Israelis seek to provoke Palestinians: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Paul Larudee, a member of the Free Palestine Movement, to discuss the Israeli crimes against Palestinians in the occupied territories.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: This concept of disproportionality and excessiveness of force being exerted by the IDF and Israeli forces against civilians in the occupied territories, particularly the children, has been a constant throughout the history of that territory. Now what is the international community essentially doing to prevent that and what is the reaction internationally speaking?

Larudee: Well there are two kinds of constants. One is one that does not vary at all and the other is a constant that accelerates at a constant pace over time. In the case of Israeli violence we are dealing with the latter. Although they suppress violence on the part of Palestinians by an ever-increasing repression of Palestinians they control to make sure that they do not require the means to fight back. Nevertheless, they need to provoke Palestinians into something that gives them the excuse to kill more of them, to expel more of them, to destroy their homes, to make lives as miserable as possible and hopefully actually to make them disappear altogether from Palestine and this is what they are doing.

They are targeting more children now, they are arresting them in the middle of the night, they are killing them, they are executing them, point-blank at their head while they are lying on the ground and so forth. All of this is designed to enrage Palestinians, Palestinian mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, to strike out as individuals without much strength but to justify even more killing and ethnic cleansing. This is exactly what was done with the American Indians in the Americas and it was used as a justification for their ethnic cleansing. This is what is happening there. We can expect to see these figures rise.  

Press TV: Well no doubt that this is indeed a provocative measure on behalf of the IDF and the Israelis in order to provoke the Palestinians into further protest and then do what they are going to do as always but the fact of the matter is that per international law this has been prohibited unless there are certain circumstances so it has to be avoided. What is that the international law is now essentially allowing the IDF, the Israeli … [regime] to kind of get away with it with total impunity?

Larudee: No, international law is not allowing the Israelis to get away with it with total impunity.  What they are doing is the international law exists and it is against what they are doing, it is simply not being enforced and there is no change there, it has not been enforced. The Israelis care nothing for international law, they pretend it does not exist and that they can do whatever they want and in fact there is no reason to think they cannot.

They have every reason to think that they can do whatever they want and that nobody will do anything about it and that is the case because the most powerful nation on earth, the United States, is protecting them in every respect with vetoes in the United Nations, with intimidation of other nations, in every respect the United States is making it possible for them to defy international law and to make international law meaningless.  

Press TV: And finally, do you think the NGOS and the international peace-loving organization, would they be eventually able to bear enough pressure on the international legal system to essentially enforce that law that we just spoke about?

Larudee: Probably not. I do not think they will push the legal system to act. What they can do and which they have not done until now even though BDS is kind of a move in that direction is to shut down Israeli enterprise, shut down Israel by not allowing Israelis to travel to their countries, to arrest them wherever they can, to shut down their businesses, to have no business at all, have no Israeli representations, make them a complete pariah in the world, then it will have an effect but in terms of pressuring the legal entities to actually do something effective I would not hold my breath.

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