•Supporters of Israel know how to enforce ceasefire if they want to.
•International community treating Israel as a state above international laws
•No one knows how many Palestinian hostages are in Israeli prisons
The Palestinian Ambassador to Nigeria, Abdullah Shawesh, has said the international community should stop treating Israel as a state above international laws. Shawesh who took a historical look at the crisis, said if supporters of Israel want to apply a ceasefire, they will enforce Israel to do so.
Shawesh spoke on this and other issues in this interview with AIDOGHIE PAULINUS.
What is the relationship between the State of Palestine and Hamas?
Your question is exactly like asking what is the relations between brothers in the same exact family, living in the same home, sharing and facing all the challenges and hopes together. It’s the same as if you asked the current Nigerian Government (APC) on its relation with PDP, NNPP, LP and APGA.
The Palestinian society, like every other one around the world, has many political fractions such as Faith, Popular Front, and many others.
I urge you all to start looking at the Palestinian cause from another angle; leave all your old beliefs. It’s the exact time to do so.
Why has Palestine not rein in Hamas’ provocative actions against Israel which resulted to the ongoing conflict?
Wording has meaning and it’s my moral duty and legal responsibility to start by making a very important correction. It’s not conflict; it’s war against the entire Palestinian people. It’s a textbook genocide ongoing right now. As a decent, neutral journalist and media outlet, it’s very important to use the exact terminologies. This, for sure, can deescalate the tensions and horror everywhere. Unfortunately, these types of misleading terms are still used by many completely biased Western media outlets. But for the sake of argument, I will go on with you describing the issue up to October 6th as ongoing conflict. We also should be very fair when we analyze any political situation and not isolate it from its historical context, and to do so, I will take an historical tour to this ongoing conflict and start by shedding light on the roots of it.
You have already decided that October 7th is the beginning of the history, which again is completely not true, and here I would like again and again to refer you to the problem solving methods, stressing on one principle which is, to analyze any problem and solve it, you need to tackle the roots of this problem. And the root of October 7th is deeply entrenched in the modern history.
This is the exact wording of the United Nations Secretary General before the Security Council meeting of October 24th and I quote: “It is important to also recognize the attacks by Hamas did not happen in a vacuum. The Palestinian people have been subjected to 56 years of suffocating occupation. They have seen their land steadily devoured by settlements and plagued by violence; their economy stifled; their people displaced and their homes demolished. Their hopes for a political solution to their plight have been vanishing.” The ongoing conflict started on November 2nd, 1917, when the United Kingdom, the mandatory power over the historical land of Palestine, issued the despicable and ominous Balfour declaration. In this declaration, they pledged our historical land to the European Jewish. Those Jewish declared asylums and immigrate to Palestine. They used to have the Palestinian passport to travel, the Palestinian currency to trade, the Palestinian airport which until 1973 was known as Lod Airport then they renamed it to Ben Gurion Airport.
The ongoing conflict became worse when the Mandatory Power dimmed the right of the Palestinian people to militarize themselves, and they used to be executed for owning a rifle or even a bullet. On the other side, they spare no efforts and close eyes on the militarizing the Jewish Gangs so that the new arrivals became more powerful.
The ongoing conflict became deeper when those foreigners started to organize themselves in different military gangs such as Lehi, Stern and Irgun. These exact gangs conducted tens of massacres against the Palestinian people before the establishment of Israel, and you might know only few of it, King David Hotel June 22, 1946 and Dair Yasin April 9, 1948.
In 1947, the UK declared it will not continue to be the mandatory power over Palestine and transferred the file to the UN to discuss the Palestine question. The UN adopted the resolution 181 known as United Nations Partition Plan for Palestine. On 29 November, 1947, in this resolution, it dedicated 54 per cent of Palestine to the New European arrivals, while 46 per cent to the indigenes and owners of the land. It’s very important to know that at that time, the New Arrivals make up only 30 per cent of the population, the majority of them immigrate to Palestine after the World War 11 (WW2). Another very crucial point that needs to be known is that 94 per cent of the land was owned by the Palestinians. This for sure led the Palestinians to refuse the partition plan.
The Jewish Gangs succeeded to expel and ethnically cleanse tens of thousands of the Palestinian People Before declaring the State of Israeli, after the many massacres that were being conducted by the Jewish Military Gangs such as Deir Yasen, King Daved Hotel and many more. By the end of 1948, they expelled and ethnically cleansed 950, 000 of the native and indigene Palestinians from their home land and build their state on 78 per cent of our historical land, Palestine. It was Al Nakba (catastrophic) that they call it the independent war. The majority of the indigenous people became refugees in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, West Bank and Gaza.
