'Terrorist, apartheid regime': How Israeli general's son describes Israel

American-Israeli author and activist Miko Peled has sharply criticized the policies of the Tel Aviv regime across the occupied Palestinian territories, stressing that Israeli officials “cannot defeat the Palestinians.”

“I come from a very prominent Zionist patriotic family ... I grew up as a patriot, a strong supporter of my entity, and of course, Zionism,” Peled, the grandson of a signatory to the 1948 Declaration of Israel's Independence, said in an interview with Turkey’s Anadolu Agency that was published on Thursday. 

The author, whose father served as a general in the Six-Day War fought on June 5-10, 1967 between the Israeli regime on the one side and Egypt, Jordan, and Syria on the other, added that he was greatly influenced by his father's ideas in the early years of his life, and served in the military for a while; but later regretted it and left.

“My father, while still in uniform right after the war, said: ‘Look ... we are here forever, our existence is no longer uncertain or in danger. We must allow the Palestinians to have their small state in a small part of Palestine.’”

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Peled, who was born in al-Quds in 1961, went on to emphasize that there is no place called Palestine in the fundamental philosophy of Zionism.

“According to Zionism, that is Israeli land, and those lands belong not to the Palestinians living there, but to all Jews in the world. If you have a supremacist ideology, that is, if you argue that one group has more rights than another, then you must use violence. You must have an apartheid regime for this racist ideology to be realized. That is Israel,” he noted.

Peled pointed out that the Israeli–Palestinian conflict did not start last month when Gaza-based resistance groups conducted Operation al-Aqsa Storm, their biggest operation against the occupying entity in years, but 75 years ago with the formation of the Israeli entity.

“As a movement, Zionists and then the entity born from this movement declared war on Palestinian people. In this war, we saw ethnic cleansing, genocide policies, and a racist apartheid regime,” he underscored.

Describing Israel as a “terrorist entity,” Peled drew attention to the oppression that Palestinians have been experiencing for years.

"Palestinians are exposed to terrorism every day. You don't know whether you will be beaten or killed while walking on the street, whether your children will be safe going to school, whether your house will be demolished, whether your brothers will be taken or abducted and disappeared by the Israeli army or Israeli intelligence,” he said.

The peace activist highlighted that he started questioning the existence of Israel after the death of a family member more than two decades ago.

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“In 1997, my sister's little daughter was killed in an attack. She was 13 years old. This was a tragedy that fundamentally shook a person; you know, after such an event, you cannot look at the world with the same eyes. This led me to examine the reality of what was taught to me, the existence of Israel,” Peled said.

He then embarked on a journey to the Palestinian territories to find answers.

“When I started the journey, I realized that the territory I thought was mine was someone else's country. I was living in a kind of colony, a superficial, artificial reality that was not real. It did not rely on reality. It was based on an apartheid regime built on lies, and these lies legitimized the existence of Israel,” Peled said.

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