02/15/16 – Ramzy Baroud – The Scott Horton Show

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Ramsey Baroud.net is his website.
He's the editor of PalestineChronicle.com, and his latest book is My Father Was a Freedom Fighter, Gaza's Untold Story.
Welcome back to the show.
Ramsey, how are you doing?
I'm doing great.
Thanks for having me, Scott.
Very happy to have you here.
Not very happy to read your articles.
I mean, they're really great and they're very important, but they sure do bum me out.
That's how I mean it.
But it's such important stuff.
Next onslaught in Gaza, why the status quo is a precursor for war.
So I guess the last big one was in 2014, so-called protective edge.
And I guess if you could just take us through where we're stuck as far as the relationship between the Hamas, I guess, trustees of the Gaza prison and their Israeli bosses.
That's right.
That's right.
Well, I mean, it's important that we look at history, not too far off, just a bit.
If we look back at, say, what happened since 2006, January 2006, there were democratic elections in the occupied territories under military occupation, where Palestinians were hoping to elect their representatives to negotiate or to, you know, with Israel or to deal with whatever issue that requires collective representation of the Palestinian people.
Hamas won the elections and they won with a landslide, by the way.
The outcome of that was Israel was not happy.
The United States was not happy and they pushed their European allies to completely boycott the government.
Condoleezza Rice, I remember, was the Secretary of State at the time, and she made it very clear that any government that involves Hamas, led by Hamas or supported by Hamas, will be boycotted and no money will be allowed to the government.
In reality, that was really the start of it all.
And I'm sorry to interrupt you here, but can I clarify something with you real quick?
I remember reading at the time that the Israelis either, you know, stupidly or, you know, nefariously have withheld all of the tax money that they collect from the Palestinian Authority, which basically made it impossible for them to buy up all their votes in the customary way, you know, spreading out the spoils, and that that really, you know, had helped quite a bit to get Hamas elected in the first place.
I wonder whether you think that was true.
And then secondly, if you thought if you think it's deliberate.
I actually don't think that Israel wanted Hamas to be elected.
In fact, I doubt that Hamas wanted Hamas to be elected.
I think what Hamas was hoping to do that they are going to achieve this kind of special status, that they are present in within the political landscape, that they are able to raise trouble, they are able to slow down Mahmoud Abbas and his Fatah movement in their attempt to, you know, kind of reach all these concessions or compromises with Israel.
But I don't think you really expect that they are going to be in a position of leadership where they actually have to run the government and everything else that such a position would entail.
So it really did come as a surprise for Hamas to the point that until today, there is a debate within the Hamas intelligentsia of whether that actually was the proper decision to make at the time or not.
Aside from that, the Hamas's victory kind of really did initially create this kind of war that involved money, and the US was leading that particular aspect of war.
There was a political boycott, which involved all Arab countries, the Saudis, the Jordanians, the Palestinian Authority, Israel, of course, and European countries, and it involved violence meted out by Israel on a regular basis.
And that was really what my article was in essence about, is that if we look at what happened since 2006 until today, you will find out that there has been this kind of like a war every year, a skirmish, a minor war, then a major war every two years.
So there were attacks in 2006, there were attacks in 2007, then you had the war of 2008-9, then you had attacks throughout, and then you had the war of 2012.
And then you had the war, the massive, massive destructive war of 2014.
Now we are in 2016.
Let's hope that there's not going to be another war.
But if you look at Israeli media, the Israeli military apparatus is already talking about, Hamas has rebuilt all the tunnels, Hamas has reinforced its position, Hamas is in a position where they could actually attack us, and so forth and so on.
So the build up is happening.
Now, those of us who are kind of, really, that's what we do for a living, we look at these kind of, you know, statements and compare various periods of history, you will find that we are, there's almost a duplication of what happened prior to the previous war, and the war before that, and the war before that.
Yeah.
Well, you quote Gideon Levy here writing in Haaretz.
Oh, no, I'm sorry, not in Haaretz.
In Haaretz, yeah.
Oh, it is in Haaretz, I'm sorry.
Funny link.
Where he's saying, well, you know, you know, the it's the addiction to fear, he talks about, and he says, Iran dropped off the radar, Sweden isn't scary enough, Hezbollah is busy.
So we return to Gaza.
Yeah, this has absolutely nothing to do with any, oh, the Gaza Strip is launching another one of their rocket onslaughts against us.
