israel's
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violence in the war against the Palestinians in 2014 she merely opened a file in fact
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two files Afghanistan and Palestine and asked that all beligerant in all these
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conflicts be investigated at the time the Trump Administration and in the
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person in charge of this was John Bolt um openly said in a very Mafia way that
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Pati benua high official of the United Nations would not be permitted entry
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into the United States in order for her to brief the UN Security Council now
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this goes against the customary practice that any official of the United Nations
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is welcomed into the us because the United Nations building in New York City
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happens to be within the jurisdiction of the United States people don't know but when you go to the UN office you have to
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show your passport because in a sense you're entering international territory but not only that Mr Bolton and other
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officials of the US government at the time said to Fati benua that neither you
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nor your family will be allowed to get visas to enter the United States no
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Disneyland for the B suda children and so on it was a very much a mafia kind of
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attitude toward the lead prosecutor and when uh a replacement for Fati Ben suda
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was to come they picked a pretty safe guy a conservative from the United Kingdom uh Karim Khan King's Council was
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chosen as the lead prosecutor my gosh you know this war has been going on
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Brian for seven months of genocidal bombardment of the Palestinians and Mr
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Karim Khan casc who had gone to Rafa met with various people went to Israel just
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hesitated to make even a bland statement really um whereas in the case of the
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Russian invasion of Ukraine within days the international criminal court started
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framing warrants against Vladimir Putin for the crime of removing children from
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the war zone about 20,000 children have been killed or cannot be accounted for
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in Gaza 20,000 children and it is only now under immense International pressure
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led by countries like South Africa that Mr Karim Khan casc has finally not
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framed warrants it's very important for people to know that but he has come before the podium and said that the
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international criminal court is now going to think about framing warrants
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against not only Mr Netanyahu but the leadership of Hamas and the United States government's response to this
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from the White House has been one word outrageous they say it is outrageous to
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equate Mr Netanyahu with the leadership of Hamas in fact I agree with them it is
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outrageous to equate Mr Netanyahu with Hamas because Hamas is part of the
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Palestinian resistance movement I don't see how you can equate the attack of
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October 7th with the 20,000 children killed and perhaps close to 40,000
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civilians killed in Gaza as a consequence of the bombing um of the
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Israelis with weapons including 2,000 pound bomb weapons supplied by the
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United States nothing outrageous about the investigation and then warrants
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against Mr Netanyahu Biden is wrong about that interestingly I saw net who on the
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media last night um he was interviewed by International media I can't remember which one a European media they said
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well are you concerned about travel uh because you might be arrested uh because of the international
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criminal court and Netanyahu said no the head of the IC should be worried about
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travel and when you speak about Mafia tactics given the mosad the Israeli
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intelligence record of targeted assassin ations of people all over the all over
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the Middle East and certainly outside the Middle East as well I mean that's a direct threat that's a direct threat or
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at least I interpret it as a direct threat uh but here you go VJ I want to I
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want to play a clip it's a compilation but it says a lot about what's actually
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happening because the Biden Administration and the Republicans are
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virtually the same when it comes to Israel and I want to talk about why that is people are sometimes perplexed by why
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it is right now Biden is under immense pressure the students all over the
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country who were engaged in encampments uh they were saying abandoned Biden genocide Joe young people who are really
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decisive for the Democrats say they don't want to vote for Biden not only because of Palestine but very largely
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because of GA the Gaza War anyway here's a clip it's a compilation it shows that
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this track record of American Support American when I say American I don't mean the American people per se I'm
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talking about the US ruling class the two ruling class parties let's watch I have the high privilege and distinct
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honor of presenting to you the prime minister of Israel his Excellency
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Benjamin nanyu I want to thank you Democrats and
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Republicans for your common support for Israel year after year decade after
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decade no matter on which side of the aisle you sit you stand with
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Israel and I will always be grateful to President Obama for that
