Israel using talks for blaming Palestinians: Activist

Press TV has interviewed Paul Larudee, co-founder of Free Palestine Movement in Berkeley, about Palestinian resistance movement Hamas censuring France’s peace initiative to renew talks between the Israelis and Palestinians.

A rough transcription of the interview appears below.

Press TV: Meshaal has censured France’s peace initiative saying it ignores Palestinian rights and interests. What are the main Palestinian rights, interests, or demands that have to be included in any talks between Israelis and Palestinians?

Larudee: Well the most important demand is the demand for the right of Palestinians to return to their homes. Basically the situation is that the entire creation of Israel was against the will of the people of Palestine, it was imposed upon them, and basically these robbers and thieves and thugs came into Palestine, took what they wanted, are still taking what they want and expelling or killing the Palestinians or confining them to very small spaces.

So there is not very much that has been conceded to Palestinians and there is no intention to concede anything to Palestinians. The Israelis feel no need to do that because they do not expect the international community to impose any consequences upon them if they do not agree to anything and they won’t. So what is the point of all this?

Press TV: As we just had in the news, Paris hosted these talks which neither Palestinians nor Israelis attended and there might be more such initiatives by some other Western countries as we have seen in the past or by the US and since the West has not been impartial in its initiatives and in the talks that it tries to hold between the Israelis and Palestinians, do you think there is any hope that any such future initiatives and talks that will be hosted by Western states will help lead to anything and really settle the conflict in the occupied Palestinian territories and restore peace to that volatile region?

Larudee: This is not the purpose of the talks. The purpose of the talks is not peace, it is not justice, it is not to resolve anything, it is not to benefit anyone except that they always periodically, every couple of years, for the last 68 years, they need yet another reason not to have talks.

And so they have these talks and they say that the Palestinians do not agree to the conditions that are required and so that blames the Palestinians again and it justifies the next repression that the Israelis want to impose upon the Palestinians. Nobody asks the Israelis to give up anything, nothing, but the Palestinians will be blamed for the failure of the talks. Why should they participate?

This is all designed in order to create yet another excuse for yet more repression, expulsion, ethnic cleansing, genocide of the Palestinians. This is how it is done. You justify the genocide by saying the Palestinians are refusing to consume the rotten crumbs that are dropping from the table.

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