World should condemn Israel crimes against Palestinians: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Jamal Juma, head of the Stop the Wall campaign from Ramallah, to discuss the deaths of Palestinians at the hands of Israeli forces in the occupied territories.

What follows is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: How do you feel whenever you hear about such stories?

Juma: Really it is a horrible story…we are facing every day; our youth have been killed since three months every day almost in these checkpoints. And Palestinians have been in a way in Jerusalem, Hebron (al-Khalil), Nablus and several areas, they are defending themselves; they are trying to speak loudly and to shout to the world that we have a situation that we cannot continue living in.

Israel is a fascist state, they are giving order to their soldiers to kill the Palestinians in cold blood and that is what we are seeing in the streets happening. In this case, [Palestinians] should not be killed; this can be controlled by the Israeli soldiers if there is a willing to do that, but it is clear that they have a direct order of killing.

This is a crime under the international law; this is a war crime and the one who is responsible over these war crimes is the Israeli government itself and Netanyahu himself as well. The all so is not he; there are partners in this which are the states, European Union, and the international community that are just witnessing this and they are biased towards Israel and still talking about Israel’s right to defend itself, defend itself against whom? Against these young civilians, children and youth who are in these streets [and] that have been killed every day?

Press TV: Is there any light at the end of the tunnel you know where we now have this case that has gone to ICC, for example? Do you think that will bring anything good for Palestinians?

Juma: I do not think that the ICC will just immediately start taking the Israeli criminals to courts either officers of the Israeli (regime). This usually takes long time in the courts and as you see here we have daily catastrophes in the Palestinian areas. Every day people are being killed and thousands now have been injured and are in bad shape as well. So it does not wait. I think this needs an immediate move. I would say here I urge the Palestinian authorities to start immediately taking a major serious step against Israel particularly start to disconnect with Israel, stop the coordination with Israel, the security and economic [cooperation] and asks the Arabs as well and Islamic countries and the free world to start boycotting and isolating Israel as a criminal state. This is what should happen. This is the only thing that can stop Israel from committing all these crimes that they are doing every day. Without this, Israel will continue [and] the court at ICC could take for another two, three years, but it will continue killing the people on the ground and they know that they have the back-up from the states; they know that they have a back-up from the European Union or still they will not take any major steps that they will make Israel feel that they have to stop this. 

Press TV’s website can also be accessed at the following alternate addresses:

www.presstv.co.uk