The contrast between the horrific violence on the Israel-Gaza border and the posh celebration of the new U.S. embassy in Jerusalem on May 14 couldn’t have been more stark. As an estimated 50,000 Palestinians gathered along the frontier fence line in the sixth straight week of protests, Israeli Army snipers opened fire, killing 58 people and injuring 2,700 more. This was the deadliest day since the “Great March of Return” protests began on March 30, which demanded an end to the 12-year Gaza blockade and the right to return to land now occupied by Israel.
Since these protests began, at least 107 Palestinians have died, including children and journalists and 12,000 others have been injured. While Israel justified the slaughter, asserting that protesters who attempted to damage or break through the border fence presented a threat to Israeli security, nations across the world have condemned the use of excessive and disproportionate force.
The deadly demonstrations coincided with the opening of the controversial new U.S. Jerusalem embassy on the 70th anniversary of Israel’s founding and on the eve of Nakba or Catastrophe Day, May 15, when Palestinians commemorate the date 700,000 Palestinian Arabs were expelled or fled from their homes, during the 1948 Palestine war.
Between The Lines’ Scott Harris spoke with Sam Husseini, communications director with the Institute for Public Accuracy, who talks about the desperation of the people in Gaza which led to six weeks of militant protests and the subsequent massacre of civilians by Israeli soldiers at the Gaza Israel border.
SAM HUSSEINI: People in Gaza are basically imprisoned by Israel. It’s not so much a border as it is a prison, in that people in Gaza can’t get in and get out for the most part, even on the Egyptian side. When outsiders try to get in to break that blockade, people have tried to get ships in there to try to give some breathing room to the over 1 million people repressed in Gaza that Israelis intercepted, occasionally killing people who try to do that. So the circumstances in Gaza are dire constantly. And I think that that’s part of the reason that you have people who are fundamentally saying, “Give me liberty or give me death.” That’s what these Palestinians are saying, that their lives have become so oppressive by what Israel has done for generations that they are willing to, you know, take these drastic actions that may well result in them being killed.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Sam, I did want to ask you about Israel’s statements over these past six weeks and certainly today justifying live sniper fire on what had been reported to be mostly or pretty much entirely on unarmed civilians in a protest there at the border. Israel claims that the threat presented by these protesters, many of whom approach the border fence and some attempting to damage or cut through the border fence was justification for the live sniper fire that has killed so many over the past six weeks.
SAM HUSSEINI: I think that it violates an incredible number of legal precepts and ethical precepts. These people are only doing it because they are desperate and seeing no other recourse because the international community has done virtually nothing for them even though Israel has had them in this prison situation for years and years. I heard the U.S. ambassador earlier today saying that “they burn tires and they have kites.” The Palestinians burn tires to prevent the view of the snipers so that Israelis will have a little bit of a rougher time shooting and killing them. They are not a military or meaningful threat.
They are in a sense a symbolic threat to the notion of an Israel that continuously oppresses. And what they’re saying is, “You’ve got us in this pen and you’ve prevented us from going to our homeland and you’ll shoot us if we try to and you’ve made our life so miserable here that we almost don’t care anymore. We’re just going to go to our homelands and you know, you shoot us, you shoot us.” You know, as if the Native Americans on the trail of tears, decided to turn around and go back to the homes that they were being forced from and the U.S. military was shooting at them, you know, if that were to happen, Hollywood would make a very sympathetic movie about that.
BETWEEN THE LINES: Sam, with Trump’s recent moves to relocate the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and full bore support for expansion of Israeli settlements. It seems that any pretense of negotiations in the near future for a two-state solution is flat off the table. What does the future hold given this powder keg that we’ve seen explode here on the Israel Gaza border? What’s next?
SAM HUSSEINI: I think the so-called two-state solution – with the U.S. as some kind of honest broker – has been a bit of a, something of a fantasy for seven years now. I think now it’s gone beyond fantasy to an utter depraved joke. I was never a key signatory for it, but the boycott, divestment, sanctions movement against Israel has really been a grassroots movement that has genuinely put some pressure on Israel. And I really take my hat off to a lot of the activists who led the way on that. That’s something that is very tangible that people can do and they can plug into and it’s not just rhetoric and I think that you’re needing to see meaningful activism in countries like the United States, as well as new leadership emerging among Palestinian rights in order to reassert their fundamental rights because it literally is a matter of life and death for them – or perpetual servitude.
For more information, visit Institute for Public Accuracy at accuracy.org;
U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights at uscpr.org;
Jewish Voice For Peace at jvp.org; The Electronic Intifada at electronicintifada.net.
U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights at uscpr.org;
Jewish Voice For Peace at jvp.org; The Electronic Intifada at electronicintifada.net.