And we must defend ourselves.
This is just Israeli policy for reasons that have virtually nothing to do with the people of Gaza, other than they get to be the recipient.
Exactly.
I mean, when Israel holds off on attacking another country, there has to be a compelling reason.
The budget doesn't allow that we go for another war.
The Americans are not really happy.
And they're saying just hold off.
This is not the right time to do so.
And the Israeli public, for example, is not really do not have the appetite to take chances on other wars.
When it comes to Gaza, however, the situation is rather different.
Because you have consensus within the Israeli society, the political price is minimal.
The financial responsibility of doing so is readily provided by the United States.
During the last war, President Obama had ordered constant shipment of munitions and weapons and armaments to the Israelis while the war was happening, while the international community was screaming for Israel, stop violating international law, stop committing war crimes.
The Americans did not really seem to have any particular moral problem with that whatsoever.
So this is why, and in fact, and that's really rather important that the Israeli left and right, so called left and right seem to be in agreement regarding the war on Gaza, they really don't, there are hardly ever any sense of disunity among Israelis, when they attack Gaza, even merit, which is like, the the most dovish so called of the dogs of Israeli society, they were also supportive of the Gaza war.
So it's, it's something that would help Netanyahu with his credentials, it will, it could be an attempt for him to salvage his coalition government from collapse to appease the right wing and so forth.
But the outcome of which is always the death, thousands of innocent people, and the destabilizing the destabilization of the whole region, and so forth.
Man, and now, you know, I think Americans, it sort of goes without saying, we start this interview in the middle, you know, as always, but it, it needs to be said, because I think most Americans don't know that the Gaza Strip is basically one big refugee camp.
And that's if you're being polite, it's mostly, it's a prison for a population that are a majority under 18.
So we know for just as mathematical fact, none of them voted for Hamas, or even lost and voted against Hamas back when they took power.
So so much for their collective responsibility, if you could even imagine such a thing.
But now we got to take this break.
I'm sorry, we'll be right back and more with Ramsey Baroud about the tragedy of Palestine in a minute.
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All right, y'all, welcome back to the show.
I'm Scott Horton.
I'm talking with Ramzi Baroud of PalestineChronicle.com about the situation in Palestine there.
And now, so I guess, you know, that last article, Next Onslaught in Gaza, Why the Status Quo is a Precursor for War, seems like we're just waiting on a pretext now.
If we look back at 2014, we saw the pretext there were a couple of, you know, tied to Hamas types who apparently were not acting under orders of Hamas, kidnapped and killed three Israelis.
And then the Israeli government pretended for two and a half, three weeks that they thought the boys were still alive and were out looking for them.
Well, they were young men.
They were still looking for him and went persecuting every Hamas member on the West Bank, whether he had anything to do with anything or not.
And then even did strikes into Gaza.
And people can go back and check the dates on all these things.
The strikes into the Gaza Strip in the name of revenge over what was happening in the West Bank happened before Hamas fired the first rocket back or somebody did.
And then once they fired one or two rockets back, then, oh, look, they just started it.
And of course, the war began.
That's the that's the M.O. over there.
So I guess we'll all, you know, be waiting with bated breath and our eyes wide open for it coming.
And and of course, I guess they have plenty of pretext building up because all they got to do, Ramzi, is blame the knife attack into FATA, as they call it, on the West Bank, on Hamas, if they want.
Right.
That's a really good point, Scott.
I mean, what what you just brought up here, the the context of what happened in the previous war, it's really rather very, very important because because what everyone was talking about then that there was a third intifada, a third Palestinian uprising that was culminating and taking place in the West Bank.
And why why the intifada is important?
It's important because if there is to be an uprising, this corrupt Palestinian leadership is going to be swept away and and there will be a new Palestinian leadership and Israel is going to find itself in a situation where business is not, you know, as usual.
The so-called security coordinations between them and this, you know, the corrupt Palestinian authority is going to be canceled and they would have to deal with a whole different reality and security situation in the West Bank.
The reason they attacked Gaza in 2014 is that they wanted to create a distraction from the fact that there was a nonviolent uprising that was building up and building momentum in the West Bank.
Israel cannot deal with a situation where you have millions of people mobilizing in the street.
It's going to destroy PR if there is any PR, you know, of Israel that is still being reserved anyway.
But that said, they needed to turn this into Hamas versus Israel and it's a war on terror and so forth and so on.