In December 11, 1948, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Resolution 194 that called for the refugees to return to their homes, but the new born state blocked the way before the implementation of this resolution. And to make sure that they will not go back home, it completely levelled, and erased 531 villages and towns so that the indigenous people were unable to go back to their homes.
The ongoing conflict became worse after accepting Israel as a member of the UN under the condition of accepting the implementation of the UNGA resolution 184 and 194. Israel declared the acceptance of those two resolutions, but after it became a UN member, turned it back to the UN itself. The ongoing conflict became deeper when Israel occupied the remaining 22 per cent of the historical Land of Palestine in June 1967, including East Jerusalem. It started its unlawful settlement on the occupied Palestinian territories, non-stop process of Judaizing East Jerusalem, desecrating the Holy Sepulchre and Al-Aqsa Mosque.
Since 1917, we the Palestinians did not stop resisting this unjust and unfair situation, we organized ourselves in many political factions under the umbrella of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO). We used the military, diplomatic and law tools to put an end to our graveness, but unfortunately, Israel, supported by the many Western countries spared no efforts to perpetrate the Palestinian Nakba.
In 1987 we launched the First Intifada (uprising) and we paid with a lot of our loved ones for the sake of freedom. In 1993, the Chairman of the PLO, Yasser Arafat, signed the Oslo Accord with Yitzhak Rabin the Israeli prime minster at that time, and we started a real peace process negotiation. The fanatic, racist, messianic people whose followers and believers are ruling Israel today (Benjamin Netanyahu and Ben Gvir) assassinated Rabin in 1995, and put the first nail on the peace process coffin. In 2000 and after the despicable visit of Ariel Sharon to Al-Aqsa Mosque and desecrating it, the Palestinians started another uprising and also we paid with thousands of our loved ones. Tens of books written on the ongoing conflict as you called it and millions of details were recorded and archived all over the world. That has been a very short tour of the 106 years of provocative actions taken by the UK, Jewish terrorist Gangs and Israeli Occupation and resulted in the continuance of the ongoing unjust and unlawful situation.
Hamas has been designated by the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, the European Union and others as a terrorist organization. Why is Palestine not treating Hamas as such?
Let us remember also that Nelson Mandela was designated by the apartheid and white supremacy regime as a terrorist. Throughout history, all colonizers and occupiers have justified their bloody actions against the occupied people by classifying them as chaotic, uncivilized peoples and terrorists. You can go back just less than seven decades and explore the African revelations against the colonial countries and to compare it with our current situation, you will discover that we are in the same boat. The colonizer and the foreign occupation will not honour their victim revaluations.
The Western countries – you can name them Israeli Occupation Club – have designated anyone standing against the Israeli occupation as a terrorist. The Palestinian Popular Front, which is established by the Christian Palestinian George Habash, also still designated as a terrorist group. The PLO itself, which signed the Oslo Accord and recognised by Israel and the majority of the world as the sole and legitimate representative of the Palestinian people, are still designated as a terrorist organization by the USA.
It’s only the occupation club and their supporters who are going with Israeli classification. Does the African Union or the African countries designate any Palestinian political faction as a terrorist group? Certainly big NO.
Also, do you in Africa follow the Western countries, the old colonizers classification? Or do you take them as a role model when it comes to the struggle against the unjust and occupation? Certainly big NO. If we accept to classify the resistance movements as a terrorist movement, then by default, this means the occupation is a charity and preaching missionary.
Different Israeli classifications are there for anyone daring to say no to the occupation. For example, if you are a European and criticize the Israeli occupation, then you are a Holocaust Denier and Anti-Semitic. If you are a Jewish and criticize the ongoing Israeli brutal occupation, then you are a hate self-Jew. Another very unique classification is a terrorist diplomat and this is only applying to President Mahmood Abbas, just because he is calling for the implementation of the international law, the adaption of the UN resolutions and the two-state solution.
With all the pain and sorrow that we have, we strongly believe that the current situation and the ongoing textbook genocide is a very good opportunity to the world to start rethinking, and take another look on the Palestinian question. It is timely and very fair to do so. It is also fair to take another deep look and to review your old beliefs that have been built on many biased Western media outlets.