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support this Capital Dome help help build our Iron
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Dome we must all stand together to stop Iran's March of Conquest subjugation and
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Terror VJ the last time Netanyahu spoke before both houses of Congress he was
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interrupted with Ovations 39 times uh quite remarkable anyway your your
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thoughts and then I want to go to some of the definitions uh after you give
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your response but I want to ask you to talk about why the United States ruling class parties have such allegiance to
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net Yahoo into the state of Israel he know this is a Perpetual
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problem for people why do the two parties why does a swad of the US ruling
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class back is Israel um I remember having a very long conversation with n
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chsky about this um is it the tale or the dog that Wags it you know what
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what's going on here is it Israel that has a sort of effect upon the United
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States or does the United States Define Israeli policy um I remember in that
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conversation we sort of came to the agreement that there's a almost a
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unified approach that three part parties in a way there's the Democrats the
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Republicans and the Israeli ruling class that seem to share a great deal of uh of
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you know um of ideologically but also in terms of how they want to manage the
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Middle East I mean Israel provides a role for for the US ruling class when it
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comes to managing and defining um us power in the Middle East and so on but
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it's a perennial question Brian we'd have to spend days discussing and debating whether the
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tail wags the dog or the dog wags the tail one of the interesting features
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however um is that there are some pretty bizarre backgrounds to this you know there's Christian Zionism which plays
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its role um there is the role of of the uh Israel Lobby which plays its role
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there's the role of the arms Lobby I mean people don't realize that um Israel provides a real fun function to us arms
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manufacturers when it comes to selling weapons to countries that have either
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had been accused of nuclear proliferation like India um or to
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countries that the US simply can't sell weapons to because of the prla amendment
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which blocks certain kinds of arms sales United States um based arms industry has
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joint ventures with Israel so for instance when India exploded nuclear weapons in a test in 1998 um India
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bought USG grade weapons from Israeli manufacturers joint ventures with us
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companies even at a time when us companies couldn't directly sell to
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India so there's a host of very interesting um you know obligations both
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ways that play in this kind of Alliance that these countries have one
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interesting feature of the clips you showed was what Mr netan said at the end
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of the clip where he talked about Iran you know it's interesting how both the
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United States and Israel have used Iran as a kind of cover for the occupation of
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the Palestinians you know you Israel has has taken from the US a blank check for
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its occupation against the Palestinians because it claims to be a Frontline
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state to block Iran's Ambitions in the region I think that's a very interesting
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maneuver that Mr Netanyahu pioneered when he was first Prime Minister in the
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199s he began to lift up Iran as a great threat and he began to sort of blind
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people to Israel's role in the occupation by deflecting and talking
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always about Iran and in fact in his speeches in the Congress in the US Congress he comes there to talk about
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the Iranian threat he doesn't doesn't say a word about the Palestinians and it's this
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duplicitousness this duplicitous nature of the kind of commentary of people like
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Netanyahu and other elements of the Israeli ruling class um that you know
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provides cover for the occupation of the Palestinians yeah and I when we go back
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to the topic and again it's going to be more than this show can cover about why the US has this apparent uncondition
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support at least since 1967 for the state of Israel if people
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think about it as the world became a a colonized world at a certain point in
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the middle of the 19th century the whole or the latter part of the 19th century the entire world was was colonized but
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there are always contradictions between the big colonizers and what you might call the
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little colonizers so there were the big colonizers who colonized Haiti uh from
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France and then there was the white ruling class little colonizers who oversaw the plantations and at a certain
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point there was a contradiction between the big colonizers and the little colonizers uh the big colonizer in
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Britain with the the 13 colonies and that obviously developed into a contradiction where the US colonies
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declared their independence you could see it in the case of Zimbabwe there were contrad between Britain and what
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was then rodesia uh so all kinds of contradictions but the basic element of
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the colonial domination of the region or of that area was the motivator for the
