Netanyahu seeks to whitewash war crimes in Gaza: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Brandon Martinez, co-founder of nonalignedmedia.com in Calgary, about Tel Aviv seeking to prevent the release of the findings of a UN investigation into Israeli war crimes against Palestinians in Gaza.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: First of all, what do you make of Netanyahu’s comments saying the UN report is going to be a complete “waste of time” and that it is Israel’s report, that is the aggressors report, which will have the true narrative of what happened?  

Martinez: Well this is a very predictable response from Netanyahu. He of course seeks to whitewash completely what happened in Gaza. Over 2,000 Palestinians were murdered in cold blood. We had reports from Israeli NGOs such as ‘Breaking the Silence’ which documented that Israeli troops were deliberately targeting civilians, were using inaccurate weapons on purpose so that they would hit anything that moved. Israeli soldiers were saying that they were commanded specifically to attack anything that moved. There was the murder of four Palestinian children, schoolboys on a beach which Israel has claimed to investigate and of course they find themselves completely not at fault as usual.

So Netanyahu of course is worried about any kind of reports, investigations into this that are emanating from his own … [regime] because his own … [regime] has the most to lose with a real impartial investigation and he of course is ultimately responsible for all of the war crimes in Gaza. He was the commander-in-chief. He was directing this operation and of course he has to make it seem like the Palestinians were the aggressors and this is the same narrative every single time Israel makes in incursion into Gaza. He blames Hamas. He says Hamas is responsible and when the facts come out it is that Hamas is responding to Israeli aggression.

And so this is just a very predictable response. It is something that we have seen time and time again and we will see it in the future because he has won the election and he will probably launch another similar operation in the next few years and we will see this re-run of the same sort of things.  

Press TV: During the war on Gaza in this one and the previous ones as well we have seen this war of perceptions, if you may, where Israel has set forth its narrative as to what is actually happening on the ground and then there is the actual narrative where it is the people of Gaza, they are paying the price for Israel’s aggressive policies.

Now over here specifically when it comes to what went down in this particular war and these two different reports that are going to come out, whose narrative is going to win?    

Martinez: Well the Palestinians' narrative is of course in line with the facts, in line with reality, in line with the truth. People can see for themselves just looking at the videos that emerged from Gaza the massive destruction of Palestinian infrastructure, the carpet bombing of hospitals, of schools, of civilian infrastructure. Of course the Israelis want to claim that this is because Hamas is hiding in schools and so forth.

They have really been successful only in certain circles in convincing fools to believe the Israelis are acting in self-defense when they have the fourth most powerful military in the world and they have boxed in the Palestinians in Gaza, they have had a siege on Gaza for years. They have made it so that the Palestinians cannot really move anywhere. Gaza is the most densely populated area in the world so for Hamas to fight a guerrilla war against Israel, they have to launch their operations from within those areas.

It is as if the Israelis are trying to make it as if the Hamas has to basically launch all of their operations from one area, just put all of their military capacity in one area so that the Israelis can just bomb them and destroy them completely … So there is no win for the Palestinians if they resist the occupation and resist this aggression, anywhere they are just accused of using civilians as human shields when the fact is just the projection of the Israeli activities because the Israelis have used Palestinians as human shields during ground operations.

They have used Palestinian children during home invasions and so forth but the truth is emerging. There are so many NGOs and human rights organizations that are documenting on the ground what the Israelis have been doing, just vicious targeting of civilians, bombing hospitals, deliberately targeting ambulances and so forth, so that the world is waking up. The alternative media has been all over this and the Israelis are having a very difficult time covering up their atrocities and pushing their skewed, disingenuous, false narrative on the world.

So I think ultimately the truth will prevail. I mean the forces of darkness can try to hide these things but it usually emerges. It might take years, it may take a long time but the truth usually emerges and that is what we see happening now.

AHK/KA

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