Kevin Barrett says Israel-Palestine conflict reaching extreme peak

Press TV has interviewed Kevin Barrett, a political commentator and Islamic studies expert in Madison, to discuss the rising tension between Israeli regime forces and Palestinians.

Following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Where do you think the conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis is headed to?

Barrett: It is reaching a kind of a climax as the Israelis, I think, have been taken over by an extreme right-wing bloc that has been growing in power ever since, at least, the 1990s. This group is essentially committed to accelerating the genocide in Palestine rather than finding a way out of it and finding a way to live with their neighbors in general and with the Palestinians in particular.

So as Israeli society has moved further and further to the extreme nationalist right, the Palestinian situation has become more and more hopeless, at least in terms of following the path of negotiations that has been laid out by Camp David and the other Western-imposed supposed paths to peace, which are really paths to surrender, and the people of Palestine, and that would include not only the people living in occupied Palestine but also Palestinians all over the world, Palestinian exiles and ethnic cleansing victims who do have the right of return that is recognized by the United Nations international law, and essentially everyone who is paying attention at this point are unable to pursue the paths that have been laid out by the powers that be; the Western powers, the US and so on, and they have no records but resistance.

And currently, we are seeing an acceleration of this genocide. The 500,000 plus settlers squatting on Palestinian land are not only telling us that they have no intention of ever leaving but they are also telling us that they have the right to just grotesquely abuse the Palestinian population in hopes of forcing them to flee.

So we have seen open expressions of a genocidal intent by high level Israelis. We have seen Prime Minister Netanyahu blame Palestinians for the holocaust rather than Hitler. Exonerating Hitler for the holocaust is a rather strange thing to do for an Israeli prime minister but Netanyahu has crossed that red line. So things have reached a really extreme peak here, and I think Abbas, for all of his faults, is right that Palestinian people do need international protection and international community thus far has utterly failed in its duty to stop this genocide. It is time for that to change.

Press TV: We know that US Secretary of State John Kerry was in the region and he had talks with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as Mahmoud Abbas. Do you think the United States is sincere in its efforts to broker peace talks between the two sides and how do you think the international community’s pressure because we are seeing all these actions, all these efforts by activists and human rights organizations to try to bring the issue to the forefront, how do you think this will eventually play out?  

Barrett: Unfortunately the United States is not, and cannot be, an honest broker in this situation. The Zionist lobby is extremely powerful here in the United States, and it has essentially veto power over any American president who would like to try to get peace in occupied Palestine. We have seen peace plans torpedoed in the past. Clinton’s peace plan was destroyed when the Zionist mafia sent Monica Lewinsky to cripple his presidency and bugged his line and so on. We have seen Jimmy Carter given only one term and that was partly arranged by the Zionist lobby as well.

I think President Obama realizes that he only has a certain amount of political capital he could get his health plan, he could get his Iran nuclear treaty, but there is no way he is going to force the Zionist lobby in the United States to accept any kind of reasonably just compromise on Palestine. So he has thrown up his hands and it is up to the international community as a whole led by all of the ordinary people out there who care about stopping this genocide, ordinary activists; the rapidly growing community of people who are standing up for Palestine need to unite and redouble their efforts.

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