Israel goes on with ethnic-cleansing policy: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Esam Baker, a Palestinian activist in Ramallah, about an Israeli court ruling on demolishing a Palestinian village in the Negev Desert.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Your comments about the recent ruling, please.

Baker: I think this is a part of the ethnic-cleansing policy of the Israeli occupation authorities, which is targeting these villages in Hebron (al-Khalil) district and in Negev near Beersheba and other cities and between communities in the north of Bethlehem, reaching to Tubas area is considered according to the international law a policy of ethnic cleansing towards the Palestinian people. Many villages, more than 45 communities, are going to be replaced by using the military forces to uproot the Palestinians who have been uprooted from their own land more than 67 years ago, when the Nakba of the Palestinian people, the tragedy of the Palestinian people, and I think the political target and aim of the Israeli authorities is to prevent in the future any continuity for building the Palestinian state.

It will block on the ground any geographical continuity with these regions from Bethlehem to Tubas, and it will make this distance empty of the Palestinian citizens and it will make the settlements project in E1, what they call it, to divide Jerusalem from the continuity with Ramallah and with Bethlehem reaching to the Dead Sea, to the eastern side near the Palestinian Jordanian border. I think this is a very dangerous step from the Israeli authorities. It is an announcement of war clearly by the Israeli authorities and we absolutely condemned these steps by the Israeli authorities.

Press TV: The Israelis have been constantly violating and ignoring international law with regards to the condemnation of the settlements, even the United States, which is Israel’s main ally, has stated that the settlement expansions must come to a halt. What has to happen to get the Israelis to stop the demolition of Palestinian homes, land grabs and also expanding these settlements?

Baker: This policy as I said is the policy of house demolition, land confiscation, uprooting the Palestinian people from their villages, their communities, is a part of the strategy of the Israeli occupation authorities to implement their plans for uprooting the Palestinian people and force them by these tools to leave.

I think we can work on many levels. The first of all is to enhance the popular resistance with all its forms against this policy and to go immediately on the street on these target villages to prevent this ethnic-cleansing policy. And the second step is that the Palestinian leadership, the political leadership of the Palestinian people, should take into consideration the efforts of going to the definition of the Palestinian state under occupation is to work with the UN agencies, especially the human rights agencies ... to punish Israel, to boycott the Israeli authorities, to put these Israeli escalation according to the international law as a war crime. This is the description of the international law, and to boycott the Israelis, to enhance the BDS (the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) efforts in all over the world to divest and boycott the Israeli production, the success of the BDS activities all over the world, and the third level is to stop looking at the changes inside Israel as it is going to go back to the table of negotiations…

AHK/HSN

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