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colonizer the big colonizer interest so the French the Americans the British the
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Dutch the Portuguese the the Spanish uh all of these different colonizing Powers
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at certain points had cont contradictions with the ruling class Elites who were managing the colonies
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for them in the case of the zionists the zionists want to expand and expand and
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expand the US wants Israel they don't care about that that much the US wants
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to dominate this oilr geostrategic importantly uh important region and
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Israel is in many ways like an attack dog it's an extension of of the Pentagon uh anyway anyway VJ I want to
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go on to what some of the issues of of definition here because one of the
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reasons I reached out to you last week was you wrote an amazing dossier uh for
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the tricontinental institute for research it's brief people can read it quickly but it's so important because
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you take up certain words like the words of occupation the words of apartheid the
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word genocide because in a certain way we're chanting these words people are using the words rhetorically but the
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words actually have legal definition I want to start with the question of of occupation because you said in the
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beginning of this show you don't equate Hamas with uh the Israelis uh now in
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American Media you'll be you'll be taken to the shed for that you'll say how could you possibly equate or or draw a a
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comparison between the great Democratic Netanyahu and the terrorist Hamas organization and you put it on the
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opposite side you said well yeah there shouldn't be uh equivalency because in fact the people
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who are living under occupation have a right to resist and that comes from a definition of occupation and also legal
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obligations requirements uh and rights uh for the people who live under occupation so
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let's start with the word occupation yeah just before we get to that and I just want to lay a ground
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rule for people when they think about these these issues and that is to say that the greatest treaty that we have in
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the world the one with the highest consensus is the United Nations Charter
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um that's the document the legal document that all countries have signed on to and and that sets the foundation
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for everything that I'm going to talk about in terms of legality you know uh the UN Charter um is born out of over a
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100 Years of legal Doctrine around international law the idea of occupation
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actually predates the um un Charter but is is then incorporated into it it comes
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from the hag uh documents and it comes from the Geneva conventions the legal
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definition of an occupation is when one biger in power in the in a time of War
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Fair takes control of a territory and population of another people and holds
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it um then that condition of a beligerant power taking control of
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somebody else's territory and population and holding it that condition is known
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as an occupation and when there's an occupation there are certain obligations
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and duties and as well as rights that are afforded to the different parties
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the occupying power and that's a term uh in international law it's not a um it's
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not a moral or or slogan earing term the occupying po formal definition has
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duties towards Those whom you've occupied for instance you can't transfer
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the population um you can't treat the people there without dignity um you have
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to treat people as if they are your own citizens in fact they must be afforded
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all the rights and responsibilities uh of people uh in a civilized World they can't be you know kept in concentration
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camps uh mistreated in different ways there can't be a separate law for them
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that's the obligation of the occupying power now the occupied people certainly
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have a right to resist their occupation and to remove the foreign occupiers or
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the occupying power from their territory in fact in 1960 the United United
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Nations uh General Assembly passed a very strong resolution which reaffirmed
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the right of occupied people to resist their occupation in the context of the
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struggle in Guinea BAU the United Nations again weighed in to specifically
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say that armed struggle is part of the repertoire of struggle of in the right
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to resist it doesn't say that armed struggle is the only way but it's part of the reput meaning you can fight on a
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Civic platform marches and so on but also armed struggle because you are held
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forcibly by arms violence is imposed upon you by the occupying power
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therefore you are entitled to fight with all means necessary to overcome the
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violence of the occupying power that is the definition of occupation it is in
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fact so common place in the United Nations that East Jerusalem the West
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Bank and Gaza together are known as the occupied Palestinian territory the opt
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that's how it's referred to in un documents it's completely a banal statement that there's an occupation and
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it's stunning that it is becoming criminalized to use the word occupation
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to describe what is happening uh today in Palestine equally it's there of
