West gives Israel carte blanche to carry out crimes: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Bruce Katz, the co-president of the Palestinian and Jewish Unity, about the United Nations condemning the seizure and destruction of humanitarian aid by Israeli forces in the occupied West Bank.

The following is a rough transcription of the interview.

Press TV: Israel has demolished Palestinian homes and structures, and uprooted or burned agriculture with impunity. Will anything change now that the UN has slammed Tel Aviv for destroying aid that had originated with them?

Katz: First, let me state that since 1967 alone and this according to Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD), Israel has destroyed 40,000 Palestinian homes, 18,000 alone in the attack on Gaza on 2014.

Now the question is how have they been able to do this, these series of criminal acts for so long with such impunity? The fact of the matter is that there is a double discourse. They are condemned by the UN, they are condemned by the European Union, they are condemned occasionally by the United States and yet they continue to act with impunity.

So what is said in theory is not done in practice. Everyone knows that should there be any attempt, whatsoever, to officially condemn Israel by way of the General Assembly of United Nations, United States will veto it. It has been a long time now that we understand the United States is not an honest broker. But really the answer to why Israel is able to act with such impunity is the fact that Western governments and Western political elites are complicit, make themselves complicit in these criminal acts by giving Israel carte blanche and even by vigorously promoting its colonization project.

Let me give you a concrete example of how this works in the West. Here in Canada tomorrow May the 19th a bill will be presented in the Ontario provincial legislation which equates BDS, the boycott movement with anti-Semitism and this will be its first reading in the Ontario provincial legislation and basically such politicians make themselves the foreign courtiers of the state of Israel and in this particular case is the foreign courtiers of a criminal regime in Tel Aviv led by Benjamin Netanyahu and this is why Israel can act with such impunity because they are able to count on politicians who simply do not have the moral character to stand up and impose sanctions on a rogue state.

Press TV: You mentioned all the condemnation going nowhere. Outside of condemnation, can the UN do anything substantive to get Tel Aviv to change its policy and behavior towards Palestinians?

Katz: Well what I would suggest is that Israel be expelled from the United Nations, period, but we know that is not going to happen. Short of that, there has to be sanctions imposed on them and which politicians do we know of anywhere in the West outside of Jeremy Corbyn and Bernie Sanders, who would have the moral courage to act on such a position?

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