Finally, do you think we should resist this brutal occupation by giving their military tanks the red carpet or greeting the fanatical settlers and snipers with bouquets of roses?
How many casualties have Palestine recorded so far?
There are two types of calculating the losses – the first one is the statistical one which counts by numbers, square meters, tones, Quebec meter and so on and so forth. In this connection, the death toll exceeded 12,000 Palestinians, two-third of them are children, women and elderly persons. More than 40,000 of house units completely levelled, all the hospitals and healthcare centres went out of service, hundreds of thousands of the civilians became internally displaced persons, 100 per cent are food insecure at this moment. The statistical list is very long and diverse.
We should not think of the issue from the statistical point of view (using how many). Statistics did not give any human meaning, statistics means numbers. What we all should take extra care of is that, there are deep human pains and trauma for the families that will continue to shadow their lives forever and no one can avoid remembering it. I will give example. After 75 years of Al-Nakba, our villages and towns’ names still deeply entrenched on our minds and conscience. We can’t forget what happened to our fathers and grandfathers; we still deeply feel their pain.
It’s very important to remember that everyone we lost had his own dream to accomplish, hopes, his love story, future to live. But the bombardment put an end to that and made their lives very short. The babies that are killed, who are still breathing under the rubble, who are missing and will not be found because they completely evaporated after being directly bombed, the incomplete bed stories, the thousands of widowed women whom will fight alone to serve and shelter the remaining members of their families, the orphaned children who need special care and will not find it, the thousands of handicapped children who should fight hard to survive and live normal lives, the thousands of families memories and vanished photos, the warmth of the destroyed old homes that took the families tens of years to build, all of it cannot be ignored forever and can’t be counted and measured.
To make the story short, after this textbook genocide comes to its end, we will be able to count our causalities and many other cold statistical figures, but we will not be able to count our millions of shattered diverse dreams. Our humanity and our life matter; we are not numbers.
Israel has said there won’t be any ceasefire until Hamas releases Israelis that have been held hostage. What steps has Palestine taken to ensure a ceasefire?
Once we open the hostages file, I would like to say that no one knows how many Palestinian hostages are in the Israeli prisons. No one knows that since 1967, around three quarter of million Palestinians were sentenced to the Israeli military prisons. No one knows that till last October 6th, more than 5,000 Palestinians are hostages in the Israeli jails. No one knows that more than 300 children are held hostage by the Israeli Occupation Army, all of them are tried before the Israeli military courts. No one knows that Israel conducts the investigation in its prisons by the brutal torture treatment. No one knows that since October 7, Israeli forces has detained more than 2200 Palestinian men and women, and according to the Israeli Human Rights Organization HaMoked, between October 1 and November 1, the total number of Palestinians held in administrative detention, without charge or trial, rose from 1319 to 2070. All of these did not make any news on the international screens and will not, just because we are Palestinians. So if there should be fairness, all the prisoners and the hostages should be released now.
On the issue of the ceasefire, this decision is in the hands of the occupation blind supporters. If they want to apply a ceasefire, they will enforce Israeli to do so, but so far, they themselves are refusing even to talk about the ceasefire. Not only this, to add insult to the injury, they did not stop supplying the ammunition and the armed equipment that secure the continuance of war, bombardment, killing of the Palestinians and the fire.
In the security council, the USA blocked the adoption of a resolution calling for a ceasefire, also at the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA), many Western countries voted against a ceasefire resolution. Here we should go back to the history that gave us a lot and shed light on what happened these days. In 1956, when UK, France and Israeli invaded Egypt, Israel occupied Sinai Peninsula and they considered that as part of their promised land. The agreement between America and the Soviet Union at that time to put an end to this occupation led the Americans to order Israel to withdraw from Sinai and Gaza within one night only, and this was what happened. In one night.
How realisable is the issue of two-state solution?
I would like to start by stressing that on the two-state solution, we accept to establish our state on only 22 per cent of our historical land. The two-state solution is very realisable if and only: If the international community has the will to make it real. If there is a will, there will be a way.
If the applicability of the international law is on equal footing for all. If the international community stops treating Israel as a state above the international law. If the hypocrisy, lips service and double standard come to an end. If Israel accepts to apply the signed agreements between the PLO and the State of Israel. If Israel stops the settlement expansions and moving the messianic, fanatic and maniac settlers’ gang to the Occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.
