Palestine Tet – 120 – Transcript – Kazerooni Prince Dialogues: Post Gaza? What’s In Store for the Middle East? Part One.
Yahia Sinwar
(This part is mostly commentary from Ibrahim Kazerooni. In Part Two Rob Prince will give his thoughts)
Rob Prince: Hello everyone.
My name is Rob Prince, my colleague here is Ibrahim Kazerooni.
Ibrahim is a Shi’ite Imam; he originates from Iraq. We met at the University of Denver where he was getting his PhD., joint doctorate actually from the University of Denver’s Korbel School of International Studies and the Iliff School of Theology.
I was teaching Global Political Economy at D.U. at the time.
Myself, I’m a retired college teacher; I have a fair amount of experience with the Middle East and North Africa, taught about the region, lived in the region.
For thirteen years, Ibrahim and I were political commentators on a public radio program out of Boulder, Colorado – KGNU, Hemispheres, Middle East Dialogues produced by Jim Nelson. Recently we recently finished a thirteen year run.
We’re going to continue to do programs from time to time.
I wanted to start this one off asking Ibrahim to comment on the picture behind me. (The photo is of Yahya Sinwar sitting in a comfortable chair outdoors, surrounded by what appears to be wreckage)
Ibrahim, maybe you can talk about this picture a bit? Who is he? Who is sitting behind me in a chair, behind him what appears to be wreckage, destroyed property?
Ibrahim Kazerooni: Good evening everyone.
This is a program we’ve been anticipating organizing for a long time now but it never happened.
This photo is a picture of Yahya Sinwar, the leader of Hamas, and probably the leader of the entire resistance movement in Gaza. He’s sitting on a chair, a sofa, in the middle of ruins which I believe used to be his apartment (in Gaza). He’s sitting there totally relaxed, not concerned about what is going on around him.
If you contrast this picture, Rob, with the panic that has taken over the Israeli cabinet, the prime minister’s office and particularly the (Israeli) war cabinet, it shows the degree of confidence that these people (Hamas, Gaza Palestinians) have in their cause, and that ultimately they are going to succeed.
Sinwar was imprisoned in Israel from a young age for up to 25 years. He speaks Hebrew fluently and without accent. A number of the Israelis who were captured during October 7, once released, said that he (Sinwar) came to see them one by one, made sure that they are comfortable and spoke to them in perfect Hebrew with no accent.
That shows quite a lot.
The Israeli military and intelligence services are kicking themselves for letting him go in one of the former prisoner exchanges a couple of years ago.
So, he’s Yahya Sinwar.
Rob Prince: With that introduction and the picture of Sinwar behind us, let’s proceed.
The war in the Middle East continues to rage – as many of our listeners know – it’s not really a war, it’s a slaughter, Israelis slaughtering Palestinian civilians in Gaza, considered a genocide by the International Court of Justice.
It’s now 41/2 months after October 7. Not only does Israel continue its genocidal campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza but elsewhere in the region – in Lebanon, Syria, Iraq and at the entrances of the Bab El Mandeb Straits to the Red Sea, fighting continues.
It seems “endless” but …
– All previous wars in the Middle East have come to an end; this war will come to an end sooner or later too.
In this program we want to focus on what will happen next, after the fighting ends? What will the geo-political landscape look like? but we can’t begin to sketch out future themes unless we look at what is going on now broadly speaking.
Ibrahim, what is going on now? What’s your take? Can you give us a brief summary of what is happening now and the activities of the Axis of Resistance.
Ibrahim Kazerooni: We really need to start by raising few issues, lays the foundation and gives us a picture of what is going on in the region and its background.
Contrary to what could be called the misrepresentation of reality that dominates the Western discourse, the Palestinian-Israeli history did not start October 7. We saw a similar kind of presentation of reality during the 9-11 events (September 11, 2001) as if the world began on 9-11.
The way the media addresses this be it “October 7″ or “September 11″ or any other global crisis in which a particular date becomes “ground zero” for our understanding of what transpired becomes totally neglectful of past history that has led to the crisis.
To understand the context of October 7 we really need to go back to the origins of what the Palestinians refer to as the Zionist project, the colonial project in Palestine going back 75 years or so to understand the magnitude of the tragedy that befell the Palestinians, the genocide, the ethnic cleansing, the total destruction of Palestinian villages, cities, cultures, civilization. All of this was done to create the mythical reality – a land without a people for people without land.
This is the foundation of the crisis that led to October 7.