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course in Western Sahara in different parts of the world the idea of occupation
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applies I think it's important to talk about these legal issues uh and definitions even though in
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some ways it may seem a little bit you know off the Beaten Track because when
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you see a genocide who cares about legal definitions you can be horrified
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outraged mortified by what you're witnessing uh and there's obviously no
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equivalency because Hamas which was carrying out uh in a in an effort to break through
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the occupation because the people in Gaza are occupied there's no question about that they're living under siege
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it's been under siege for almost 20 years but even before that uh Gazo had
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is illegal Israeli settlements in it the Palestinian people had no rights most of the people there had already been driven
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from their homes and Villages by earlier ethnic cleansing operations by the Zionist forces so there's no question
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that uh that what Hamas was doing under the definition that you provided is not only
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justified in an in a political sense it's legally Justified and the Israelis
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can say well we have the right of self-defense because the Hamas attack on
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October 7th resulted in the killing of civilians of course most many of the
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hundreds of the deaths were soldiers and many of the civilians in Israel were also killed by the IDF forces but some
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civilians were undoubtedly killed so the Israelis can say well you killed our civilians and now we are justified in
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carrying out the war in Gaza because it's an act of self-defense okay that's what the
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Zionist sort of media does says and it seems like most of the people in Israel agree with it under the definition you
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gave the Israeli occupying Force doesn't have the right to defend itself let's
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just talk about that does it does the occupying force from a legal point of view have the right to quote defend
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itself when the occupied resist including the resistance with arms see self-defense is an interesting
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phrase because it assumes that somebody else has started the violence against
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you that you know you as Israel are a peaceful um
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non-confrontational Power there's a borderline between you and Gaza and that
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somebody has attacked you and therefore you have the right to self-defense so then October 7th by the logic of
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self-defense is the start of history history starts when the people from the
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Palestinian resistance attack these kibuts Sim in the Borderlands of Gaza
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but of course that's a ridiculous understanding of the situation because
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Gaza is not an independent territory which is then be become suddenly
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unprovoked beligerent against the Israeli State the Israeli State occupies
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Gaza this is an interesting issue um there are many people who say but Israel pulled out in 2005 no no Israel didn't
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pull out in 2005 Israel dismantled its illegal settlements in 2005 but Israel
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continues to police the borders of Gaza and continues to uh in a sense you know
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not only the land borders but the Mediterranean Sea border Israel also
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defines what comes in and out of Gaza in other words the occupation of Gaza
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continues the United Nations continues to call Gaza part of the occupied
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Palestinian territory in which case the people of Gaza are occupied they have a
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right to resist the occupation to end the occupation now when they are resisting their their their occupation
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of course the Israelis can fight back because they are the occupying power but they don't have a legal right to fight
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back in fact they have basically um you know uh they have given up their legal
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right to fight back by being the occupying power they've already been a billigerent so in a sense history does
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doesn't begin for Gaza strictly speaking on the October 7th 2003 we can say it
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begins in 1967 when Israel went and occupied that territory which had been
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jointly administered by the Egyptians United Nations and others so since at
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least 1967 if not earlier Israel has been the belligerent occupying power of
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Gaza and so therefore it has surrendered its right to self-defense now that
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doesn't mean that it can't fight against people who are trying to resist but that
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fighting is not its right to self-defense that fighting is the occupying power trying to maintain its
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occupation now again Brian I look like I'm playing with words here but what I'm
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trying to establish is that the right to self-defense in fact does not apply to
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an occupying power merely the occupying Powers um attempt to maintain its
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occupation it looks the same but it's entirely different in terms of the from
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the perspective of international law yeah same I think this is very
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important for people because and one of the reasons I wanted to do this discussion with you VJ is that these
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words even though they seem in a way as I mentioned kind of perhaps for some
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people who are just outraged by what they're witnessing they're like you're playing with words who cares but it
