World must protect Palestinian prisoners: Activist

Press TV has conducted an interview with Jamal Juma, head of the "Stop the Wall" Campaign in Ramallah, about Israel's ex-Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman slamming the regime’s handling of the case of a former Palestinian hunger-striking detainee, saying Tel Aviv should have allowed him to die in prison. 

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Mr. Lieberman is essentially saying let them die. How do you react to that?

Juma: The call come from Avigdor Lieberman .You know that he is a fascist and a racist Israeli leader who is leading an Israeli fascist party as well. If there is a justice in the world somebody like this should be in jail now, somewhere else in one of the criminal courts.

Palestinian prisoners as well as all prisoners are protected by the international law but what we see here not from Lieberman and from many other Israeli ministers that they are inciting against them. They are inciting Netanyahu and Netanyahu himself like any part of this fascist group, they are calling for either executing these prisoners or killing them or letting them die in the prison.

It must be noticed that we have eighteen hundred prisoners now in the Israeli jails who are sick and they are suffering from serious diseases. Some 85 of them are in real danger because they are suffering either from cancer or paralyzed or another very serious dangerous disease that they could die in any minute. And we cannot imagine when you talk about eighteen hundred, they are sick, how much they are suffering in these jails that the Palestinians ordinary prisoners who are healthy are suffering from the torture that is going on there. Can you imagine the life of the sick prisoners there without any treatment, without any special care that they should have?

I think here this is a big responsibility from international human rights organizations, Palestinians and human rights organizations around the world as well as the United Nations to protect the Palestinian prisoners. We cannot just let them or see them dying like this and it is quite a shame just let to see such a declaration from Avigdor Lieberman or other ministers’ racist declarations and there is no responses over this. This must start court cases against them. They must be taken to the court. This is a serious violation witnessed by the whole world for the human rights, for the prisoners’ rights.

Press TV: I am wondering the issue here then obviously is always peace and peace talks between Israel and Palestinians and it was a while back I think Netanyahu sent a letter I think to Mahmoud Abbas saying let’s enter peace talks again. Is it possible to talk to people who are so racist and hateful towards Palestinians?

Juma: I do not think it is smart from President Mahmoud Abbas to go back to negotiations. This is just like ending the whole authority and ending the legitimacy of any Palestinian leader who would go back to negotiation in such a situation.

We are suffering from dramatic situation either for the prisoners or in the land. We have massive ethnic cleansing that is going on against Bedouin communities in Jordan Valley, 30 percent of the West Bank, intensive strengthening of the settlements around, Judaization of Jerusalem, taking over our holy sites and places, arresting people daily, attacking the communities, settlers every day they are doing crimes against the Palestinians. What they are going to negotiate and what for?

Netanyahu and his … [regime] are very clear about their vision to the solution. They are forcing a colonial apartheid system on the Palestinian areas. What do you want to negotiate? Negotiate how to lead, how to manage this ghetto-system that Israel is creating in the West Bank?

I think what we should do immediately is to call for boycott and isolate Israel as a colonial apartheid regime and should start reviewing all the relations with Israel based on the Palestinian National Council of the PLO who asked clearly for stopping all the security coordination with Israel, working on the popular resistance and calling for boycotting Israel and disconnecting our relation with them as well as calling the Arab world and the international community to disconnect and isolate it. This is what we should do, not start thinking or going back to negotiations.

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