As a matter of fact, after October 7 I believe that the first during the first U.N. Security Council meeting, when the Israeli representative represented Hamas, tried to describe Hamas as a terrorist organization – Palestinians this, Palestinians that – the Pakistani representative to the United Nations Security Council reminded the Israeli observer that what happened in Gaza on October 7 was the result of “many, many unfulfilled promises and undertakings to resolve the Palestinian issue justly and equitably, that were never honored. People who have been oppressed for so long have nothing to lose.”
So if we want to understand what happened on October 7 we really need to go back in history and properly understand – not the narrative that the Western media is trying to present. We need to turn to history to understand the real-politic that is going on, particularly since Oslo (the Oslo Accords). We go back to the promises that were made and never were fulfilled.
Today the Israeli assault against Gaza is in its 147th day. In another two or three days it will reach the 150 day mark, five months since October 7, the day that has had huge ramifications both for the Palestinians and the Israelis, the region and globally.
One of the things that we immediately began to see is the supposition that Israel has the right to self-defense. This is something that we have constantly heard coming from various Western media sources. As a matter of fact, according to the United Nations charter, occupied peoples have the right to defend themselves; the occupiers have the responsibility and the obligation to terminate occupation.
There is no such concept in international law giving the occupiers have the right to remain on the territories they have taken by war and then have the right to defend themselves. Although such narratives have been used by all colonial powers – the French, the British, the Germans, the Dutch, when they were colonizing other people. If there was an uprising against their colonial rule they, the colonizers massacred those participating in the uprising, they committed acts of genocide under the pretext that they have the “right to defend themselves”.
There is no such thing, no such reality in international law that would justify this savagry, total genocide and annihilation of the Palestinians.
Up until now, over forty thousand civilians that have been murdered in Gaza. A couple of days ago the Secretary of Defense admitted that over 28,000 Palestinian Gazans had been killed but the more accurate number is that of over 40,000 civilian lives, mostly women and children were killed as well as over 100,000 people that have been injured.
How many more will die in the absence of medical teams, hospitals, and so on, only God knows.
To come to the point, what are the ramifications of October 7?
On a global level the plight of the Palestinians, the history of their unjust treatment has never had such widespread exposure as it has had since October 7. In his acceptance speech after winning a parliamentary seat, George Galloway clearly echoed this reality, that on a global level, the Palestinian cause, and the injustices the Palestinians have suffered, and the fact that there is a need for the resolution of the Palestinian issue immediately. This view has never been widely accepted in the North.
At the same time, on a global scale there have never been fewer voices in support of Israel as there are today. As we speak there are a number of calls coming from European members of Parliament for expelling Israeli ambassadors from various European countries. Likewise, calls for the establishment of an independent Palestinian state has become a universal call.
On a local and regional level, October 7 has had a number of ramifications.
October 7 has united the Palestinians in Gaza and to a degree in the West Bank. At the same time, the Palestinian movement is increasingly linked to what you (Rob) called the Axis of Resistance in the region. Now they, the Palestinians, are becoming part and parcel of the Axis of Resistance.
In the past, both the Israeli government and the United States was trying to separate the different strands of the Palestinian movement into different entities through the process of “divide and conquer.” What is happening now is that they (Palestinians) are seeing themselves as a part of a regional conflict with both the Israelis and the Americans.
Those who want to understand the situation – even strong supporters of the Israelis – the Zionist project – someone like Thomas Friedman, who, in an article he wrote for the NY Times on February 27, identifies the three major consequences of October 7 for the region, for the Israelis, for the United States and for the Palestinians themselves.
I disagree with a lot of things that Friedman talks about at least in the New York Times he notes that the longer this conflict goes on the more severe will be the damage to both the United States and the regional image of the Israelis, both the regional and global image. He (Friedman) also recognizes the strengthening of what he calls “Iran, Syria and so-on” which we refer to as the Axis of Resistance, ie, the strengthening of the opposition to both Israel and the United States.
So there have been a number of ramifications from October 7.
The Israelis never anticipated that – as they called Hamas – “this ramshackle army” – would give them such a battle. Remember in 2006 – as we discussed in the past – some of the University of Denver’s Korbel School professors referred to Hezbollah as “a bunch of hoodlums.” They never expected the ramshackle elements, the “bunch of hoodlums” in Gaza, a place that has been turned into the biggest concentration camp, under constant supervision, would be able to pull such a stunt which literally stunned the Israelis in every aspect.
And now we are beginning to see at least the beginning of the consequences: the Israeli economy, military, tourism, internal dynamics are all severely damaged and the resignation of various military and intelligence leaders. In all these ways there will be consequences “the day the war comes to an end”.
Despite the tight Israeli control of the media, these problems, crises for Israel are becoming clearer and clearer, particularly if inquiries are going to be held (as after the 2006 debacle for Israel in S. Lebanon at the hands of Hezbollah).
Do you want to add something Rob?
End Part One.
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