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actually does matter it really matters for people to have an understanding of
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legal definitions because the legal definitions are reflective of what's going on in society
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and the UN Charter and the UN resolutions on the question of occupation actually constitute a step
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forward for Humanity because until then the colonized people
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according to international law which was always created by International imperialism they had no rights they
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weren't even people they were less than people in the sense of how people in the
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colonized parts of the world which was the majority of the people of the world how people were treated so the people in
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Haiti who were victimized by endless invasions let's let's say when the
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Marines went in in 1915 and landed in the port and marched into the center of
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portter Prince and emptied the bank and brought all of the money back to New York City to New York City Bank there
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was no uh there was no definition about the right of hians the Haitians just
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were the target they were the subject they were the victims and as a
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consequence of the Revolutionary movements for decolonization and
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socialism some legal definition have been put into place like the question of
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occupation and the rights of those who live under occupation uh such that it gives human
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status to those fighting for Liberation that's why this is important that's it's
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part of a historical trajectory and in that sense not playing with words at
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all I mean you know it's I I would hesitate to say that um these
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resolutions are merely playing with words because you're exactly correct you know I've gone back and read some of the
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prehistory uh including the he documents the Geneva conventions and a number of
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the legal Scholars that helped draft those texts had rather vicious ideas
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about the people who had been colonized you know they believed for instance that the people who had been colonized were
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lesser as you said Savages and so on and that they needed to be held in
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trusteeship um they needed to be held and governed because they were too childlike they
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couldn't govern themselves so at the Versa treaty in the League of Nations
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the concept of trusteeship was put forward that certain parts of the world
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would be mandate territories Syria was a mandate territory to be governed by the
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French Palestine was a mandate territory to be governed by the British that was
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the thinking up to the league of nation s that people in these parts of the world when occupied were actually being
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occupied so that they could be Advanced from a childlike state to an adult State
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the advance of the UN Charter and then these resolutions that come after in
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fact convert the idea of trusteeship and of mandate into the idea of occupation
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and the occupying Powers duties and the right to resist of the occupied people
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people it's an enormous advance in human thinking about what happens when a
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belligerant power takes over the ter territory of another Power until
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recently you know within reach of of our own history people used to believe it
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was perfectly okay to go and occupy a place Palestine by the British and hold
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it in trusty ship uh through a mandate from the international bodies now that
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is no no longer considered appropriate now we actually get angered when a
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people are held in occupation whether the Palestinians or the saharis by the
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government of Morocco or for a very long time you well remember Brian how we all
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marched on the streets for the freedom of East Timur from the Indonesian military dictatorship now Timur lest an
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independent country um these Independence struggles were premised on
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a new understanding of international law which at bottom uh recognized the humanity of
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all people and said that we don't have a planet of childlike people and adults we
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are all at the same level of history and we all deserve a right to govern
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ourselves even if we do it badly uh we shouldn't be occupied by somebody else
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with their arrogance and their pretentions to be our trustees you know until we are old enough to rule
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ourselves new international law has overcome old international law and I'm
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very um clear on this point that in the case of of the Palestinians this idea of
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the Palestinians as a people who need to be governed because they don't have the capacity to govern themselves this is
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contrary to international law and it's also contrary to basic natural law
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principles of the decency of humans and not saying that people don't have the
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ability to govern themselves I was extremely disappointed to read a statement made by Salman rushi the
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famous writer saying that if Palestine were free then it its government would
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be Taliban like I mean that's Mr rashdi a ridiculous statement the Palestinians
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have the right to govern themselves I mean Mr rashdi lives in New York Brian and not to be too snooty about this but
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looking at recent us governments um I would say that perhaps the United States