So they needed that pretext so very badly.
Everyone was like, wait a minute, but this event happened in the West Bank, the kidnapping of the settlers took place in the West Bank.
Why are you attacking Gaza?
As you said, now the same thing could possibly be building up.
There is an intifada, but it's an intifada of a different nature.
We haven't as of yet seen full and complete mobilization in the West Bank.
The Palestinian Authority has thwarted hundreds of attempts of Palestinians to mobilize.
The Americans are making it very clear that if the Palestinian Authority does not crack down, they will not be getting their monthly stipends or annual stipends.
The Israelis are making it clear to the Palestinian Authority they have to stand up against the ongoing violence and ongoing mobilization in the West Bank.
If Israel finds itself in a situation where they have no other option but to create distraction, they will also find themselves back in Gaza.
They will create a pretense.
And trust me, Fox, CNN, everybody else is going to be on the Israeli side, regardless of the nature of that pretense.
Of course.
All right.
Now, let me ask you about, you know, what is the subtle truth of the knife intifada?
Because it's pretty clear that it's happening.
But on the other hand, there are a lot of accusations that, hey, that girl didn't have a knife at all.
They must have just planted it on her.
And there have been attacks on soldiers, but also attacks on civilians on the West Bank and off of it.
And so there are a lot of accusations and conspiracy theories all around and whatever.
And I want to know what you think is the real answer.
You know, I wrote an article about this recently.
And the reason that I think that Palestinians are yet to mobilize in similar fashion to the way that they did in the previous uprising, where basically, you know, shops would close down and traffic and they would boycott Israeli goods and Israeli settlements and they will make life extremely difficult for the military occupier to sustain their occupation.
The reason that did not happen this time around or not as of yet is because of the Palestinian Authority, because the Palestinian leadership for the first time in the history of the struggle is actually more or less on the side of Israel.
So Palestinians find it extremely difficult to mobilize.
Another tool of mobilization that they always need are their local organizations, their NGOs, their local community organizations and that sort of thing.
These guys have already been cracked down on by the Palestinian Authority years ago.
Every Palestinian organization, even if this community sports organization in some village somewhere in the West Bank would still have to get credentials from the Palestinian Authority or would not allow them to operate without ensuring that they are following the same political line that's agreed upon by the Palestinian Authority.
Therefore, the mechanisms of mobilization that have always been used, historically used by the Palestinian Authority, by the Palestinian people, are not there anymore.
Even mosques, Scott, in order for a preacher to give a sermon in the mosque on Friday, that sermon would have to actually pass through the Palestinian Authority censor to tell him, say this or don't say that.
So how do people mobilize?
How do they vent their anger, their sense of humiliation, their degradation, their frustration?
How do they do that?
You have little kids today, a 15-year-old, the day before a 14-year-old, the day before a 17-year-old, little kids, teenagers, whether truly carrying knives and trying to attack soldiers or allegedly doing so.
Either way, there is so much anger and frustration, but there is no space for people to express that anger and frustration.
This is why we have this kind of protracted, since October really, so-called knife intifada, because there is no space.
The only space that's available for a teenager to grab a kitchen knife and to yell and run towards the soldier and almost never stab the soldier, always get shot and executed sometimes right in the middle of the street.
So this is why we have this situation where it's really not a fully-fledged intifada, as is always the case.
Yeah.
Well, and of course, just like here two days ago, a 16-year-old Palestinian boy shot and killed for throwing stones.
This is a population under occupation.
And the American people, I think, really don't know.
And I'm only just going by what I thought when I was 14, which is, I think, pretty much what everybody else thinks.
And that is sort of under a vague impression that Palestine already is a state next door to Israel somewhere.
And they just won't quit invading them and sending terrorists to attack them.
And that this is Israeli land.
It's never clear.
It's always just kind of a confused confusion.
But the point always being that the poor little Israelis are under assault from the children that they're occupying.
And I think when we just state the simple truth of who's who, who are the redcoats and who are the colonials in this situation?
Well, colonials is a bad example.
Who are the colonials and who are the red Indians in this situation?
It becomes a little bit clearer.
But anyway, thanks very much for coming back on the show, Ramzi.
I hope we can do it again soon.
Thanks so much for having me, Scott.
I really appreciate it.
Everybody, please check out Ramzi's archive at antiwar.com.
We'll be right back with Sheldon in a minute.
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