To make the story short, the two-state solution can become a reality if and only if the international community stops treating Israel as the spoiled and grumbling teenager. The question is how to do that. We already have the legal, peaceful, diplomatic and tested tools, we also have the Security Council, the international body that should take on its shoulder, the responsibility of maintaining the peace and security around the globe. If the international communities have the will to see the two-state solution, they can use thousands of tools to do so. Sanctions are important tools that can be used. They were used in the past and still in use today against any country contradicting the UN adapted resolutions. Israeli didn’t stop contradicting the UN resolutions and there has been zero sanction imposed on it. More than 15, 000 of different types of sanctions imposed on Russia, Israel after 75 years of Al-Nakba and 56-year occupation, no one dared to talk about sanctioning it.
The ABC meaning of the two state solution is that no settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. There are no means to support this solution while your shelves are full of products that are produced in the occupied Palestinian territories. Its complete hypocrisy when you stand against settlement; the main obstacle to the two state solution, and many Israeli ambassadors serving around the world are settlers. I can list tens of pages in this connection.
You had in your media outings blamed the West for the ongoing situation in Gaza. Why the West, and not Hamas who went to wake a sleeping lion?
I have no other option except to start by saying I can’t agree with you. You gave the positive description to the Israeli Occupation by saying the sleeping lion; this is completely not fair. The Israeli hyena, since Al-Nakba, did not close his eyes or give up on destroying our lives.
I am not only blaming the West, but also blame the many Western Media Outlets of perpetuating the ongoing war against the Palestinian people since 1917. It’s not only me who blames them, millions of their people are doing so. Hundreds of thousands of Jewish people from all around the globe are doing so. Thousands of decent political commentators’ from all the world are doing so. You need to take a look at what is dominating the discourse on the social media in the West and you will discover that the majority of the reels and the videos that illustrate the biasness of the West and Western media are produced and published by their western people’s followers. This is because the social media gave us the chance for the first time ever to tell our part of the story. The videos that are captured by smart phones show part of the reality and this makes all the people to have the chance to get their information from another neutral source which is not the Western political leaders or many biased Western media outlets. The West, by displacing and marketing the Israeli propaganda, is playing a crucial role in entrenching this brutal occupation and the ongoing situation. You used to hear me all the time asking you all as decent African media correspondents just to give us the chance to tell our part of the story, which is completely unheard. Here also, I would like to refer you to the history and how the West and many of its biased media played accrual part of destroying our life. Before 1948, the main slogan that guided and dominating the discourse on the western country was Land without people for people without land. This is how the West and its media described our home land at that time, which paved the way for total destruction of our society.
It’s not only me who blames them, more than 700 journalists from dozens of news organizations signed an open letter, condemning Israel’s killing of journalists in Gaza, and criticizing Western media coverage of the aggression against the Strip. The letter said newsrooms are “accountable for dehumanizing rhetoric that has served to justify ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.” Another evidence for blaming the Western politicians’ high level is the three internal memos sent to the United States Secretary of State, Mr. Blinken, criticizing his way towards Gaza war. A letter was signed by more than 1000 different USAID staff and more than 400 politicians of the current USA administration, criticising the administration and protesting its support of the war on Gaza. We are in a real historical juncture and witnessing real changes.
Since this conflict is an age-long crisis, do you think there will ever be peace and stability between the State of Palestine and the State of Israel?
I strongly believe in peace, and also totally assure that there can be peace between both of us for a very simple reason. After 106 years of Balfour Declaration and the continuous attempts to put an end to the Palestinian Question by the different military, propaganda and political means, they did not succeed and I can assure you they will not succeed, for a very simple reason. We are on the right side of the history. We will continue to resist the Israeli brutal occupation. We will not surrender. This is inevitable destiny. this is basic human right. The question is how to reach the peace. I think I already answered that.
Israel has refused to heed calls from the international community for a ceasefire. What, in your opinion, is the way out of the crisis?
Again, it’s an open war against the Palestinian people since 1917. It’s a textbook genocide, not crisis. Wording has meaning and you the media sector can play a real and effective role in this regards. Once you carefully choose your word to describe the reality, you will pay your share in implementing the ceasefire. The way out is very clear – the international community should stop treating Israel as a state above the international law. In the hands of the international community, there are tens of tools that if they utilize them, they will not only enforce the ceasefire, but also the implantation of the two-state solution. Period. I thank you