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should be taken over in trusteeship by somebody because it can't seem to govern
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itself they keep having government shutdowns imbecilic politicians making
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ridiculous statements to talk so arrogantly about a people in the middle
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of a genocide is really quite scandalous but it comes from this idea that certain
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people simply don't have the right to rule themselves and that is no longer uh
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a position that is held up by international law indeed we are in the opposite and thanks to a great deal of
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struggle by the third world countries within the UN we have a much better basis in international law now to look
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at issues such as the Palestinian conflict against the Israeli occupation Malcolm X once said you can't
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have capitalism without racism and you know it's an interesting concept because
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when you look at the evolution of capitalism VJ these racist Notions about
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the colonized people or the enslaved African population that was brought here
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and was the principal part of the working class that developed nent capitalism in the in in North
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America uh in order to justify to provide a rationale uh for the super exploitation
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and oppression of the colonized or enslaved people these racist NOS that
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the people were lesser humans was basically used by the dominant ruling
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class the racist ruling class the dominant oppressor Nation to justify all
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of its crimes against humanity so there's this kind of toxic mix where uh
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whether the American ruling class really thought of the Haitians as lesser or not it certainly provided a a pretext an
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ideological pretext for robbing Haiti for stealing from Haiti for enslaving
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Africans for dominating Palestinians so this kind of capitalism
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and racism go together so and we see this now in the fight against Zionism
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where the UN at a certain point declared that Zionism is racism now in in the
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western narrative in the Pro Zionist narrative that seemed like how could that possibly be Zionism was to create a
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Homeland for an oppressed a minority Jewish people who had been so
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victimized by fascism in Europe and not just fascism just European capitalism in
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all of its different iterations but Zionism meant that the Jewish state that
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was created under initially a a mandate from colonizing powers that they could
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dispossess the indigenous people they could kick the Palestinian people out so
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when we look about occupation we're thinking Gaza West Bank East Jerusalem those were the territories along with
36:27
golen Heights and the Sinai that were seized by Israel in 1967 but let's go back to 1948
36:34
itself because the Palestinian movement is also making the argument that from
36:41
the beginning Zionism was racism and occupation against the indigenous people
36:46
and that's when I want to come to this definition of apartheid the next word that you highlighted in your dossier
36:53
you're making the argument there and I think certainly the Palestinian masses will definitely agree with you on
37:00
this that from the get-go the Zionist regime the Israeli regime was an
37:06
apartheid regime not just in the West Bank not just in Gaza but throughout so
37:11
let's talk about aarid and again people are using it sort of rhetorically but it
37:17
too has a legal definition so in 1948 when um Israel was
37:27
created as a state that's actually the same year that the South African government um instituted a formal policy
37:34
of apathy the term apide comes from Africans uh it means to live apart to
37:40
separate and so on um well look there was no real legal International
37:46
definition of apide until 1974 when the United Nations again in a
37:53
very important resolution uh described a paide and this definition comes as part
37:59
of the anti- aathi struggle to free the people um you know the the black
38:05
population in South Africa that's where the definition is framed in the United Nations and it's a it's a pretty
38:11
Exquisite resolution it says where one people who dominate in a state or decide
38:18
to oppress a second people they don't give them full rights and so on they treat them in a lesser way they don't
38:25
allow them to walk in certain places they don't allow them to use certain bathrooms and so on reading the
38:33
1974 you know resolution Brian is interesting because you might ask
38:38
yourself why wasn't there a revolution a resolution like this in the 40s for the
38:43
50s well in a way and and this is my speculation um this resolution had to
38:50
wait till the United States settled account with Jim Crow laws because let's
38:56
be quite clear that until 1964 and 1965 the United States practiced aath hiide
39:03
within its own territory against the African the people of African descent in
39:08
the United States so when the United States settles accounts with formal
39:13
apath hiide Jim Crow laws then the space opened up at the UN to precisely Define
39:19
aath hiide because I think the United States government by then had started to see that look you don't really need
39:26
formal structures you can maintain athid like conditions without legal uh
39:32
barriers so the 1974 resolution actually quite precisely
39:38
talks about what apide is and therefore places the burden on a country like
39:43
Israel to justify how it has between 65 and a 100 different laws today on the
39:50
books now that discriminate against Palestinians and provide affirmative
39:57
concessions to people of the Jewish culture and Faith from around the world
40:02
I mean if you are of Jewish Heritage in the United States you can return to Israel and have all the rights and
40:09
privileges of a full citizen but if you are born in Naas if you have born in Tel
40:15
Aviv of a Palestinian background you have second class citizens so that means they have kind of extr
40:22
territorialized primary citizenship in Israel and they've second class people
40:28
who are born within the territory of 1948 Israel that is precisely a path
40:34
hiide and very interestingly um you know it took a big struggle within the UN and
40:40
within human rights organizations to begin to use the word apide uh it took
40:46
Decades of pressure inside Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch I
40:51
mean the the people who were managing the Middle East desk of these two inter
40:57
