Richard Silverstein: Movements like BDS to be more instrumental in bringing Israel to heel

Press TV has conducted an interview with Richard Silverstein, a journalist and political commentator from Seattle, about warning made by a UN panel on violation of human rights by the Israeli regime in dealing with the Palestinian people.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: The UN is becoming ever more in recent years ineffectual when it comes to dealing with various global and international crises. Why do you think that is?

Silverstein: I just want to talk more about this issue, which I think is very important, and that is that Israel does use excessive force, it does have a trigger finger when it comes to Palestinians and this often results in innocent Palestinians being killed, including most recently within the last two weeks at a Qalandiya checkpoint in the West Bank when a pregnant Palestinian mother of two, who is 23 years old, was actually executed by private security guards who just executed her because she was in the wrong lane and was not supposed to be walking in the lane she was. And she was with her 16-year-old brother and both of them were basically executed.

And of course Israel is undergoing an investigation of the crime but usually on these circumstances the issue is let off and nothing happens. And this is really something that’s heinous, it’s a violation of international law and it even violates the standards of Israeli law although they’re often not enforced.

As to the United Nations, I’m not an expert in the UN and I’m not sure exactly what we can expect of the UN. It’s generally a body that relies on consensus and voluntary compliance. So unfortunately it usually doesn’t have the ability to compel countries to adhere to international law but that’s why movements like BDS and the International Criminal Court in the future, I think, are going to be more instrumental in bringing Israel to heel on matters like this.

Press TV: Regimes like Tel Aviv don’t basically attach that much significance to anything coming out of the UN buildings. That was the main question and the understanding is obvious there for you, but how would you appraise and evaluate the coming out of this UN report despite that toothlessness that we mentioned over there? At the same time, the Palestinian people are essentially taking to streets and holding the Nakba Day, any significance of this coincidence?

Silverstein: I think that it’s very important that all international bodies whether they be human rights NGOs or whether be international bodies like the UN should raise their voice and should release reports like this and should document Israeli violation. This is very important to keep a record because at some point in the future, hopefully, in the very near future, Israel will be held accountable and it will be very important to have documents and reports that actually attribute blame and assign responsibility to Israeli entities, agencies, the IDF, the police and really pinpoint what they did and when they did it and to whom they did it. And that’s the way we’re eventually going to have bringing Israel to bear under international law and have some accountability for its actions.

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