Israel onslaught on Gaza stain on humanity

Press TV has conducted an interview with Harry Fear, activist and filmmaker, to discuss the tense situation in Gaza Strip as the Israeli forces continue bombarding the densely populated area.

What follows is an approximate transcription of the interview.

Press TV: As we are looking at these live images and sometimes we are standing in the studio or sitting in the studio and we are just looking at these images and seeing more smoke go up, but when we are talking about a place like Gaza for the most part, every time we see something like that and the results of that smoke, we are talking about most likely a casualty because of how densely populated Gaza is. Tell me what’s it like, you are in the Gaza right now. Tell me overall what’s the situation like?

Fear: I think the first thing that I want to say is that I think the whole of the humanity has to understand that this is a totally insane situation. The previous war in Gaza was insane enough with over a hundred of Palestinians being killed and just a few Israelis being killed. The previous war in winter 2008-9 was incredible in violence in itself with a hundred times as many Palestinians being killed as Israelis.

But this time no Israelis have been killed and over one hundred and thirty Palestinians have been killed, many of those women and children and it is an absolute stain on humanity and it’s an absolute shock. And in the most basic basic sense of reality here, the situation is appalling for the civilian population, it’s terrorizing every single population center of the Gaza Strip is experiencing bombardment and it continues throughout the day, of course it’s bloodier at night and the world has to put a stop to this.

Press TV: You said the world has to put a stop to it and humanity should be outraged by what is taking place. As you said it’s not the first time that has happened and we saw that basically nothing happened to Israel as the results of assaults in 2008-2009. So, what can be done, what should be done basically that the reaction that you are saying that everyone should be outraged, we can reach that point, what needs to be done?

Fear: What needs to be done won’t happen but what might happen in which and that which could be positive in trying to bring a close at this as soon as possible would be that perhaps European states would increase their amplitude of criticism of Israel.

The United States, I don’t think anyone in the world would rely on the United States trying to restrain Israel’s operations including this one. But I think that perhaps with the European states there is at least a hope that that might happen.

But Israel’s prime minister has said that he is not interested in listening to the world criticism and that means basically he’s put a hand in the face of European states which have – these European states – been generally speaking, balanced in that criticism but over time in the coming days that I believe will become more against Israel than the Palestinian groups here in Gaza. Still, no Israelis have been killed. I mean it’s the most shockingly black and white situation.

Press TV: We do have reports now that one Israeli soldier has been killed in north Gaza Strip. So, that’s our latest news that we are getting. But we are seeing also we heard Moshe Ya’alon basically saying that the attacks are going to continue for at least several days. What does it say, there seems to be an arrogance about the Israeli government leaders basically that when the world or part of the world is really outraged to what is happening, it appears that there is callous, very callous attitude that we don’t hear, we basically don’t care what the rest of the world says. You talked about the Europeans and possibly getting involved, is this not a slap in the face to governments that say they believe in democracy, believe in human rights to basically say nothing as Tel Aviv continues to do whatever they want, what appears to be in a quite arrogant manner?

Fear: Indeed, arrogant certainly isn’t an exaggeration and I accept your note that indeed no Israeli civilians have been killed but the whole point of its operation is to protect Israeli civilians and none have yet been killed whereas dozens of the Palestinians civilians have been killed.

The point here is that Israel firmly believes an entirely righteous position. It’s defending itself from terror attacks, from rockets that have killed Israeli civilians. This is the line. And if you bring that to the Europeans, and you bring that to the international community and you bring that to the USA, those states can’t disagree with the Israel’s policy because these states, the US, the UK have committed far more extraordinary crimes.

Look at the Iraq war for example. There never even were any WMDs which was the pretext. In this context there certainly are rockets coming from Gaza and there is a history of Israeli casualty as a result.

So, Israel is entirely self-righteous in its position. I think it firmly believes in Israel leaders and the political pundits from left to right firmly believe that they can continue and that they have righteousness on their side and I think that’s very dangerous. It’s almost like religious fundamentalism. It’s a sort of diplomatic or military or political purism or fundamentalism and Israel is therefore willing to, just this second the Israeli navy is bombarding probably the north of the Gaza Strip. I can hear these attacks continuing in broad daylight and this is because as I say the Israeli [entity]’s self-righteousness.