AAL human rights organizations have to be saluted because I know over decades I
41:02
used to meet them pretty regularly in Cairo and Jerusalem and so on they would write report after Report with great
41:10
frustration and they are really heroic in the work they have done within the United Nations it was the economic
41:16
Commission of West Asia esqua based in beut Lebanon which under the leadership
41:23
of a former Jordanian politician of Palestinian background IMA kalaf Rema
41:28
kalaf really pushed hard within esqua and the United Nations to start using
41:34
the term apath heide we got to salute people like Richard Faulk Professor Richard Faulk was a special reporter um
41:42
on Palestine and and the occupation Professor Richard Faulk fought very hard
41:47
within the Human Rights Council uh within the UN General Assembly and so on
41:53
to push for the legal application of the term apath to Define Israel and indeed
41:59
the South African government took Israel to the international court of justice in
42:05
2002 uh regarding a wall that the Israelis were building around the West
42:11
Bank and when the icj um you know came back with orders against that wall the
42:17
wall became known colloquially as the apoide wall and now it is pretty clear
42:23
in un documentation it's pretty clear in human rights organization the term apoide is the term of art it
42:30
describes precisely and legally what is happening within Israel and uh the
42:37
treatment of the Palestinian people and non Jewish Israelis within Israel it's
42:43
not just the Palestinians it's other non-jewish is people born in Israel
42:49
there are all kinds of people who live in the nakab desert um there are people
42:54
who are treated as second class citizen the beduin communities removed from
43:00
their homes um you know that those evictions are are part of this apoide
43:07
condition so if you look at this in an unemotional way a strictly legal
43:13
definition looking at the 1974 resolution and you look at it in this sober way it is actually factual to use
43:21
the word apoide to describe what's happening inside Israel it is nothing anti-em atic there is nothing
43:29
ideological there is nothing propagandistic this is in fact the
43:34
factual concept utilized by um respected human rights organizations including the
43:41
UN system to describe the situation in Israel all right let's go to the third
43:47
term that you mentioned in the dossier and this is very controversial
43:52
from the point of view of the US media the Biden Administration uh we have been out in
43:58
the streets saying genocide Joe we will remember this is genocide killing this
44:06
huge part of the uh population in Gaza killing them or wounding them displacing
44:12
them but killing them especially I mean if it was an equivalent number percentage wise of Americans who had
44:18
been killed in the last seven months it would be many millions of Americans who are dead uh um you know almost with in
44:27
less than a year so we've been saying genocide the Palestinians have been
44:34
accusing the the Israelis of genocide the South Africans took the uh the
44:40
Israelis to court to the international court of justice and said yes this is
44:45
genocide the Israeli say no well let's just talk about what is genocide and does what the Israelis are doing in Gaza
44:54
constitute genocide well this is an interesting issue
44:59
because the genocide concept um also was born in 1948 by the way the same year as
45:07
Israel was created and the same year that apide was established forly in
45:12
South Africa uh that same year there was a convention on genocide uh you know
45:17
motivated solely by what happened in the Holocaust uh the killing of of mostly
45:23
Jews but also Communists homosexuals and so on by the Nazi regime um in Germany
45:29
and other parts of Eastern Europe it was the Holocaust that provokes uh the
45:34
passage of the convention on genocide now the very interesting thing is if you read the convention on genocide and it's
45:41
not very long it's not very difficult to read I highly recommend people read the
45:46
convention on genocide um the real word in the convention Brian isn't
45:51
descriptions of killing and so on the real word is intent um you have to have an INT intent to commit acts of genocide
45:59
you know you can say that well um you know this Army went in and killed 10,000 people but they can say look we didn't
46:07
intend to kill 8,000 civilians we were trying to kill 2,000 people and you know
46:13
the collateral damage we killed 8,000 civilians but if you go into the war
46:18
saying that we want to Massacre everybody uh we want to remove the population from here we are going to
46:25
prevent them from having water we are going to starve them we're going to Gat them we're going to make their children
46:31
terrified and so on if you make speeches like that prior to a war or during a war
46:37
then you have demonstrated intent to genocide so when you look at the South African submission uh to the
46:43
international Court of of Justice there's a large section where they just
46:49
have the statements of Israeli officials saying things like we are going to go do
46:54
a nakba nakba being the Arabic word for catastrophe used to describe the events
47:00
of 1948 we are going to do a Gaza nakba a second nakba we are going to deny them
47:06
food we're going to starve them they won't have water and then you have
47:11
evidence of the Israelis very precisely bombing bakeries bombing fishing boats
47:18
um bombing you know places of of of of healing hospitals and so on um you have
47:25
precise statements and bombing of isra of the Palestinians as they move South
47:31
um the gting of the Palestinians in Rafa threats to the Palestinians in Rafa and
47:36
so on um you know you go back historically you've got itak Rabin who
47:42
you know is is in some quarters lorded as a peacemaker itak Rabin during the
47:47
first intifada ordered his commanders to go into the West Bank into Gaza and so
47:55
on and break the bones of young children throwing stones intent to commit
48:00
genocide is very important um and that is exactly what the South Africans tried
48:06
to present before the international court of justice now if you read the
48:12
statements from the justices there's the principal majority finding which you
48:17
know cautioned Israel told them to stop the conflict and used a word of importance they said there is plausible
48:24
evidence of genocide that's all you really need it's plausible evidence because they said the investigation will
48:31
continue so you know I always say well we could say plausible genocide Joe or
48:37
plausible genocide Netanyahu you want to add plausible add plausible but that
48:43
doesn't invalidate the use of the word genocidal it's a genocidal War not
48:49
because of just the character of the bombing you know wiping out entire neighborhoods with 2,000 pound bombs but
48:56
it's the language the statements coming from Netanyahu from Isaac Herzog the
49:02
president from Benny Gans you know from High officials uh of the government um
49:08
you know it's not just Ben gabir and the right-wing factions that are talking like this it's also people who are
49:15
holding High offices I mean for God's sake the president of Israel Isaac hog
49:21
is on record making genocidal statements doesn't matter what is political
49:26
background is ran he's the president of the whole country and he is making
49:32
genocidal statements that's an enormous indictment so as far as I'm concerned
49:37
the only standard for you and I or others to say there's a genocide happening isn't our reading of the
49:46
genocide convention against the realities that are there now in Gaza
49:51
it's in fact the international criminal the international Court of justi is finding of plausible evidence of
49:58
genocide that to me is sufficient the very fact that after 7 months Karim Khan
50:05
of the international criminal court has suggested that he might use the words
50:10
like war crimes which are lower than genocide or crimes against humanity again lower than genocide to frame
50:18
warrants against Mr Netanyahu is also sufficient you know if they are indicted
50:23
for war crimes for crimes against humanity for genocide each of these
50:28
would be sufficient to me and and the reason I say this Brian is because George W bush Donald
50:36
ramsfeld um Dick Cheney Tony Blair none of them were served with even one
50:43
warrant from the international criminal court for the war crimes and crimes against humanity they conducted in Iraq
50:51
I'm not even going to talk about genocide in Iraq it's not relevant because they were not even even served
50:57
with a Warren for war crimes and crimes against humanity and my goodness you know there was photographic evidence um
51:06
that came out of Abu gra prison written about by sour hsh in the New Yorker
51:12
magazine I mean for God's sake one of the most establishment oriented magazines and yet at the time the
51:19
international criminal court didn't even move against the high officials of the United States I can list for you we
51:26
don't have time I can give you names of villages in Afghanistan where US forces
51:33
committed war crimes we know this from the Wikileaks dump and I'm so glad that
51:38
Julian Assange has been given a chance to come out there and defend himself against the extradition um this is a big
51:45
victory for the Assange campaign but you know we have video evidence of a war crime committed in new Bagdad City in
51:53
2007 the video called collateral murder we have video evidence but not one
51:59
person indicted of a war crime so if Mr Netanyahu is going to face a warrant for
52:05
crimes against humanity not genocide that's fine by me Brian although the international court of justice has
52:12
established that what is happening for which there is plausible evidence of
52:17
genocide this is not just emotional people yelling genocide this is again a
52:22
factual statement indeed and we see and have so much evidence that these international
52:30
criminal courts are in the and I don't mean just the ICC or the icj the world
52:36
Court some of the special tribunals that were created by the US and paid for uh
52:41
by the United States that took mosovich who was the head of state of Yugoslavia or the head of state of Liberia or
52:49
others um to Europe and charged them with war crimes these are these are not
52:54
really in in the case of the special tribunals real courts because some
52:59
people are immunized in advance they're inoculated they can't be charged only
53:05
some people can be charged uh and as a consequence it's not a real Court in
53:10
that sense and until uh us British French you know the imperialist leaders
53:16
who are committing so many crimes against humanity or war crimes or genocide uh and again genocide part of
53:24
the definition is a destruction of a people in whole or in part I mean those hospitals are being wiped out in Gaza
53:32
because they're hospitals in Gaza not because they were centers of Hamas the five out of seven universities in Gaza
53:39
that were blown up they were blown up because they're in Gaza they were teaching people Palestinian people these
53:46
are genocidal acts uh VJ I want to go finally in their last minute or
53:52
two to another part of the story here and I'll read it a little bit it's from
53:58
here's from Politico magazine in in Washington DC the Biden Administration
54:04
fears Israel is disastrously squandering its opportunity for victory
54:11
against Hamas losing its best chance to eliminate the groups hold on on Gaza and
54:18
threat to the Israeli people top officials are publicly calling Israel's strategy in Gaza self-defeating and
54:26
likely to open the door to hamas's return a level of criticism of the Middle East Ally not seen since the war
54:34
in October and then they go on to have these Pentagon officials saying Israel
54:40
hasn't learned the lesson that we learned in Afghanistan or in Iraq which is if you just kill everybody in
54:48
villages it breeds more resistance and it breeds more Fighters and ultimately
54:54
you can't win and so their main complaint about Israel isn't the genocide is that they're pursuing a
55:01
strategy that won't quote win and so the main complaint of the Pentagon and I
55:06
want everybody to hear this carefully is not the genocide not the
55:13
illegality not the lack of morality not the mass Killing Spree is
55:19
that the pursuit is done with a military strategy that will not succeed and so
55:25
what the Pentagon is demanding from the Israelis is that they not only kill people in The Villages and clear Hamas
55:33
from The Villages but that they hold the villages meaning they put it back under literal
55:38
occupation and that's the complaint the pentagon's complaint is not about
55:44
anything other than the fact that their agents the Israeli Defense Forces armed
55:50
and financed by the Pentagon are not pursuing the right strategy so it gets
55:55
down to this squabble over tactics rather than the primary element which is motivating the
56:02
people of the world including people in the United States including young people in the United States to rise up against
56:08
the genocide that's not the problem for the US and it's so reveals the true
56:14
nature of us imperialism and the military-industrial complex that all of
56:19
these headlines about democracy or they're concerned about civilians or this or that no the real problem is
56:26
Netanyahu is not winning anyway with that said I give you the final word well you see one of the things that
56:34
people need to really focus on is the Israelis set themselves an impossible
56:40
War aim the war aim was the elimination of Hamas but Hamas is just part of the
56:47
Palestinian resistance and the Palestinian resistance is not going to
56:53
be eliminated until the occupation ends it may go as Hamas but it's going to
56:58
come back as something else Hamas was not born in 1948 Hamas was born in the
57:05
process of Palestinian Liberation fights in 1987 you know there were many groups
57:12
before Hamas there will be many groups after Hamas they are trying to eliminate
57:17
the Palestinian resistance that's really the war aim it's even more impossible
57:23
than elimination of Hamas and I think that is an impossible War aim we need to
57:29
talk about that because people need to understand very well that the Palestinian people are not going to
57:36
surrender to a permanent apoide situation a permanent occupation to a
57:42
permanent genocidal um you know War they are not going to surrender they are going to keep fighting just as the
57:49
people of Western Sahara keep fighting just as all occupied people keep
57:54
fighting that is not going to to end Brian and therefore the Israelis simply cannot win they may end up killing
58:03
100,000 people 150,000 people but the last Palestinian will stand there
58:10
holding a flag and say I am the resistance and that's precisely what
58:15
they are setting themselves up to do the only victory for the Israelis is the
58:21
complete elimination of the Palestinian people the totality of genocide and that
58:27
is an Abomination that must be stopped and the Palestinians are fighting hard
58:32
to prevent that all right we're going to leave it there VJ I will see you in Detroit at
58:39
the people's conference for Palestine a historic Gathering one of many historic
58:44
gatherings in the recent months as there has been a sea change in Consciousness and
58:50
activism uh and mobilization here in the United States and around the world BJ prashad thank you so
